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

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/CapitolAlert/status/1243640047548555264

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/SusanKLivio/status/1243953460434866179

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/jessemckinley/status/1243938618072354816

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Survey shows that economists think that loosening lockdowns before the virus is contained will lead to more economic damage than the lockdowns themselves.

Question B: Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk.

Strongly agree: 41%
Agree: 39%
Uncertain: 14%
Disagree: 0%
Strongly disagree: 0%
No opinion: 0%

Sigh. What a straw man.

How long will Democrats pretend that Trump wants to "sacrifice your Grandma to save Dow"? It starts to become dangerous.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

You guys are being too hard on the spring breakers. I know several people who thought this was nothing and came around when they saw s*** get serious. The failure then was on the part of our leaders not to properly educate the public as to the seriousness and the dangers of this disease.

Not sure if /s, but the country is literally grinding to a halt, COVID-19 is basically wall-to-wall on every channel (well, can't say for Fox News), politicians/celebrities are getting sick and it's basically all anyone in the government/media is talking about. If people aren't taking this seriously by now, no amount of proper education from politicians of all people would make a difference. Unfortunately, this is just another case of many young people not paying any attention to anything serious and thinking all that matters in their lives is partying and socializing. And this is on top of Trump basically blowing off the whole pandemic as a nothingburger up until a few weeks ago (so if you refer to Trump, you have a point, except that everyone else was ringing the alarms).

We are talking about Millineals, goddammit. These people voted for Bremain and Corbyn (in UK) and for Hillary (in US). They spread corona, because they have mild or none symptoms. They are not as contagious as those with more severe symptoms, but they are many and they refuse do a basics like wash their f**king hands and do a little social distancing. They don't take any of these threats seriously and nor should you expect it from them.


https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1243557013759700997


US is somewhere in between, but likely much similar to Netherlands than Iceland. It has to be a HUGE number of undetected corona among Millenials.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Daily stats from FT
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Bloomberg: Fauci Says 200,000 Deaths in the U.S. Are Possible: Virus Update

U.S. coronavirus deaths could reach 200,000, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling the estimate “fluid.” More than half of the new cases are in New York, he said.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-are-worried-about-the-coronavirus-theyre-even-more-worried-about-the-economy/
Americans Are Worried About The Coronavirus. They’re Even More Worried About The Economy.

The fact that more Americans are worried about the effect of the coronavirus on the economy than about their own health may put pressure on politicians to kickstart the economy, making it harder for public health officials to push for preventive measures like social distancing.

But Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, warned that the response to the coronavirus is complicated by the level of uncertainty that still exists around the virus’ spread.

“We are hampered because the data we are using to track this pandemic right now is still incomplete. It’s better than it was several weeks ago, but we’re still not in a place where everyone agrees,” said Koh.

The U.S. was late to ramp up testing, only starting at the beginning of March, which means we don’t yet have complete information on who is infected or the rate at which the virus is spreading. According to a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers across the U.S., many experts agree the situation has worsened in the last few days, but there is still a wide range in the projected number of expected cases and deaths.

Koh said that we have to reach the point where we better understand the spread of the coronavirus before we can send people back into the workforce. Otherwise, we risk overwhelming hospitals and the health care workforce capacity, perhaps leading to even more economic hardship.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

2 days ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/rhode-island-police-to-hunt-down-new-yorkers-seeking-refuge
Rhode Island Police to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge

Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday. On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York and demand 14 days of self-quarantine.

“Right now we have a pinpointed risk,” Governor Gina Raimondo said. “That risk is called New York City.”

Yesterday she repealed that
https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/rhode-island-repeals-order-targeting-new-yorkers-after-cuomo-threatens-lawsuit/
Rhode Island repeals order targeting New Yorkers after Cuomo threatens lawsuit

Facing the threat of a lawsuit from New York, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo repealed a controversial executive order penalizing New Yorkers for traveling into the state mandating that they self-quarantine for 14 days amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

The new order was revised and signed late Saturday night to say “any person coming to Rhode Island from another state for a non-work-related purpose must immediately self-quarantine for 14 days.”

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/National-Coronavirus-Response-a-Road-Map-to-Recovering-1.pdf
National coronavirus response: A road map to reopening


Per WaPo >>>

The latest proposal, which has not been previously reported, is a 19-page plan with a step-by-step timeline, with clear benchmarks states and regions would need to meet to safely move forward to the next step. The plan was published Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute. Its lead author — Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner in the Trump administration — has been acting as an informal adviser to the White House and has shared the paper with administration officials. His collaborators include Mark McClellan, a former FDA commissioner from the George W. Bush Administration; Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; and other leading policy experts and infectious disease specialists.

“People feel anxious about the future, and you need to have milestones to show people how their lives are going to improve,” Gottlieb said in an interview late Saturday. “The goal is to outline a plan that will allow a gradual return to a more normal way of life without increasing the risk” that the outbreak will resurge.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://www.ft.com/content/c8ed3692-6db3-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f
Scientists hopeful warmer weather can slow spread of coronavirus
Some studies suggest Covid-19 will follow marked seasonality trend of other viruses

Some studies have suggested that the new coronavirus will indeed follow the marked seasonality shown by its genetic cousins that have been circulating among humans for many years. This research also suggests that Covid-19 will find it harder to gain a foothold in the tropics than in the world’s temperate regions.

“Based on what we have documented so far, it appears that the virus has a harder time spreading between people in warmer climates,” said Mohammad Sajadi, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s Institute of Virology who has been studying the outbreak, which has infected close to 400,000 people around the world. 

Scientists from Beihang and Tsinghua universities in China, who have examined how the coronavirus has been transmitted in 100 Chinese cities, concluded that “high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of Covid-19”.

Prof Sajadi’s research suggests that, although the virus can spread anywhere, it transmits most effectively between humans when humidity is low and the temperature is between 5C and 11C.

However, there are dissenting scientific voices, such as Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard University epidemiology professor who believes some colleagues are exaggerating Covid-19’s likely seasonality. “We may expect modest declines in the contagiousness of [the virus] in warmer, wetter weather,” he said, but it was “not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent”.

The reason was that Covid-19 was new to the world and so behaved differently to the viruses that had been around for longer. “Old viruses . . . operate on a thinner margin. Most individuals are immune and they have to make do with transmitting among the few who are not,” he explained. “In simple terms, viruses that have been around for a long time can . . . spread through the population only when the conditions are the most favourable, in this case in winter.”

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

China should definitively be held responsible for the pandemics. Not in the way of paying reparations or something, but by having to finally adhere to certain sanitary rules, which led to the outbreak.

Hopefully, they do it voluntarily, but if not, you'll have to push them in some way. Europa will be likely hit more than US and have a longer recovery, so I doubt they want take a stand. And since Biden promised to respect US allies, let's hope Trump wins! ^{On the other hand, Biden will likely listen to Merkel and stop Trump's harassing of Putin's Nord Stream 2, so we can finish off Ukraine, so...}


In other news. Today and for first time Spain has more cases a day than Italy... USA will likely to get a "first" place in a week or so...
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/status/1244314610880196608

Is 19,500 rubles an adequate-ish monthly salary in Russia?

Median salary in Moscow is ~50,000 and it's kind of unprecedented for Russia to take this kind of measures. Though, I don't know how non-Moscovites will feel about it, cause outside Moscow and  Saint Petersburg  the median is ~30,000.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Daily stats
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

As I wrote before, cfr should be about the same in most western countries, which suggests that Italy already has 1-2 mln cases and US 0.5-1 mln.

That would suggest that Lombardy has already reached ~10-20%.

According to this study, ~10% of Italy population is already infected which would probably translate into ~30% in Lombardy, I suppose.

For Spain it is 15%. Unfortunately, they didn't estimate US #.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1244674754939887616


If it's true, then I think, that the real CFR is way under 1%, perhaps ~0.1-0.5%


The caveat is similar to all the studies of Corona. Uncertainty is huge due to various assumption and lack of data.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1244661972160913410

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

A lot of people wondering why US has a shortage of masks rn.

Well... among other reason, because of Democrats (Pelosi) and their muh consumers’ rights.

Article from March, the 3rd. "mask supply is a growing concern for the administration".
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/coronavirus-mask-shortage-122152
Squabble over mask shortage erupts as coronavirus spreads
The mask supply is a growing concern for the administration as more outbreaks of coronavirus are being reported in multiple states.

With officials estimating the U.S. has only 1 percent of the masks needed for health workers in a full pandemic, Trump administration and mask makers wanted a provision added to the emergency coronavirus spending bill to protect manufacturers if wearers get sick. But House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, viewed the effort as an expansive legal waiver and blocked it from being added to the final version.

The $8.3 billion spending bill will come up for a vote in the Senate Thursday after passing the House on Wednesday. It won’t be changed now, but manufacturers and White House officials are warning that the omission could lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors.

Democrats were warned it could "lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors." House Democrats didn't listen.

March, 30
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/how-coronavirus-shook-congress-complacency-155058

As lawmakers got to work in February, manufacturers who make face masks said they would be able to provide tens of millions more N95 face masks — also called respirators — to hospitals and first responders. But they needed Congress to shield them from lawsuits over the alternative masks, which were originally made for industrial use and thus hadn’t gone through the FDA approval process that traditional hospital masks are required to go through before they are used in health care settings. (Both types of masks are N95 quality -- meaning they are meant to fit closely around the face and filter out 95 percent of airborne particles -- but industrial masks are made for uses such as construction sites.)

................

Democratic leaders in the House, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were similarly concerned about waiving consumers’ rights to sue a company over potentially faulty equipment. Republicans inserted a provision, mirroring Fischer’s bill, that would have solved the issue into the $8.3 billion coronavirus relief bill that passed in early March, but House Democratic leaders stripped the language.

“Why should mask makers have special immunity?” said one Pelosi aide, explaining her thinking.

In mid-March, as the U.S. economy began to blink red and concerns mounted about a widespread shortage of masks, Congress scrambled to pass a second wave of emergency legislation, and then a third.

A temporary waiver on liability on mask makers that included some, but not all, N95-grade masks was included in the Phase 2 bill negotiated by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the Trump administration announced that companies would begin producing “tens of millions” more masks a month. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who canceled the Senate’s planned recess for the week of March 16—made the waiver permanent in Phase 3, which will also allow for more types of masks to be used.

...................

Nearly a month after the original debate over the provision of masks, Congress is now poised to further free up mask production. But in between the start of the debate and its resolution, a critical shortage has surfaced. Doctors and nurses in the most in-demand areas are being forced to reuse masks, which they have described as a serious health risk, wear bandanas, or even make their own.

Pelosi and House Democrats delayed this with 2 weeks. They gave up, when they understood the severity of Corona...

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

A lot of people wondering why US has a shortage of masks rn.

Well... among other reason, because of Democrats (Pelosi) and their muh consumers’ rights.

Article from March, the 3rd. "mask supply is a growing concern for the administration".
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/coronavirus-mask-shortage-122152
Squabble over mask shortage erupts as coronavirus spreads
The mask supply is a growing concern for the administration as more outbreaks of coronavirus are being reported in multiple states.

With officials estimating the U.S. has only 1 percent of the masks needed for health workers in a full pandemic, Trump administration and mask makers wanted a provision added to the emergency coronavirus spending bill to protect manufacturers if wearers get sick. But House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, viewed the effort as an expansive legal waiver and blocked it from being added to the final version.

The $8.3 billion spending bill will come up for a vote in the Senate Thursday after passing the House on Wednesday. It won’t be changed now, but manufacturers and White House officials are warning that the omission could lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors.

Democrats were warned it could "lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors." House Democrats didn't listen.

March, 30
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/how-coronavirus-shook-congress-complacency-155058

As lawmakers got to work in February, manufacturers who make face masks said they would be able to provide tens of millions more N95 face masks — also called respirators — to hospitals and first responders. But they needed Congress to shield them from lawsuits over the alternative masks, which were originally made for industrial use and thus hadn’t gone through the FDA approval process that traditional hospital masks are required to go through before they are used in health care settings. (Both types of masks are N95 quality -- meaning they are meant to fit closely around the face and filter out 95 percent of airborne particles -- but industrial masks are made for uses such as construction sites.)

................

Democratic leaders in the House, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were similarly concerned about waiving consumers’ rights to sue a company over potentially faulty equipment. Republicans inserted a provision, mirroring Fischer’s bill, that would have solved the issue into the $8.3 billion coronavirus relief bill that passed in early March, but House Democratic leaders stripped the language.

“Why should mask makers have special immunity?” said one Pelosi aide, explaining her thinking.

In mid-March, as the U.S. economy began to blink red and concerns mounted about a widespread shortage of masks, Congress scrambled to pass a second wave of emergency legislation, and then a third.

A temporary waiver on liability on mask makers that included some, but not all, N95-grade masks was included in the Phase 2 bill negotiated by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the Trump administration announced that companies would begin producing “tens of millions” more masks a month. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who canceled the Senate’s planned recess for the week of March 16—made the waiver permanent in Phase 3, which will also allow for more types of masks to be used.

...................

Nearly a month after the original debate over the provision of masks, Congress is now poised to further free up mask production. But in between the start of the debate and its resolution, a critical shortage has surfaced. Doctors and nurses in the most in-demand areas are being forced to reuse masks, which they have described as a serious health risk, wear bandanas, or even make their own.

Pelosi and House Democrats delayed this with 2 weeks. They gave up, when they understood the severity of Corona...

😂🙄

Is it anything wrong with my conclusions?

According to these articles:

• Pelosi and House Democrats were warned by WH and manufactures that they "would be able to provide tens of millions more N95 face masks — also called respirators — to hospitals and first responders. But they needed Congress to shield them from lawsuits over the alternative masks"
• Pelosi and House Democrats "blocked it from being added to the final version" in early March Bill
• Pelosi and House Democrats changed their mind in 2 weeks after "the U.S. economy began to blink red and concerns mounted about a widespread shortage of masks"

According to Dems here, Trump is "literally a murder" because he said something dumb, but zero critique of Pelosi when she actually did something dumb.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Grinnell College National Poll, March 27-30

Is this a source of COVID-19 information you completely trust, mostly trust, mostly distrust or completely distrust?

Donald Trump

Completely trust: 16%
Mostly trust: 30%
Mostly distrust: 18%
Completely distrust: 32%

More people distrust the president than trust him in a time of crisis.

https://www.grinnell.edu/news/americans-showing-resolve-through-covid-19-crisis

A majority of American People (per the same poll) approve of the job Donald Trump is doing "with handling the COVID-19 coronavirus situation"

Approve 50 %
Disapprove 43%
Not Sure 7%

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Re: Florida accelerating

Naaah.

A lot of States are doing significantly worse. I have no idea why you would single out Florida, have I?  


Per NyT
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Re: Florida accelerating

Naaah.

A lot of States are doing significantly worse. I have no idea why you would single out Florida, have I?  


Per NyT
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html

Plus this

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Re: China

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1245113593131130880
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1245114510802812937

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

A lot of people wondering why US has a shortage of masks rn.

Well... among other reason, because of Democrats (Pelosi) and their muh consumers’ rights.

Article from March, the 3rd. "mask supply is a growing concern for the administration".
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/coronavirus-mask-shortage-122152
Squabble over mask shortage erupts as coronavirus spreads
The mask supply is a growing concern for the administration as more outbreaks of coronavirus are being reported in multiple states.

With officials estimating the U.S. has only 1 percent of the masks needed for health workers in a full pandemic, Trump administration and mask makers wanted a provision added to the emergency coronavirus spending bill to protect manufacturers if wearers get sick. But House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, viewed the effort as an expansive legal waiver and blocked it from being added to the final version.

The $8.3 billion spending bill will come up for a vote in the Senate Thursday after passing the House on Wednesday. It won’t be changed now, but manufacturers and White House officials are warning that the omission could lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors.

Democrats were warned it could "lead to hoarding of masks and not enough supply for nurses and doctors." House Democrats didn't listen.

March, 30
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/how-coronavirus-shook-congress-complacency-155058

As lawmakers got to work in February, manufacturers who make face masks said they would be able to provide tens of millions more N95 face masks — also called respirators — to hospitals and first responders. But they needed Congress to shield them from lawsuits over the alternative masks, which were originally made for industrial use and thus hadn’t gone through the FDA approval process that traditional hospital masks are required to go through before they are used in health care settings. (Both types of masks are N95 quality -- meaning they are meant to fit closely around the face and filter out 95 percent of airborne particles -- but industrial masks are made for uses such as construction sites.)

................

Democratic leaders in the House, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were similarly concerned about waiving consumers’ rights to sue a company over potentially faulty equipment. Republicans inserted a provision, mirroring Fischer’s bill, that would have solved the issue into the $8.3 billion coronavirus relief bill that passed in early March, but House Democratic leaders stripped the language.

“Why should mask makers have special immunity?” said one Pelosi aide, explaining her thinking.

In mid-March, as the U.S. economy began to blink red and concerns mounted about a widespread shortage of masks, Congress scrambled to pass a second wave of emergency legislation, and then a third.

A temporary waiver on liability on mask makers that included some, but not all, N95-grade masks was included in the Phase 2 bill negotiated by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the Trump administration announced that companies would begin producing “tens of millions” more masks a month. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who canceled the Senate’s planned recess for the week of March 16—made the waiver permanent in Phase 3, which will also allow for more types of masks to be used.

...................

Nearly a month after the original debate over the provision of masks, Congress is now poised to further free up mask production. But in between the start of the debate and its resolution, a critical shortage has surfaced. Doctors and nurses in the most in-demand areas are being forced to reuse masks, which they have described as a serious health risk, wear bandanas, or even make their own.

Pelosi and House Democrats delayed this with 2 weeks. They gave up, when they understood the severity of Corona...

We start to see the consequences of Pelosi's muh consumers’ rights.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-protective-gear-stockpile-depleted/2020/04/01/44d6592a-741f-11ea-ae50-7148009252e3_story.html
Protective gear in national stockpile is nearly depleted, DHS officials say

The government’s emergency stockpile of respirator masks, gloves and other medical supplies is running low and is nearly exhausted due to the coronavirus outbreak, leaving the Trump administration and the states to compete for personal protective equipment in a freewheeling global marketplace rife with profiteering and price-gouging, according to Homeland Security officials involved in the frantic acquisition effort.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Turns out DeSantis only did the order because he got sued and a judge was gonna decide for him about whether or not a SAH order was gonna happen or not.

Citation please?

I'll get the article when it's up, local news spoke about it earlier.

Edit: Lawsuit asks court to force Gov. Ron DeSantis to close beaches, issue ‘safer at home’ order

The article doesn't claim "DeSantis only did the order because he got sued and a judge was gonna decide for him", only that he got sued