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

[forgotten manatee]

Re: Singapore

https://twitter.com/JohnSpringford/status/1246015702894608385
If even they failed...

They didn't fail.

This is not what failure looks like:

Singapore
Confirmed: 1,114
Recovered: 266
Deaths: 5

This is what failure looks like:

United States of America
Confirmed: 265,001
Recovered: 11,983
Deaths: 6,766

I'd do anything to have the impact in the United States be as 'light' as it has been in Singapore. The fact that Singapore is going into lockdown despite their comparatively lesser impact shows you the seriousness with which they are treating this virus -- in complete contrast to Trump's America. Just remember, this horrifying ramp up in suffering and death, not to mention the economic shutdown, may have been avoided with meticulous testing in January 2020 -- like what had been done in South Korea -- but Trump insisted this was no worse than the flu and that it would soon be gone.

[forgotten manatee]

Newsweek just released an article titled FDR, REAGAN AND OBAMA WON RE-ELECTION WITH MORE THAN 7% UNEMPLOYMENT. AMID CORONAVIRUS, COULD TRUMP?



but what they forgot to point out is that every one of those presidents entered office when things were already going bad but by time the election came around the economy improved enough for all 3 of them to be reelected

Trump on the other hand entered office when things were going good but now the economy has fallen off a cliff and many have now died because of his lackluster response to the virus at the start

So good luck trying to sell a record like that to voters in November because at the rate things are currently going Trump is going to need all the luck he can get lol  

A couple of stray observations:

1. Trump's entire selling point was bringing jobs back. 15% unemployment kind of undermines that, regardless of its cause. Very bad for Trump.

2. The complete binary ideological sorting of our country means Trump voters are predisposed to crediting him for positive economic numbers and blaming forces outside his control for negative economic numbers. Good for Trump.

3. When you're out of work, you don't really care why. You're mad and you want change. Bad for Trump.

4. How you view the state of the economy when Trump took office is also determined by how you've been sorted. Trump voters thought Obama made a mess of things in his second term, while Hillary voters thought things were great. Good for Trump.

I think the sum total still comes out very poorly for Trump's re-election prospects, but so many things could happen in the next seven months. Trump gets constant, non-stop press coverage, Biden can't even hold rallies. And the halt to the primary season completely knocks Biden out of the 24-hour news cycle. That alone gives Trump a huge edge.

I take your point that negative partisanship will likely give Trump a higher floor -- but being on the news 24/7 for catastrophically failing to contain a virus is not going to help Trump with Democrats or independents.

[forgotten manatee]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246909791680770050

Flattened? It's gotten steeper. Yes it's not accelerating as much, that's not flattening. I hope he just had a brain fart here.

"Not accelerating as much" is flattening.  You'll never see decreasing numbers of total cases/deaths, only flattening.

I hope you just had a brain fart here.

Flattening would be fewer cases per day. That wasn't happening in recent days. Cases/day had an increasing slope.

Testing capacity is still ramping-up, so we should expect more positive tests as a result of expanded testing.  As Nate Silver says:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246919689416122369

Only 6k more new cases over last Sunday, and that's in-spite of a more than 40% increase in testing.

Any chance that this means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel by earlier than mid-June?

[forgotten manatee]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246909791680770050

Flattened? It's gotten steeper. Yes it's not accelerating as much, that's not flattening. I hope he just had a brain fart here.

"Not accelerating as much" is flattening.  You'll never see decreasing numbers of total cases/deaths, only flattening.

I hope you just had a brain fart here.

Flattening would be fewer cases per day. That wasn't happening in recent days. Cases/day had an increasing slope.

Testing capacity is still ramping-up, so we should expect more positive tests as a result of expanded testing.  As Nate Silver says:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1246919689416122369

Only 6k more new cases over last Sunday, and that's in-spite of a more than 40% increase in testing.

Any chance that this means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel by earlier than mid-June?

Yes.  We’re definitely not seeing the exponential growth the UW model thought we’d be seeing.  Even New York is looking better in terms of # of hospitalizations/ICU patients then initially predicted. 

That would be wonderful, I hope you're right.

However, I think it is a fair point that we aren't doing enough to prepare for a post-flattened curve environment. That lack of preparation, combined with parts of the country that only recently adopted stay at home orders, could result in this dragging on for a good while longer, no?

[forgotten manatee]

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheAgeofShoddy/status/1247111328675717120

What the hell does that mean?

[forgotten manatee]

You can't blame Governor Tony Evers if Wisconsin sees a Covid-19 spike in a few weeks. The election photos coming in so far look like a recipe for disaster.

I'll blame him, though not as much as the Republicans.  He should have supported a delay in the election from the beginning.

I don't disagree that he should have advocated for it sooner but there is apparently no way to get a SCOWIS or the legislature to do what he wanted. It wouldn't have made a difference. The ultimate problem is WI-LEG and SCOWIS are dangerous partisan actors.

Exactly. Perhaps come November, they'll pay the price.

[forgotten manatee]

The debate between the health crisis vs the economic crisis is starting to heat up:

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/coronavirus-poverty-study-research-oxfam-anu/12136222

"Even under our most conservative scenario, too conservative to be realistic … we're still talking about 100 million extra people [falling] into extreme poverty," said ANU's Christopher Hoy, another of the authors.

My individual feeling is that some countries will let it run, if they haven't inadvertently done so already.

Under those circumstances, it would be better to have had the virus and developed antibodies. Those people with immunity will be more employable and more functional in the 'next' economy.

But your reasoning totally fails to account for the fact that hospital systems simply couldn’t/can’t keep up with EVERYONE falling sick at the same time. Doing it your way means a lot of people end up dead, and if a lot of people are dying, there’s no way the economy goes back to normal. Rather than kill millions to save the economy, it would be better to make sure there is help available to those displaced by the shutdown.

[forgotten manatee]

WSJ Opinion:  Virus mortality crashes as economic misery skyrockets.

WSJ should be embarrassed for publishing this dog crap and paying this moron. A journalist and "economist" with zero medical credentials belittling the advice of medical experts and accusing them of a waging a "war" on the economy? Get the fkcu out of here with that. I think COVID-19 will be a crystallizing moment for the country, when it finally realizes its had just about enough of the right wing's war on expertise and knowledge.

[forgotten manatee]

This is easily the most stupid ‘event’ I have lived through. Reopen the US economy.

Tens of millions unemployed, with half a billion worldwide being plummeted into poverty. Due to faulty and erroneous data. All for what?

You know there’s over 16,000 dead Americans from this right? As in, more than five 9/11s. You have some competition, but I do believe you may be the dumbest person on this forum.

[forgotten manatee]

Promising numbers from today. Let's not lift the restrictions until at least may, then we will be able to allow the warm weather to prevent the case numbers from getting out of control.

The summer will be a break. We will use the time to implement tracing and prepare the medical system for the fall wave so that we won't have to implement lockdowns when the fall wave hits.

I think we should keep the measures in place until June 1, and get relief to folks who need it in the meanwhile. If the situation is markedly improving over the course of May, we could lift things sooner.

[forgotten manatee]

How tf is it false?
The deaths are happening very rapidly and the entire city is shocked by these events. If anything, I think this is worse than 9/11.

Because the death numbers don’t distinguish between those dying with Corona vs. those dying from Corona. That’s a pretty big deal.

Anybody who knows even the basics of medicine knows that these are indistinguishable, especially considering the very high number of people who are being seriously ill/dying with no pre-existing conditions.

Even still if you are surviving with an underlying pre-existing condition and are infected with the virus, it's certainly making your condition worse. Dying of your pre-existing condition which was exacerbated by COVID is functionally equivalent to dying of COVID itself.

Don’t waste your time reasoning with fools who have no respect for experts.

[forgotten manatee]

OK, thread derailing won't be tolerated.

Also, not responding to trolls would be most helpful.

Could you and your fellow moderators please do a better job deleting comments that are clearly trolling, and punishing those responsible? I'm disgusted by the commentary downplaying or making a joke out of the fact that tens of thousands of people have died. If I had lost to someone from COVID, I'd be absolutely enraged to see such foolishness being posted on this forum with impunity. I've reported multiple posts and yet nothing seems to change.

[forgotten manatee]

This has me really worried.



These people are going to put my family and other at risk people in more danger simply because they are tired of being asked to stay home. One of the "hosts" of this event is an anti-vaccine advocate. I just... This is all getting really depressing.

Its sad. I understand not being able to tolerate staying at home because you financially cannot support doing it. For people really in a bind like that, I'm deeply sympathetic and want the government to step up and help them. But for people to just be fed up with being bored? Its a sad day in America when sitting on the couch becomes an unbearable sacrifice.

[forgotten manatee]

THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY A TOTAL DOOFUS

Can you please change "Toupe" to "Fluffer" in your username?

I wish one of the mods would put "THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY TOTAL DOOFUS" in large red letters in his signature block.