COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Hammy]

All the things you posted are related to time. That's why we were supposed to quarantine seriously to flatten the curve and buy time.

I totally agree with that!

That’s why I don’t understand why more people who were advocating lockdowns aren’t looking at the current data and essentially declaring victory.
The purpose of the lockdowns was not to reduce the number of infections in the long term.  The purpose was to delay the inevitable surge in infections until we had better testing and treatment.

This is an outright lie--the purpose is to keep the rate of infections steady so that fewer people need hospitalization at any given time. As I've said before, as more people are hospitalized the CFR is not only going to rise as they run out of room, but it's going to kill people who have other diseases that treatment for is now denied due to lack of space.

I remember this debate raging two month ago in the middle of the lockdowns.  No one could agree on what the purpose of the lockdowns was.

if the purpose of the lockdown is just to keep infections steady, and you succeed in keeping them steady indefinitely, how do you know when to end the lockdown?

The point of the lockdown is to keep cases low until treatment or a vaccine can help. It was not to "delay the spike" as you claimed--it was all to prevent one and thus prevent the healthcare system from collapsing.

[CookieDamage]

Honestly, at this point, maybe some level of herd immunity is the only way we can control the virus. As Americans are extremely self-entitled, it’s clear we can’t expect people to act like decent human beings here.
What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I worry about some of y'all sometimes

[It’s so Joever]

Honestly, at this point, maybe some level of herd immunity is the only way we can control the virus. As Americans are extremely self-entitled, it’s clear we can’t expect people to act like decent human beings here.
What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I worry about some of y'all sometimes

Why?
This seems like a reasonable compromise that gives people a choice without hurting others.
Sure it’s arguably morally wrong, but we crossed that line months ago.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I've been saying we should have a deliberate infection program for months.

But I can't fathom why you would want to deny medical care to someone who volunteers for this program.  Anyone who gets deliberately infected and strictly quarantines is sacrificing their own health in order to build an immunity buffer to protect people who are more vulnerable.  They should be given the best possible care and treated as national heroes upon recovery, like victorious soldiers returning home from war.

[It’s so Joever]

What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I've been saying we should have a deliberate infection program for months.

But I can't fathom why you would want to deny medical case to someone who volunteers for this program.  Any who gets deliberately infected and strictly quarantines is sacrificing their own health in order to build an immunity buffer to protect people who are more vulnerable.  They should be given the best possible care and treated as a national hero upon recovery, like a victorious soldier returning home from war.

Why would I deny healthcare to someone who volunteers for this?
Because we already are facing shortages across the country. If we had infinite resources, I wouldn’t have a problem with them receiving healthcare, but in this case, we should prioritize those who were unwillingly infected first.
Besides, this program is meant for people who aren’t taking it seriously like certain posters on here. If they want to take the risk so they don’t have to wear a piece of fabric, I have zero moral qualms about them not receiving treatment.

Maybe we could offer a cash incentive so that more people will join if that’s the problem you are worried about.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I've been saying we should have a deliberate infection program for months.

But I can't fathom why you would want to deny medical case to someone who volunteers for this program.  Any who gets deliberately infected and strictly quarantines is sacrificing their own health in order to build an immunity buffer to protect people who are more vulnerable.  They should be given the best possible care and treated as a national hero upon recovery, like a victorious soldier returning home from war.

Why would I deny healthcare to someone who volunteers for this?
Because we already are facing shortages across the country. If we had infinite resources, I wouldn’t have a problem with them receiving healthcare, but in this case, we should prioritize those who were unwillingly infected first.
Besides, this program is meant for people who aren’t taking it seriously like certain posters on here. If they want to take the risk so they don’t have to wear a piece of fabric, I have zero moral qualms about them not receiving treatment.

Maybe we could offer a cash incentive so that more people will join if that’s the problem you are worried about.

If we had really strictly locked down the country for everyone who hadn’t been infected yet, we probably wouldn’t have heathcare shortages, because there would be far fewer vulnerable people who are using most of the healthcare resources being infected.  We could have then gradually reopened the country as more people acquired immunty, and opened up fully for everyone once we had reached a reasonable level of herd immunity.

[It’s so Joever]

What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I've been saying we should have a deliberate infection program for months.

But I can't fathom why you would want to deny medical case to someone who volunteers for this program.  Any who gets deliberately infected and strictly quarantines is sacrificing their own health in order to build an immunity buffer to protect people who are more vulnerable.  They should be given the best possible care and treated as a national hero upon recovery, like a victorious soldier returning home from war.

Why would I deny healthcare to someone who volunteers for this?
Because we already are facing shortages across the country. If we had infinite resources, I wouldn’t have a problem with them receiving healthcare, but in this case, we should prioritize those who were unwillingly infected first.
Besides, this program is meant for people who aren’t taking it seriously like certain posters on here. If they want to take the risk so they don’t have to wear a piece of fabric, I have zero moral qualms about them not receiving treatment.

Maybe we could offer a cash incentive so that more people will join if that’s the problem you are worried about.

If we had really strictly locked down the country for everyone who hadn’t been infected yet, we probably wouldn’t have heathcare shortages, because there would be far fewer vulnerable people who are using most of the healthcare resources being infected.  We could have then gradually reopened the country as more people acquired immunty, and opened up fully for everyone once we had reached a reasonable level of herd immunity.

If we had strictly locked down the country, we wouldn’t have had healthcare shortages anyways, and would look more like Canada in terms of the curve. Unfortunately, our political leaders were too scared to take decisive action and now we have to adjust to the realities of the current situation.

[Hammy]

Honestly, at this point, maybe some level of herd immunity is the only way we can control the virus. As Americans are extremely self-entitled, it’s clear we can’t expect people to act like decent human beings here.
What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I worry about some of y'all sometimes

Why?
This seems like a reasonable compromise that gives people a choice without hurting others.
Sure it’s arguably morally wrong, but we crossed that line months ago.

You can't rely on herd immunity for a virus where immunity hasn't even been proven in the first place.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Honestly, at this point, maybe some level of herd immunity is the only way we can control the virus. As Americans are extremely self-entitled, it’s clear we can’t expect people to act like decent human beings here.
What we should have is a deliberate infection program. Anyone who wants to be able to go out without masks/social distancing can opt to be deliberately infected. They will then be placed under house arrest for several weeks until they test negative twice. Volunteers for this program will not get medical treatment no matter what.
After they are recovered and show antibodies, they will be given a special card that they can show to be exempt from masks.

I worry about some of y'all sometimes

Why?
This seems like a reasonable compromise that gives people a choice without hurting others.
Sure it’s arguably morally wrong, but we crossed that line months ago.

You can't rely on herd immunity for a virus where immunity hasn't even been proven in the first place.

Sure it has, at least to the extent that is is logically possible to “prove” something like this.

There have been 11 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and not a single confirmed case of independent reinfection.  

Let’s say you wanted to test a vaccine candidate.  If you vaccinated 11 million people across the world over the course of four months and not a single one got infected, wouldn’t you say the vaccine had been proven effective?

The point of the lockdown is to keep cases low until treatment or a vaccine can help. It was not to "delay the spike" as you claimed--it was all to prevent one and thus prevent the healthcare system from collapsing.

We already have treatments that help significantly.  So on that point, the lockdowns worked.  And if the plan was really to lock everyone down until a vaccine was available, very few people would have ever supported it.

[Tender Branson]

To put the US numbers into context with Austria (which is experiencing some sort of 2nd „mini-wave“ recently):

USA (330 million people) 🇺🇸: 55.000 new daily cases / 400-800 dead per day

Austria (9 million people) 🇦🇹: 110 new daily cases / 1 dead per day

So, the US has ca. 13x new daily cases per capita and 11-22x as many deaths per day ...

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

To put the US numbers into context with Austria (which is experiencing some sort of 2nd „mini-wave“ recently):

USA (330 million people) 🇺🇸: 55.000 new daily cases / 400-800 dead per day

Austria (9 million people) 🇦🇹: 110 new daily cases / 1 dead per day

So, the US has ca. 13x new daily cases per capita and 11-22x as many deaths per day ...

Why do you think Austria has seen such a better outcome thus far than Italy, especially considering that it borders Northern Italy where the worst early outbreaks occurred?

(I’m not trying to prove a point; I’m genuinely curious and know nothing about Austria’s response.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The chairs at Mr. Trump's narcissistic wallow were apparently zip-tied together.  
https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1279168956339798018?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwca...

Oops, forgot to include the gaslighting by the Junior Presidential Electra Complex Tzarina and Senior Presidential Babysitter:
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1279241127938359296

[Tender Branson]

To put the US numbers into context with Austria (which is experiencing some sort of 2nd „mini-wave“ recently):

USA (330 million people) 🇺🇸: 55.000 new daily cases / 400-800 dead per day

Austria (9 million people) 🇦🇹: 110 new daily cases / 1 dead per day

So, the US has ca. 13x new daily cases per capita and 11-22x as many deaths per day ...

Why do you think Austria has seen such a better outcome thus far than Italy, especially considering that it borders Northern Italy where the worst early outbreaks occurred?

(I’m not trying to prove a point; I’m genuinely curious and know nothing about Austria’s response.)

A vigorous lockdown was put in place in the 2nd week of March, when cases started to explode „thanks“ to people bringing it from Italy and tourists contracting it to Europe from our crowded ski resorts (Austria has 100 million tourists per year, so the sh*t can easily blow up again right now with the summer tourists coming in).

With the lockdown, virtually everyone stayed at home and it was largely weeded out by mid-May. Mask-wearing was made mandatory virtually everywhere in public space, which prevented a spread to our nursing homes, which were the epicenters in Northern Italy.

Later on, tracking down local clusters and isolating infected + vigorous testing was successful.

[Tender Branson]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

[GP270watch]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

 Great posts but it's lost on most of this crowd.

[Dr. Arch]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

 Great posts but it's lost on most of this crowd.

Indeed.

[Koharu]

The Mount Rushmore speech is infuriating. I pray that everyone who attends it stays healthy and well, though I'm afraid that will not be the case at all.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Happy Fourth, y'all!

As always, I hope everybody has a fantastic day! If celebrating with others, please be careful and safe!

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

Thanks, interesting article.  

I’d be interested to hear more about the political factors that led so many diverse governments to Europe to jointly adopt this approach.  Because the difference between subsidizing payrolls and direct unemployment benefits wouldn’t seem to fit cleanly into a left/right divide, and many of the governments in Europe right now are very conservative in any case.  And despite it’s apparent effectiveness, I haven’t really heard many officials on either side in the US advocating for this approach.  Is it just the basic difference between having a functional vs. utterly dysfunctional national government?

[Calthrina950]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

Thanks, interesting article.  

I’d be interested to hear more about the political factors that led so many diverse governments to Europe to jointly adopt this approach.  Because the difference between subsidizing payrolls and direct unemployment benefits wouldn’t seem to fit cleanly into a left/right divide, and many of the governments in Europe right now are very conservative in any case.  And despite it’s apparent effectiveness, I haven’t really heard many officials on either side in the US advocating for this approach.  Is it just the basic difference between having a functional vs. utterly dysfunctional national government?

I think it is because we have an even more conservative government than those that exist in Europe. European countries have, for decades, long had more efficient and more comprehensive social safety nets than the United States, and have thus been far more prepared to deal with the economic fallout from this pandemic than we have.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.

In the pandemic, the United States has relied on expanded unemployment benefits, while European governments have subsidized wages, avoiding a surge in joblessness.

The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion.

The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns.

European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/business/economy/europe-us-jobless-coronavirus.html

Thanks, interesting article.  

I’d be interested to hear more about the political factors that led so many diverse governments to Europe to jointly adopt this approach.  Because the difference between subsidizing payrolls and direct unemployment benefits wouldn’t seem to fit cleanly into a left/right divide, and many of the governments in Europe right now are very conservative in any case.  And despite it’s apparent effectiveness, I haven’t really heard many officials on either side in the US advocating for this approach.  Is it just the basic difference between having a functional vs. utterly dysfunctional national government?

I think it is because we have an even more conservative government than those that exist in Europe. European countries have, for decades, long had more efficient and more comprehensive social safety nets than the United States, and have thus been far more prepared to deal with the economic fallout from this pandemic than we have.

I guess my point is that the European solution doesn’t sound inherently more progressive to me than the American one (as it is essentially subsidizing private businesses instead of paying citizens directly).  And I haven’t even heard American progressives (at least not office holders) advocating for the European solution. 

And this isn’t how Europe deals with general unemployment, right?  Is it a completely new set of  programs that multiple countries managed to efficiently assemble regardless of ideology of the government or opposition?  That also doesn’t strike me as a progressive vs. conservative difference.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1279400518180384769

[Good Habit]

And this isn’t how Europe deals with general unemployment, right?  Is it a completely new set of  programs that multiple countries managed to efficiently assemble regardless of ideology of the government or opposition?

No, it's not how we deal with general umemployment, and it's NOT a completely new set of programms.. (some where really new, but the points mentioned in the above debate mainly is about what we in German call "Kurzarbeit". A programm that exists since many recession cicles, and allows employers to get compensation payments (subsidies) for the wages they still pay although workers have been idle because of crashing demand... The concept is to cushion a temporary shock, in the expectation that demand will soon recover. So that teams remain intact, know how isn't lost, etc,etc. There usually is a time limit how long you can get this compensation, and - if demand / workload doesn't recover, you will still have to adjust the size of your labor force - but it avoids that everyone is just laid off at once. (Of course, most European work contracts also don't allow employers to lay off workers without sufficient notice - depending on country, contract and seniority of the worker, this would be months or - sometimes - years until you get them of the payroll. But if companies have to pay a lot of idle workers, they will just go bankrupt faster...

As this system was already in place in most countries, during the lockdown, governments just had to activate those programs, setting the bar for claims lower than usual, and extending the time you could get compensation for...

[Koharu]

And this isn’t how Europe deals with general unemployment, right?  Is it a completely new set of  programs that multiple countries managed to efficiently assemble regardless of ideology of the government or opposition?  That also doesn’t strike me as a progressive vs. conservative difference.

The reason for paying employers is so they keep people employed rather than firing them. That way it's not an unemployment issue at all. Basically, it allows the businesses to not sink from having to continue to pay wages, but also not lose their employees. It's a much better way to maintain the shape of the economy, IMO.

[Koharu]

https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1279400518180384769