Said Donald Trump, at yesterday's Task Force press briefing. Transcript here.
I'm interested in this "whole concept" of what "our nation" — and sports — were "designed for." The virus has its own designs, and we need to design strategies to deal with it. What does it matter if the nation — and sports — weren't designed around what would be needed to win a war with a virus?
It's just rhetoric, Trump rhetoric. He riffs. It comes straight from his mind. I have a higher tolerance — and even an appreciation — for it than most people who — like me — didn't vote for him. I'd say, here, he's just crying out that he doesn't like having to do what we need to do. We want out! We want to work! We want to watch baseball! We want to live! He's feeling that at you. It doesn't mean we get back to doing America As It Was Designed To Be anytime soon. It's just: I know you want it. I'm going to get you back there as soon as I can but I'm sorry it's not yet.
ADDED: Another gem from that transcript:
I want to thank the American people, most of all for the selfless sacrifices that they’re making for our nation. I know it’s not pleasant. Although some people have said they’ve gotten to know their family better and they love their family more than ever, and that’s a beautiful thing. They’ve actually gotten to know them. They’re in the same house with their family for a long time. I guess it can also work the other way perhaps, but we don’t want to talk about that.I like: "They’ve actually gotten to know them."
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220 comments:
1 – 200 of 220 Newer› Newest»I'd say, here, he's just crying out that he doesn't like having to do what we need to do. We want out! We want to work! We want to watch baseball! We want to live! He's feeling that at you. It doesn't mean we get back to doing America As It Was Designed To Be anytime soon. It's just: I know you want it. I'm going to get you back there as soon as I can but I'm sorry it's not yet.
We have to, though.
Or we will all be the depressed people in the post below. With no food.
Real question: Are there people here who simply don't care how long this goes on?
Another, similar question: Are there people here who are willing to have lockdown indefinitely?
That’s an astonishing list of names and titles to remember and repeat. A lot of detail for “riffing.”
Well written, Althouse.
Based on my limited forays into social media, there are plenty of people, women mostly, who have been convinced there is a boogeyman hiding on every Amazon box and lurking in every one of their neighbors and are enthusiastically enjoying the Drama! and the Danger! I’m not seeing a straining at the leash from where I’m sitting. I find this extremely depressing, by the way. I hope it’s there; it’s just considered impolite to express it.
The infection rate in my county is .17%. 4 deaths in a county of 184,000 people.
The infection rate is less than 2 tenths of 1 percent, prof. The death rate is so low as to be almost unmeasurable.
Wisconsin is in the same range.
Really, you’ve lost it. You’re in a panic, although you’re very good at masking it.
It’s time to go back to work and play. Risk is the price of freedom, and, increasingly, sanity.
I do see a fair amount of “what’s the first thing you’re going to do when this is over” discussion but you know what bothers me? No one is thinking, or at least expressing in ways I hear, any independent thoughts about what “over” means. It’s just “when do the people at the podium say we can come out again?” The willingness of people to just get in their cage without asking any real questions about it scares me.
ST, my county: 360,000 souls, 50 cases, zero deaths.
Real question: Are there people here who simply don't care how long this goes on?
I don't think there's many folks who don't care how long it goes on. Maybe, the ChIComs and a few Bernie supporters would like to see the US economy destroyed, but that's a tiny minority,
I think a large segment hasn't squarely evaluated the issue. They have exaggerated the risk of the virus (judgment clouded by panic and fear and graphs) but haven't given much thought as to how the Govt lockdown will cause major economic destruction.
Trump said, "I just spoke with the commissioners, leaders of, I would say virtually all of the sports leagues," and then proceeds to rattle off a bunch of names and the groups they head. He did that extemporaneously. Impressive.
Biden couldn't name his kids or grandkids like that. Stop the elder abuse, Jill. Aren't you a doctor or something?
I mean, people need to be able to ask, about anything, not just “could it happen” but “how likely is it, and what are the tradeoffs to make absolutely sure it doesn’t?” They are paying an enormous price for a hedge against something that’s not even that likely to be a threat to them. Baby and bathwater comes to mind.
Assuming that games are played without an audience, and that reasonable precautions are taken in transport and in the locker room, what are the actual risks of holding a baseball game?
We have to start talking about this in order to begin the conversation about what to open up where and when. There is a cost-benefit analysis to every such decision, and just screaming that no risk is ever acceptable can't be the right answer.
Having talked to many customers since the schools have shut down it appears most parents don't like their children much. Many people are upset that they need to feed, teach and entertain their children rather than the government.
You’re not going to die from this virus, even if you are infected, Althouse. You’re thin and fit. You probably won’t even be very sick if you are infected.
Talked to a church friend who’s a hospital admin in the NYC metro area, the epicenter of infection, yesterday. She said that almost all the fatalities were among the elderly obese. Those people invariably also suffer diabetes and heart and liver disease.
I’m not going to die from this virus, even if I’m infected. I’m trim and fit and I have no co-morbidities. That’s why I’m not panicking over the likelihood that I am infected or will be infected. At worse, I’ll probably experience a severe case of flu.
President Trump is right.
I see a lot of people- some I like quite a lot- who (I think) have been wanting to feel purposeful and helpful in society and so are very enthusiastic about posting "Stay Home" memes. I have one friend who was very excited and proud our state looked like we "stay home" based on that NYT chart from the other day. This is a passive way to be wonderful and helpful.
Then there are the Stasi in the making. The people who report on Next Door and threaten to call the police if they see anyone standing too close to someone else. I was talking to my mother in law (liberal Democrat) yesterday about how we're learning about the crazy people living among us. I wonder how many used to post Trump is a Dictator memes.
That ADDED really is a gem. I'm still catching my breath from "I guess it can also work the other way perhaps, but we don’t want to talk about that."
PDT riffs like Thelonious Monk or Charlie Parker ?
Eventually these decisions should, for practical and political reasons, be turned over to the states with some measure of coordination.
Media Matters - Hillary's personally funded propaganda outfit, run by a troll - caught spreading lies, again.
Greg Gutfeld Busts Media Matters Again With What They Were Saying About Fox and Virus In January
I do wonder what people who were having affairs are doing.
My prediction is that we won't be getting back to anything resembling normal until one thing happens: the rapid deployment of a vaccine.
What's going on is far bigger than what is being addressed at the moment. Everything that's happened up to now, every policy action, has been designed to address the fact that our health care system simply isn't designed to expand its capacity very fast.
We're addressing that by stretching the length of the pandemic out. But fundamentally, that doesn't change much. Just the timing of things. It somewhat slows how many people need to simultaneously need to be treated - but doesn't and will not alter how many people will ultimately need to be treated.
There will be millions. Over time. We traded lots of deaths at once for lots of deaths over a longer period of time. That's all we've done. The cost was a complete and total shutdown of huge swaths of our economy and the intentional infliction of a tremendous amount of economic damage spread over the entire country; the ripple effects of which weren't the main policy consideration.
Ultimately, politicians will take the path of least electoral damage to themselves; and this pandemic is bearing that out. The electoral risk is/was that large swaths of the populace coming to the realization that our elected officials and bureaucracy were simply not up to the task of dealing with this. Pictures of thousands of dead bodies lying in the streets, halls of hospitals, overflowing morgues ... that's was was driving policy decisions early on.
So, we already chose our path: Save the politicians/bureaucracy. They all still have 100% of their jobs save one hapless, panicky aircraft carrier captain. The price: Economic damage to all non-governmental entities.
But that cannot go on or the calculus changes. Once we're over the threat of those photos, the economic damage being inflicted will become the electoral risk and the economy will have to be re-opened. When it is, if that's done in the absence of a vaccine, millions will perish - just over a longer time frame.
He is expressing the wish and will of a majority of Americans. He's saying quite clearly, we're in this together, and I'm in it with you. He's upset, as we are upset, by the disruption. Looks for the silver lining. Expresses hope for an end to the burden and sacrifice. What is not to like about that?
Yet there will be those among us that will criticize and attack. They should be ignored.
Eight deaths in Nebraska; 1.8m people. I think all had pre-existing conditions; the last two did. The last 2 were 70 and 80.
Although I disagree with some of the measures Trump has taken the last two months, I accept, politically, that he had to take them. He was boxed in. Nancy Pelosi wanted nothing more than to yell, "Nero fiddles, while Rome burns!"
Nonetheless, Trump's instincts (don't let the remedy become worse than the disease) were spot on, and this riff about returning to sports and work is exactly right. In my view, he's done an amazing job commanding the ship thru these troubled waters. Dangers are still ahead though.
He is relentlessly positive, and a good portion of us DO want him to tell us when we can end house arrest and resume the tasks that keep the economy moving. The roadmap for fighting COVID has been clearly transmitted, and now we want to hear that there are metrics he’s watching to time our un-pause. We are asking him to pick the perfect moment to resume, the moment just after the apex and that will be a judgement call only Trump can make.
Ann, your term "win a war with a virus" is also rhetoric. We are not going to win any war with this virus, at least not until a vaccine is available. Until then, we have to stretch out its impact. No matter how long we keep the extreme lockdown tactics in place, once we lift them, the virus is likely to return. Meanwhile, the longer we shut down the more we hurt millions of other people, and not simply materially, but in terms of health and life. The aim of the extreme measures, then, is simply to buy time to get better prepared in our hospitals, etc., than we were. At some point - I suspect very soon - the extreme measures may well interfere with that goal as much as they stretch out the time frame for it. It is in other words a containment policy not a win the war policy we need.
Again, I will take whatever measures are necessary to protect myself, but I can't and won't insist anyone do anything to protect me.
On a lighter note, this past week I got to watch each of my city's major sports teams win a championship. Unprecedented in the annals of professional sport. Which is nice.
He's just warming the crowd (of his faithful who think covid-19 is a nothingburger) up for his next one month extension of the social distancing lockdown.
@Howard
It's not nothing. That's a silly rhetorical device.
Then again, it's not a justification for hiding under your bed.
Trump makes a good point. Sports and their seasons really are great traditions in America. Do other countries have the broad range of sports and pro and amateur leagues and rivalries that we have here. I doubt it. Yeah they all have soccer but that's mostly it.
In a way, sports & leisure activities define America so we work hard and play hard.
It's really too bad that Trump can't do the George W Bush solution to the crisis and just tell everyone to go shopping.
The seed of a pastoral baseball return to normalcy Don planted in your heads will help soothe The angst and anger of being deprived of your consumer culture rat race addiction.
Howard said...
He's just warming the crowd (of his faithful who think covid-19 is a nothingburger) up for his next one month extension of the social distancing lockdown.
It's been made quite clear he will be held responsible for Covid deaths and outbreaks, right? So what is the incentive for people who oppose him to open up businesses again? Now that things are closed down, all they have to do is pass more spending bills. Then they can be heroes with no blame. ISTM all the political pressure is to stay on lockdown (until, perhaps, the Nov election comes around)
I guess Cuomo has the financial industry to put pressure on him. Conversely, he has the biggest outbreak in the middle of the news media. We all know the cases in New York bring on much more attention from the scared media than an outbreak in Nebraska would.
David Begley said...
Eight deaths in Nebraska; 1.8m people. I think all had pre-existing conditions; the last two did. The last 2 were 70 and 80.
The man, who was in his 80s, had several underlying conditions and was receiving hospice care, according to Douglas County, but authorities determined that the COVID-19 infection was his leading, or "acute," cause of death.
so, a man, living in a health care center; and while ON Hospice care;
contracts covid-19, so... THAT is what killed him!
NOT the things that sent him to the health center
NOT the things that put him on hospice care
NO! it was the Covid-19 that done it! He could have lived a product week or two otherwise!!
Sooner rather than later, I hope. As a nation, I suspect we're well past the point of diminishing returns.
How long for the petty dictators in NY, NJ, CA, etc., to give up their newly-acquired powers? They waste a lot of money, but they never waste a crisis.
I'm going to the track today Thomas. Lots of dynamic warm-up drills plyometrics and top speed sprints. Yesterday we met our immune system compromised daughter I have a state park and went on a long hike in public. because my wife and I do not want to get our little girl sick we all wore the professional grade masks that my wife sewed together based on Ingas recommendation for design.
Then our daughter went back to work at her startup's laboratory where she is working tirelessly to cure diseases through science. Her job is deemed essential. Her coworkers are really good about leaving her alone at work.
@Howard
The claim that you’re a thinking person and that everybody is an indoctrinated robot is one of the most common conceits of the internet.
I usually assume that the person making this claim is an indoctrinated robot.
I’ll do an hour of yoga and a 15 mile bike ride today, Howard.
Up till midnight last night putting together the videos of preludes, postludes and hymns for streaming services.
PA has 12.6 Million people and 10,017 cases 136 deaths as of this morning which is 11 deaths per million.
Is it possible NYC's high case rate is the result of a deliberate act by Chinese govt?
I’m not going to die from this virus, even if I’m infected. I’m trim and fit and I have no co-morbidities. That’s why I’m not panicking over the likelihood that I am infected or will be infected. At worse, I’ll probably experience a severe case of flu.
President Trump is right.
You're an idiot. There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions. He played football at his high school.
Maybee you are a lunatic Mark of the Trump spell. He is president of the United States. The buck stops here. He knew he was responsible from the get-go because that's what the job entails. Of course you people give him a pass because it is the only way you can live with yourself buying into his cult of deception.
Yeah it's pretty funny huh New York took it on the chin and 911 in New York is taking it on the chin with covid-19. It's interesting how the coastal elites are on the front line and the greatest battles so far of the 21st century.
then you have to make up some story about how well if it was in Nebraska no one would give a s***. That's the kind of things that marks do to justify swallowing the cult doctrine
If he riffed those names without notes, I wanna see Slow Joe do it.
It's not just "rhetoric": Trump is thinking straight. I am encouraged.
The whole concept of the nation is to stay strong, keep growing--and not panic.
Good thing he's talking to sports execs. Sports can reopen safely now. Number of athletes seriously affected by Wuhan, worldwide: 1. Keeping crowds away for a while, OK. But shutting them all down when the risk was minimal will come to symbolize The Great Panic of 2020.
Start with golf. They can model social distancing and crowds are less essential to enjoy the game on TV.
@Freder
I have no doubt that at this very moment somewhere in this country, somebody is being run over by a car.
I still plan to go for a bike ride today.
Buckwheathikes said...
My prediction is that we won't be getting back to anything resembling normal until one thing happens: the rapid deployment of a vaccine...
We're addressing that by stretching the length of the pandemic out. But fundamentally, that doesn't change much. Just the timing of things. It somewhat slows how many people need to simultaneously need to be treated - but doesn't and will not alter how many people will ultimately need to be treated.
There will be millions. Over time. We traded lots of deaths at once for lots of deaths over a longer period of time.
Buckwheat make good points.
But aside from lessening the rate of hospitalization while we await a vaccine, do these social distancing measures reduce the so-called viral load for enough individuals so that more people become immune rather than sick over the near- and longer-term until a vaccine is produced?
Would the latter imply some incremental relaxation of the shut-down, by testing result (especially), geography, population density, demographics or industry?
Wince often plays the fool quite well by the way however it's obvious he ain't no fool.
Shouting Thomas: "@Howard
It's not nothing. That's a silly rhetorical device."
Howard offers up this already debunked lie several times each day because it, along with completely rewriting history and the virus timeline and exonerating the ChiComs, form the basis of the democratics Sham-peachment III operation which is already well under way.
Howard invariably offers up these political lies while simultaneously directing Conservatives not to push back on these lies at this time so as not to politicize what is happening now....
I had to give up biking it just kills my back. I do go for short rides with the grandkids though mostly mountain bike trail riding and the odd pump track. I think that's the one activity that really makes you feel like a little kid again
You're an idiot. There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions. He played football at his high school.
Come on. You know that this is statistically meaningless.
To those talking about the low infection rate where you live:
Lucky for you. You might be able to take advantage of the best technique for outbreaks, contact tracing. But only under certain assumptions. The first is adequate testing. The second is adequate structures to support the effort. Both require time to put in place. And it can only work if the infection does not spread too widely first. Those objectives are both served by the current shutdown. This is the last chance to contain it, either fully or partially, where you live. Or perhaps more pointedly, where your neighbors live. If you want to end the distancing measures it’s their lives you are risking, not just your own.
as the president notes, some of the larger states affected, like ny are population size like france or England, whereas the European provinces are more compact,
>There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions. He played football at his high school.
How many other 17 year olds died that same day, of other causes? It's gruesome, but we have to find the balance between allowing some of us to die, and not destroying our entire economy.
There is no right answer to that question. But there are plenty of wrong ones.
I would suggest that shuttering an entire state over a few deaths from Covid 19 is a wrong answer.
Field Marshall Freder: "You're an idiot. There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans."
Did the 17 year old attend Mardi Gras like the dem Mayor of New Orleans encouraged everyone to do?
you know that's a tricky question, is herd immunity worse the risk, can you sufficiently fine tune the vaccine, but the people who bought the 'trump virus' line will never get that.
"I have a higher tolerance — and even an appreciation — for it than most people who — like me — didn't vote for him."
You have a higher tolerance, and appreciation for his speaking that I do, and I DID vote for him. That said, when his next term is over and we get a regular speaking politician up there talking to us, saying the same empty phrases that make the press swoon, those empty phrases will sound even more ridiculous and we'll find ourselves missing Trump-speak. Not Trump himself. But that honest, street-level way of saying the words a fraction after his mind put them together, without a script.
Howard said...
Wince often plays the fool quite well by the way however it's obvious he ain't no fool.
"A Study in Duality."
Maybee you are a lunatic Mark of the Trump spell. He is president of the United States. The buck stops here. He knew he was responsible from the get-go because that's what the job entails. Of course you people give him a pass because it is the only way you can live with yourself buying into his cult of deception.
Yeah it's pretty funny huh New York took it on the chin and 911 in New York is taking it on the chin with covid-19. It's interesting how the coastal elites are on the front line and the greatest battles so far of the 21st century.
then you have to make up some story about how well if it was in Nebraska no one would give a s***. That's the kind of things that marks do to justify swallowing the cult doctrine
Howard, I'm sorry if I didn't express myself clearly. I'm meaning only to highlight the political ramifications for either staying shut down or opening back up. Polticially, Trump will take the heat for whatever might go wrong in doing either, so his political opponents have little incentive to help us out of this quandary.
Then...I meant to say Cuomo might have incentive, because his state houses the financial industry so they might put pressure on him. However, the media is also centered there. Now, you might not agree with me that the media sees New York crises as much more attention-worthy than crises in other states, but I think it is undeniably true. The midwest and south have flooded and had terrible tornadoes, but they get a small fraction of the attention that a weather event headed toward New York City gets. Superstorm Sandy was horrible, but it got a lot more attention than the tornadoes or the 2016 Louisiana Floods.
“ aside from lessening the rate of hospitalization while we await a vaccine, do these social distancing measures reduce the so-called viral load for enough individuals so that more people become immune rather than sick over the near- and longer-term until a vaccine is produced?”
Very likely, and an important point.
We are doing more than just flattening the curve. We are taking the last chance we have to contain the outbreak in some places, develop a testing infrastructure, assess treatments, and expand capacity. In a situation of exponential growth, a delay in the spread buys a lot. We are also trying to *avert* an economic collapse caused by chaos when the virus hits many millions at once.
Howard: "Yeah it's pretty funny huh New York took it on the chin and 911 in New York is taking it on the chin with covid-19."
Howard himself has repeatedly laughed himself silly on this very blog over the years over the hollowing out of the industrial midwest and the astonishing tens of thousands of opiod deaths there.
Howard loves joking about that.
Howard would now like to lecture others on this.
Lets be sure to give Howards "contributions" all the respect they deserve......
Freder:
Almost every year a few high school football players drop dead during summer practices.
Jon: "The aim of the extreme measures, then, is simply to buy time to get better prepared in our hospitals"
That was the aim. But the aim of the aim was to have enough capacity to "save lives." I think data are beginning to show that a high percentage of old obese people with "co-morbidities" cannot be saved once they need a ventilator. The only way to protect them is with rigorous, selective quarantines for them, which, would you believe, also would not tank the economy.
You'd still want enough hospital capacity to care for the smaller number of healthier, younger people who might show up and to give the very old and sick a chance with drugs (leaving aside whether hospitals are the right place in the first place). But since some of the envisioned "care" is an expensive exercise in futility, part of the premise for devastating the economy is wrong.
From a few weeks ago:
Hung out with my wife today, watching Netflix. She's really nice. I guess she works in healthcare, or something.
Does anybody who watched the coverage of the THC laced vape pen deaths feel like they are going to get a forthright health report or government response? They outlawed flavored vaping fluid in my state as a result. And no news organizations would include the information that the lung injuries came from blackmarket pens.
How does that not make everyone worry that we don't get good information when someone has an agenda?
More than 130 people died every day from opioid-related drug overdoses in 2016 and 2017, according to the US Department of Health & Human Services.
And oh how the lefties laughed and laughed and laughed.
Why didnt those people just learn to code the lefties told us.....
"so, a man, living in a health care center; and while ON Hospice care;
contracts covid-19, so... THAT is what killed him!
NOT the things that sent him to the health center
NOT the things that put him on hospice care
NO! it was the Covid-19 that done it! He could have lived a product week or two otherwise!!"
These things will have to be part of The Reckoning to come.
Rhetoric? Perhaps, but it is 100% true. I guess some people really do believe the stuff that makes life possible in our society actually come from the super market, or an Amazon truck. Talk about pure rhetoric. Try: "we're all in this together", stay home, save a lives", "we are in a war". None of those are even true. People are being arrested for walking or driving entirely alone, and forced to go home and congregate in a closed environment, not knowing if someone there has it.
It's not the rapid deployment of a vaccine that will end this - it's the development of a treatment that cures most of the sick that is available. The tests of combinations of anti-viral and anti-malarial drugs seem to hold the most promise there ,eliminating the need for ventilators in most cases and reducing the length of the disease in others. Get a treatment that is 90% effective on the 5% that need hospitalization and the fear factor drops fast - people can get out and work again.
But the news media has gone all in on denouncing any trials as "preliminary" because Orange Man praised one treatment that showed promise. They have the need to destroy more than help now.
Couple that with geographic relaxation too and things might come back faster - but a lot of damage has been done.
this stimulus is a placebo, millions for kennedy center, sex education, how much for provisioning medical equipment, other infrastructure, but 'you had to vote for it'
I worry about those opiod users trying to get or stay sober, and not being able to attend NA or AA meetings.
Since asks “
Would the latter imply some incremental relaxation of the shut-down, by testing result (especially), geography, population density, demographics or industry?”
Yes. Some of us have made similar points over and over. We can incrementally loosen. Some folks, me for example being retired, will have to accept staying cooped up for a long time. But with tests, and and less crowding out there, some others will be able to work, more safely than now. But the shutdown panickers don’t want to hear about mitigation, or amelioration.
"I have a higher tolerance — and even an appreciation — for it"
Apropos of nothing--well, not quite--I want to thank Althouse for this appreciation. She has helped me see Trump differently, and I think more accurately -- and I did vote for him!
"I guess it can also work the other way perhaps, but we don’t want to talk about that": ha!
FDR kept sports going during WWII.
The models appear to have overestimated the severity - that is not to say that significant steps shouldn't be taken, but it does suggest that such widespread severe steps were not necessary. What if the mayors of NYC, LA, San Francisco hadn't been such idiots in promoting Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year, the LA Marathon, etc?
Ironclad
I agree. Tests and a treatment are the best bet to avert the worst. A vaccine is needed to fully end things, but is probably a long way off.
"New Orleans is a center of coronavirus. Mardi Gras could be to blame, doctors say.
As of Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans had 567 of Louisiana's 1,388 cases of the coronavirus and 20 of the state's 46 deaths."
Which is why the democrat Mayor of New Orleans, who passionately pleaded with everyone to come on down and enjoy Mardi Gras, is desperately trying to hang that decision on Trump. Which is similar to how de Blasio and the NYC Health Commissioner, who both told everyone in NYC to come on down and mingle for the NYC Chinatown-based Chinese New Year celebration are also blaming Trump.
Gee, its almost like there is a pattern or something.
To those talking about the low infection rate where you live:
I'm sorry that you are missing the point that people in places with low infection rates are not guaranteed to pay any mind to the shrieking of the Ken Bs of the world.
"This country wasn’t meant for this fewer, fewer"
that should read, "few were, few were".
I gotta say, my wife and I have been self quarantining here on the Gulf Coast of Florida for a few weeks on our own. We've turned down friends offers to come over for cocktails, and are doing it via Facetime or Duo instead. Most of the people in our neighborhood have done the same thing. Our area has not been hit much at all....so far. From what the projections say (for what those are worth), Florida will be a late bloomer, with our peak coming in early to mid-May. But we're already well below projected hospital bed usage for this disease. And if you remove the area of southeast Florida- Miami/Dade, Broward, Palm Beach counties- the rest of the state is handling it pretty well.
Many other states are doing the same. I get why NYC is such a problem (density of population and lack of personal transportation options). I get why NoLa is a problem (Mardi Gras). I'm not entirely sure why Detroit got to be a hot spot (though I do have a theory). But you can see that Seattle and Washington have gained some control. California seems to be holding it's own so far. The rest of the country is doing the same- holding it's own.
Yet when I read the press, you'd think the world is coming to an end. Drudge is unreadable anymore. The national press spends so much time pinning a global pandemic on Trump that you would think he spends his weekends in a biolab coming up with "Death. Lots of Death this week." Democrats are worried about how much they can stuff into 'relief' packages. And Republicans have completely disappeared.
Meanwhile millions of individual Americans are working through this.
That’s an astonishing list of names and titles to remember and repeat. A lot of detail for “riffing.”
I'm pretty sure he was reading it; video
I worry about those opiod users trying to get or stay sober, and not being able to attend NA or AA meetings.
The "essential" pot stores are literally selling drugs on the street, well, on the sidewalk, like in the olde days. It's funny.
My mother-in-law and her "gentleman friend" in the same senior living center (where two have already passed) have both tested positive for the virus. She's 88, he's 90. She feels fine, is chafing at being restricted to her room. He was sent to the hospital with a "urinary tract infection" and released back to the senior living center. He's "shaky" but recovering. My wife and I were close to both during possible incubation periods, but do NOT have any symptoms. If this virus were as Black Death infectious as is portrayed in the media we'd all be dead by now. We (medical experts and politicians) don't really understand this virus, and won't until enough testing is done to really pinpoint how it affects folks. So far, about 50% of those infected and tested are asymptomatic or have mild cases. Yet we're treating this as if it were Armageddon.
We need to get back to work.
MayBee, I used to foster babies who had been injured by shaking by overwhelmed caretakers. If people in general knew more about that, I think we'd be hearing a lot less 'just stay home [in isolation, with no supports and under hideously stressful conditions]! it's not that big a deal! you don't need to get out that badly!' Uh, yeah, actually some people DO need to get out that badly.
If I were a bad faith person I'd suggest that those who refuse to engage with those concerns have the blood of abused children on their hands.
I worry about those opiod users trying to get or stay sober, and not being able to attend NA or AA meetings.
Pray for our nation of involuntary shut-ins. We’re all shut-ins now.
Or we are essential. Weird dichotomy.
I read that New Orleans now has the highest death rate from covid in the country.
Did NO practice social distancing? Or did they hold Mardi Gras?
Think about this when you read the “but there are few cases here” comments above. New Orleans didn’t start out a hot spot. Like everywhere it started with a few cases. But they were blithe about spreading the disease — spreading it before there were a lot of deaths, before it was a hot spot. It's not a big problem here the mayor said.
Yeah, Ann is thin and fit.
@Maybee - They're not.
Is that Trump expressing empathy? I thought he was a narcissist...
He riffs. It comes straight from his mind.
I've been using this description of his talking for a while, when people complain about his speaking style. Some people like to hear the score as written (teleprompter speeches) and some enjoy the improv. With the speech plus riffs, you get the official message but you also get a separate message, how Trump feels about what's going on. His riffs tend to be optimistic and to show faith in America.
It's like when people were hearing jazz for the first time. It's either revolutionary or scandalous.
In Michigan you can fish and hike, according to the great governor's decree. It's a big deal because spring fishing is hugely important. The best fishing is after ice out, before the water warms up.
In Michigan, the DNR has closed all public access to fishing and hiking.
LEADERSHIP!!! Looking into the future and preparing the troops for it. Soon he will be talking about the tradeoffs between continuing the lockdown, while evidence grows that the disease can be controlled and that large parts of the country are only marginally affected, and continuing devastation of the economic body. By May 1 people will be demanding relaxation of the lockdown and willing to accept the risks of the choices that Trump will outline.
Ironclad is right.
Howard is just revealing his inner Bernie Bro. New York City is a clusterfuck for a communicable disease. I don't even like to visit.
Epidemiologist Freder hasn't learned about "Cytokine Storm," which can kill a healthy young person who might have been saved by early hydroxychloroquine.
The gradual opening of the economy will start in the less crowded areas where the disease is less of a problem. The doom sayers, like Ken B, will scream but the cruise ship still had only 20% become infected and only 8 died.
A vaccine may be available by Christmas. If there is a second wave.
Trump is being optimistic and being hopeful. Its what leaders are supposed to do.
A couple things I would like to see:
1) The results of a randomized, say, 1000 person study in the USA to see how many have been exposed to the virus, and of those how many are symptomatic.
2) Good data on the demographics of mortality.
If anyone runs across that I would be delighted to have a link.
My suspicion currently runs toward thinking that the Diamond Princess testing by the Japanese remains some of the best data we have. I am in touch with several American refineries that have been operating all along, and none of the refinery workers are symptomatic as of Friday.
Those are all self-inflicted wounds Drago. Perhaps you feel like 9/11 was New Yorkers fault for being too wealthy too successful too free too Jewish
Did the 17 year old attend Mardi Gras like the dem Mayor of New Orleans encouraged everyone to do?
It is the height of hypocrisy for you to complain about the "dem mayor of New Orleans" considering Trump's downplaying the risk at the very same time.
Thanks for the clarification maybee.
“We're addressing that by stretching the length of the pandemic out. But fundamentally, that doesn't change much. Just the timing of things. It somewhat slows how many people need to simultaneously need to be treated - but doesn't and will not alter how many people will ultimately need to be treated.”
I will respectfully disagree. Partially, of course, stretching things out keeps our health care system from being overwhelmed. Right now, Fredo’s brother has apparently ordered his National Guard to seize all of the excess ventilators and protective equipment from upstate NY, that he and De Blasio should have had on hand, because they were more interested in protecting illegals, emptying out the jails, getting personal pronouns right, etc, than doing their job. If we get a summer lull, by fall, everyone will most likely have plenty of everything they need on hand.
But stretching everything out has other advantages. Adequate testing for having the disease is ramping up fairly well, and that was one of our big problems initially - we didn’t know whether someone had a bad case of the flu, or the Wuhan Coronavirus. Moreover, we should be getting a decent antibody test to identify those who have had the virus, and are presumably safe, and, thus have no need of quarantine. We are just now figuring out the best drug regimen, and by fall, there should be plenty of everything in place. With a good antibody rest, we can start serum immunization of healthcare workers and first responders, and immunizing the former will go a long way to greatly eliminating one of the major infection routes we have seen - infection of patients by healthcare workers, esp in nursing homes, etc. and trials are starting on regular, non serum, vaccines.
Maybe I am overly optimistic, but despite the apparent confusion, it looks to me like all of the important pieces are fitting into place to prevent the pandemic from killing too many people in this country. This is what I think that Trump sees too.
One worry though - we may not get as much of a summer respite as we would like. The claim that bodies are being stacked in the streets of Ecuador, which is located very close to the Equator. Very possibly though in the capital in the highlands. In any case, an observation was made that the pandemic was mostly hitting a temperate band stretching around the globe that includes the US, China, and most of Europe. This was combined with the observation that many diseases are seasonal, and the flu which this disease somewhat resembles in symptoms peaks in the early spring, and dies out over the summer, to reappear again the next year. I would rate it more likely than not, that COVID-19 too is seasonal, and we will see a summer lull. But no one really knows.
The essential problem with "Get Trumpers" who post here is that they still don't have a viable alternative. The whole situation would be different if they did.
Getting rid of Trump without a democratically chosen alternative is simply not an option. That may be how it works in China, but not here.
"I still plan to go for a bike ride today."
The husky dog needs to be walked at least a couple of miles today.
The usual suspects want to see more dead. They want the social control this will give them.
Tomorrow. Off to work. Those PLCs won't program thmselves.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Keep busy. The usual shit.
Love,
Rusty
The designed to be is also the designed to work - anything else and it won't work. It's living on emergency rations of capital that will run out.
That has to balance against the virus risk.
Maybee: I wonder how many opioid addicts are now going through horrible withdrawals of cold turkey? That's got to be nasty.
whats different
These are the numbers that would be good to know:
-Excess death totals from all causes, seasonally adjusted.
-Demographics of the excess daily death totals, sex, age, and health.
If we had these numbers we could make an informed decision on values & costs of a universal quarantine (which is where we are headed).
There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions.
According to Freder. On the other hand, the deceased's father said
that he understood his son had died from “heart failure.” He said he was surprised at the suggestion his son may have died as a result of COVID-19 and disputed that was a certainty.
“It was heart failure,” Moran said. “People don’t want to let you heal. … I’m so upset.”
The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office said last week that the cause of death was under investigation. You should get down there and clear things up for them, Freder.
I continue to wonder why we did not have enforced lockdown under Obama during the H1N1 outbreak. From the CDC: “From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus”
Get that? 43 to 60 million cases. .we currently have 312,000 cases.
12,500 deaths then. 8400 here to date.
I am going along but wondering why we didn’t panic over a virus that targeted the young and the middle aged but are wholesale destroying lives over a Beirut’s that targets the old and weak m
What is wrong with us? What the fuck.
Trump is the only person talking about what comes next. And if you care about the big stuff, what comes next is the single most important topic for discussion. He is giving people hope and something to look forward to. Who else is doing that?
Freder: There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions.
I think you mean, "he did not have any diagnosed underlying conditions." Plus the statistical insignificance, of course.
so many blank pages
I'm worrying about the households where domestic abuse of whatever kind was already happening. Now we have the extreme added stress in some of those households of unemployment and unaccustomed close quarters - the abuser might be able to control him/herself most of the time during regular life, but now? What will the fallout be? If it's children being abused, it may be generational in those families.
The state of Hawaii has experienced its 4th death due to covid-19.
The newspapers don't tell you what you need to know, but from reading between the lines, it looks like he was a man in his mid 70s, and that he contracted the disease from a visitor while being hospitalized for some other condition.
This is a similar to the previous three deaths.
The incubation period is 2 weeks. If isolating has not worked in 4 weeks, then it is not working and we need to refocus on other approaches.
Cause in the end he's just a chicken shit
"He's just warming the crowd (of his faithful who think covid-19 is a nothingburger) up for his next one month extension of the social distancing lockdown."
-- Weird to think the people who were for slowing or stopping travel in *January* and wanted to take care of things in February, but are not in favor of government crackdown on people or arresting people alone on the beach, are the ones being made to seem irrational. Whereas the people who assured me that, by April, we'd be deciding who lives and who dies as hundreds of thousands were turned away from the hospitals predictions are conveniently forgotten. Very few people think that COVID-19 is "nothing." A lot of people think that it is not Captain Tripps.
Noted leftwing commentator above writes:
You're an idiot. There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions. He played football at his high school.
You do understand that 1% of all breast cancer cases are men, not women, right? It's called an outlier. Try not to be a dipshit. Healthy 17-year olds are not part of the risk groups for this disease. Go wade into the actual numbers, not newspaper articles.
In the summer of 1995 Chicago/Cook County experienced a heat wave. While the temps were not record breaking they were high and did not drop for more than 10 days. The elderly, those with preexisting health conditions began to die at a rapid rte. 739 deaths were attributed to the heat wave which at its peak required the rental of reefer trucks to store the bodies. Who did Disk Durbin, Nancy P, C Schummer blame for these deaths? Oops the Mayor of the city was a Democrat, was he blamed?
Also a large amount of heat related deaths in Milwaukee and St Louis. Were the Democrat leaders of these cities blamed?
Also the racial count of the deaths skewed Black. Racist Sun?
"help soothe The angst and anger of being deprived of your consumer culture rat race addiction."
Like you're any different, really, Howard.
apparently noodle head ned lamont, misrepresented another fatality in conneticut,
It is the height of hypocrisy for you to complain about the "dem mayor of New Orleans" considering Trump's downplaying the risk at the very same time.
Freder, the epidemiologist, haas gotten the Pelosi memo about how this is to be explained by OrangeManBad.
Despicable, even for you.
Wait, we know the New Orleans teen who died had no pre-existing conditions? The most recent story I found (March 26) says this: "New information released by the Louisiana Department of Health only listed the teen's age and the parish where they lived. It did not identify the teen or say if they had any pre-existing medical conditions." Granted, didn't search for very long.
no san angeles today
Howard said...
Those are all self-inflicted wounds Drago. Perhaps you feel like 9/11 was New Yorkers fault for being too wealthy too successful too free too Jewish
More Bernie Bro from Howard. I think we can all agree that the target for 9/11 terrorists was the WTC which was a symbol of wealth and power.
Nice little anti-Semetic trope slipped in there, Howard. Ask Omar about that. Your team, pal.
Oso Negro said...
@Maybee - They're not.
I've lost track of what you are answering here! ;-)
We should probably try to have another conversation about the the Untied States, like Italy early on, is classifying deaths as C19 when the actual cause of death was something else.
On Trump's comment re "It could go the other way"---there's a joke circulating out there about a guy who loved to watch TV sports. He can't watch live sports now---and he's noticed that there's a woman sitting on the couch with him. He thinks "She seems nice--haven't noticed her before". Well that's one of the benefits of no live sports.
Actually Michael K I am the one here most vocal that the economy can and will have a staged reopening.
The models appear to have overestimated the severity - that is not to say that significant steps shouldn't be taken, but it does suggest that such widespread severe steps were not necessary. What if the mayors of NYC, LA, San Francisco hadn't been such idiots in promoting Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year, the LA Marathon, etc?
In regards to the first point, politicians and "scientists" who underestimated the pandemic would be in much more trouble than those who overestimated it.
As to the second point, it is apparently Trump's job to protect idiot Democrat Mayors from their own poor judgment.
The seed of a pastoral baseball return to normalcy Don planted in your heads will help soothe The angst and anger of being deprived of your consumer culture rat race addiction.
This sounds like it was written by one of those non-essential workers we hear about.
Don't have the numbers but there are a lot of Americans that are still working, either from home or running essential businesses. Almost everyone in my immediate family who had a job prior to the crisis is still working. We work and make other people's "staycations" possible. We don't have the luxury to sit around all day and make snippy comments at people on someone else's blog.
I'll represent them when I say, with all due respect Howard, go fuck yourself.
just like they tried to hit the library tower in la, but the gemaa islamiya operative was flagged by an interrogation of abu zubeydah, the ig report did as much to hide that aspect,
People should read Taleb on risk.
Howard said...Those are all self-inflicted wounds Drago. Perhaps you feel like 9/11 was New Yorkers fault for being too wealthy too successful too free too Jewish
That response strongly suggests that you cannot handle Drago's commentary. Thus, the really cheap (Chuckles-like) shot.
I thought you were better than that, Howard.
that's the next twist
If there is a silver lining to the bat soup cloud it’s seeing our political leadership, particularly at the local level, expose themselves as the empty suits and crypto fascists they are.
There's a lot of great "Michaels" and "Mikes" on this blog, and various derivations thereto. Somebody should count them!
Anyway, @Michael above makes the outstanding point about the Swine Flu epidemic (H1N1) in 2009. Anyone remember that? It kinda got lost in the housing collapse problem.
The Numbers:
Get that? 43 to 60 million cases. .we currently have 312,000 cases.
12,500 deaths then. 8400 here to date.
He is correct. Source: CDC
And yet, in 2009, nobody in the gov't or this blog, was advocating locking down the ENTIRE country, telling us to stay home, telling us to say 6 feet away from each other, cancelling baseball, cancelling basketball, and shuttering restaurants, hotels, casinos, and airports.
Would some smart person here like to explain this?
"The virus has its own designs, and we need to design strategies to deal with it. What does it matter if the nation — and sports — weren't designed around what would be needed to win a war with a virus? It's just rhetoric, Trump rhetoric. He riffs."
Lots of "just rhetoric" all the way around. Truth be told, it will be impossible to separate the perceptive insight from the just-rhetoric until it's all over. Either way there will be lots of score-settling to come. So which team will ultimately be vindicated: the "It's endless Doom! Doom! unless everything is shut down immediately and indefinitely!!!" team; or the "this thing has been way over-hyped, and lots of people have been destroyed on the altar of BS models and worst-case fantasies!!!" team?
Place your bets and take your chances. (PS: I suspect there will be a male/female divide in how people place their bets.)
Wait, we know the New Orleans teen who died had no pre-existing conditions?
Cytokine storm is probably more common in the younger cases of COVID. Cardiac effects are common in these cases so it is possible he was just one of the rare cytokine storm cases.
It was also more common in the 1918 flu cases. There was a disproportionate number of younger victims.
KenB said: "Think about this when you read the “but there are few cases here” comments above."
Yes, but we didn't host Mardi Gras parades for a MONTH. We didn't attend full churches on Sunday. We didn't go out to crowded restaruants or walk busy people filled streets in the weeks leading up to their hot spot. It's not like just every place on earth will become a hot spot. There are certain actions, activities, behaviors, demographics, and urbanogrpahies that will lend itself to becoming a hot spot.
There was a seventeen year old who died in New Orleans. And no, he did not have any underlying conditions. He played football at his high school.
If Destroying our entire way of life, isn't REQUIRED because of ONE PERSON;
WHEN THE HELL IS IT?? We should ALL be TOTALLY WILLING to do ANYTHING !!
but, what's this?
According to the New Orleans Advocate, Mr Moran was surprised that his son’s cause of death had been diagnosed as coronavirus, saying: “It was heart failure.
SO... No underlying conditions, just Heart Disease?
is anyone (i mean, ANYONE) at ALL surprised that FF is a lying sack of shit?
besides the different r values, Obama could not be seen as visibly interfering with the economy he saved us from, sarc, biden was allowed to rant about the avian flu, but no one took him seriously,
"the Untied States, like Italy early on, is classifying deaths as C19 when the actual cause of death was something else"
Exactly. See the Nebraska hospice example upthread.
Anything to feed the panic. This will be part of The Reckoning.
The sports conversation is talking past the sale. "eat your vegetables and there will be dessert soon after".
As opposed to my political opponents who are talking about a year of nothing but vegetables because they like to control people.
A commenter on this thread suggested that people who do not hold Trump responsible for the spread of covid-19 in the US are in a "trump cult."
So I did a little bit of online research on the characteristics of cults and cult members.
The overall definition (attributed to a guy named Lifton) is that a cult member believes that he believes things for rational reasons, but his beliefs are actually irrational and are controlled by the cult. The way this is done is to isolate the person from non-cult members and control his sources of information.
This was in the context of a Psychology Today article intended to show that Trump supporters have some aspects of being cult-like. The article was poorly reasoned. Its author cherry picked data from multiple surveys and used "Trump supporter" and "Republican" as though they were interchangeable, among other things.
So it cited some stat that said that Republicans were more likely to get their news from a single source, Fox.
The idea that a person's thoughts are controlled because the only news program they watch is Brett Baehr is ridiculous. People get their "news" from multiple source. They don't sit in front of the TV and get their mind programmed for one hour each day. And the reverse of the idea is equally silly. If you read the NY Times and WaPo, listen to NPR, and watch CNN, you are not getting more viewpoints on public issues than our hypothetical Fox News viewer. You are getting the same viewpoint from different sources.
The idea that Trump supporters are self-isolated and only hear positive news about Trump & his policies is ridiculous. The idea that Trump detractors are self-isolated and only hear negative news about about Trump & his policies is less far fetched.
Tim: "The incubation period is 2 weeks. If isolating has not worked in 4 weeks, then it is not working and we need to refocus on other approaches."
Right. Because actual quarantines require actual isolation -- with enforcement. Like, separating families.
Since new cases after 2 weeks of collective "isolation" indicate that a minority of the risk groups did not in fact isolate and irresponsibly broke quarantine--allowing for some exceptions, like seniors in nursing homes--at what point do we, the collective sacrificers, say: if you don't do your part, we won't do ours and you're out of luck?
Very few people think that COVID-19 is "nothing." A lot of people think that it is not Captain Tripps.
Exactly. That was always an em-pathetic argument. The question is what to do during the next months, years, while the virus(es) spreads through communities, until there is sufficient innate, acquired, and, hopefully, inoculated immunity to mitigate its progress. Do we revisit globalism. Do we revisit immigration reform. What will be uncovered as the darkness of the twilight haze is dispersed?
It is a good time for spouses to catch up on interpersonal exchanges. There was a reason we married each other....and by Jove it’s still there. The wife actually seems interested in just me, in between the calls and messages from her social circle. Makes me proud. Although she still thinks me to be a slightly strange , if interesting, creature. Love is in the air.
You know, there's a lot of finger pointing going on and it's mostly all bullshit. There's a serious threat and everyone today is doing everything they can to help. Except for Nancy Pelosi, and that's a clear and obvious point for any breathing human to observe.
But Nancy aside, I do have to wonder what was going on with those who do the government procurement when the Obama administration had to run through the stockpile of masks. Sure, some are now pulling out articles from the notoriously anti-liberty group Pro Publica (what a misnomer that is) saying how it was the Tea Party's fault. Sure. Let's say that's true. Tea Partiers, when they were not busy loading guns and taking food from the mouths of small black children were preventing everyone else in the government from doing their jobs.
When government gets a cut in any department- it is always a cut in the increase to their allotment . It's never an actual cut. If we ever made actual cuts then we'd see our debt and deficits drop once in awhile (not from increased tax revenues). So while the CDC, or whatever department actually orders things like face masks, may have had a cut in their raise, I'm sure they did not have a cut in actual dollars. And even if they did, what was it? A drop in budget from $40B to $30B? Do ya think you could scrape up a few masks with a few extra million dollars?
In any business outside of government, purchasers will build up stock to meet pre-established pars or build-to's. If you need 100, and you're down to 50, it automatically triggers a buy for 50 more. Our government cannot do that, can it?
Which is why you don't want them in control of any key parts of your life. Prepare for your own lives, people. Except the military. They do that well. Usually.
I think the President is broadcasting his concern, and the concerns of just about everyone, and signalling "getting back to normal" as a priority he's not forgetting, a goal to be worked towards.
@Francisco D,
In regards to the first point, politicians and "scientists" who underestimated the pandemic would be in much more trouble than those who overestimated it.
Kinda like a viral version of Pascal's Wager -- but in reverse!
Rather than overestimate or underestimate the pandemic, it'd better to try to properly evaluate the pandemic, which should be done, in my view, in the context of looking at the data from past epidemics, say, from 1900 to 2014.
I Have Misplaced My Pants @ 8:29: "...The willingness of people to just get in their cage without asking any real questions about it scares me."
This. Not saying we should all begin to practice "Irish democracy" but this blind submissiveness is getting kinky. Reminds me of the drills of school children (and employees generally) to address "active shooter" threats. The first thing that everybody was supposed to do was...passive. Run and hide. Wait to be discovered; and, if discovered, only then "fight." By throwing books and shoes?
I do believe in our fighting spirit but I very much doubt that all these jumped-up local commissars have a clue how to invoke and direct it.
If areas are on lockdown to minimize the cases and deaths and the cases and deaths are minimized, then the statistics could show that the virus isn't as dangerous as was thought. Sounds like a catch-22 situation.
]2008-2016] Would some smart person here like to explain this?
It was a progressive period that was... could not be marred by pandemics, saved and created wars, diversity, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises, trails of tears), children in cages, social epidemics, body counts, etc.
@B.A.G., I don't think those data make the point Michael intended at all. The greater implied lethality of Covid-19 is pretty striking: 2.7% of identified cases vs. .03% for H1N1. (Yes, I'm aware of the sample-section issues in identifying cases.) And focusing on relative total deaths is premature, since the H1Ni fatality numbers are for the complete duration of the epidemic while this one is ongoing.
and signalling "getting back to normal" as a priority he's not forgetting, a goal to be worked towards.
He has the hard problem of reducing excess deaths and mitigating collateral damage.
Ken B said...
People should read Taleb on risk.
4/5/20, 10:47 AM
I have. I have also read criticism of Taleb.
Taleb has a number of interesting ideas. One of the ways that he defines a black swan event is that no one is able to predict its coming, but once it has arrived, a narrative is constructed that shows that the event was inevitable. Taleb uses the example of the First World War. The common narrative now is that everyone in Europe knew that war was coming in the early 1910's. Taleb says his investigation of financial and futures markets before the war showed that this was not true. We listen to the historical voices that foretold war and dismiss the equally authoritative voices that dismissed the possibility of war.
I read, just today, an AP news article that said Trump was too slow to respond to covid-19 in the US because the feds did not begin to stock up on masks and respirators until mid March.
Unsaid was that the US began to stock up on masks and respirators when WHO declared covid-19 a pandemic on March 11.
Can you see the narrative being built? No authoritative voice saw the covid-19 pandemic coming, but now that it has arrived, we are told that any fool should have known in January that it was inevitable.
Howard at 9:09 AM
... buying into his cult of deception. ... That's the kind of things that marks do to justify swallowing the cult doctrine
Are the 63 million people who voted for Donald Trump a "cult"?
How is this "cult" different from the people who voted for Hillary Clinton?
Instead of name-calling people who disagree with you -- calling them a "cult" -- you ought to discuss the issues civilly.
Shouting Thomas said...
@Howard
The claim that you’re a thinking person and that everybody is an indoctrinated robot is one of the most common conceits of the internet.
I usually assume that the person making this claim is an indoctrinated robot.
4/5/20, 9:05 AM
At the risk of appearing robotic, this. You have said it very well and on Disqus would have earned a truckload of upvotes.
Howard, or as I call him when he is in this mode, Garbage Howie, is distinctively obnoxious in his application of the tactic, but he's really not that special otherwise. Being this sort of jerk seems to make people feel special, the kind of people who need to feel special.
Apparently, though I don't see it in my young cousin-in-law who just got out, the Marines train one to be grating and obnoxious (and if the case of an acquaintance of my father is an example, inveterate liars and cheats). Would not seem good training for shipmates, but there you are.
I wish Fen were here, I'm sure he would be right at home jamming Howie's garbage attitude up his ass.
Sorry about the "go fuck yourself", Howard. I, for one, should not attack someone for using humor to try to get by. It's what gets me by.
I'm trying to remain positive and not panic during this crisis, but my emotions are kinda all over the place. I guess you hit a nerve.
HI @Not Sure,
Well, I appreciate your civility in at least attempting to answer the question. So, I will respond with civility.
Look simply at the actual death numbers. "Cases" get fuzzy, because there's so many mild cases and/or recovered cases.
Deaths for H1NI in 2009 were 13,000. We tolerated this. We tolerated 44,000 flu deaths just this winter.
Why no lockdown in 2009 for the Swine Flu, why no lockdown for the ordinary flu in 2020 for 44,000 deaths, or in any other flu season, ever? I'm not even sure we locked down the economy in 1918, for the Spanish Flu. Somebody had to fight World War 1, No?
Cheers.
Bay Area Guy said...
He is correct. Source: CDC
And yet, in 2009, nobody in the gov't or this blog, was advocating locking down the ENTIRE country, telling us to stay home, telling us to say 6 feet away from each other, cancelling baseball, cancelling basketball, and shuttering restaurants, hotels, casinos, and airports.
Would some smart person here like to explain this?
Trump is president.
This is Trump's Katrina.
Katrina was a press manifestation as much as it was a disaster.
A lot of people still take what he media says at face value. They are not particularly bright.
I keep reading stuff like this post thst seem to say that PDJT is responsible for the lockdowns.
Does he even have the power to order a lockdown anywhere in the us? If he did wouldn't it be an unconstitutional abuse of power?
The states, and in some cases cities are the ones doing them. They are the only ones who could stop them and let us go Back to work.
Yet pdjt gets the blame.
Why?
And why, with NYC being such a hotbed of disease and death, has gov titty rings not locked it down?
I think it's the only major city without a lockdown. Are all those deaths on his hands?
John Henry
Not Sure said...
@B.A.G., I don't think those data make the point Michael intended at all. The greater implied lethality of Covid-19 is pretty striking: 2.7% of identified cases vs. .03% for H1N1. (Yes, I'm aware of the sample-section issues in identifying cases.) And focusing on relative total deaths is premature, since the H1Ni fatality numbers are for the complete duration of the epidemic while this one is ongoing.
The people who should be trying to understand this are purposely hiding how widespread this virus is.
Millions of people have had this virus. Most thought it was the flu and many didn't even know they had it.
Any honest analysis of testing and just the positive rates will show this. For a while no matter how many people were tested ~10-12% came up positive.
Not Sure
The data we are dealing with is known as bullshit data or incomplete data. The low death rate for H1N1 was because the denominator was sky high. Those numbers weren’t tossed around then because they weren’t known then. The operative word you use is “implied”
But I suppose your point is that the death rate and mass of infections for H1N1 were ok because they weren’t being trumpeted daily and we were not made to cower in our homes and in hindsight (hindsight) the numbers really weren’t so bad.
Not to mention we had no fucking clue it was happening until it wasn’t.
There are people on this blog, myself included, that can carry on like this indefinitely because we have the resources. But when most of the country can’t come up with five hundred dollars in cash it is very wrong to eliminate, perhaps permanently, their chance to make a living.
Who will have the political will to give the all clear? WHO? CDC? Trump?
And yet, in 2009, nobody in the gov't or this blog, was advocating locking down the ENTIRE country, telling us to stay home, telling us to say 6 feet away from each other, cancelling baseball, cancelling basketball, and shuttering restaurants, hotels, casinos, and airports.
Would some smart person here like to explain this?
The notion and example of "total lockdown" came from China. Our media, being largely in cahoots with or sympathetic to the CCP, went along.
Lewis
I agree, the blame trump narrative misses the obvious fact that the Democrats, and most world leaders, were slower than Trump.
As for Taleb, I simply mean people seem not to grok that we need to worry about tail risks, and that risk blind approaches are unwise.
Lucky for us, this pandemic came when we had a strong economy, were at (relative) peace, and weren’t in the middle of implementing a ruinously expensive new healthcare system.
Imagine doing this in a recession, with 7% unemployment to begin with.
Not Sure said...
@B.A.G., I don't think those data make the point Michael intended at all. The greater implied lethality of Covid-19 is pretty striking: 2.7% of identified cases vs. .03% for H1N1. (Yes, I'm aware of the sample-section issues in identifying cases.) And focusing on relative total deaths is premature, since the H1Ni fatality numbers are for the complete duration of the epidemic while this one is ongoing.
Highlighting this because it is absolutely correct. Without the drastic distancing measures there’s every reason to think this virus would have infected at least as many people as H1N1 did (quite likely more) and with a higher case fatality rate. Its true that the 2.7% CFR is probably higher than the actual rate because we don’t have an accurate denominator, but if we’re off by a factor of ten then the CFR is still almost 10 X the CFR of H1N1.
Does anyone believe that we currently have 100 X the number of cases as those that have been identified through testing? That’s what you would have to believe to think that this virus has less lethality than H1N1 flu.
that was an illuminating piece, bay area guy, did you note how outstanding tests, are skewing the numbers positive,
Achilles- if the virus has been here since last year (I think that’s your theory?) then why is it suddenly spiking in NYC and NOLA?
@Achilles,
My man!
Yes, a few real smart people, are undertaking random testing in the US to determine the actual morbidity and mortality rates of the general population. Hopefully, Epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis from Stanford -- referenced in the article - is leading the charge. He is the Michael Jordan of epidemiology.
Most hopefully, the random sampling will show that the virus is already fairly widespread, but not causing much death or illness. If this is what the data shows, then Trump has the leverage to start re-opening the lockdown.
Stay healthy, brother!
MayBee:
The people having affairs have elaborate stories about spending three hours in the middle of the day searching for toilet paper; and explaining that the strange new stain is hand sanitizer residue.
Achilles said: The people who should be trying to understand this are purposely hiding how widespread this virus is. Millions of people have had this virus. Most thought it was the flu and many didn't even know they had it.
We talked to several people here in southern Arizona who had severe COVID-19 symptoms in early February, but fully recovered after 7-10 days. My wife was one of them.
You have to be careful talking about that because some people assume you are a nutball.
We were closing a car deal with a Toyota finance manager a week ago when my wife disclosed her experience. He looked shocked and we wondered if he thought we were nuts. Then he said, "I had the same thing in February".
All the people with this experience were athletic and ranged from their late 30's to the late 50's.
COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death,” CDC guidelines issued March 24 read.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf
Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/cdc-tells-hospitals-list-covid-19-cause-death-even-assumed-caused-contributed-death-lab-tests-not-required/
Several people have commented and questioned here whether Italy was claiming kung flu when there were other causes. I talked about the artificial aids deaths in africa in the 90s.
Sarah Hoyt mentioned the other day that some people in Colorado were being diagnosed without testing.
They are fucking with us, folks. Juicing the stats for whatever reason. Probably to scare the crap out of us.
John Henry
@ B. A. G., if you want to simply compare number of deaths, you must consider the second point that “Not Sure” made. You are comparing apples (deaths in a full year for H1N1) to oranges (deaths in the first few months for Covid 19.)
How do you think the numbers will compare in December 2020?
And even more to the point, since we can see in certain cities like N.Y. and NOLA the high rate of infections and deaths as a consequence of more contact among people in those locations, would you agree that the number of Covid 19 deaths would have been much higher by the end of this year if we had not put all these shutdowns in place? Even if you don’t think it was necessary, surely you’d agree that whatever number we end up with under the current conditions will be substantially lower than what it would have been otherwise?
You don’t have to think that the steps being taken are the best or smartest way to contain this to just acknowledge that something needed to be done.
Howard said...
He's just warming the crowd (of his faithful who think covid-19 is a nothingburger) up for his next one month extension of the social distancing lockdown.
His next extension?
Can you point me to any lockdown order pdjt has issued?
If he has issued these orders, how does Cuomo get a pass on complying?
You sre full of shit on this one, howard. If you don't like the lockdown, blame your governor.
John Henry
@B.A.G., Thanks for your civil reply. I think most of us just want to understand what's the truth in all this. And I certainly agree that we can't know the transmissibility of this virus without randomized testing for infections and antibodies.
What we really want to know is the lethality of covid-19 conditional on infection (although the possibility of permanent lung damage is nothing to sneeze at, so to speak). The probability of dying from coven-19 is the product of the probability of exposure times the probability of infection conditional on exposure times the seriousness of the resulting disease times the probability of death conditional on being in critical condition (duly accounting for comorbidities). That's a lot of information, and policy decisions have to be made on the basis of projections from limited information.
We do now have some data (from the British NHS) on the last link in the chain I described: death rates among critical cases. Of the greatest relevance to the ongoing arguments here and elsewhere, there are stats on death rates by age group. (So before anyone jumps on the fact that the NHS sucks, the relative age-contingent stats are biased only to the extent that the NHS sucks differentially by age of patients.) You can download the data here.
Here are some relevant characteristics of critical-care covid-19 patients(all of which are subject to change as the disease progresses, of course):
93% were living unassisted
68% had a BMI < 30
7% had "severe comorbidities"
Here's a comparison of the death rates by age group among critical-care patients from cover-19 vs. viral pneumonia critical-care patients in 2017-2019:
16-49: 24% vs. 10%
50-69: 46% vs. 23%
70+: 68% vs. 31%
So, yes, this disease is significantly more lethal among critical cases involving the old than the not-old, but it's about twice as lethal as viral pneumonia among critical cases regardless of age. And it is not just a threat to the obese or the otherwise health-impaired.
None of this means that I'm in favor of a complete lockdown, but it does make me sympathetic to those advocating an abundance of caution.
>.
"Does anyone believe that we currently have 100 X the number of cases"
I think it almost certain that 1/10th or less of the people who have the disease at any given moment in time have been tested. Is 100X? I don't know, but I would wager it is at least in the area of 10 to 20X. It may be that we see the spikes in deaths in places where people suddenly start going to the hospital with flu-like symptoms in far higher numbers than previously. Given the severe mortality of the people in the ICUs, I do have to start questioning whether or not being in the hospital is in itself an additional risk factor. In other words, is being in a hospital a net positive? Sure, if you arrive with ARDS in the ER, then admission is probably a net positive, but I am wondering about the progression from admission then developing ARDS. Strangely, you can't find good data on any of this- for example, just a breakdown of who goes directly the ventilator- someone in a hospital already, or is it someone from the ER?
Howard: "Those are all self-inflicted wounds Drago. Perhaps you feel like 9/11 was New Yorkers fault for being too wealthy too successful too free too Jewish"
Howard, knowing his years of comments about how funny it was that midwesterners were dying of opiod overdoses, retreats to the liberal/dem/LLR "safe zone": accusing others of anti-semitism.
Rather pathetic. Even for Howard.
But what else does he have? He can't defend his many years worth of comments, can he?
We talked to several people here in southern Arizona who had severe COVID-19 symptoms in early February, but fully recovered after 7-10 days. My wife was one of them.
You have to be careful talking about that because some people assume you are a nutball.
You’re not a nutball but there are a lot of respiratory viruses that cause these symptoms and it’s unlikely that everyone who thinks they had it in February or earlier really did.
Francisco: "We talked to several people here in southern Arizona who had severe COVID-19 symptoms in early February, but fully recovered after 7-10 days. My wife was one of them."
My wife, youngest son and myself also experienced symptoms, though not severe, in early Feb at home in Colorado after attending a concert in NYC in late January.
Of course, there are thousands of other viral explanations as well.
In our case, the one very common symptom amongst us three was quite unusual fatigue. Like, extreme fatigue. Lasted about a week.
"The newspapers don't tell you what you need to know..."
Lewis Wetzel, you have a wonderful gift for understatement. And you could easily add the national media to that comment.
Two weeks ago I watched Sixty Minutes at a friend's house. The first segment was on the COVID-19 trajectory. The second segment was an interview with Fed Governor Neil Kashkari. I can understand why people watching these things are in such a panic. One might think that a fire in NYC will soon engulf the entire country.
I don't live out in the country. I live on a quiet street in a Los Angeles suburb, nine miles east of downtown LA. The contrast between what is on the "news" and what happens outside my door is stark.
{{{ that he understood his son had died from “heart failure.” He said he was surprised at the suggestion his son may have died as a result of COVID-19 and disputed that was a certainty.
“It was heart failure,” Moran said. “People don’t want to let you heal. … I’m so upset.”}}}
Reading the article about the father and cause of death, seems like there's a good chance this was a drug-related death. I base that on the fact that the father said his son was home and not having any serious health symptoms after being diagnosed with the virus, but then was found "unresponsive" and rushed to the hospital. I suspect drugs because the description of a young person found suddenly unresponsive is word-for-word how the police reports read from the all-too-common young person's drug deaths. In my office alone, over the past ten years or so, two attorneys have lost their precious children in this way.
"then the CFR is still almost 10 X the CFR of H1N1"
Clearly, then, a disease that is ten times as bad requires a trillion times the response.
"According to the New Orleans Advocate, Mr Moran was surprised that his son’s cause of death had been diagnosed as coronavirus, saying: “It was heart failure.""
Anything to fuel the panic. Taking notes for The Reckoning.
CStanley said in response to Achilles.. if the virus has been here since last year (I think that’s your theory?) then why is it suddenly spiking in NYC and NOLA?
A list of plausible hypotheses:
1. Different infection doses (i.e., crowded conditions = more massive exposure)
2. Differential spread (i.e., mild cases started on the West Coast)
3. Different recovery factors (COVID exposed people here in AZ were very fit)
4. Different immunity factors (People here may have been exposed earlier and developed antibodies)
I have no idea if any of these hypotheses will bear out after investigation, but I am sure that current "scientific" understandings will evolve with more data.
Nichevo, Fen is gone because I trolled him into a meltdown. Another weak sister you look up to.
CStanley
“Does anyone believe that we currently have 100 X the number of cases as those that have been identified through testing? That’s what you would have to believe to think that this virus has less lethality than H1N1 flu.”
Wrong. You would not need 32 million cases to make that point.
My son had that February coughing sore throat fever aches and pains as well. No one else in the family got it.
I'm interested in this "whole concept" of what "our nation" — and sports — were "designed for."
______________
Pursuit of happiness pops into my mind!
Is Trump wrong about that?
A national poll I would like to see: Do you approve of the job the media are doing regarding the coronavirus?
"There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise...When a war breaks out, people say: 'It's too stupid; it can't last long.'...Stupidity has a knack of getting its way, as we should see if we were not so much wrapped up in ourselves...(Our townsfolk) went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views...They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free as long as there are pestilences."
---THE PLAGUE, Albert Camus
"I don't live out in the country. I live on a quiet street in a Los Angeles suburb, nine miles east of downtown LA. The contrast between what is on the "news" and what happens outside my door is stark."
That's why it's "news." It is a record of the daily events that are uncommon and/or alarming.
People are getting tired of isolation & economic despair.
The next step will be legal challenges to the various lock down regimes.
Repeated for the benefit of those of you who missed Sebastian's link in last night's Cafe thread. This is a Stanford professor of Medicine who also has a Ph.D. in economics.
L.A. County gives up on containing coronavirus, tells doctors to skip testing of some patients
-L.A. Times
None of this means that I'm in favor of a complete lockdown, but it does make me sympathetic to those advocating an abundance of caution.
I think the information is starting to appear that once a patient is on a ventilator, there may be permanent lung damage even with survival. That is a reason to get them on HCQ on diagnosis unless they are asymptomatic. Even then, good followup is needed.
Second; testing, testing, testing. We need to know who has it and who has had it and is immune.
Another worry is wnat is going on in Singapore?
Meanwhile, Singapore is experiencing a second wave of the virus. As of noon yesterday, there were 75 new reported cases, the largest single day spike yet. Sixty-nine of the cases involved people with no history of recent travel abroad.
Health officials immediately identified four clusters of the virus, three dormitories and a ball room where a wedding was held. More clusters were identified soon thereafter. However, it appears that some of the new cases have not yet been linked to previous cases or to any cluster. Officials are still working to “track” these infections.
I hope that gets explained.
CStaley said
“You’re not a nutball but there are a lot of respiratory viruses that cause these symptoms and it’s unlikely that everyone who thinks they had it in February or earlier really did.“
It’s surprising how many people confuse symptoms and diseases. Again, we have been hampered by the lack of tests. There is an AI diagnostic bot , symptoma, on the web. I suggest anyone who believes they had covid should at the very least check out that or the CDC site, which also has something.
(eaglebeak)
If I had a dollar for every time our hostess has underlined that she didn't vote for Trump, I'd be --what? --as rich as Croesus.
Actually, I'd like to be able to vote for Trump as many times as Ann tells us she didn't vote for Trump. I believe I'd be performing a public service.
“Does anyone believe that we currently have 100 X the number of cases as those that have been identified through testing? That’s what you would have to believe to think that this virus has less lethality than H1N1 flu.”
I would still suggest that you can have a high case count and low lethality or low case count and high lethality. We just don’t have nearly enough DBs (dead bodies, for those who don’t watch too much CSI) for decently high mortality rate combined with a 10x or 100x case count. Officially, we just broke the 4K mark for fatalities. At a 1% fatality rate (I think roughly about the middle of what the authorities consider realistic), that would mean that 400k have been infected. If they are off by 100x, that would mean 40m infected, and with that 4K death toll, a fatality rate of .01%. Or if half the COVID-19 deaths were missed, and counted as something else, a fatality rate of .02%. But we just don’t have enough DBs lying around to justify anything else.
I think that we pretty much know that the fatality rate is not .01% or even .02%. The .5%-2% fatality range very much appears to be a worldwide consensus (not that I believe that much in consensus science, but find it useful here). When they were still able to trace the contagion, it was still in the 1% mortality rate range.
Of course, once we get adequate antibody testing, I think that the scientists will be able to tell us fairly quickly whether we have had 400k, 4m (10x), or 40m (100x) who have had the virus so far in this country.
Is WAR a good metaphor from American History perspective?
consider the course of various recent wars + wars on poverty, drugs etc.>>>> none of which were intended to be won!
People who say President Trump doesn’t care don’t really watch him, particularly when he talks about Elmhurst hospital in his home borough of Queens. There’s real pain there. Similar for New York as a whole.
The primary thing to remember is that the Chinese Communist Party made this much worse. (If you want to know how, watch the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.) We have learned some things:
Globalism sucks. Urban Density and Sardine Mass Transit sucks. Bureaucratic NIH syndrome and red tape kills. CDC needs to work on disease control and not things like obesity, gun violence and all the other non-germaine tasks foisted on to them when progressives couldn’t get it done otherwise. We must repatriate our medicine and medical devices (China can make things we can live without.)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-usa-cost/
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