COVID-19 Megathread 3: Third time's a charm

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

BREAKING: UK PM Boris Johnson has COVID-19

He's tested positive, and is displaying mild symptoms.

We have a continuity plan in place, with Foreign Secretary (and everyone's least favourite cabinet minister) Dominic Raab taking over if he becomes seriously ill.

But more important is the fact that this means key figures like the Health Secretary, as well as the rest of the UK cabinet, the Chief Medical Officer and much of the upper ranks of the civil service could be infected.

Johnson was in Parliament as recently as Wednesday, alongside the Health Secretary, and the leaders of the opposition parties. And he stood alongside the Chancellor just last night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52060791

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary has tested positive too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52058788

Jesus Christ! Why does coronavirus continue to infect so many government officials? This is astonishing.

Public officials are a high-risk demographic given the very nature of their jobs.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

UK Parliament just shut down for a month yesterday.  MP's are packed even more tightly together than our House Reps (people sitting right next to each other, MP's standing shoulder to shoulder, etc.)

Its not an ideal setup is it?

Ah yes, the worth of a setup of a governmental assembly is to be decided solely by how easily coronavirus spreads in it. Whatever happened to things like history, tradition, number of reps, chamber size*, and so on - one disease with rather unusual traits and the type of which comes along once every dozen years at most is the sole judge!
*=here meaning the pyschical size of the area the assembly congregates in.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

UK Parliament just shut down for a month yesterday.  MP's are packed even more tightly together than our House Reps (people sitting right next to each other, MP's standing shoulder to shoulder, etc.)

Its not an ideal setup is it?

Ah yes, the worth of a setup of a governmental assembly is to be decided solely by how easily coronavirus spreads in it. Whatever happened to things like history, tradition, number of reps, chamber size, and so on - one disease with rather unusual traits and the type of which comes along once every dozen years at most is the sole judge!

He clearly meant that it's not an ideal setup in the context of transmission of the disease that (checks top of page) is in fact the topic of this thread.  This is objectively true.

if that is all that was meant I apologize.
My mind was thinking paranoia on corona was going so far as to make people want to question the very worth of their institutional traditions insofar as to procedure.
Helsinkian seems to be doing that elsewhere...but I misfired here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

UK Parliament just shut down for a month yesterday.  MP's are packed even more tightly together than our House Reps (people sitting right next to each other, MP's standing shoulder to shoulder, etc.)

Its not an ideal setup is it?

Ah yes, the worth of a setup of a governmental assembly is to be decided solely by how easily coronavirus spreads in it. Whatever happened to things like history, tradition, number of reps, chamber size, and so on - one disease with rather unusual traits and the type of which comes along once every dozen years at most is the sole judge!

He clearly meant that it's not an ideal setup in the context of transmission of the disease that (checks top of page) is in fact the topic of this thread.  This is objectively true.

if that is all that was meant I apologize.
My mind was thinking paranoia on corona was going so far as to make people want to question the very worth of their institutional traditions insofar as to procedure.
Helsinkian seems to be doing that elsewhere...but I misfired here.

Yeah I didn't mean to suggest we should change the setup of the legislature permanently just for the coronavirus, but we need to be thinking about how parliament can continue to function without meeting in person.

You aren't the only people to face this problem. Like here in "the States", we have a Senate with a somewhat similar "you must be present to vote" tradition.
My guess is that you might have to create some sort of app or something? It's a difficult matter to weigh.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The corona crisis, or anything emanating from it, is not evidence to refute or bolster the arguments for or against federalism.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Amen to this:

https://twitter.com/cmyeaton/status/1245165261554176001
US data is a steaming pile of cow dung. For that, we have muh Federalism to thank. Destroy federalism, kill it dead. Note that this is not a problem just for this health data, but also for all sorts of other data as well.

No, we don't need every local county clerk having their own different unique method of recording data.

Side note--I always thought it was ridiculous that places like China and South Africa are unitary states while Austria, the UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis are federations.

I guess in St. Kitts and Nevis you have highly pronounced island identities that discourage a unitary structure?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
“It’s a joke,” said a top hospital executive, whose facilities are packed with coronavirus patients.

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only three patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

“If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.”

The Comfort was sent to New York to relieve pressure on city hospitals by treating people with ailments other than Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/02/nyregion/02nyvirus-comfort/merlin_171121110_17454629-1859-42ea-9e8e-095b0dab240e-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp


Maybe they should, you know... use the hospital ship as a hospital to treat patients. Just an idea.

This article is unfair & horribly timed, & it's sad seeing the NY Times put this out; it kinda shows their lack of actually looking into this. For one, the boat was just approved late yesterday to accept patients. What's more, it has only been taking non-COVID patients who first need to be identified & tested (which takes a while). Moreover, once the patients are identified, they need to actually be moved there, which takes time & coordination & scarcely allocated resources to bring said patient, which would likely require a team of medical staff. And they literally just started! Things like this, even in emergencies, just don't happen instantly. Do people really expect this boat to be crammed full of 1,000 patients overnight? Give the men & women of that ship a break & let them do their extremely stressful & difficult jobs.

You've got to wonder what the people who put that article out would feel if they, for just one day, had to do the jobs of the people on board that ship.
I bet they would be adopting a different tune.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This should have been done a long timo ago, but at least this seems to be good policy the POTUS is planning to put in place? Here's to hoping he doesn't change his mind.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/Emily_Baum/status/1245875443309228032

Muh wasteful government spending.