April 12, 2020

"On the same day that the New York metropolitan area had the highest number of deaths they had, when you look at the admissions, the hospitalizations, the intensive care, and the need to intubate..."

"... that not only has flattened; it's starting to turn the corner. So, that's where we're hopeful. And it's cautious optimism that we're seeing that decrease. And if you look at the patterns of the curves in other countries, once you turn that corner, hopefully, we will see a very sharp decline. And then you can start thinking about how we can keep it that way and prevent it from resurging, when you're starting to think about a gradual reentry of some sort of normality, some rolling reentry. So, you're trying to balance two things. You want to make sure you don't do something prematurely and precipitously. At the same time, you pay attention to the need to try and get back to normal.... It is not going to be a light switch that we say, OK, it is now June, July or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on. It's going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you have already experienced, and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced.... Obviously, New York... is going to be very different from Arkansas... and very different maybe from some places on the West Coast, like Washington state, which have been successfully able to prevent that big spike.... We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down...."

Said Anthony Fauci, interviewed this morning on Jake Tapper's "State of the Union" (full transcript).

140 comments:

Mark said...

Once the fire is out, there will need to be another 10-14 days to ensure that it does not re-ignite, before there can be widespread re-opening.

David Quintero said...

"Normality" is a pipe dream and anyone who truly believes that is attainable any time soon deserves the crushing disappointment they will experience when they realize normal is dead.

404 Page Not Found said...

Fauci has been wrong about pretty much everything so far.

Mark said...

No doubt, many in the MSM will say, "Thank you Dr. Fauci."

Of course, he's not saying anything different than the President is saying, but if Trump were to say it -- and he has in various ways -- that same MSM would blast him.

David Begley said...

Nebraska ready to reopen on Monday!

Owen said...

Fauci is trained to measure everything in terms of lives saved and patients discharged from hospital. He has done very well in this world by following his training. He's also pretty old and unlikely to learn new tricks. I doubt he's ever started a business or tried to run one: he's worked his way up in the giant eternal bureaucratic maze. So why would we think he could adequately appreciate the damage being done, every day and more so every day, to the fabric of our economic life? Sure, he can hear and read about 16 million jobs vaporized; but does it loom large enough in his judgement as he struggles to find the right way forward?

We have to restart the engine or this plane is going to fall out of the sky.

traditionalguy said...

Grouchy Fauchi is a snake. He is crafty at his fifth column work inserting the poison message that Trump is the Murderer. But Grouchy is the one who gave out the WHO’s bad advice to the Trump Team for the first month. New Yorkers are smart enough to figure it out he is the culprit.

West Texas Intermediate Crude said...

Drs Fauci and Birx and the rest of the experts should just stop talking. Their potential usefulness was in preventing something that was never going to happen- overwhelming numbers of critical patients that would force dreadful choices of who would get the precious ventilator and who would be consigned to death. Did not happen, even in NYC, where the Navy overflow hospital never saw more than a few patients.
Now all we are doing is deferring the onset of illness in people at the price of economic devastation. There is no proof, and no reason to believe, that the total number of infected people, or the total number of deaths, is decreased by all this social isolation. There is a possibility that we are making it worse by delaying herd immunity. We just don't know either way. We do know for sure that the economy is in a shambles, on purpose, for possibly no benefit. Nobody knows anything for sure, except that ventilators and ICUs are expensive and that we better get back to work if we want to afford them next time.

Michael K said...

We have to restart the engine or this plane is going to fall out of the sky.

Expect resistance from Democrats, most of whose voters are still getting paid, who want to crash the economy to beat Trump.

Bay Area Guy said...

Fauci rarely talks numbers or cites literature. A classic scientific bluff move.

The top 3 states by population:

1. California (39 Million): 634 Covid-19 deaths
2. Texas (28 Million): 271 Covid-19 deaths
3. New York (19 Million): 9,400 Covid-19 deaths

Cal has 16 deaths per million
Texas has 9 deaths per million
NY has 482 deaths per million

NY has half as many people as Cali, and 30x the death rate?!!?

Please interpret and advise, Dr. Fallacy.

narciso said...

really they voted for Cuomo and Wilhelm, I don't discern much wisdom there. he's just doling out the blow fish toxin, hoping we don't flatline,

stevew said...

The purpose of the shutdown was to flatten the curve and make sure the healthcare system was not overrun, thereby minimizing deaths. I have not heard of any healthcare system in this country being overrun. Mission accomplished, right?

Reopen. All of it. Now. When the eventual and expected surge comes the healthcare system will handle it.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

We should be doing well controlled random samplings of WuFlu antibodies in people from affected areas.

How can we decide how dangerous it is to reopen in hard hit areas if we don't have a clue about what percentage of the population already had immunity.

We're hearing a lot of anecdotes about large percentage of the population already had WuFlu but never knew it. It that is true, then open up quickly.

MikeR said...

I notice that Tapper did not ask Fauci a simple question like, Do you think that Donald Trump is leading this effort effectively? Or anything about how competent he is at what he's doing. Only a question about whether a certain decision at a certain point in time might have been made better.
I think that if he could have asked the first kind of question, he would have, but he was afraid that he would get an answer that would be absolutely devastating to Democrats.
Sooner or later, though, Fauci is going to get that kind of question. If Trump keeps up good relations with him till that point, that is going to make a big difference.

chickelit said...

Fauci is starting to sound like how Trump has sounded all along, instead of just being focussed on the disease.

Happy Easter!

ColoComment said...

Economist Arnold Kling has some thoughts about re-opening/re-starting the economy:

http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/psst-and-the-economic-recovery/

chickelit said...

Michael K said...Expect resistance from Democrats, most of whose voters are still getting paid, who want to crash the economy to beat Trump.

Yup. They're not going to let this crisis go waste.

doctrev said...

Expect resistance from Democrats, most of whose voters are still getting paid, who want to crash the economy to beat Trump.

4/12/20, 12:06 PM

I'm surprisingly fine with this. Republican governors with low population density will be strung up if they don't reopen the economy as the President demands. Conversely, New Yorkers absolutely should be quarantined from the rest of the country. One ring around the state, and another tighter ring around Manhattan. Only limited food shipments permitted, to better limit viral spread. I insist on pleasing the urban elites who want the hardest measures taken against the pandemic.

GatorNavy said...

The vast majority of predictions, models and statements made by Dr Fauci, Dr Brix or any other Chinese propagandist from WHO have been wrong on orders of magnitude. Tapper never asked a single question concerning this fact. However, his TDS was subdued in this interview with Dr Fauci. I credit this to the fact that Tapper can read into polls better than most of the current newsreaders

narciso said...

that was a suggestion, broached a few weeks ago, like bane did in dark knight rising,

narciso said...

how reliable are the stats, they're presenting

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

New Yorkers absolutely should be quarantined from the rest of the country. One ring around the state, and another tighter ring around Manhattan. Only limited food shipments permitted, to better limit viral spread. I insist on pleasing the urban elites who want the hardest measures taken against the pandemic.

If it saves just one life. . .

traditionalguy said...

Just hold on. I want my $1,200. Then we can discuss making the Trump Cocktail over the counter and let her rip.

Jupiter said...

My recollection is that a couple weeks ago, it was impossible to "prevent that big spike". The area under the curve was supposed to be constant. All we could do was "flatten" it, to keep it from over-whelming our precious medical system.

But now, it appears that has changed, and Arkansas -- can you believe it? Those flyover dummies out in wherever-the-fuck Arkansas is -- have managed to dispense with the curve altogether. Who'd a thunk it?

Bay Area Guy said...

@narciso,

Good link. That Alex Berenson fellow is a monster!

Since Dr. Fallacy didn't answer why and how NY has a death rate 30x California, I will oblige:

Because NY is counting co-morbidities from serious non-infectious diseases to inflate it death count. These diseases include: Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease.

Time to begin phased re-opening. We can keep NYC shelter in place, as a compromise.

Jupiter said...

Always check the heel of the boot for instructions.

Limited blogger said...

NY has inflated the death rate, and the NYT doesn't think it's high enough; we're not counting those dying at home or 'in the street'.

Anybody that died in the first quarter of 2020 was a COVID-19 casualty.

Michael The Magnificent said...

The new-case curve in Wisconsin has been wavy but trending downwards. The peak day was on 4/1/20 with 199 new cases. Here are the wavy numbers since then:

4/1: 199
4/2: 180
4/3: 186
4:4: 196
4/5: 155
4/6: 173
4/7: 138
4/8: 178
4/9: 129
4/10: 183
4/11: 145

I should also add that Milwaukee County, which constitutes one sixth of Wisconsin's population, is routinely responsible for half of Wisconsin's new cases each day. Do better Milwaukee! Get your shit together already!

M Jordan said...

Here’s the one question I wish somebody, anybody would ask Fauci: Have you modeled deaths from a shut down economy? If so, how dies it compare to Covid deaths. If not, you’re fired.

narciso said...

this is why rush called it the drive by media

I Callahan said...

Once the fire is out, there will need to be another 10-14 days to ensure that it does not re-ignite, before there can be widespread re-opening.

What constitutes "the fire being out"?

Hey Skipper said...

The IHME CCP19 model for Idaho has been drastically revised over the last couple days, from a high of 357 deaths to 130 now, with an expected 61 deaths, down from 150 some-odd.

Not sure how 61 is even possible anymore. 10 days ago there were 205 confirmed cases. The trend since has been downward, with just nine yesterday.

Massive reduction in required healthcare resources from Friday. (Unfortunately, I can't find Friday's prediction anywhere.)

Maybe it is a good thing we hit the precautionary principle pretty hard, given the experiences of Italy and Spain. But the predictions for the US (except the NYC area) way overshot reality.

Sounds like it is high time to start returning to normality.

On a side note ...

I listen to Sam Harris's "Makind Sense" podcast. Often has interesting topics and guests. But whenever the Trump comes up, which does far more often than would seem necessary, Harris goes off the rails and careens into the nearest ditch — the TDS is strong in him.

About a month ago, he said words to the effect of (quote marks for clarity only) "It is ironic that Trump supporters, who are anti-science climate deniers, will get hit hardest by this pandemic, because they won't listen to the experts."

He lives in NYC. I wonder if he is reconsidering that.

William said...

I read the transcript. None of his remarks, despite baiting from Tapper, were accusatory against Trump. He seems like a decent guy seeking a decent solution to a difficult problem. I don't understand the Fauci hate......Statistics and damned statistics. The media take particular delight in pointing out that we have the most deaths. Our per capita death rate is lower than any country in Europe except Germany. Why do countries with national health services have such higher rates of mortality? (Not a question that Tapper will ever pose.).....Germany has universal coverage, but it doesn't have a monolithic health service. I understand that different states and different localities offer different forms of health services.

Greg Hlatky said...

I was brayed at by Ritmo that we flyover hicks would starve to death without the smart folks in cities to lead us.

I'm willing to put that to the test.

Derve Swanson said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...


Here’s the one question I wish somebody, anybody would ask Fauci: Have you modeled deaths from a shut down economy? If so, how dies it compare to Covid deaths. If not, you’re fired.

-M Jordan 1240

Respectfully disagree.
Not Dr Fauci’s area of expertise, or his portfolio. PDJT has Sec Mnuchin and a whole lot of others to provide him with the estimated cost, in dollars, lives, misery of the shutdown.
Upthread, I said Dr Fauci should just stop talking now because his previous statements have been disastrously inaccurate. We can hope that PDJT’s other advisors are more accurate; they could hardly do worse.

Caligula said...

The statistics I see are cumulative" confirmed cases and cumulative deaths. And the nature of cumulative numbers is that they can remain the same or increase but they can't ever go down.

For that matter, the per-county and per-city stats don't seem to be normalized for population size.

Yet most "confirmed cases" recover; thus, wouldn't it be more relevant to report "current confirmed cases" (i.e., those who have the disease now) to keep track of whether things might be getting better/worse/no_change?

And while the total number of deaths can only increase, why no reporting of the number of deaths in the last day/week/month?

And when looking for relative severity by geography, wouldn't normalizing (per 100,000 persons, for example) numbers be more meaningful?

https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/county.htm

Sebastian said...

Hey: "The IHME CCP19 model for Idaho has been drastically revised over the last couple days, from a high of 357 deaths to 130 now, with an expected 61 deaths, down from 150 some-odd.

Not sure how 61 is even possible anymore. 10 days ago there were 205 confirmed cases. The trend since has been downward, with just nine yesterday."

Say it ain't so! Other gross overestimation! Another downward adjustment! So sad for all our useful models! Stop it.

Megthered said...

People aren't going to put up with this much longer. As soon as one state opens, the others will begin to demand to open. They aren't going to put up with this much longer and they are going to remember who did this. The MSM has again failed to oust Trump.

Michael K said...

I don't understand the Fauci hate......Statistics and damned statistics.

I don't see hate but I do see frustration that he has been too cautious. His role as a bureaucrat is to never be wrong or if that is impossible, to be wrong on the high side.

There was a period of 2,000 years when doctors could not do anything about illness except give a prognosis. They got to be pretty good at that. They learned about that time to NEVER be optimistic. They were always very cautious and usually painted as dark a picture as possible. If the patient died, it had been predicted. If he recovered, it was the physician's skill.

Fauci is just in that tradition,.

Sebastian said...

BAG:

"Fauci rarely talks numbers or cites literature. A classic scientific bluff move."

Indeed. What he doesn't say is most revealing. Compare with Wittkowski.

"The top 3 states by population:

1. California (39 Million): 634 Covid-19 deaths
2. Texas (28 Million): 271 Covid-19 deaths
3. New York (19 Million): 9,400 Covid-19 deaths

Cal has 16 deaths per million
Texas has 9 deaths per million
NY has 482 deaths per million"

Haven't checked the numbers myself in the last few days, but that seems amazing even to an anti-panic person like myself. 19 in all of CA? Hard to get even to 60K at that rate, I would think, even using the handy "expanded" definition. Or are modelers going to say that we'll get to 60K "over the course of the epidemic," say, two years?

Mark said...

What constitutes "the fire being out"?

Whatever it is, being just over the hump, which is only the beginning of the end, ain't it.

We are on pace to flatten out by the end of the month. Early May is what I predict for any substantial re-opening. And even then, I see the masking in crowds and distancing requirements still in place for a while after that.

Original Mike said...

"The IHME CCP19 model for Idaho has been drastically revised over the last couple days…"

I've been watching the IHME numbers for Wisconsin and they did a sneaky thing. They were projecting a max death total of 20 for April 15. Then, all of a sudden, they changed it to a "projection" of a 20-death peak on April 5, but this new "projection" came a few days AFTER 20 deaths were recorded on April 5. That's not a projection.

Mark said...

If you want other metaphors --

When the tide recedes and the beach clears is NOT the time to be going out when there is a tsunami.

When the sky suddenly clears as the eye passes over is NOT the time to be going out when there is a hurricane.

The war wasn't won at Normandy.

chickelit said...

"We are on pace to flatten out by the end of the month. Early May is what I predict for any substantial re-opening. And even then, I see the masking in crowds and distancing requirements still in place for a while after that."

May 1st is the traditional socialist, secular "Easter." The Soviets redoubled their efforts to take Berlin by May 1st.

grimson said...

Nebraska never closed!

You should listen to Fauci's comments after he learned what was being done.

chickelit said...

@grimson: Thank you for that link. The sound bite that follows with Hillary denying Russian collision followed. What was the date stamp for that Hillary comment?

Owen said...

Bill, Republic of Texas (and others): asking about testing of the population to see if herd immunity is already happening due to asymptomatic or mild cases. YES. Emphatically YES.

I am puzzled about the testing and what's taking so long. What I understand so far is:
(1) Abbott has rolled out an antibody test that runs on a machine that is present in every clinical lab in the country. The necessary reagents or consumables are already distributed. Not sure of the details but I think there are no chokepoints here.
(2) Testing the general population is the key to getting a sense of any herd immunity and the history of exposure/recovery to date and thus where we go from here. But if such a general population test is happening, I haven't heard about it. IS it being done? If not, why not?
(3) I don't think a huge testing population is needed. You can extrapolate to the country (in a very preliminary way) if you sampled say 5000 people. Who are easy to find: all sitting at home. With a test that takes minutes. And costs little. And you have THOUSANDS of people willing to step up and help administer the test. Right now.
(4) I would pay good money to be tested, and I would stand in line wearing my stupid mask to get it done.

WHAT'S THE HOLD-UP?

Sorry for shouting but this is really insane.

Ray - SoCal said...

An argument is Ca was faster on implementing a stay at home order than NY (Bay Area was March 16, NYC a week later), hence the significantly lower death rate.

My guess is NYC Subways are a huge cause of the discrepancy, as well as part of the population (Hasidic Jews), that is not doing social distancing as other populations are. As well as not closing public schools earlier.

William said...

Somber thoughts: I don't suffer from diabetes, HTN, or obesity, but I'm old (77) and have mild COPD. I figure I have a fair chance of croaking if I contract the disease. At any rate, it will be a difficult illness. I live in NYC. I wonder if I will have to live in quarantine for the rest of my life. I don't see how you can possibly dodge the virus if you travel by subway, go to the gymn, or socialize with strangers. Old people in NYC are irrevocably and permanently screwed.

grimson said...

@chickelit: The sound bite that follows with Hillary denying Russian collision followed. What was the date stamp for that Hillary comment?

Sorry about the additional soundbite, but Fauci's comments are hard to come by. Clinton's comments come from Fresh Air, 09-18-2017.

Charlie Currie said...

There are lies, damn lies and statistical models.

There's also, astrology, weji boards and fortune tellers.

Take your pick.

Buckwheathikes said...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees with me:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6799110/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-return-to-normality-trudeau/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

“Normality as it was before will not come back full-on until we get a vaccine for this."

Owen said...

William: I hope you are being too pessimistic. Vaccine could be the answer. There is also some speculation that the severity of the illness may depend to a degree on viral load: if you are blasted with a heavy dose of the bugs, they may drive your immune system into a hyperactive state and then the "cytokine storm" blows holes in your lungs. No, I am not a doctor so don't trust this: we are all learning on the fly. But there's maybe a chance to induce a milder case by a controlled exposure, supported by a course of chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin/zinc. Not the best or most predictable way through the maze, I'm sure; but better than permanent lockup?

Best of luck and stay safe.

Jaq said...

What’s really amazing his how well San Fransisco has done looking at deaths, it’s flat and almost like quantum noise, mostly zeros, then occasionally not zero. Los Angeles Orange County had been doubling every few days since late March, it was mostly zero dead daily like the Bay Area up to then, but rapidly climbed to 20 - 30 daily deaths, but it hasn’t climbed to 60 deaths a day yet, so maybe it has flattened out there too.

Maybe it’s because NYC is more tightly coupled to LA than the Bay Area. Maybe it was a few bi-coastals fleeing New York looking for that California exception that started it. Even rich New Yorkers can’t afford second homes in the Bay Area.

Jaq said...

"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees with me:”

Always a bad sign.

Bay Area Guy said...

"I don't understand the Fauci hate."

It's not hate. The man has been high ranking NIH official for 35 years. He knows immunology. He knows what a randomized controlled clinical trial is. He's obviously qualified and intelligent.

But there are two risks to our country here: (1) the risk from the virus and (2) the risk from shuttering the economy. Even if he is Jonas Salk on the first, he is Mr. Magoo on the second. Oblivious and clueless. - and, hence, very dangerous.

Time to shift focus to Risk No. 2. Time to keep elderly and sick sheltered in place, time to let healthy workers return to their livelihoods with readonable precautions (gloves, masks, no unnecessary gatherings, etc, etc)

Jaq said...

The way the deep state gets their way when they disagree with POTUS is through leaks. This is POTUS’s decision. Thank God it isn’t Hillary’s.

I Callahan said...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agrees with me:

I wouldn’t be so proud of that, if I were you.

Drago said...

tim in vermont: "The way the deep state gets their way when they disagree with POTUS is through leaks. This is POTUS’s decision. Thank God it isn’t Hillary’s."

The deep staters have already created the framework for and the processes needed for the next impeachment.

- Pelosi and Schiff have worked to establish the impeachment committee.
- The deep staters in the HHS have launched a faked up report which they held onto for weeks before dumping it into the MSM narrative stream last week.
- That's on top of many dems across the board claiming Trump is personally profiting from HCQ sales.
- The dems are also pushing the new lie that Trump was given a report in November that he ignored (the anti-W Bush playbook from 9-11).
- Fauci just today on CNN, is pushing the lefty narrative that Trump was far too slow to act...with the media adding in the "purposefully" and maliciously.

You thought years of the Russia collusion hoax, hoax dossier, Kavanaugh lies, and Ukraine phone call lies/hoax were bad?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

bagoh20 said...

As of end of day yesterday:

Sweden: Total cases= 10,151..Deaths = 887.. New Deaths= 17.. Deaths/million= 88
Michigan: Total cases= 23,993.. Deaths = 1,392.. New Deaths = 111.. Deaths/million= 140

On the day Michigan imposed a shutdown, Sweden had 30% more cases and 83% more deaths, but they seem to have flattened the curve much faster despite the epidemic starting in both places at the same time.

FullMoon said...

bagoh20 said... [hush]​[hide comment]

As of end of day yesterday:

Sweden: Total cases= 10,151..Deaths = 887.. New Deaths= 17.. Deaths/million= 88
Michigan: Total cases= 23,993.. Deaths = 1,392.. New Deaths = 111.. Deaths/million= 140

On the day Michigan imposed a shutdown, Sweden had 30% more cases and 83% more deaths, but they seem to have flattened the curve much faster despite the epidemic starting in both places at the same time.


Corona Ken can explain..

Leland said...

It is not going to be a light switch that we say, OK, it is now June, July or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on.

Yeah, it will be much earlier than that for the economy.

bagoh20 said...

"You should listen to Fauci's comments after he learned what was being done (in Nebraska).

He doesn't really say, except that he thinks what they are doing is as effective. They did not impose any mandatory measures. They just educated their people as best they could. Result: 9 deaths/million. Enviable by almost every others state. Only six have a lower number.

rcocean said...

Dr Fauci is a medical guy. He's not concerned with "giving people hope" or the economy. From a purely medical point of view, we should probably stay locked down forever. Think of all the lives we're saving by NOT driving, Not working, NOT going to restaurants and bars.

I noticed, that just like NPR (they all move in lockstep and have the DNC talking points) Tapper is obsessed with proving Trump "killed us all" by not doing this, or not doing that, in February or early March.

Again, this will part of the Biden/MSM campaign to defeat Trump in November.

rcocean said...

Lots of the Mountain States, Plain States and rural Midwest/Southern areas should be reopened in May. There was little reason to lock them down in the first place other than to be cautious.

Bay Area Guy said...

Gentle reminder - the US had 47 Million fu cases & 44,000 deaths this winter. Source: CDC

That's 133 flu deaths per Million.

That's roughly 10x the Cal death rate, and 15x the Tex death for Covid-19 during the same period.

Please interpret and advise.

Jaq said...

"Sweden had 30% more cases and 83% more deaths, but they seem to have flattened the curve much faster despite”

I just looked at what I thought was the latest data from Sweden, and it didn’t look like it had flattened. Maybe a link to the data would be nice. I am not saying you are wrong, because I didn’t roust up the data I looked at myself. "I saw it on Twitter” was where I got it.

Kyzer SoSay said...

From the NY Post: "A Rockland County physician said he recently successfully treated 350 patients showing early signs of the coronavirus using a combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc sulfate in his office. Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko said the $20 treatment had “100 percent” success in his Monsey practice in a video message he posted to President Trump two weeks ago."

The crisis is over. We have a cure. Reopen the country for the sake of the millions of people who are currently unemployed and verging on destitution.

Kyzer SoSay said...

"Lots of the Mountain States, Plain States and rural Midwest/Southern areas should be reopened by Monday."

FTFY

rcocean said...

We need more intelligent questions. Like:

01) What percentage of people are asymptomoatic?
02) Do we have enough tests, if not when will they be available?
03) If the death rate for ventilators too high, if so, what is the fix, if any?
04) Can masks take the place of social distancing, If no, why?
05) How long can the virus survive on a surface?
06) How are the treatments/vaccines coming, what is the current status?
07) Have the anti-malarial drugs been helping or not?

But of course, our MSM has no interest in asking the doctor these questions. Instead its "How can we get Fauci to criticize Trump, or favor an indefinite lockdown?"

rcocean said...

BTW, the Winsc Health site tracking the cornavirus is one the best I've seen.

Gk1 said...

In California I think Gov.Newsom will have a hard time extending a lock down beyond the stated first week in May. A consensus is building that the state somehow developed some herd immunity to this whether we had been infected earlier or this flu is pretty mild. Either way the mortality rate has not justified the destruction of millions of jobs. Even my most ardent blue state liberals are saying similar things. We can already see other states like Texas already breaching the dam and laying out their reopening plans. I give California another week before it will follow suit.

rcocean said...

No one talks about SF vs. NYC. When did NYC lockdown? If I remember, Del Blasio was running around calling the China/EU Travel bans "raciss" and "bigoted" and encouraging trips to Chinatown.

Kyzer SoSay said...

"About a month ago, he said words to the effect of (quote marks for clarity only) "It is ironic that Trump supporters, who are anti-science climate deniers, will get hit hardest by this pandemic, because they won't listen to the experts."

He lives in NYC. I wonder if he is reconsidering that."

He's not. TDS is a worse disease than the Modelovirus, as it removes all ability to self-reflect. The only people who are coming out of this scenario looking WORSE than the Covidiot alarmists are the Covidiot+TDS alarmists.

Sebastian said...

Meanwhile, more "marginal businesses" getting hurt:

"It was still dark outside at four o’clock on a recent morning when a tanker truck poured 6,000 gallons of milk into a manure pit on Nancy Mueller’s Wisconsin dairy farm.


The milk, collected from Mueller Dairy Farm’s 1,000 cows, should have been hauled to dairy processors across the state for bottling or to be turned into cheese. But the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting all that, closing restaurants and schools that buy the nation’s dairy products—and forcing hard choices for farmers like Mrs. Mueller.

“It was heart-wrenching,” she said.

Farms are plowing under hundreds of acres of vegetables in prime U.S. growing regions like Arizona and Florida. Chicken companies are shrinking their flocks, to curb supplies that could weigh on prices for months to come.

In Florida, “mounds” of nutrient-rich and delicious zucchini, squash, and tomatoes were left to rot, and in California, mountains of greens, veggies, and fruit were plowed under or left to rot. In Vermont and Wisconsin, dairy farmers dumped who knows how many gallons of “surplus” milk.

“This is a catastrophe,” said tomato grower Tony DiMare, who owns farms in south Florida and the Tampa Bay area. “We haven’t even started to calculate it. It’s going to be in the millions of dollars. Losses mount every day.”

rcocean said...

How is the coming hot weather supposed to effect the virus? that's another question I'd have wanted Fauci to answer.

rcocean said...

I've noticed the chattering classes are against any lightening of the lockdown, probably because they are either getting paid to work at home, or getting paid to not work.

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jaq said...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-cases-wealthy-rich-test-la-county

They claim the rich are testing positive because the rich get the tests. Wrong. The rich are testing positive because the rich get it first, bringing it with them from NYC, mostly, would be my bet.

Sebastian said...

rc: "03) If the death rate for ventilators too high, if so, what is the fix, if any?"

03': "And if there is no fix, for example because a large portion of sick old people experiencing complications cannot be rescued by ventilators, how should that affect 1. the allocation of ventilators; and 2. the rationale for shutting down the economy in the interest of preserving ventilator availability?"

Oh, and by the way, while we are at it, 08) "How does the cost of shutting down the economy to protect health care capacity compare with the cost of direct, all-out expansion of capacity? Have you or anyone done such a comparison? If not, why not?"

Sebastian said...

"A consensus is building that the state somehow developed some herd immunity to this whether we had been infected earlier or this flu is pretty mild"

Wittkowski pointed out that something like that had to have happened in China and South Korea, since they reached or approached peaks before social distancing could have had any effects.

But population studies so far seem to suggest true infection rates under 30. If that is enough for herd immunity, it also tells us something about the virulence of the virus. Of course, better data, especially from China, may prove Wittkowski wrong.

I think the Diamond Process remains a good "model," if you'll excuse the term.

Howard said...

I heard immunity is working

hstad said...

Fauci, Birx, and Adams have sent too many mixed messages from the start. While at first diminishing the threat of COVID-19, they now have sowed fear and panic across the country.
Most irresponsibly, their reliance on unsound, untested models has led to the swiftest and most destructive economic decline in U.S. history with no relief in sight. Their intentions may be good, but their poor planning and execution have been dangerous. I've managed several companies and experienced mistakes my relying on "Experts". The old saying 'experts need to be on tap not on top', still rules these so called government 'experts'.

Jaq said...

You guys should watch Trump’s press conferences and you will see most of these questions addressed.

Anonymous said...

I have never been able to stand being in New York for more than 36 hours. After this I doubt I will ever set foot there again. It is a gigantic sewer, in all senses of the word.

Anonymous said...

I have never been able to stand being in New York for more than 36 hours. After this I doubt I will ever set foot there again. It is a gigantic sewer, in all senses of the word.

Buckwheathikes said...

"this will part of the Biden/MSM campaign to defeat Trump"

Wouldn't Biden have to quit hiding in his basement in order to defeat Trump?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

02) Do we have enough tests, if not when will they be available?"

Widespread testing to see if any given person has the virus at this moment is unnecessary. I might test negative today and get infected tomorrow. That's why only people with symptoms should be tested.

The important thing is the development and widespread use of antibody testing, to determine immunity. I saw a report about a German town which underwent antibody testing and it turned out something like a third of those tested had antibodies - and they were people who had been completely asymptomatic.

bagoh20 said...

Tim,

I just copy the the data from Worldometer. You have to do a little back and forth work to collect the numbers together for comparison. The states there, and even Michigan's own site do not graph deaths for the state. Worldometer only does that for countries, but the numbers are there.

They do however graph them for Sweden and other nations.

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

"Flatten" is a relative term. It has no scale nor units. I said Sweden seems to be flattening faster than Michigan, which seems true if you see the graphs there. Sweden's new cases and new deaths are dropping like a rock while Michigan's are not, although they had a nice drop in new cases yesterday. As for deaths (the more reliable number), Sweden had 17 new deaths yesterday and only 12 so far today. Michigan had 111 yesterday and already has 95 today.

I committed to this comparison 3 weeks ago, not knowing what it would show, and we still don't know yet, but so far the two populations and responses are definitely having a different result.

narayanan said...

Blogger Michael K said...

I don't understand the Fauci hate......Statistics and damned statistics.

There was a period of 2,000 years when doctors could not do anything about illness except give a prognosis. They got to be pretty good at that. They learned about that time to NEVER be optimistic. They were always very cautious and usually painted as dark a picture as possible. If the patient died, it had been predicted. If he recovered, it was the physician's skill.

Fauci is just in that tradition,.
_____++++++++
Q: Was Fauci ever frontline Doctor with real patients or always a bureaucrat?
How long ago was it ? What specialty?

narayanan said...

Blogger exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

02) Do we have enough tests, if not when will they be available?"
________++++++++++++
Are we not talking two different tests?
What is the difference between test for virus and test for anitbodies?

bagoh20 said...

"The virus was freewheeling in our community and probably has been here for quite some time," Dr. Jeff Smith, a physician and chief executive of Santa Clara County government said. Smith noted that COVID-19 was likely in California "back in December," as reported by the Los Angeles Times."

CDC data is suggesting California was infected long before anyone knew.

Jaq said...

Looking at deaths for Sweden in a linear setting, there is a one day jog to the right at the very top, but other than that, it’s very steep going up. Unfortunately the log view is partly hidden under an ad. On the bright side, the ad was for a bra and panties set on a very nice model.

I don’t think the “cases” view means much, because without widespread testing, they are influenced by decisions to test that have all kinds of reasons.

Ralph L said...

another tighter ring around Manhattan

It's been a while since I looked, but Queens and the Bronx had more deaths (not per capita). Shorter subway rides for Manhattanites, or fewer old/sick/fat? Let's wall off the entire Tri-state area!

Jaq said...

Detroit don’t look great, Here is daily death counts from March 10 through April 11 for Detroit-Warren-Dearborn

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
1
1
2
7
6
19
16
23
18
16
59
64
63
76
52
50
69
91
100
95
95
175
89

You almost can’t find a signal anywhere else in Michigan, except for small numbers in Flint, Ann Arbor, and Lansing. Detroit should be shut down, not the rest of Michigan.

Ralph L said...

CDC data is suggesting California was infected long before anyone knew.

Has anyone checked causes of death before the panic began? Will we discover a serial killer, like on the cop shows?

Jaq said...

"Shorter subway rides for Manhattanites,”

They walk everywhere.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Are we not talking two different tests?
What is the difference between test for virus and test for anitbodies?

4/12/20, 3:50 PM

There's the test you take to determine if you have the virus right now. It's the test you ought to be able to get if you present at a hospital with symptoms.

The antibody test determines if you have had the infection in the past and so hopefully have developed immunity.

Ken B said...

“Are we not talking two different tests?
What is the difference between test for virus and test for anitbodies?”

Viral tests look for RNA/DNA. They use swabs and PCR machines. They test for active illness and contagiousness.
Antibody tests look for proteins. They use blood. Apparently there are ones that can use just a finger stick. They test for (one hopes) immunity.

Sebastian said...

Continuing the thread from comments on an earlier Althouse post: head over to Power Line to see examples dug up by Cowen and Magness, showing the egregiousness of model performance in prior epidemics, prominently featuring UK's Prof. Ferguson.

At what point do we decide that not just the models and the assumptions but also the modelers themselves are bad?

bagoh20 said...

Tim, I understand how the bra ads can make it seem to go up very fast but as in all things it comes back down. Sweden had a spike last week up near Michigan's numbers but it dropped like if your mom walks in while your looking at bra ads. Sweden has spikes but they also have very low valleys, which is where they are now. It may be how they collect and report. Regardless, the average is much flatter than Michigan, which hasn't had any days as low as Sweden's valley's.

Sebastian said...

"Detroit should be shut down, not the rest of Michigan."

Tim! That's way too sensible! Plus it would be rank discrimination.

narayanan said...

https://www.uab.edu/reporter/know-more/publications/item/8909-here-s-a-playbook-for-stopping-deadly-cytokine-storm-syndrome

“Cytokines are inflammatory immunologic proteins that are there to fight off infections and ward off cancers,” Cron explained. “But when they’re out of control they can make you very ill.”

___________++++++++++
Are they "antibodies" non-specific to any virus or do they differentiate by trigger disease?

Can Cytokines storm be induced without any disease vector to let body learn ?

Jaq said...

Oh, you are looking at daily deaths. I think that daily deaths is kind of noisy on a day to day basis, but if it keeps with the trend of the last two days over three more days, sure. I am just betting that Easter Sunday has affected the reporting there. Easter Monday is also a big holiday in Europe, BTW.

I agree with you though that the Michigan governor is bat soup crazy in what she is doing outside of Detroit.

Original Mike said...

"Detroit should be shut down, not the rest of Michigan."

Trump was a racist for stopping flights from China, until he was incompetent for not doing so sooner.

New York, Detroit should have been quarantined. Do you think any progs will be thankful for the compassion? Yeah, me neither.

walter said...

After dragging his feet re Hydroxy, claiming social distancing compliance explains California, maybe a switch went on in his brain regarding the extent of the so-called "inconvenience" the one size fits all recommendation is wreaking.

Owen said...

Abbott test machinery with 1MM kits sitting in labs WAITING TO BE USED. Birx was saying days ago that she was going to call the lab directors to ask WTF.

https://www.medtechdive.com/news/over-90-of-1m-abbott-coronavirus-tests-sitting-idle-white-house-official/575794/

I know that CDC and FDA can screw up a two-car funeral but seriously folks, I'm just a little puzzled by the delay. "Lackadaisical" doesn't begin to describe it; yet the patient is bleeding out in real time.

Jaq said...

"Can Cytokines storm be induced without any disease vector to let body learn ?”

You will never guess who was doing work on this very issue over the past couple of years... Wait for it... The Wuhan Virology Lab!

“This work demonstrated that in order to maintain a balance with viruses, bats may have evolved to dampen certain pathways.” The research compared the STING – a portmanteau of “STimulator of INterferon Genes” – of the 30 bats with that of 10 other mammal species, including humans, dogs and cats.

In humans, an activated STING pathway is linked with severe autoimmune diseases. In bats, the the pathway is kept switched on, but at a very low level, so the animals can maintain just enough defence against illness without triggering a heightened immune reaction.
- Cosmo Magazine - 2018

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/switched-on-bats-hosting-viruses-is-a-cost-of-flying

But this virus did not leak from that lab because reasons.

JML said...

In the military, medical officers are not line officers, and cannot command line officers and enlisted. There is a reason for this - they don't have the training and their mission is different in combat - Doctors are supposed to save lives and treat all combatants the same. Line officers kill the enemy.

bagoh20 said...

"Trump was a racist for stopping flights from China, until he was incompetent for not doing so sooner."

Maybe there is a evolutionary purpose to racism. From an epidemiological perspective it makes sense to avoid people from different populations, just ask the Native Americans.

narciso said...

holy wildfire, also whatever was the facility in the stand's opening,

Original Mike said...

Do Chinese nationals require a visa to travel to the US? Who's in a hurry to turn these back on?

narciso said...

surorising

narciso said...

resist we much

Michael K said...

Can Cytokines storm be induced without any disease vector to let body learn ?

It also happens with cancer so it is not just an infectious problem. It's more a reaction to massive white cell response.

It is interesting that WuHan lab was studying it. I saw some articles that may no longer be online. That was back in January,.

gilbar said...

Sebastian: re: cali you were looking at the 19 from covid-19
cali deaths were listed as 634 (now 640)

Tiv re: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
daily deaths there haven't flattened; they've PLUMMETED to about 70% of peak (and crashing)
daily new cases at 64.5% of peak

BOTH of these numbers are supposed to be EVER INCREASING according to doomsayers
instead, they Both are crashing Down

The Godfather said...

Thank God, once again, for our federal system. It's the State governments, not the feds, that will decide when to reopen their economies. Trump can use his bully pulpit to urge States reopen sooner rather than later, but he can't, for example, order Cuomo to reopen NY. Nor should he. Trump will be facing the voters in just a few months. He doesn't need to give the Dems and their media ammunition to blame him for hundreds/thousands of deaths in reopened States (there will be deaths, and the Dems will blame him for them anyway, of course). But as I said a week or so ago on another thread (and as Megthered said on this thread), as each State begins to reopen, the pressure will build on other States to do the same. If you want the best for Trump, you want him to get the credit for benefits of reopening, but not the blame for the deaths that will inevitably occur in reopened States.

bagoh20 said...

Another interesting comparison is Taiwan (Mostly Taipei) vs New York (mostly NYC). The population density of both major cities is pretty close: 25K vs 27K per sq mile.

Taiwan with their closeness and extensive trade and travel with China still has only 6 deaths!

Taiwan did not lock down their society. They did intelligent focused things like stopping all travel from Wuhan early, and checking the temperature of all plane passengers entering the country. They focused on finding and isolating initial vectors. They had on hand and distributed millions of face masks. They educated their people about how to prevent infection and made recommendations, but did not mandate compliance or punish large swaths of their people. 6 deaths out of 24 million people.

bagoh20 said...

The question for a place like Taiwan is what now? The virus is still out there, and their population has virtually zero immunity. Hopefully the virus will mutate to a less virulent form or a vaccine is around the corner.

LYNNDH said...

Who made Fauci President? WHO?

narciso said...

will they though, Cuomo should be chased my a mob, for his gross negligence, the only guy did a damn thing, is under attack, everything is upside down,

gerry said...

We have become Snowflake Nation.

narciso said...

I wemt for a long walk, I got back and it's still the same carp.

Drago said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drago said...

JML: "In the military, medical officers are not line officers, and cannot command line officers and enlisted."

Correct

The lowliest unrestricted line Ensign can tell a restricted line Admiral what to do.

Caveat: in situations requiring the Ensign to take command.

narciso said...

power corrupts absolutely

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Dr. Faulci & Madame DeScarf

Pandemic...or Dem panic?

gilbar said...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/michigan-field-hospital-scale-back-beds

Michigan to scale back beds at coronavirus field hospital from 1,000 to 250
the state has seen the number of new infections drop off in subsequent days, according to data compiled by Michigan Health and Human Services.

never mind!

walter said...

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
2h
Governors, get your states testing programs & apparatus perfected. Be ready, big things are happening. No excuses! The Federal Government is there to help. We are testing more than any country in the World. Also, gear up with Face Masks!

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

we can stop this virus dead in its tracks by

-abolishing the Electoral College
-trunkloads of paper ballots
-no voter ID

oh...and throwing $$$ at NPR and Planned Parent-hoods

gilbar said...

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...
oh...and throwing $$$ at NPR and Planned Parent-hoods


If we can just make Every child, be an Aborted Child
Within 100 years, we will have SOLVED covid-19!!!

Sebastian said...

"re: cali you were looking at the 19 from covid-19
cali deaths were listed as 634 (now 640)

Tiv re: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
daily deaths there haven't flattened; they've PLUMMETED to about 70% of peak (and crashing)
daily new cases at 64.5% of peak

BOTH of these numbers are supposed to be EVER INCREASING according to doomsayers
instead, they Both are crashing Down

Michigan to scale back beds at coronavirus field hospital from 1,000 to 250"

Gilbar! Say it ain't so! This is so sad for all the models! How are we ever going to get to 11M, scratch that, 2M, scratch that, 1M, scratch that, 200K, "a number," scratch that, 60K? And Sweden! They're always right, but they're doing it wrong!

I'm Full of Soup said...

Had a family conference call today for Easter since we can’t get together. Several teachers on the call. Apparently the private schools and catholic school Teachers are teaching class daily over the internet while the public schools can’t even get their programs started. I opined that the public school program should be called “Every Child Left Behind”.

narayanan said...

My question about "cytokine storm" is more along the lines of inducing it in advance and controlling it - for therapy rather than waiting for the body immune system to react to disease later on.

Is that a workable approach?

Buckwheathikes said...

Federal Reserve chairman agrees with me:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/feds-kashkari-says-us-may-face-18-months-of-rolling-shutdowns/ar-BB12wqGD

“We could have these waves of flareups, controls, flareups and controls until we actually get a therapy or a vaccine."

walter said...

Really? Where have you discussed therapies?

CStanley said...

Blogger narayanan said...
My question about "cytokine storm" is more along the lines of inducing it in advance and controlling it - for therapy rather than waiting for the body immune system to react to disease later on.


Cytokines are part of the natural immune response and in some instances they’ve been bioengineered and used as therapies for diseases.

A cytokine storm is by definition destructive. It’s out of control production of cytokines without the normal feedback loops working. So the answer is no, it’s not something you would want to induce.

Nichevo said...


narciso said...
holy wildfire, also whatever was the facility in the stand's opening,

4/12/20, 4:44 PM


Stu Redman was taken to Atlanta, escaped, and made his way towards the alternate at Stonington, VT, if memory serves, before heading off to Nebraska.

Kirk Parker said...

Mark,

"The war wasn't won at Normandy."

Of course not! As Churchill noted, it was won on 12/7/1941.