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

[OSR stands with Israel]

Don’t know if this is the right thread but I’ll post it here for now .


If the government is forcing industries to have to shutdown , then yes they better bail them out because the government has forced them to shutdown .

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Massie says he will insist on a recorded vote, per NYT.

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1243573357586657282

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1243575608489193472

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1243582182486167552

Then, the House will approve the stimulus by voice vote, which was the plan all along.

[Hammy]

For once I actually agree with trump on something

Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie is a fool for doing this stunt to block stimulus bill and forcing House members to head back to DC in middle of a pandemic just for this foolishness

He is putting people lives at risk just for a stunt that he knows full well will not stop the bill from passing. its pointless move that does nothing but put many lives in great danger


look Im have made it clear that Im also not the biggest fan of the stimulus bill but even I think this stunt is both dangerous and reckless. if he goes through with this there will be will be blood on his hands.....

The stimulus bill does nothing to get more supplies out there. Passing this while saying $1bn is too much for ventilators and such is outright murder.

I agree that this bill does not do nearly enough but that does not change the fact that Massie is putting people lives at risk for a bill that he knows will pass anyway

Lives are being put at risk by not bailing out corporations so they can keep their bonuses and their pay raises? When that's being prioritized over doing something about hospital overfill and supply shortages because the system is overwhelmed you can't make the argument this bill is saving any lives--it's saving profit margins and optics and nothing more.

[Smeulders]

+919 deaths in Italy, a significant jump from their trend line which seemed like it was plateauing and the highest daily total for this country and anywhere since the pandemic started.

5'900 new cases, which is more or less in line with the ca 6'000 a day that it has been recording over the last 7-10 days. So it does seem like case numbers are plateauing in a way that does seem to give me hope that they are currently at the peak. Deaths are a lagging indicator, so it's not necessarily a surprise that they're still increasing.

Also take into account the information posted a few pages back. It appears likely Italy was (is) severely undercounting deaths. If that is the case, officially recorded deaths do not mean a whole lot. Which numbers can be used to estimate the evolution is Italy is a big question though.

[Smeulders]

Don’t know if this is the right thread but I’ll post it here for now .


If the government is forcing industries to have to shutdown , then yes they better bail them out because the government has forced them to shutdown .

They can shut down because they were ordered, or they can shut down later once their employees are dying and refusing to come to work. The government is under no obligation to bail them out. Bailing them out is, in many cases, simply good policy. Letting productive companies go bankrupt due to natural disasters helps no one.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

He needs 1/5th of the members to rise and be counted to get a sufficient second for a roll call. That won’t happen, sources said.

This is highly unusual to say a member doesn’t have enough for a second.

This says something when you can't get ONE of your (at very least) 150+ colleagues to agree with you.  

[roxas11]

For once I actually agree with trump on something

Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie is a fool for doing this stunt to block stimulus bill and forcing House members to head back to DC in middle of a pandemic just for this foolishness

He is putting people lives at risk just for a stunt that he knows full well will not stop the bill from passing. its pointless move that does nothing but put many lives in great danger


look Im have made it clear that Im also not the biggest fan of the stimulus bill but even I think this stunt is both dangerous and reckless. if he goes through with this there will be will be blood on his hands.....

The stimulus bill does nothing to get more supplies out there. Passing this while saying $1bn is too much for ventilators and such is outright murder.

I agree that this bill does not do nearly enough but that does not change the fact that Massie is putting people lives at risk for a bill that he knows will pass anyway

Lives are being put at risk by not bailing out corporations so they can keep their bonuses and their pay raises? When that's being prioritized over doing something about hospital overfill and supply shortages because the system is overwhelmed you can't make the argument this bill is saving any lives--it's saving profit margins and optics and nothing more.

Im not making the argument that this bill will save anybody nor am I claiming that the Bill is anything more than than a corporate bailout

Im not defending the bill at all


What Im saying is that Massie forcing members of congress to fly to DC in he middle of pandemic just to vote for a bill that he already knows will pass anyway is A terrible idea that will only help spread the virus to innocent people who have nothing to do with any of this

[Arizona Iced Tea]

When is the house vote?

[Podgy the Bear]

House vote passes--will go to the President for signature.

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/1243165823759527936

Any time you have to go out in public, wear a mask. If you don't have one (yes, they should be prioritized for health care workers given that there is a shortage), you can make various improvised masks which, while less effective than proper medical masks, can nonetheless have some effect. There are various guides for how to do that online, just google it - there are instructions how to even use old T-shirts for this.

But public health authorities should stop lying to the public and telling them that masks have no effect. Lying to the public is tempting since they think it might somehow lead to more masks ending up in the hands of health care workers, but it only leads people to (rightfully) mistrust public health officials. The way to get the public to respond properly is to tell the truth.

Deborah Birx and other officials might also want to keep that in mind when she downplays the possibility of larger #s of Americans getting infected, the need to start talking about how ventilators will be rationed if and when there are shortages, etc.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

For once I actually agree with trump on something

Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie is a fool for doing this stunt to block stimulus bill and forcing House members to head back to DC in middle of a pandemic just for this foolishness

He is putting people lives at risk just for a stunt that he knows full well will not stop the bill from passing. its pointless move that does nothing but put many lives in great danger


look Im have made it clear that Im also not the biggest fan of the stimulus bill but even I think this stunt is both dangerous and reckless. if he goes through with this there will be will be blood on his hands.....

The stimulus bill does nothing to get more supplies out there. Passing this while saying $1bn is too much for ventilators and such is outright murder.

I agree that this bill does not do nearly enough but that does not change the fact that Massie is putting people lives at risk for a bill that he knows will pass anyway

Lives are being put at risk by not bailing out corporations so they can keep their bonuses and their pay raises? When that's being prioritized over doing something about hospital overfill and supply shortages because the system is overwhelmed you can't make the argument this bill is saving any lives--it's saving profit margins and optics and nothing more.

Hospitals are getting $100 billion to help them deal with the crisis
I already posted this in response to you

What's this actually do to rescue people from the coronavirus? Are they going to send more funding to hospitals? Demand more masks and supplies be sent out? More stringent measures to prevent the spread? CDC funding?

Or is this just an attempt at buying votes with as little money as possible while making sure the rich get their bonuses so the stock charts looks good?

Hospitals gets their wish: $100 billion

What they got: Health care providers would secure $100 billion in grants to help fight the coronavirus and make up for dollars they have lost by delaying elective surgeries and other procedures to focus on the outbreak. They would also get a 20 percent bump in Medicare payments for treating patients with the virus.

Why it matters: This figure is exactly what three powerful groups representing physicians, hospitals and nurses had demanded, though for-profit hospitals were lobbying for much more. But there are still questions about whether there will be significant guardrails on how the money will be split up. The coronavirus will hit rural hospitals especially hard, since they already operate on thin margins and have limited staffing capacity. So some lawmakers have been working to ensure enough money goes to those sites.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/whats-in-stimulus-package-coronavirus-149282

[QAnonKelly]

https://twitter.com/JohnKerry/status/1243552337429438464?s=20

[Torrain]

BREAKING: UK PM Boris Johnson has COVID-19

He's tested positive, and is displaying mild symptoms.

We have a continuity plan in place, with Foreign Secretary (and everyone's least favourite cabinet minister) Dominic Raab taking over if he becomes seriously ill.

But more important is the fact that this means key figures like the Health Secretary, as well as the rest of the UK cabinet, the Chief Medical Officer and much of the upper ranks of the civil service could be infected.

Johnson was in Parliament as recently as Wednesday, alongside the Health Secretary, and the leaders of the opposition parties. And he stood alongside the Chancellor just last night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52060791

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary has tested positive too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52058788

And to top it all off, the UK Chief Medical Office, Professor Chris Whitty, is now self-isolating after displaying symptoms of COVID-19. He's been working and answering questions alongside Hancock and Johnson for days, so there isn't really any doubt that he has the virus.

https://twitter.com/CMO_England/status/1243571992911138817

This has been an exhausting day.

[The Mikado]

Since the US is now at over 1,200 deaths and accelerating, does anyone here really want to say that Penn Quaker Girl was wrong when she said 10k deaths was the minimum the US would see? I remember people in the last thread giving her s**t about that estimate.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Seems like day per day cases in NY is starting to plateau but unfortunately hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging factor

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

We might be seeing President Cuomo and Vice President Whitmer arising out of this (or Vice versa).

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1243586823080808462

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1243376220257103877

If it weren't for all the innocent people affected by it, I'd be half inclined to believe the virus is Nature's way of weeding out some of the stupidly obtuse members of the population.

[Virginiá]

Not that I disagree with the criticism of Massie and what not, but Congress should not be recessing right now, or at the very least, not leaving DC. Lay low in their apartments/houses until needed to debate/vote on things, but given the fast-evolving nature of this crisis, they need to be on hand to respond as fast as possible.

[T'Chenka]

Since the US is now at over 1,200 deaths and accelerating, does anyone here really want to say that Penn Quaker Girl was wrong when she said 10k deaths was the minimum the US would see? I remember people in the last thread giving her s**t about that estimate.

When people put their foot in their mouth, you usually don't hear them speak.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Not that I disagree with the criticism of Massie and what not, but Congress should not be recessing right now, or at the very least, not leaving DC. Lay low in their apartments/houses until needed to debate/vote on things, but given the fast-evolving nature of this crisis, they need to be on hand to respond as fast as possible.

What Congress should really do is quickly pass a rules change allowing them to do remote voting (at least temporarily during the pandemic). I know there are security concerns and the like, but if nothing else, a simple way to avoid that on a temporary basis would be to allow them to post their votes on their house member websites (and have representatives and staff monitor to make sure the websites don't get hacked and votes are correctly posted), and then have the House clerk/staff go through each member's website and record the votes. And if a vote is recorded incorrectly, the member/staff makes a phone call to fix it. They really ought to be able to do something better than that, but even that would do the trick.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1243603238588473344

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Since the US is now at over 1,200 deaths and accelerating, does anyone here really want to say that Penn Quaker Girl was wrong when she said 10k deaths was the minimum the US would see? I remember people in the last thread giving her s**t about that estimate.

Oh I'm not looking for credit, of course.  And those weren't my personal numbers -- I was simply going off of the numbers I'd seen from the models at the P-DOID. 

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1243603238588473344

I've also seen reports that Representative Lizzie Fletcher of Texas has been experiencing flu-like symptoms, and has been tested for coronavirus. If her test comes back positive, then she will be the fourth House number to have been diagnosed with it.

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1243207058293473282

[Santander]