COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Person Man]

And in any case, it is not hypocritical to make a conscious decision that certain causes or principles are worth risking your life over.

Yeah, like going to church?

As long as everyone is wearing a mask (except the preacher obviously when speaking), I wouldn’t criticize someone for attending a religious service right now.

At this point, there's either nothing we can do or we have nothing to worry about .

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1271424867959812096

Could we have a situation where things just compound eventually?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1273016873945313280

Wow, thanks for ignoring us Westerners!
I assume this means we are legally allowed to secede?

That actually makes sense.

[Person Man]

What are the chances at this point that this could be the deadliest pandemic in American History? That record is currently held at 600k with the 1918 Flu.

[Person Man]

BBC: New swine flu strain with pandemic potential found in China.

I really hate this year.

How often do they find these things? Maybe the fact they know its already here means nothing will come of it?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/1278349068817833984

I think this might be the highest number of per capita new cases that any state has ever reported.

Edit: For reference, this would be the equivalent of 220,000 new cases if scaled up to the US population.

We're screwed. They've literally had to implement Death Panels because the hospitals are overrun.  There is blood on our idiot Governor's hands.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2020/06/30/crisis-care-standards-arizona-code-coronavirus-death-panels/3285410001/

This November's election and the election two years from that one will be more of a self-appraisal of the lives of those who participate in it.

[Person Man]

My stepdad, who has COPD, high blood pressure, diabetes, and just turned 68 in June, is likely one of the numbers in Georgia's big increase. I don't know for sure, but the symptoms he mentioned on Facebook before going incommunicado were COVID symptoms. He was hospitalized one week after his birthday, which involved visitors with no masks. I'm very angry about these circumstances and many other personal things. He believed it was a hoax and overhyped. There is no pleasure in being proven right when knowing he is suffering significantly. At this point, it sounds unlikely he will make it.

I'm angry at Georgia for allowing restaurants to be open. I'm angry at Fox and other disinformation sources feeding people these lies. I'm angry at him. I'm angry at the people he moved in with who were supposed to be protecting him. I'm angry at Trump for pretending this is no big deal. I'm angry I can't go be with him. This didn't have to happen.

This didn't have to happen and it infuriates me.

People who still think COVID is a conspiracy should be castrated.

[Person Man]

https://mobile.twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/1278667433679695875

https://mobile.twitter.com/USDOL/status/1278667295410262017

I could see this. A lot of people probably decided to hire a second person when they put out for jobs. That's how I got on to my current project.

However, even if the virus is now only effecting people who "can handle it" for the most part, and fewer per capita will die, will this mean we are about to face a lot more sick days? At my girlfriend's work, two have called out sick out of her unit of 20.

[Person Man]

Talked to an RN friend down in Miami last night.  From that day, 46 in triage, 48 on admit hold. 

Simply not enough beds to handle that caseload. 

You mean it's happening?

[Person Man]

Talked to an RN friend down in Miami last night.  From that day, 46 in triage, 48 on admit hold.  

Simply not enough beds to handle that caseload.  

You mean it's happening?

Yes:

As novel coronavirus cases in Florida soar past 213,000, 56 hospitals are reported to have no intensive care unit (ICU) beds available, with dozens more reporting over 90 percent of ICU beds are full, according to the latest report Tuesday from Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration.

At least 56 hospitals across 25 Florida counties were reported to have reached full bed capacity in their ICUs, including eight in Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida whose county seat is Miami.

https://www.newsweek.com/56-florida-icu-beds-are-full-dozens-more-over-90-percent-capacity-1516054

So if I get covfefe'd or get have any other emergency, I'm finksed?

[Person Man]

Talked to an RN friend down in Miami last night.  From that day, 46 in triage, 48 on admit hold.  

Simply not enough beds to handle that caseload.  

You mean it's happening?

Yes:

As novel coronavirus cases in Florida soar past 213,000, 56 hospitals are reported to have no intensive care unit (ICU) beds available, with dozens more reporting over 90 percent of ICU beds are full, according to the latest report Tuesday from Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration.

At least 56 hospitals across 25 Florida counties were reported to have reached full bed capacity in their ICUs, including eight in Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida whose county seat is Miami.

https://www.newsweek.com/56-florida-icu-beds-are-full-dozens-more-over-90-percent-capacity-1516054

So if I get covfefe'd or get have any other emergency, I'm finksed?

"My Presidency is finksed!" exclaimed the President. 

I’ll take that at as yes, then. The question is whether I can not get in an accident for the rest of the year.

[Person Man]

Winning.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1281521482091249664

I’m tired of winning. I need a therapist for all of the victory fatigue!

[Person Man]

We just got tested. I’ll you tell you how it went. It was only kind of bad for a second because  I’m always dealing with my sinuses anyways.

[Person Man]

How many cases can there be before it just runs it’s course?

[Person Man]

Isn't it a bit odd that the first wave mostly affected states with corrupt governments like New York while the current wave is mostly Southern? (Louisiana pulls the double-whammy of being both corrupt and southern!)

That more describes Florida.

[Person Man]

The wicked thing about this is that this is the ultimate prediction I made about Republican policies when I first came full politically aware in the wake of 9/11. That is, the healthcare system would collapse either by a sudden crisis or an insurance death spiral in the next 20 years if universal healthcare wasn’t fully adopted.

[Person Man]

Here’s the Lancet editor’s summary of the two vaccine results they are publishing today (Oxford and one from China)

https://marlin-prod.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673620316111.pdf

It looks like the Oxford vaccine produced a t-cell response in all subjects, and an antibody response in more than 90% of subjects.  No serious adverse effects reported.

Excellent!

Still a ways to go and aiming for September might be on the optimistic end of the scale, but any positive news is always a plus!

With any tech project like this, if it takes just twice the time they said it was going to, I call it a success.

[Person Man]

Per Marketwatch: White House COVID press-briefings return starting tomprrow at 5pm EST (ft. DJ Donald J. Trump)
 

Why bother?

In fact, I'd argue him restarting the briefings is tantamount to admitting his administration has failed to contain the virus the first go around.

It's not about the pandemic. It's about Trump. He's going mad without a stage to stand on, without obvious indicators of how important he is and how everyone pays attention to him. These briefings will likely cement in the current polling as he plays Mad Trump on TV while both the pandemic and civil unrest gets worse.

I'm personally convinced that the Trumpublicans are going full Helter Skelter. They don't think they can win the election, so they're going to throw the nation into chaos in the hopes that they can leverage that to stay in power.

Or do what they did when they lost last time. Try to stop their situation from getting better so they can come in and "save" it. Last time they tried it, it was a qualified success.

[Person Man]

Thursday jobs report dropped - unemployment up slightly from last week:  

https://mobile.twitter.com/WestWingReport/status/1286280344879104001

There could be extenuating circumstances, but its very hard to imagine the unemployment rate continuing to decrease into August on the July report. Theoretically more firms could just be hiring to pick up the slack for the firms shutting down but its hard to imagine there just being more "velocity" with workers coming and going. I just don't think it happens that way. If we break 11% or go into the single digits next week, you know that the books are being cooked. It's already common knowledge that the books on inflation are being cooked.

That's what so finksed about a second Trump term. With the understanding that there will be no Trump 2024, or Trump II 2024 or a situation that would incentivize "security" , someone is eventually going to blow the whistle and then we will have a Enron or Lehman Brothers situation macroeconomically.

[Person Man]

From WaPo: Republicans scrap Trump’s demand for payroll tax cut as they cobble together draft coronavirus bill


https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/23/congress-stimulus-coronavirus-trump/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_virushill-9am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Senate Republicans have cast aside one of President Trump’s key demands in their emerging coronavirus stimulus package, refusing to include a payroll tax cut in their opening offer to Democrats, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is aiming to announce Thursday.

The development came amid a frantic GOP effort to try and salvage other parts of the package, though the entire process remained fluid and there was confusion among Republican aides about when a deal might be reached. Republicans had hoped to reach a deal amongst themselves on Wednesday but they were unable to sort out a number of competing intraparty issues.

Yikes, defying Trump on his signature demand for the relief bill. The process is 'fluid' however; I wonder if they are going to fold like they have on ..*checks notes*... everything else.

They need to pretend that we are still a democracy.

[Person Man]

Forbes reporting that McConnell's stimulus plan remains "exactly the same" as the CARES Act with regards to a second round of checks: $1200, $500 per dependent under 17, income cutoff at $75,000.

After some negotiation this week with the White House and discussions with some House and Senate Democrats, The Hill reported that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin confirmed that the proposed second stimulus check will be the same as the first: “We're talking about the same provision as last time, so our proposal is the exact same proposal as last time.”

At this point, his plan is just to try to have a mulligan at Corona? It appears that is Trump's plan, too.

[Person Man]

Should have these 4 components for sure.

1. Direct stimulus to every American citizen, drop the means testing(it's not worth the redtape upfront) and develop a system for future instances where direct stimulus can be distributed instantly and evenly.

2. Money for states, this is very important.

3. Bonus compensation for medical professionals and grocery and others workers who continued working throughout the pandemic at risk and harm to themselves.

4. Continue the extra $600 weekly unemployment insurance as is, it's been credited with economists on the left and right as keeping households and businesses from drowning.

I would continue the extra $600 but I would be open to changing it supplementing state UEI to 70% of PRE-TAX earnings once national unemployment gets below 10% and replacing it with a back-to-work bonus once it goes below 8% worth the difference in wages until unemployment goes below 7%.

We really need to work on tapering things off instead of having these gaps where one extra day or one extra dollar means you can go from being able to collect from a program to being completely deemed self-sufficient.

[Person Man]

Another day, another major setback.

[Person Man]

...Excuse me, weren’t you the one downplaying this virus a month or so ago and saying America needs to open up?
Maybe I got my avatars mixed up, but if true, do you think it was worth it?

Here's what I said:

Brian Kemp is not an evil man. He is doing this because he fears the long term socioeconomic consequences of being on lockdown for several months. Whether this is the right decision or not remains to be seen.

It turns out opening while cases were still on the rise appears to have been a very bad idea. With that being said, it's interesting to see how Sweden has seen near record low cases this past week while other nearby European countries have seen a resurgence. Is letting the virus work through the population the way to go? I think it depends on who you ask. I will be interested to see which states get hit hard if or when the second wave sweeps through. Will Michigan and New York, states that implemented harsh lockdowns, get it worse? Will the South, which is going through it now, skip the worst impacts of the second wave? The answers remain to be seen... 

My guess still is that there has to be a substantial fraction of the population that gets it before you can have "herd immunity". I'd wager its less than half, but probably more than the 2% confirmed infected rate we currently have. Maybe where New York City is now?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/ElectMarkCurran/status/1288669534661074944

Yes, Mark Curran is the winner of the GOP primary and is running against Sen. Durbin.

That's essentially a suicide bomber's logic.

"I'm not afraid to die because I know paradise awaits me."

Isn't it 20 virgins or something like that? lol

72 virgins. Just wait until their "virgins" are just their incel supporters.