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

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/RichardEngel/status/1242926984289816583?s=20

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1242910930498879488
https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1242910933313257473

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't understand the conflict exactly.  Four GOP Senators object to language in the bill.  Are they going to actually hold up a vote on it?  If not, then hold the vote, and presumably it'll pass even without their votes.  If yes, then what is the nature of Sanders's counter-threat?  If the bill is already being blocked anyway, then Sanders saying that he will also hold it up for different reasons doesn't seem like it means anything?  Or is he saying that he will hold it up *if* the bill is amended in order to mollify those 4 GOP Senators?

I take it that McConnell and Schumer want unanimous consent so they can get out of dodge ASAP

Right, but if Sanders is suggesting that he'll block unanimous consent if and only if the 4 GOP Senators are also blocking unanimous consent, then aren't Sanders's actions superfluous?  What's his role in this?

I guess he's just trying to make a point.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1242910930498879488
https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1242910933313257473

No, not Porter!
She's such an excellent representative, and has prosecuted the case for more compassionate, intelligent gov policy through this crisis.

May she get well soon, so she can return to holding this administration to proper account, and sweep to re-election.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/fordm/status/1242901799641780225

In other words, death panels. B-but I thought they only existed with muh socialized medicine!

[HisGrace]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/25/health/coronavirus-death-peak-three-weeks-epidemiologist/index.html

A leading epidemiologist advising the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated the peak of deaths in the US coronavirus pandemic will be three weeks from now, after which "most of the damage will be done," and says it may be possible to only isolate the vulnerable, allowing many back to work.

The CDC confirmed that Ira Longini, professor at the Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases at the University of Florida, is a "funded partner." The agency said he works with them on Covid-19 modeling.

Three weeks seems a pretty short period of time. This assumes the virus will basically spread uncontrolled and just run through whole country? Pandemics usually "end" after 60-70% of population are infected if there are no effective measures to halt the spread otherwise (like vaccine). Even if mortality is just 1%, the hard number of deaths would be extremely high and result into a humanitarian disaster. Not to mention the death rate would increase as a result of a collapsing medical system. This effect was seen in China before, since mortality in Wuhan itsself was over 3%, while it stood at 0.7% in the rest of China.

The death rate in Wuhan was not higher, they just didn't test mild cases, whereas in the rest of China they did extensive contact tracing and tested everyone who came into contact with another case, even if they didn't show any symptoms.

The death rate in Wuhan city, the epicenter of the outbreak, was higher, I've read this multiple times in newspapers. The hospitals in the city itsself de facto collapsed in the early weeks of the pandemic, which resulted into more deaths than elsewhere in China. The actual mortality is definitely lower than the said numbers due to unreported/very mild cases.

If you look at the numbers in this Wikipedia table, the death rate in Wuhan is actually higher than the surrounding cities. The "official" number here is even 5% (about 2,500 deaths out of 50,000 cases).

Again, this is because the media is not very sophisticated when it comes to this sort of thing and
blithely reports the death rate as the number of reported deaths divided by the number of reported cases. But the number of reported cases is vastly understated in Wuhan compared to total number of cases, and that is much more true in Wuhan than elsewhere because Wuhan stopped bothering to count mild cases early on.

This also explains different death rates in different countries: South Korea's death rate looks very low in significant part because they tested an enormous number of people and found all or nearly all of their cases, whereas countries like Italy and Spain are not testing enough to find anywhere close to every case and so show a much higher death rate relative to cases (but actually just have a lot of unreported cases).

The supposed 3% death rate that was being hyped not too long ago was grossly irresponsible and scared the hell out of people for no reason. Even at the time it was obvious it was not that high. 

[Calthrina950]

A stay-at-home order has now been issued for all of Colorado, to last until April 11: https://krdo.com/news/top-stories/2020/03/25/watch-gov-polis-issues-statewide-stay-at-home-order-until-april-11/.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1242940940005900290

This terrific film, with its backstory of a deadly virus pandemic deliberately created to allow the seizure of power by an authoritarian regime (to be absolutely clear, I'm definitely NOT suggesting that's the cause of the current virus!), has been on my mind a lot since the start of this crisis.  I've been thinking of re-watching it, but it's so dark I'm not sure it's a good idea right now.

[emailking]

Reminds me of people -- though I've been seeing less and less of them -- who took "self-quarantine" to mean "self-quarantine at a party with seven or eight friends".

I've seen a lot of shaming on social media of people hanging out with their friends. I guess a lot of people have changed their behavior, or maybe just aren't posting pics & videos with their friends anymore.

[It’s so Joever]

Looks like I can stop hating Jared Polis

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

There needs to be a better concerted effort to fight the virus. My governor is putting economics over people's health and safety and my county is refusing to shut our beaches.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

https://twitter.com/awinston/status/1242945302291718150

[We Live in Black and White]

https://twitter.com/awinston/status/1242945302291718150

"No great loss."
 - Stephen King, The Stand (1978)

[jimrtex]

Tennessee seems the weirdest state on the map.  700 cases vs 300 in VA.

Virginia has a decent state government.

9 of the 10 states with the highest infection rates have Democratic governors. The only exception is Massachusetts.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Revelation 6:1-2

“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”



Donald Trump has removed all educational funding for lambs learning English to avoid them opening any more of the seals. Now that is leadership.

Daily New Cases



46,000 new cases globally. Highest reported positive tests in one day.

Increase was due to more cases reported than normal in Spain, Germany and France.

USA has had growth in new cases levelling out at ~11,000 per day.

Active Cases



38,000 new active cases globally. Yesterday, 35,000 new active cases. For the Active case to be interpretable, one would need accurate determination of the recoveries to see how long this curve will go before it slows.

Keep in mind that most European countries are not reporting recoveries, so Active Cases are higher than otherwise would be reported.

Countries not reporting daily recoveries include:

• USA
• Switzerland
• The Netherlands
• Austria
• Norway
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Poland (reported “-12” recoveries yesterday )

As such, we need to keep an eye on the the Active Case graph with this in mind.

Given the under-reporting of the virus due to lack of testing and its asymptomatic nature, Active case graphs are best interpreted on a country by country basis with their testing and reporting regime in mind.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1242966350357770242

[Calthrina950]

Tennessee seems the weirdest state on the map.  700 cases vs 300 in VA.

Virginia has a decent state government.

9 of the 10 states with the highest infection rates have Democratic governors. The only exception is Massachusetts.

And Massachusetts of course, is a Safe Democratic state. But not sure of its relevancy.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Tennessee seems the weirdest state on the map.  700 cases vs 300 in VA.

Virginia has a decent state government.

9 of the 10 states with the highest infection rates have Democratic governors. The only exception is Massachusetts.

Why do the states party affiliation matter?

[Green Line]

There needs to be a better concerted effort to fight the virus. My governor is putting economics over people's health and safety and my county is refusing to shut our beaches.

He is following CDC guidance, I thought we were supposed to trust the experts?  Florida is in the exact same place as Illinois, numbers wise, despite the fact that we've had stay at home for 1 week and 2 weeks of no restaurants or bars.

[Calthrina950]

A stay-at-home order has now been issued for all of Colorado, to last until April 11: https://krdo.com/news/top-stories/2020/03/25/watch-gov-polis-issues-statewide-stay-at-home-order-until-april-11/.

Building upon this earlier, many people still aren't taking this outbreak seriously. I've noted many times before that most of my own household falls into this definition. When I told my father and stepmother about the order not too long ago, they didn't seem much troubled. For them, Colorado has already been under a state of lockdown, with almost "all places" closed, and they don't think the order will make any difference. They also seemed to make a joke out of people defying the order (i.e. "What are you doing out of your house?" "Officer" etc.)

But I've given up trying to persuade anyone else at this point. People at my job also still weren't taking this seriously. When I was there on Saturday and on Monday, I was virtually the only cashier wearing gloves. Most of them still went about like business as usual.

[jimrtex]

No many the quantity of threads, this is still an overblown reaction. Glad Trump is waking up to the economic consequences.

First post in and of course it's this guy and his "hot takes"

Guess I'll be avoiding these COVID-19 megathreads for good now

Just out him on Ignore.

Don't let trumpanzees ruin Atlas for you.

My ignore button has been broken for months. All it does it take me to the first page of the thread

There is a buffer where ignored posters are stored. It fills up, and when you try to add anyone else, it can't add it in, and you are sent to the first post in a thread.

You need to clear it out. Under Profile, click on Ignore user options. It is easiest to just zap everyone. Many obnoxious posters disappear, and those that are still around can be added back in.

[Calthrina950]

Looks like I can stop hating Jared Polis

Polis' hand was forced when the suburbs and counties surrounding Denver and Boulder decided to issue stay-at-home orders, affecting 2 million people-almost half of the state's entire population. At that point, not issuing a statewide order became impractical. My home city of Colorado Springs was still holding back, as was Pueblo-even though the latter had been considering for at least a day or two. But now, it is universal. We will see what happens during the next several weeks.

[ProudModerate2]

A stay-at-home order has now been issued for all of Colorado, to last until April 11: https://krdo.com/news/top-stories/2020/03/25/watch-gov-polis-issues-statewide-stay-at-home-order-until-april-11/.

Building upon this earlier, many people still aren't taking this outbreak seriously. I've noted many times before that most of my own household falls into this definition. When I told my father and stepmother about the order not too long ago, they didn't seem much troubled. For them, Colorado has already been under a state of lockdown, with almost "all places" closed, and they don't think the order will make any difference. They also seemed to make a joke out of people defying the order (i.e. "What are you doing out of your house?" "Officer" etc.)

But I've given up trying to persuade anyone else at this point. People at my job also still weren't taking this seriously. When I was there on Saturday and on Monday, I was virtually the only cashier wearing gloves. Most of them still went about like business as usual.

Just continue to take it seriously, and protect yourself.

[ProudModerate2]

https://twitter.com/awinston/status/1242945302291718150

Crazy stuff.
I'm glad they got him before he bombed the hospital.

[Badger]

No many the quantity of threads, this is still an overblown reaction. Glad Trump is waking up to the economic consequences.

First post in and of course it's this guy and his "hot takes"

Guess I'll be avoiding these COVID-19 megathreads for good now

Just out him on Ignore.

Don't let trumpanzees ruin Atlas for you.