COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

[It’s so Joever]

Alright I think the virus should peak (in number of new cases per day) in about 3-6 weeks (when the second wave peaks) in the US. This is your daily reminder that had we adopted “authoritarian” measures early, we would have been done with this in the US by now.

[It’s so Joever]

Surprised this hasn't been talked about yet in the thread, but Walmart an Target are rolling out new social distancing measures tomorrow limiting stores to 20% capacity.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1246277075100749824

Good, the grocery store seems to be the one place you can't avoid people who don't have a mask & blatantly disregard social distancing protocols.

No.  Bad.  Very, very bad.  This will just lead to more panic buying, which means more people will turn up to shop, which will now translate into long lines outside grocery stores (4 hrs wait for milk and eggs?), which means even *more panic buying.

This is the truly apocalyptic, society-ending stuff. Not having to share a ventilator.

Are you trolling? “Sharing a ventilator” can mean multiple tickets to death, especially when the patients are in critical condition. It’s only being done now because of the shortages. Sharing a ventilator means that both patients have to be in a similar condition continuously. It can be done, but not in the long term. Having to wait to buy toilet paper is now worse than suffocating to death because you couldn’t get a ventilator to support your own lungs? Okay.

[It’s so Joever]

It is definitely time to start planning to bring back the sports. Good idea, Don, couldn't last much longer like this. Let's just get the new schedules in place.

https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1246435315444785153?s=19

Some people on Atlas are underestimating how much live sports would be a morale boost for tens of millions of people.  Being able to watch sports every day would take my pain level in this from a 9/10 to a 6.5/10 just like that.

Hopefully they can figure out a strategy to bring back sports, even without crowds.

China and we in Europe also survive months without watching sports.

It’s not that hard.

Sports players spread the virus around, as would people in stadiums.

Nobody needs fukking football or baseball this year !

Yes, we do. Otherwise there is little or no reason to even be alive for most of the population. No one will obey any rules beginning in June.

Get a ****ing grip.

[It’s so Joever]

It is definitely time to start planning to bring back the sports. Good idea, Don, couldn't last much longer like this. Let's just get the new schedules in place.

https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1246435315444785153?s=19

Some people on Atlas are underestimating how much live sports would be a morale boost for tens of millions of people.  Being able to watch sports every day would take my pain level in this from a 9/10 to a 6.5/10 just like that.

Hopefully they can figure out a strategy to bring back sports, even without crowds.

China and we in Europe also survive months without watching sports.

It’s not that hard.

Sports players spread the virus around, as would people in stadiums.

Nobody needs fukking football or baseball this year !

This is why America is screwed this time. Americans are unwilling as a whole, to make small sacrifices to prevent the virus from spreading further. We have the entire vast internet, face-time, books, to entertain ourselves, but we still refuse to be even remotely reasonable and demand live sports in the middle of a pandemic.

[It’s so Joever]

It is definitely time to start planning to bring back the sports. Good idea, Don, couldn't last much longer like this. Let's just get the new schedules in place.

https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1246435315444785153?s=19

Some people on Atlas are underestimating how much live sports would be a morale boost for tens of millions of people.  Being able to watch sports every day would take my pain level in this from a 9/10 to a 6.5/10 just like that.

Hopefully they can figure out a strategy to bring back sports, even without crowds.

China and we in Europe also survive months without watching sports.

It’s not that hard.

Sports players spread the virus around, as would people in stadiums.

Nobody needs fukking football or baseball this year !

Yes, we do. Otherwise there is little or no reason to even be alive for most of the population. No one will obey any rules beginning in June.

No offence, but it's kinda pathetic that you can't survive without watching a bunch of guys throw a ball round a field. Everyone has to make sacrifices in this time of crisis and missing this years baseball season or whatever seems like quite a small sacrifice.

We have already made the ultimate sacrifice in this life plus plan to sacrifice two months beyond the greatest month of the year. I think that's plenty fair. After that, I plan to begin returning to my life and vacationing.

Sitting at home for a few weeks to prevent viral spread isn’t the “ultimate sacrifice”. Thousands of medical workers are putting their own damn lives on the line each and everyday, just to help victims of the virus. That’s the ultimate sacrifice. 100 years ago, young men were told to run into the line of Machine gun fire for their country, that’s the ultimate sacrifice. You aren’t being told to risk your life, you are being told to stay at home for a few weeks. Unless you are losing your job because of this, I am sorry, I don’t feel an ounce of pity for your “ultimate sacrifice”, and I don’t feel bad at all you are missing a few sports events.

[It’s so Joever]

When are we going to be willing to have a conversation about whether we have massively overreacted without people saying that anyone who doesn't repeat the #StayAtHomeFor18Months #FlattenTheCurve mantra is wanting people to die?

https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1246491967841882112

Hopefully soon.  I'm a 63 year old in an essential occupation.  I have come to believe that this is an overreaction that has arisen out of good and bad motives.

The medical and scientific "experts" (and I'm not denying their expertise) have, indeed, been repeatedly wrong about this issue, and that includes the now Iconic Dr. Fauci.  John Kerry was for the Iraq war before he was against it and Anthony Fauci thought this would be a minor deal before it came the Bubonic Plague Lite.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants.

That was February 19, 2020.  Here's what he said April 2:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/fauci-national-lockdown-stay-at-home-orders-152802623.html

As more U.S. states issue stay-at-home orders and the federal government recommends a 30-day period of social distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday suggested the need for a national lockdown, while acknowledging he does not have the authority to order one.

Fauci has lectured Americans about how people will die and how we need to stay at home longer, or "people will die".  And I get that.  I get it about "lowering the curve".  But will people not die if we tank the economy and they cannot maintain basic necessities?  Tucker Carlson stated last night in pondering the issue that we can go on like this long enough to where we become a poorer nation going forward.  Is he wrong?  Is that an outcome that can happen.  Carlson also suggested that poorer nations are less healthy than richer nations.  Is he wrong?

Our system of government is not an "expertocracy".  There's a place for experts, and Fauci is indeed that, but it's easy for him to talk how others need to hang in there because he's not losing his job and he's got the means to ride out whatever comes.  The same can't be said for millions of Americans' their entire future can be altered for the worse, and permanently so, if they have to do without doing business for 3-4 months (or even longer).  Business "experts" predict all sorts of 1929 scenarios should this go on for 5-6 months; are they to just be blown off?

There does become a point where the cure is worse than the disease.  That needs to be honestly discussed.  I'm not convinced that locking down America to the extreme degree we have is a solution that is smaller than the problem.  Perhaps it IS necessary.  But I'm not willing to blindly listen to "experts" uncritically.  It was the foreign policy Anthony Faucis that advised LBJ prior to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution all the way up through the Tet Offensive.  

So America is now somehow special from literally every other country that has gone under lockdown?
We have the most cases in this country because of people like you, who fail to understand that a complete collapse of the healthcare system and millions of deaths as a result (not just from Covid, but from the hospital collapse) will also hurt the economy. We had months before to prevent this outcome, and you people called us “alarmists”, told us to stop panicking over every little thing, compared it to the flu, etc. Your actions have consequences and it’s too late to prevent any harm to the economy. The smart thing to do would be to go under a strict lockdown for two weeks nationally, and then to ease restrictions based on infection rates in certain states. Of course, you would still cry about the economy and “muh big government” no matter what. We get it, you think science is an imprecise guessing game and Fauci doesn’t know what he is doing. We get it, your amazing internet biology knowledge triumphs over decades of public work and experience in fighting epidemics.

[It’s so Joever]

When are we going to be willing to have a conversation about whether we have massively overreacted without people saying that anyone who doesn't repeat the #StayAtHomeFor18Months #FlattenTheCurve mantra is wanting people to die?

https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1246491967841882112

Hopefully soon.  I'm a 63 year old in an essential occupation.  I have come to believe that this is an overreaction that has arisen out of good and bad motives.

The medical and scientific "experts" (and I'm not denying their expertise) have, indeed, been repeatedly wrong about this issue, and that includes the now Iconic Dr. Fauci.  John Kerry was for the Iraq war before he was against it and Anthony Fauci thought this would be a minor deal before it came the Bubonic Plague Lite.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants.

That was February 19, 2020.  Here's what he said April 2:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/fauci-national-lockdown-stay-at-home-orders-152802623.html

As more U.S. states issue stay-at-home orders and the federal government recommends a 30-day period of social distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday suggested the need for a national lockdown, while acknowledging he does not have the authority to order one.

Fauci has lectured Americans about how people will die and how we need to stay at home longer, or "people will die".  And I get that.  I get it about "lowering the curve".  But will people not die if we tank the economy and they cannot maintain basic necessities?  Tucker Carlson stated last night in pondering the issue that we can go on like this long enough to where we become a poorer nation going forward.  Is he wrong?  Is that an outcome that can happen.  Carlson also suggested that poorer nations are less healthy than richer nations.  Is he wrong?

Our system of government is not an "expertocracy".  There's a place for experts, and Fauci is indeed that, but it's easy for him to talk how others need to hang in there because he's not losing his job and he's got the means to ride out whatever comes.  The same can't be said for millions of Americans' their entire future can be altered for the worse, and permanently so, if they have to do without doing business for 3-4 months (or even longer).  Business "experts" predict all sorts of 1929 scenarios should this go on for 5-6 months; are they to just be blown off?

There does become a point where the cure is worse than the disease.  That needs to be honestly discussed.  I'm not convinced that locking down America to the extreme degree we have is a solution that is smaller than the problem.  Perhaps it IS necessary.  But I'm not willing to blindly listen to "experts" uncritically.  It was the foreign policy Anthony Faucis that advised LBJ prior to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution all the way up through the Tet Offensive.  

So America is now somehow special from literally every other country that has gone under lockdown?
We have the most cases in this country because of people like you, who fail to understand that a complete collapse of the healthcare system and millions of deaths as a result (not just from Covid, but from the hospital collapse) will also hurt the economy. We had months before to prevent this outcome, and you people called us “alarmists”, told us to stop panicking over every little thing, compared it to the flu, etc. Your actions have consequences and it’s too late to prevent any harm to the economy. The smart thing to do would be to go under a strict lockdown for two weeks nationally, and then to ease restrictions based on infection rates in certain states. Of course, you would still cry about the economy and “muh big government” no matter what. We get it, you think science is an imprecise guessing game and Fauci doesn’t know what he is doing. We get it, your amazing internet biology knowledge triumphs over decades of public work and experience in fighting epidemics.

Your post is an ignorant personal attack.  Ignorant, in that it ignores my central point.

I've never been opposed to a "strict lockdown" for a "two-week period"  I have never said I'm opposed to THAT.  But there has been talk from "experts" (including Dr. Fauci) about continuing a stay at home order for several months, drastic restrictions for up to a year, and massive shutdowns of part of our economy for an extended period of time, and these proposals (which are, indeed, out there) are proposals that propose a long-term cutting back on things that are the stuff of life.  And it's being made by people who underestimated the scope of the problem not that long ago.  

I'm not the one that predicted what Fauci predicted, and I don't have the credentials to give an expert opinion.  I'm not a science guy, period.  But I'm acquainted on a daily basis about the economic devastation this quarantine has been on the most ECONOMICALLY vulnerable in our country, and that's the relatively unskilled working poor.  They may receive checks to get them through for a while, but what after that?  I'm also not a "much big government" Republican; go through my posts and find me emphasizing that theme.  (That's an argument which required you to use your reading glasses and not your flamethrower.)

I'll again remind people of the Vietnam War.  All of the "experts" were for it after they were against it.  What's the pre-eminent book about the Brain Trust of experts that got us into Vietnam, and got us stuck there?  It's David Halberstram's The Best and the Brightest.  The questioning of experts is often silenced until after they're proven wrong, when other people are paying for their miscalculations.  Dr. Fauci is an expert, and I'll give him that.  I'll give him a number of benefits of the doubt.  But I'm not going to agree to the idea that, yes, a 5 month lockdown is OK; anything to beat this virus.  That's a cure that is likely worse than the disease, yet people are proposing that in this situation.  

Understood.
I apologize for misinterpreting your position.
You are correct that in theory, there is a point in which we would need to balance out the costs of human life with the costs of economic/societal damage of long term lockdowns. All that being said, we are nowhere near that point, and likely won’t have to get to that point if we enforce these lockdowns in the short term. Unfortunately, the argument you make is abused by people to justify completely reversing lockdowns, and “going back to work” now. Fauci did talk about some Americans being under lockdown for eight weeks, but that would be a worst-case scenario if it had to be implemented nationwide for that long. As for your comments about how Fauci “underestimated” the problem, that is false. Fauci was well aware of this problem from the beginning, and it was Trump and a few select governors who ignored/downplayed the problem. It is definitely too early to tell how long we will need these restrictions, but I would expect some States to be ready to transition slowly back to normal after a few weeks of lockdown. I can understand completely why you would be opposed to a five-month lockdown, and I think we won’t need something like that anyways.

[It’s so Joever]

When are we going to be willing to have a conversation about whether we have massively overreacted without people saying that anyone who doesn't repeat the #StayAtHomeFor18Months #FlattenTheCurve mantra is wanting people to die?

https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1246491967841882112

Hopefully soon.  I'm a 63 year old in an essential occupation.  I have come to believe that this is an overreaction that has arisen out of good and bad motives.

The medical and scientific "experts" (and I'm not denying their expertise) have, indeed, been repeatedly wrong about this issue, and that includes the now Iconic Dr. Fauci.  John Kerry was for the Iraq war before he was against it and Anthony Fauci thought this would be a minor deal before it came the Bubonic Plague Lite.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants.

That was February 19, 2020.  Here's what he said April 2:

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/fauci-national-lockdown-stay-at-home-orders-152802623.html

As more U.S. states issue stay-at-home orders and the federal government recommends a 30-day period of social distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday suggested the need for a national lockdown, while acknowledging he does not have the authority to order one.

Fauci has lectured Americans about how people will die and how we need to stay at home longer, or "people will die".  And I get that.  I get it about "lowering the curve".  But will people not die if we tank the economy and they cannot maintain basic necessities?  Tucker Carlson stated last night in pondering the issue that we can go on like this long enough to where we become a poorer nation going forward.  Is he wrong?  Is that an outcome that can happen.  Carlson also suggested that poorer nations are less healthy than richer nations.  Is he wrong?

Our system of government is not an "expertocracy".  There's a place for experts, and Fauci is indeed that, but it's easy for him to talk how others need to hang in there because he's not losing his job and he's got the means to ride out whatever comes.  The same can't be said for millions of Americans' their entire future can be altered for the worse, and permanently so, if they have to do without doing business for 3-4 months (or even longer).  Business "experts" predict all sorts of 1929 scenarios should this go on for 5-6 months; are they to just be blown off?

There does become a point where the cure is worse than the disease.  That needs to be honestly discussed.  I'm not convinced that locking down America to the extreme degree we have is a solution that is smaller than the problem.  Perhaps it IS necessary.  But I'm not willing to blindly listen to "experts" uncritically.  It was the foreign policy Anthony Faucis that advised LBJ prior to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution all the way up through the Tet Offensive.  

So America is now somehow special from literally every other country that has gone under lockdown?
We have the most cases in this country because of people like you, who fail to understand that a complete collapse of the healthcare system and millions of deaths as a result (not just from Covid, but from the hospital collapse) will also hurt the economy. We had months before to prevent this outcome, and you people called us “alarmists”, told us to stop panicking over every little thing, compared it to the flu, etc. Your actions have consequences and it’s too late to prevent any harm to the economy. The smart thing to do would be to go under a strict lockdown for two weeks nationally, and then to ease restrictions based on infection rates in certain states. Of course, you would still cry about the economy and “muh big government” no matter what. We get it, you think science is an imprecise guessing game and Fauci doesn’t know what he is doing. We get it, your amazing internet biology knowledge triumphs over decades of public work and experience in fighting epidemics.

Your post is an ignorant personal attack.  Ignorant, in that it ignores my central point.

I've never been opposed to a "strict lockdown" for a "two-week period"  I have never said I'm opposed to THAT.  But there has been talk from "experts" (including Dr. Fauci) about continuing a stay at home order for several months, drastic restrictions for up to a year, and massive shutdowns of part of our economy for an extended period of time, and these proposals (which are, indeed, out there) are proposals that propose a long-term cutting back on things that are the stuff of life.  And it's being made by people who underestimated the scope of the problem not that long ago.  

I'm not the one that predicted what Fauci predicted, and I don't have the credentials to give an expert opinion.  I'm not a science guy, period.  But I'm acquainted on a daily basis about the economic devastation this quarantine has been on the most ECONOMICALLY vulnerable in our country, and that's the relatively unskilled working poor.  They may receive checks to get them through for a while, but what after that?  I'm also not a "much big government" Republican; go through my posts and find me emphasizing that theme.  (That's an argument which required you to use your reading glasses and not your flamethrower.)

I'll again remind people of the Vietnam War.  All of the "experts" were for it after they were against it.  What's the pre-eminent book about the Brain Trust of experts that got us into Vietnam, and got us stuck there?  It's David Halberstram's The Best and the Brightest.  The questioning of experts is often silenced until after they're proven wrong, when other people are paying for their miscalculations.  Dr. Fauci is an expert, and I'll give him that.  I'll give him a number of benefits of the doubt.  But I'm not going to agree to the idea that, yes, a 5 month lockdown is OK; anything to beat this virus.  That's a cure that is likely worse than the disease, yet people are proposing that in this situation.  

Understood.
I apologize for misinterpreting your position.
You are correct that in theory, there is a point in which we would need to balance out the costs of human life with the costs of economic/societal damage of long term lockdowns. All that being said, we are nowhere near that point, and likely won’t have to get to that point if we enforce these lockdowns in the short term. Unfortunately, the argument you make is abused by people to justify completely reversing lockdowns, and “going back to work” now. Fauci did talk about some Americans being under lockdown for eight weeks, but that would be a worst-case scenario if it had to be implemented nationwide for that long. As for your comments about how Fauci “underestimated” the problem, that is false. Fauci was well aware of this problem from the beginning, and it was Trump and a few select governors who ignored/downplayed the problem. It is definitely too early to tell how long we will need these restrictions, but I would expect some States to be ready to transition slowly back to normal after a few weeks of lockdown. I can understand completely why you would be opposed to a five-month lockdown, and I think we won’t need something like that anyways.

I'm not going to let Fauci off the hook.  He said what he said in February, and he was advising Trump then.  That doesn't mean he's wrong now, but it is fair to say he was wrong not too long ago, or he's wrong now and was right then.  

I just took my 14 year old son outside.  He wanted to roller skate, and then some kids came by (brothers) riding bikes.  I had to tell him he couldn't go skating off with them.  That really stunk.  Two weeks of that he can handle.  Four months?  Somehow, I don't think so.  You can talk about WWII and how miserable life was for many back then, but this ISN'T WWII.  

On the other hand, I don't want my 65 year old cancer surviving wife to get sick.  That would not be good at all.  That point is hardly lost on me.

I know that it sucks, but we still have an obligation to follow the orders as strictly as possible so that we can eventually get back to normal. I doubt four months is necessary in most places, anyways.
As for Fauci, it was he who told Congress early on that there was a lack of testing, and he has been wary of the virus since literally early February. Fauci is an easy scapegoat, but he is the reason we even have a response. I would hold Trump and Congress accountable for ignoring the problem when they were the ones with the power to do something. From what I have researched, Fauci has spent his entire career looking out for human life, and I deeply respect the man. No matter luck, good luck to your family, especially your wife. These are hard times but we can get through them.

[It’s so Joever]

Yet another day in a row where the percentage increase in new cases was less than the day before (and testing is up again).  It wouldn't surprise me we're approaching the peak of new cases in the next couple days (the peak of active cases and deaths would follow a couple weeks behind), and we can start on the downward part of this curve by next week.

The good news is, if you continue to make this claim every week, one of these times you'll be right. Until then it's a matter of minimizing embarrassment when you're wrong.

I swear to god, some people really don’t learn from mistakes.
 Case in point, every virus-downplayer on here. I remember when they said this is just SARS, or Bird Flu. Yet they still refuse to admit their own failings.

[It’s so Joever]

Wow, look at the tracker today. Nearly every state seeing decreases in new cases compared to yesterday. Looks like the tide has turned more quickly than anyone expected and Trump has saved the country from disaster, expect a big approval bump.

That tracker you're citing may not be entirely accurate:

Coronavirus death toll: Americans are almost certainly dying of covid-19 but being left out of the official count

As if we ever come close to to accurately counting deaths from the flu or other respiratory viruses that primarily kill older folks with serious preexisting conditions.  There’s an almost unanswerable argument here about how to code these deaths in people who are really sick - does blaming the coronavirus or the flu (or anything else) for the death of someone who would have died in a few days from a severe underlying illness make sense? 

With your “logic” I should be able to shoot up a ward of terminally ill cancer patients and not be classified as a murderer.

[It’s so Joever]

I highly doubt the worst is over. I think our peak as a country will be April 22nd, give or take a few days. It’s important to remember that just a week ago, plenty of people were still going about as normal, and a lot of people (just check this forum) seem to want to break the rules. It could peak in ten days, but I have my doubts. I think that’s a bit too soon.

[It’s so Joever]

Turning central park into a graveyard seems like something out of a SciFi movie.  Surely they can find something to do with the bodies that's less damaging to morale?

Soylent Green?

[It’s so Joever]

   Any one have thoughts about what states might become the next NYC/NJ area, not in terms of total deaths of course, but in per capita terms?  For the worst case scenario overall to play out this will need to start happening. I'm cautiously optimistic that thats not occuring. In Louisiana for instance deaths have been in the mid two figures for many days now, and the rise in ventilators, at least according to the state wide website is unfortunatly going up every day, but not by alot.
   Michigan is also concerning, but I wonder if deaths there are plateauing or if its a false calm.
On the whole I'm starting to lean more optimistic overall that we are heading for the lower side of deaths due to the virus.

Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Florida are my picks. Most of the cases will be in the largest cities of these States.

[It’s so Joever]

Florida and DeSantis have been raked over the coals on here and in much of the media.

At what point do facts enter the conversation?  We've been hearing for a month now that Florida is about to explode and DeSantis committed mass murder by not closing beaches (lol).  Florida has less deaths than Illinois despite having millions more residents, and at the same time has tested about 20K more and has a similar number of infected.  Somehow JB has been praised on here for his strong response.

Anyone willing to admit they were just making stuff up when the said beaches were going to cause mass murder?

It's very likely still the inebriated undergrads who they allowed to keep partying there went home and seeded outbreaks all over the place. Even if we kept most of America open and running, it's the sort of thing you'd need to ban real fast if you want to get coronavirus under control.

Something that you can't really prove, and aside from that, it wasn't the narrative we were pushed.  I heard many times that DeSantis needs to be impeached for killing his own residents.  Spring Break was very much over when people were still calling the beaches a place of great danger.

Histronics aside, you're going to have a hard time acting in a crisis if you only do things based on what you can absolutely prove. Heck, you couldn't do my engineering job if that was your standard either. You sometimes have to estimate to make calculated risks. This was a risk that should not have been taken.

When the question is whether or not to restrict the rights of Americans, you're going to need a little more evidence that people walking around on empty beaches is a risk.  Miami and most other major cities had already closed their own beaches on their own accord.  I'm talking about the whole state.

Presumably they'd run into the same problems we've had everywhere with this thing. In Oregon for instance, the first weekend after the shutdowns began, seemingly everyone tried to all go to the beach and parks. So after no one followed the social distancing requests, they shut down the beaches and parks too, which really sucks. If people were walking around alone on empty beaches, they probably wouldn't have needed to close them. It's a shame people won't behave so we can't have nice things.

My rights to leave my house (and in Chicago, go in a park) should not revolve around other people's good or bad behavior.  Your thought process seems flawed.

“My right to make empty threats about murdering a political figure shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”
“My right to go into any government building I desire without being screened shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”
“My right to own a nuclear missile shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”

Your thought process seems flawed.

[It’s so Joever]

Florida and DeSantis have been raked over the coals on here and in much of the media.

At what point do facts enter the conversation?  We've been hearing for a month now that Florida is about to explode and DeSantis committed mass murder by not closing beaches (lol).  Florida has less deaths than Illinois despite having millions more residents, and at the same time has tested about 20K more and has a similar number of infected.  Somehow JB has been praised on here for his strong response.

Anyone willing to admit they were just making stuff up when the said beaches were going to cause mass murder?

It's very likely still the inebriated undergrads who they allowed to keep partying there went home and seeded outbreaks all over the place. Even if we kept most of America open and running, it's the sort of thing you'd need to ban real fast if you want to get coronavirus under control.

Something that you can't really prove, and aside from that, it wasn't the narrative we were pushed.  I heard many times that DeSantis needs to be impeached for killing his own residents.  Spring Break was very much over when people were still calling the beaches a place of great danger.

Histronics aside, you're going to have a hard time acting in a crisis if you only do things based on what you can absolutely prove. Heck, you couldn't do my engineering job if that was your standard either. You sometimes have to estimate to make calculated risks. This was a risk that should not have been taken.

When the question is whether or not to restrict the rights of Americans, you're going to need a little more evidence that people walking around on empty beaches is a risk.  Miami and most other major cities had already closed their own beaches on their own accord.  I'm talking about the whole state.

Presumably they'd run into the same problems we've had everywhere with this thing. In Oregon for instance, the first weekend after the shutdowns began, seemingly everyone tried to all go to the beach and parks. So after no one followed the social distancing requests, they shut down the beaches and parks too, which really sucks. If people were walking around alone on empty beaches, they probably wouldn't have needed to close them. It's a shame people won't behave so we can't have nice things.

My rights to leave my house (and in Chicago, go in a park) should not revolve around other people's good or bad behavior.  Your thought process seems flawed.

“My right to make empty threats about murdering a political figure shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”
“My right to go into any government building I desire without being screened shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”
“My right to own a nuclear missile shouldn’t revolve around other people’s good or bad behavior!”

Your thought process seems flawed.

You just compared walking alone on a beach to:

1) Political assasination
2) Nuclear war

This is why we desperately needs schools to reopen.

You can’t seem to understand the overall message.
This is why we need to reopen schools.
Green Line must retake English.

[It’s so Joever]

My rights to leave my house (and in Chicago, go in a park) should not revolve around other people's good or bad behavior.  Your thought process seems flawed.

We live in a society.

We're literally living in a day where people are arguing that leaving your home is not a right.

Sure, its not written in the Constitution, because no Founding Father even considered it a ing possibility that we would live to see that.

That’s the exact same line of thinking people use to make the argument to overturn the second amendment. Just saying.

[It’s so Joever]

1.8k deaths per day isn’t even surprising. It will get worse.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1247349014980440066
Whitmer screwed up big by trying to stop a drug that saved the life of one of her fellow Democratic lawmakers life. She even said the President saved her life. Thank you President Trump!

This is such a reliable source /s

https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1247902663452135426
She said on TV too

This wasn’t exactly Whitmer playing partisan politics, as she was actually requested by the Michigan Senate Majority leader (R) to warn doctors against using hydroxychloroquine because the side effects were worrisome. As a matter of fact, Michigan is currently running one of the largest hydroxychloroquine tests in the country to see if it is safe and effective. Honestly, I wouldn’t have done what Michigan did, simply due to the crisis, but there is reasoning behind it.
Also I wish Trump would tout Remdesivir more, as it is safer in humans and is likely more effective.

[It’s so Joever]

People should keep eyes on Pennsylvania. The last couple of days they've put out fatality numbers (60-70 deaths/day) that are comparable to what LA/MI have been putting out. They've also been logging over 1000 new cases the last couple of days.

Not just PA.
 Georgia, Indiana, the DMV states, and Florida are now seeing rapid case growth. Funny enough, I warned of all this as a “second hit” weeks ago and was told I was wrong. The only thing that is off/shocking is Albany, GA (I thought Atlanta would be the hardest hit first)

[It’s so Joever]

Too bad you'll never see an article like this in a "mainstream" paper. This is the Socialist Alternative response to that Imperial College report that demanded lockdowns...

https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/04/07/the-imperial-college-coronavirus-study-a-socialist-response

Oh for gods sake, we go through this argument every week.
That would have been a great strategy back in February, just like banning flights to and from Europe would have been effective in February. We now have 300,000+ confirmed Covid-19 cases with likely millions of unreported ones (based on death rates) and that doesn’t even take into account the 7.10 day incubation period. You know, many “alarmists” were calling for your approach back in February, when it actually would have done something. There is so much spread now, it is practically impossible to trace every case and contact.

No one is arguing the effectiveness of isolating contacts and mass testing as a way to prevent a major pandemic from going out of control. Well guess what, the pandemic has been out of control for weeks, and you know it. More importantly, we don’t have the testing capacity. Do you really think healthcare workers are sitting on 1,000,000 tests and not doing anything? Sure, let’s increase testing capacity, but let’s realize we won’t be South Korea tomorrow and honestly may never be due to the vastly different circumstances.


As for the effectiveness of lockdowns?
News Flash, Italy and Spain didn’t see new case numbers per day drop by doing nothing.

[It’s so Joever]

Too bad you'll never see an article like this in a "mainstream" paper. This is the Socialist Alternative response to that Imperial College report that demanded lockdowns...

https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/04/07/the-imperial-college-coronavirus-study-a-socialist-response

Oh for gods sake, we go through this argument every week.
That would have been a great strategy back in February, just like banning flights to and from Europe would have been effective in February. We now have 300,000+ confirmed Covid-19 cases with likely millions of unreported ones (based on death rates) and that doesn’t even take into account the 7.10 day incubation period. You know, many “alarmists” were calling for your approach back in February, when it actually would have done something. There is so much spread now, it is practically impossible to trace every case and contact.

No one is arguing the effectiveness of isolating contacts and mass testing as a way to prevent a major pandemic from going out of control. Well guess what, the pandemic has been out of control for weeks, and you know it. More importantly, we don’t have the testing capacity. Do you really think healthcare workers are sitting on 1,000,000 tests and not doing anything? Sure, let’s increase testing capacity, but let’s realize we won’t be South Korea tomorrow and honestly may never be due to the vastly different circumstances.


As for the effectiveness of lockdowns?
News Flash, Italy and Spain didn’t see new case numbers per day drop by doing nothing.

It would have been much better if implemented in February.  But we’d be still be able to target quarantines much more effectively if everyone could get tested today.

But two month later, we’ve still never gotten any straight answer from the government about testing capacity.  Trump has been lying and evading this question every single day.  And for some reason we let him get away with it.

Oh absolutely, we need to ramp up production of testing kits, PPE, swabs, etc, and we need to do it ASAP. Nobody benefits from the testing shortages right now (except for maybe coffin salesmen) and I have never been against increasing testing capacity. That doesn’t mean testing alone will save us at this point in time.

[It’s so Joever]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 4/8 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'll be keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

Δ Change: Day-by-day Growth or Decline or COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE: What's the overall change in the total?

3/26:

• Cases: 85,390
• Deaths: ±1,200

3/27:

• Cases: 103,798 (+18,408 | Δ Change: -% | Σ Increase: ↑21.56%)
• Deaths: 1,693 (+493 | Δ Change: -% | Σ Increase: ↑41.03%)

3/28:

• Cases: 123,428 (+19,630 | Δ Change: ↑6.64% | ↑18.91%)
• Deaths: 2,211 (+518 | Δ Change: ↑5.07% | Σ Increase: ↑30.60%)

3/29:

• Cases: 142,178 (+18,750 | Δ Change: ↓4.48% | Σ Increase: ↑15.20%)
• Deaths: 2,484 (+273 | Δ Change: ↓47.30% | Σ Increase: ↑12.35%)

3/30:

• Cases: 163,490 (+21,312 | Δ Change: ↑13.66% | Σ Increase: ↑14.99%)
• Deaths: 3,148 (+664 | Δ Change: ↑143.22% | Σ Increase: ↑26.73%)

3/31:

• Cases: 187,917 (+24,427 | Δ Change: ↑14.62% | Σ Increase: ↑14.94%)
• Deaths: 3,867 (+749 | Δ Change: ↑12.80% | Σ Increase: ↑22.84%)

4/1:

• Cases: 215,003 (+27,086 | Δ Change: ↑10.89% | Σ Increase: ↑14.41%)
• Deaths: 5,102 (+1,235 | Δ Change: ↑66.89% | Σ Increase: ↑31.94%)

4/2:

• Cases: 244,433 (+29,430 | Δ Change: ↑8.65% | Σ Increase: ↑13.69%)
• Deaths: 6,070 (+968 | Δ Change: ↓21.62% | Σ Increase: ↑18.97%)

4/3:

• Cases: 276,965 (+32,532 | Δ Change: ↑10.54% | Σ Increase: ↑13.31%)
• Deaths: 7,391 (+1,321 | Δ Change: ↑36.47% | Σ Increase: ↑21.76%)

4/4:

• Cases: 311,357 (+34,392 | Δ Change: ↑5.72% | Σ Increase: ↑12.42%)
• Deaths: 8,452 (+1,061 | Δ Change: ↓19.68% | Σ Increase: ↑14.36%)

4/5:

• Cases: 336,327 (+24,970 | Δ Change: ↓27.40% | Σ Increase: ↑8.02%)
• Deaths: 9,605 (+1,153 | Δ Change: ↑8.67% | Σ Increase: ↑13.64%)

4/6:

• Cases: 366,112 (+29,785 | Δ Change: ↑19.28% | Σ Increase: ↑8.86%)
• Deaths: 10,859 (+1,254 | Δ Change: ↑8.76% | Σ Increase: ↑13.06%)

4/7 (Yesterday):

• Cases: 399,937 (+33,825 | Δ Change: ↑13.56% | Σ Increase: ↑13.56%)
• Deaths: 12,813 (+1,954 | Δ Change: ↑55.82% | Σ Increase: ↑9.02%)

4/8 (Today):

• Cases: 434,698 (+34,761 | Δ Change: ↑2.77% | Σ Increase: ↑8.69%)
• Deaths: 14,787 (+1,974 | Δ Change: ↑1.02% | Σ Increase: ↑15.41%)

Huh?
Worldometers shows the US case rise as 31.9k.

[It’s so Joever]

Here's a map I pulled together from the IHME tracker. It shows how long each state has to go before its projected date of peak resource use (the top of the proverbial curve).

Dark red = >10 days until peak
Medium red = >5 days until peak
Pink = <5 days until peak
Yellow = Today is projected peak
Light green = <5 days since peak
medium green = >5 days since peak

I sincerely doubt Colorado has seen their peak resource use. I hope I am wrong, but I think the recent lowering of case numbers are a result of less tests having been done.

[It’s so Joever]

I dont think Australia, Germany, USA and South Korea got the lesser version compared to Italy, France, UK and Spain.

Clearly testing rates in the latter countries are much lower as Dr Birx hinted yesterday.

test per million

Australia 12,946
Germany 15,730
USA 6,872
South Korea 9,310
Italy 14,114
France 3,436
UK 4,155
Spain 7,593


We have town with 2-3% of mortality, it's not possible a fatality rate of 0.37%

I mean, it is possible. If a lot of people just didn’t show symptoms and/or opted to not get tested. I still doubt the mortality rate is .4%, 1% seems more likely based on cruise ship data.

[It’s so Joever]

Bad news for Colorado, cases rose by record numbers today after what seemed like a few days of positive trends. Whether this is an outlier is uncertain right now, but we have definitely not hit our peak (Nice try, IHME)
https://covid19.colorado.gov/case-data