COVID-19 Mega thread

[Middle-aged Europe]

Shut the f**k up, Donnie.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1238113667754995712

[It’s so Joever]

Worse.
This will end Trump’s presidency if he doesn’t take swift action ASAP. The economy will continue to tank and the virus will continue to spread until free and available testing, city-wide closures, and social isolation measures are taken.
If things go on the way I think it will go, Trump will lose in a landslide because of this.

[Old Man Willow]

The 40-45% of the country that is in the Trump cult will just blame the Dems/everyone but Trump. There is no hope for their kind.

[afleitch]

What happens when the lolz (or those who take it seriously) of the conspiracy bubble burst when faced with the reality of this epidemic?

Are people willing to die to own the libs?

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

The 40-45% of the country that is in the Trump cult will just blame the Dems/everyone but Trump. There is no hope for their kind.

If this is a test case for Trump’s true floor, it’s worth keeping in mind that Hoover still got 40% despite losing all but like six states. I am not saying Biden would or could carry 40+ states, but if this gets as bad as everyone thinks it will, Trump would lose in a landslide that makes 2008 look tame in comparison.

[MasterJedi]

What happens when the lolz (or those who take it seriously) of the conspiracy bubble burst when faced with the reality of this epidemic?

Are people willing to die to own the libs?

We can only hope!

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/Complex/status/1238196077460930560

Freedom Site!!!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Far worse. It won't be long before everyone, including Mr. Trump and his enablers, will be wishing he'd handled the pandemic as well as Bush and his administration handled Katrina.  Trump & co should be thrilled if they come out of this with their lives.

[Tekken_Guy]

I think the goal is to make it safe to return to school on-campus by April 6.

Keep dreaming.

So should we just call off school for the rest of the semester? Or is it too early?

[lfromnj]

Shut the f**k up, Donnie.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1238113667754995712

This is good even if his reasoning may be bad.

[It’s so Joever]

Whoever is right will get bragging points next January!
Anyways my guess is 300,000.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

If the estimates that over 30% of the country will eventually get it is right, then obviously one of the bottom two options.

[Tekken_Guy]

There is no guarantee this will still be a problem by mid-April.

[Florida Man for Crime]

So should we just call off school for the rest of the semester? Or is it too early?

There is no reason to decide that far in advance, but IMO realistically I would say that is what is likely to end up happening. The most likely way that schools might get un-canceled before that is if there is evidence indicating that children don't spread the virus, but so far the evidence points the other way.

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/researchers-rush-to-start-moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-without-usual-animal-testing/

As they race to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine, researchers aren’t waiting to see how well it prevents infection in animals before trying it in people, breaking from the usual protocol.

“I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial,” said Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech that has produced a Covid-19 vaccine candidate at record speed. He told STAT that scientists at the National Institutes of Health are “working on nonclinical research in parallel.” Meanwhile, the clinical trial started recruiting healthy participants in the first week of March.

That isn’t how vaccine testing normally happens. Regulators require that a manufacturer show a product is safe before it goes into people, and while it isn’t enshrined in law, researchers almost always check that a new concoction is effective in lab animals before putting human volunteers at potential risk.

“This is very unusual,” explained Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale University microbiologist who studies the immune response to viruses. “It reflects the urgency to develop vaccines to counter the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Rushing things along

[Middle-aged Europe]

Shut the f**k up, Donnie.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1238113667754995712

This is good even if his reasoning may be bad.

Irrespective of one thinks of the FISA bill, I can't really decide whether it's reason to be angry, sad, or afraid that Donald Trump can't even stop being a petulant narcissist and act presidential in the middle of a pandemic and possibly the beginning of the Second Great Recession.

[It’s so Joever]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/researchers-rush-to-start-moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-without-usual-animal-testing/

As they race to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine, researchers aren’t waiting to see how well it prevents infection in animals before trying it in people, breaking from the usual protocol.

“I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial,” said Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech that has produced a Covid-19 vaccine candidate at record speed. He told STAT that scientists at the National Institutes of Health are “working on nonclinical research in parallel.” Meanwhile, the clinical trial started recruiting healthy participants in the first week of March.

That isn’t how vaccine testing normally happens. Regulators require that a manufacturer show a product is safe before it goes into people, and while it isn’t enshrined in law, researchers almost always check that a new concoction is effective in lab animals before putting human volunteers at potential risk.

“This is very unusual,” explained Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale University microbiologist who studies the immune response to viruses. “It reflects the urgency to develop vaccines to counter the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Rushing things along

I am getting plague inc vibes.

[Tekken_Guy]

So should we just call off school for the rest of the semester? Or is it too early?

There is no reason to decide that far in advance, but IMO realistically I would say that is what is likely to end up happening. The most likely way that schools might get un-canceled before that is if there is evidence indicating that children don't spread the virus, but so far the evidence points the other way.

Or the spread of the virus starts to slow down.

[Crumpets]

What happens when the lolz (or those who take it seriously) of the conspiracy bubble burst when faced with the reality of this epidemic?

Are people willing to die to own the libs?

"Me being incapacitated in the hospital with pneumonia for two weeks is no different than when I normally get a cold. So what if my wife died? I'm not some snowflake millennial who's going to whine about it."

[Crumpets]

I have a hard time seeing us be orders of magnitude worse than China. Sure we won't implement the same level of controls, but our population is not nearly as big and our health care (even if not our health system as a whole) is pretty darn good. I'm guessing around 10,000 by the end of the year.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Does anybody else find this thread gratuitous and gruesome?

No moreso than the Trump admin putting kids in cages, or the Obama admin starving them for the Saudis.

We're a forum that leans heavily to stats and prediction.

I predict 400,000 dead, but the Trumpers will minimize the numbers. ("He was nver tested, so you can't say it was COVID" and "sure, she tested positive for COVID, but that wasn't what killed her") Trumpers will try to claim a death toll in the thousands and pretend they're being generous by admitting it might be over 10,000.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I would rather not brag about being right about this sort of thing.

[PSOL]

If the hundreds of negligent, preventable deaths from Maria didn’t do him in, this will soon pass as a negative footnote come election season. It’s clear that those who would vote for him will just handwave this to blame minorities or the deep state instead of realize he is at fault.

[Tekken_Guy]

Things are starting to slow down in South Korea. Almost everyone who has it knows they do and won’t be around anyone else until they’ve recovered. Schools are re-opening without a problem.

The outbreak started late last month and the US could follow the same trajectory.

[Badger]

Re: Biden, this is the speech that I hoped Trump would give last night.  

He didn't appear to be "senile" either.

heck if you watched this speech back to back with the one trump gave last night you would think that it was trump himself who is going senile and losing his mind lol

Well, that is not a coincidence.

Seriously, I am having a difficult time comprehending anyone taking much seriousness in the Joe Biden is senile meme, when we have a president currently in office who is with possibly the exception of Reagan the one who has demonstrated the most overt signs of mental deterioration of any president in history.

Furthermore, there are some serious differences between his and Reagan's onset of dementia. First, even if you disagree with their hard right politics, the people Reagan surrounded himself with were at least competent and experienced professionals on how to run the government ( other than Nancy herself). Secondly, whereas Reagan's senility manifested itself in forgetfulness and occasional Woolley headedness, Trump's does in just downright bizarre and to put it nicely erratic thought patterns that just feed into his narcissistic megalomania, which of course directly impacts every aspect of his presidency. Third, unlike Reagan's second-term when he started to slip in earnest, Trump is actually trying to run for re-election when he's within a year or two of needing if not committed to a home, at least family members to take over a power of attorney to handle his matters.