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

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https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1248316823302483969?s=19

ANTIFA JOSH

Make sure the companies also keep these people's health insurance intact and I'm on board.

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What seems likely is that we will pull back some stay-at-home measures by around the end of April, as deaths seem to peak and political pressure mounts. Within a few weeks, new hot spots will emerge. What then?

No new hot spots will emerge then.

You are amazingly overconfident.

Trust me on this. There won't be any. There can't be any. There shan't be any.

Not gonna happen.

What is this based on? Why do you think that will be the case?

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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.

Hopefully it works out this way. We should have a better idea of which therapies work by that time. If it is one of the experimental drugs such as Remdesivir, we should help the drug company ramp up production.

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https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1248374630399672321
Mass graves... just one more day in Donald Trump's Great Republican America.

Keep America Great™

Let's not forget that (D) president would not stop flights from China because muh xenophobic, and what exponential growth would mean together with incompetence of (D) NY officials.

Trump's wise decision probably saved [ten] thousands of lives of his native NYC and in US 🙏🙏🙏

That is just an assumption not backed up by facts.

The actual facts are that Trump and the government he leads screwed up the testing and allowed the virus to circulate unchecked in the country until it was too late. So now we had to screw our economy to get this thing under control. Trump can redeem himself if he can ramp up testing and medical supplies by May 1st so we can get the economy opened up again. And we better be prepared when the second wave hits, whether that is in May after the country is opened, or in September/October as the weather gets colder. If we aren't prepared a second time Trump will get drubbed in the election.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/492142-california-sees-first-decrease-in-coronavirus-icu-hospitalizations?fbclid=IwAR1ExmmRfVpLL0KJ12ajdJWvwFoaUw_1e5GGYf6Sl2581-LfrxI7Sqs_a-w

California apparently had fewer hospitalizations on Thursday than they did on Wednesday.

Social distancing works. So will testing, contact tracing and surveillance if we can get our act together and get it in place.

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https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1248374630399672321
Mass graves... just one more day in Donald Trump's Great Republican America.

Keep America Great™

Let's not forget that (D) president would not stop flights from China because muh xenophobic, and what exponential growth would mean together with incompetence of (D) NY officials.

Trump's wise decision probably saved [ten] thousands of lives of his native NYC and in US 🙏🙏🙏

That is just an assumption not backed up by facts.

The actual facts are that Trump and the government he leads screwed up the testing and allowed the virus to circulate unchecked in the country until it was too late. So now we had to screw our economy to get this thing under control. Trump can redeem himself if he can ramp up testing and medical supplies by May 1st so we can get the economy opened up again. And we better be prepared when the second wave hits, whether that is in May after the country is opened, or in September/October as the weather gets colder. If we aren't prepared a second time Trump will get drubbed in the election.

Haha, I asked you about the sources of your assumption that "government he leads screwed up the testing" and I still haven't got anything.


IMO, as I said, there was a structural problem with CDC and stockpiling of chemicals. It doesn't depend on who is in WH.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/us-coronavirus-tests-invs/index.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-coronavirus-tests-actually-work/

So if you think Hillary would do any better, you have to assume that she would start to stockpile chemicals in 2016 and override Fauci/CDC in 2020. IMO, not realistic at all.

The fact is that Trump restricted flights from China, which probably explains a ~2 week lag from Europe. The fact is it was against experts' advice and was his nationalistic hunch. He was criticized by experts, Democrats and their Media, so (D) president likely wouldn't do it.


German economy is likely to be initially screwed even more by the way (because of higher reliance on exports, perhaps).

Trump owns this, for good or for bad. There is still a long way to go till November. His actions from now until then will matter a lot. He needs to make sure the government is functioning efficiently from now on. If we can't get our testing capability along with our ability to contain local outbreaks through contact tracing and local lockdowns, we will be back here again in a few months and then the people will be really pissed.

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Trump owns this, for good or for bad. There is still a long way to go till November. His actions from now until then will matter a lot. He needs to make sure the government is functioning efficiently from now on. If we can't get our testing capability along with our ability to contain local outbreaks through contact tracing and local lockdowns, we will be back here again in a few months and then the people will be really pissed.

I never said, he didn't own it. Especially when US media are as they are.


People will, perhaps, look at Europe? US will likely be better on testing, economy and tracing.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-google-partner-on-coronavirus-contact-tracing-technology-11586540203
Apple, Google Partner on Coronavirus Contact-Tracing Technology
Solution helps alert users if they have had contact with an infected person

Apple Inc. and Google are teaming up to build software into smartphones that would alert people recently in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus, an unprecedented collaboration between the makers of the operating systems behind billions of smartphones world-wide.

The tech giants said the solution, which will be released over the coming months, will use Bluetooth technology on phones to allow users who opt-in to tap into an ecosystem of apps from health authorities that track the virus. The concept, known as “contact tracing,” would make it easier to contain future outbreaks as people return to work and the drumbeat of daily life.

Yes, America will be better than Europe, but only Europe. And even then it will be worse than Germany. We will be worse than most of Asia outside of Hubei province. Are we supposed to pat ourselves on the back for that? Like I said, this pandemic isn't over yet. We shall see if we can get our act together going forward. Testing capability has gone up by magnitudes, and now we need to change the testing criteria to increase testing. No more trying to save tests for those with severe symptoms and healthcare workers.

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All over the country, there are portions of stores that people are prohibited from buying from. In Michigan, by Gov Whitmer's executive order, this includes home improvement and gardening.

https://twitter.com/joesichspach/status/1248653376931258370?s=20

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/what-michigans-new-coronavirus-stay-home-executive-order-means

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s latest stay-home order to battle the coronavirus pandemic allows home improvement stores to stay open, but only to sell “products necessary to maintain the safety, sanitation and basic operations of residences.”

The new regulations required Home Depot to close its paint section, flooring section and outdoor gardening center by Friday morning.

Tillery, a Lansing resident who already lost his job as a floor layer, has been “trying to make ends meet” during the pandemic by picking up side jobs as a handyman, providing what he said are emergency repairs in a time of crisis.

Paint was supposed to be one of the last steps in his current project: fixing a home after a tree crashed through the roof, damaging the ceiling and causing water damage.

Now, he’s not sure he can finish the job, so he planned to snap a photo of the closed paint section to show his client as proof.

Not sure how I feel about this. Outdoor gardening is a way for people to keep themselves in good mental health while having to stay home for such a long period of time.

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If the number of fatalities in people below 25 is that low, then from a policy perspective its functionally 0.

Not if you're a governor deciding whether to re-open your state's schools...

Only in a small, small state. 5 is a very tiny number compared to how many people attend the school system.

And when people are howling for DeSantis's head because children (doesn't matter how many) are dying, do you recommend he tell the grieving families that it was "functionally zero from a policy perspective"? To say nothing of all the people over 25 who are needed to teach the children...

If I were DeSantis, I would choose a policy not rooted in paranoia and then explain it as tactfully as possible.
I would also not punish truancy in these circumstances either.
But in general this disease kills very few young people, so treating schools as some death ground where huge numbers of kids will die from corona is going into Chicken Little territory. Comparitively very few young people with no at-risk factors are actually at risk of dying from this thing.
Remote teaching might still be advisable in a wide range of cases, but not because of the risk of children dying, which is statistically insignificant (younger people with stuff like asthma is an entirely different story). It should be done to help teachers.

The main reason to keep kids out of school and away from each other is to stop the spread of covid-19. Opening schools back up in May would be a huge mistake, even if we do open up most of the economy. We need to be prepared in September when we eventually start up school again.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/CNN/status/1248212213560758272



From my ancestral hometown of Jalandhar, so beautiful

This is good to see. So sad it's not always like that.

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Strictly speaking, shouldn’t conservatives be the ones cautious about opening up the country and the liberals be the ones wanting to open the country more willingly?

If we take the standard definitions of conservative and liberal, the two should be flipped on this issue.

Or we can look at the data objectively, instead of through a partisan or ideological lens?

You guys really want to score political points while thousands of Americans are dying on a daily basis?

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-tweet/index.html

Trump retweets call to fire Fauci amid coronavirus criticism

He’s losing it and we’re going to pay for it.

If he fires Fauci everyone stops listening to Trump except for the cultists. And Fauci would then just get a position at CNN and keep giving advice to Americans and most would listen to him over Trump. Trump could become irrelevant real fast.

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Alot of people are saying countries are having a slower than expected recovery but you have to realize we are in the middle of freaking April lmao.

Indeed. The Trump plan is not very detailed but perhaps that is for the best. Local governors and mayors will understand the situation better and open up when it is time to open up for their own community. There will be places that get into stage 1 on May 1st but the most heavily affected areas should not. And even if most of the country can get to stage 2 by June or July, I don't see anyone getting to stage 3 this year unless we can ramp up testing even more (seems to have hit a bit of a roadblock) or if we have an effective therapy or a vaccine. Vaccine won't happen till next year but we may have an effective therapy by this summer.

I really hope that if good data continues to come out about Remdesivir, the government will incentivize them to start mass producing it even if it isn't FDA approved at that point. That being said this drug will only be for those with moderate to severe disease who are hospitalized, since it is given as an infusion. Hopefully studies using hydroxychloroquine show efficacy as well since that drug could possibly be used in those with mild to moderate disease and will hopefully decrease the rate of hospitalizations.

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https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1251272475230580737

I'm plenty disappointed with Trump's performance with the crisis, but the fact that NowThis is using "Trump" instead of "government" is all you need to know.

He didn't take this seriously enough and the bureaucratic mess with the lack of focus on testing and no effort to procure PPE kept simmering for a few weeks too long before the white house got its act together. That is a critical mistake when fighting the pandemic. And now he is trying to have the states fight for testing resources. That is the wrong approach. The feds should have the tests and supply them to the states/regions which need them at any given moment.

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The Chinese should have contained this and this was a failure on their part.

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I am not an expert here obviously but people on this board have opinions all the time on issues they are not experts on.

I say mid to late June for the below reasons:

1) Keeping up isolated and social distanced for two more months should really hinder the virus from spreading and the curve would be essentially flat.

2) It gives business more time to create procedures for operating during this pandemic. It could be as simple as airlines taking temperatures prior to board and not using middle seats except for families.

3) The unemployment stimulus boosts go until July 31st. Ending the lock downs sometime in June gives a 4 to 6 week adjustment period.

4) If we are really locked up and unemployed well into the fall and next year we will end up with mass foreclosures, evictions, people living on 300 a week from unemployment, depression, suicides, obesity, and various other medical calamities that will be far worse than the virus itself.

5) And let's be honest the coronavirus will be around for a while. Some spread of it will create more immunity and we will have to get used to wearing masks and gloves in public.

The needs of many override the needs of a few. Right now the economic cost is absolutely worth it but that opinion has a shelf life of only two more months.

Ending lockdowns on May 1st would be a horrible idea and it would absolutely lead to a massive depression. We just need more time.

Opening up the economy with restrictions can happen sooner than June. Mid-late May would be safest but parts of the country could open up earlier provided there is enough testing to catch outbreaks, and enough PPE for the additional employees that would be exposed to the virus. That is the biggest roadblock right now.