Coronavirus / COVID-19

[Greyblades]

I enjoyed the Queen's speech today. A brief but needed reminder that we have to do what we need to do, to support those on the front lines, and remember that better days are ahead.
Wish I could hear something similar from an American leader.

There are plenty of examples of such speeches on both sides of the isle in america, the thing missing isnt wording, its a lack of trust in the speaker not to be lying through his teeth from people who align against him. Partisanship poisons everything, the royal family spend an inordinant amount of effort keeping themselves unstained from flavour of the month divisions exactly so they can do things like this and have it hold water with most everyone.

Its why I would never support replacing them with some president, why megan markel was so unacceptable in her posturing and why I am increasingly appauled when I see similar figures in the churches like the archbishop of Canterbury or the pope "marry the present" with political side taking.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Retired Lt. Gen Russell Honore on federal procurement and emergency response practices

It just makes so much sense when the Ltg. explains how things get done. The military is an organization that is built around logistics. Whether armies in the field, or fleets at sea, no campaign can be prosecuted without understanding who needs what, and how does it get there in the best possible time. I can see legal battles coming over this when things settle down......

quite possibly the only governor in the Union whose handling of the crisis could be called outright competent.

I'd also include Gov. Mike DeWine, GOP governor of Ohio. He declared a state of emergency on 5 March, and was one of the first governors to close schools and cancel sporting events.

There are plenty of examples of such speeches on both sides of the isle in america

Name me one outside of Cuomo, Inslee, or DeWine that are government leaders I would venture a guess that noone from Capital Hill has yet to step foot inside a major hospital to see whats actually going on in the trenches, because if they had, they'd shut the f@#$ up and get to work helping these people instead of price gouging....

[a completely inoffensive name]

There are plenty of examples of such speeches on both sides of the isle in america, the thing missing isnt wording, its a lack of trust in the speaker not to be lying through his teeth from people who align against him. Partisanship poisons everything, the royal family spend an inordinant amount of effort keeping themselves unstained from flavour of the month divisions exactly so they can do things like this and have it hold water with most everyone.

Its why I would never support replacing them with some president, why megan markel was so unacceptable in her posturing and why I am increasingly appauled when I see similar figures in the churches like the archbishop of Canterbury or the pope "marry the present" with political side taking.

Link me examples of those American speeches you mention.

[Pannonian]

It just makes so much sense when the Ltg. explains how things get done. The military is an organization that is built around logistics. Whether armies in the field, or fleets at sea, no campaign can be prosecuted without understanding who needs what, and how does it get there in the best possible time. I can see legal battles coming over this when things settle down......

Cf. Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus on being praised for being able to organise Games at extremely short notice.

[ReluctantSamurai]

@Pannonian

[Greyblades]

Name me one outside of Cuomo, Inslee, or DeWine that are government leaders

Link me examples of those American speeches you mention.

I went to pull up a list of speeches starting with trump and biden on the current one and previous presidents during disasters and I cannot say I was entirely correct, at least not in terms of brevity.

The sentiments of "we have to do what we need to do, to support those on the front lines, and remember that better days are ahead" is embedded in politics american and otherwise, name a president and with few exceptions I'll name at least 1 inaugeral and 3 state of the unions containing at least one of them. They are however often embedded in proposals, declarations of action, congratulation, self and otherwise and in sone cases swipes at the actions of others.

Wordy buggers the lot of them.

Specifically to the coronavirus we have Trump:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"From the beginning of time nations and people have faced unforeseen challenges including large scale and very dangerous health threats. This is the way it always was and always will be. It only matters how you respond, and we are responding with great speed and professionalism."

[...]

"If we are vigilant, and we can reduce the chance of infection, which we will, we will significantly impede the transmission of the virus. The virus will not have a chance against us. No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States. We have the best economy, the most advanced health care, and the most talented doctors, scientists, and researchers anywhere in the world. We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family."

"As history has proven time and time again, Americans always rise to the challenge and overcome adversity. Our future remains brighter than anyone could imagine. Acting with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, help our fellow citizens, and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever before. God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you."

Biden:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"As Americans, we may be physically apart, but we are truly all in this together. And you know it. Let me say something right up front. When we’ve stood as one, this nation has never ever been defeated when we’ve been together, and we’re not going to be defeated now. The pandemic of 1918, the Great Depression, two world wars, we overcame them all. And out of each crisis, we emerged stronger and we will again. This new enemy may be unseen, but we have the tools, the expertise, and most importantly the spirit to defeat it. "

[...]

"But also those who we don’t talk about much. The grocery store worker stocking the shelf, the mail and package carriers, the workers manufacturing gear we need to keep delivery trucks on the road, cooking meals to deliver, tending to our elderly loved ones. The journalists who keep us up to date and hold us accountable as leaders. The government officials working on this problem, and so many more. They’re putting all of it on the line for all of us. And we need to give them all the help they need. And now, they need help now. We need to be sure we never forget what they’ve done, because they’re doing a great deal."

"Deep in the heart of every American, I think there burns a flame. It’s an inheritance from every generation of Americans that has come before us. That’s why we have overcome every crisis we have ever faced before. It’s what makes this nation so special, why we stand apart. That flame is not going to be extinguished in this moment. If our leadership does its part, the American people will do more than their part. Because here’s the simple truth. Ordinary, hardworking Americans have never, ever, ever, ever, ever let their country down. So we need to get moving, move faster. This is the United States of America. There’s not a single thing we cannot do if we do it together. God bless you all those who are fighting this virus. May God protect you and may God protect our troops. Thank you."

Obama on sandy:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Across the board, what we’ve seen is cooperation and a spirit of service. And for the first responders who are here, the police officers, the firefighters, the EMS folks, the sanitation workers who sometimes don’t get credit but have done heroic work, we are so grateful to you because you exemplify what America is all about.
[...]
And during difficult times like this, we’re reminded that we’re bound together and we have to look out for each other. And a lot of the things that seem important, the petty differences melt away, and we focus on what binds us together and that we as Americans are going to stand with each other in their hour of need.
[...]
And that spirit and sense of togetherness and looking out for one another, that's what's going to carry us through this tragedy. It's not going to be easy. There's still going to be, believe it or not, some complaints over the next several months. Not everybody is going to be satisfied.
[...]
I'm very proud of you, New York. You guys are tough. You bounce back, just as America always bounces back. The same is going to be true this time out.

Bush on katrina:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"In the life of this nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force, and that all life is fragile. We are the heirs of men and women who lived through those first terrible winters at Jamestown and Plymouth “¦ who rebuilt Chicago after a great fire, and San Francisco after a great earthquake “¦ who reclaimed the prairie from the dust bowl of the 1930s. Every time, the people of this land have come back from fire, flood, and storm to build anew — and to build better than what we had before. Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature — and we will not start now.

"These trials have also reminded us that we are often stronger than we know — with the help of grace and one another. They remind us of a hope beyond all pain and death — a God who welcomes the lost to a house not made with hands. And they remind us that we are tied together in this life, in this nation — and that the despair of any touches us all."

[...]

And that spirit and sense of togetherness and looking out for one another, that's what's going to carry us through this tragedy. It's not going to be easy. There's still going to be, believe it or not, some complaints over the next several months. Not everybody is going to be satisfied. I have to tell you the insurance companies and some of the other private sector folks who are involved in this, we need you to show some heart and some spirit in helping people rebuild as well.

But when I hear the story of the Moores and I hear about Lieutenant Gallagher, that's what makes me confident that we're going to be able to rebuild. I'm very proud of you, New York. You guys are tough. You bounce back, just as America always bounces back. The same is going to be true this time out

Bush after 9/11:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil -- the very worst of human nature -- and we responded with the best of America. With the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.
[...]
Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a Power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.

Reagan after the Challenger explosion:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

Trump's inaugeral speech:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

[...]

Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again. We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow. A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag. And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Trump? Seriously???

The virus will not have a chance against us. No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States.

We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family.

Acting with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, help our fellow citizens

And you hold up this drivel from Trump as something equivalent to the graceful message put forth by the Queen?

Biden's quote.....meh, stock response from someone running for the presidency.

As for the rest of those quotes....we are talking about the here and now. THIS disaster dwarfs all of those.

Jeez, why not quote Kennedy, FDR, and Abe Lincoln while you're at it?

[Pannonian]

@Pannonian

During his settlement of Greek affairs following Pydna, Paullus organised Games that had been postponed because of the conflict. Greek ambassadors praised his ability in organising such extensive Games at such short notice. He replied, if you're able to organise an army and lead it on campaign, organising something like the Olympics (or whatever it was) was easy in comparison.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Greek ambassadors praised his ability in organising such extensive Games at such short notice. He replied, if you're able to organise an army and lead it on campaign, organising something like the Olympics (or whatever it was) was easy in comparison.

Okay

I could think of many more current examples that address the far more complex task of getting 50 states to work together as one, like this:

https://prospect.org/health/way-won-...-world-war-ii/

More fundamentally, a spirit developed within each business enterprise to produce better than its competitors to serve the country. In his fireside chats, Roosevelt explained to the people over and over again why their productive genius had to be mobilized to win the war. Buoyed by the strong morale the president fostered, business and labor worked together to get the "E-for-excellence" citations that he spread around. It was not just producing more than your competitor, it was producing more than you did the previous quarter, and the quarter before that.

In sum, one almost totally forgotten lesson of the war is that deep government involvement doesn't have to mean a command economy. Despite the mobilization, large segments of the economy were unaffected by the controls. No one was told where to move or work. Production for the government was still freely entered into by producers and government in a contractual arrangement; and business argued about those contracts all the time. Private property remained predominant throughout the country and still there were profits. In the World War II experience, the things we revere about capitalism the parts that spur energy, efficiency, and entrepreneurial skill were still in place. What the war did was tap that energy, not constrain it.

Obviously, Fearless Leader didn't do his history lessons in school.

[Gilrandir]

Trump's inaugeral speech:

An auger is a drilling device, or drill bit, used for making holes in wood or in the ground. It usually includes a rotating helical screw blade called a 'flighting' to act as a screw conveyor to remove the drilled out material. The rotation of the blade causes the material to move out of the hole being drilled.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Oh, but I think he got it right...

I think you could describe Trump's presidency very well using terms like a 'screw conveyor' used to extract material; which in his case is $$$. And drilling holes in the ground perfectly describes how Trump is dealing with this pandemic, because there will be plenty of holes to drill after this is over, to bury the dead.

[Greyblades]

Trump? Seriously???


And you hold up this drivel from Trump as something equivalent to the graceful message put forth by the Queen?

Biden's quote.....meh, stock response from someone running for the presidency.

As for the rest of those quotes....we are talking about the here and now. THIS disaster dwarfs all of those.

Jeez, why not quote Kennedy, FDR, and Abe Lincoln while you're at it?

I might as well, that was my point: the sentiment is ubiquitous in american speechmaking.

Your response also reinforces my previous point that whether the sentiment lands is reliant on the partisanship.

That the queen maintains impartiality means that her expressing the sentiment actually gets through and is appreciated by the majority of the population.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Your response also reinforces my previous point that whether the sentiment lands is reliant on the partisanship.

I detest both Republicans and Democrats. I just detest Republicans more. I can praise GOP Gov. DeWine of Ohio without a shred of partisanship. He put the people and businesses of his state before politics, rather than toe the party line.

As to the Queen, when you watched her speak, you just KNEW she meant every word. That's what transcends politics, for me, not that she's basically just a royalty figurehead.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Effective Rhetoric, as has long been codified, requires an appeal on three levels: Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.

If I am charitable, Trump often (though not consistently) expresses the right kind of feelings (we'll get through this, we are tougher than this, etc.) So did Elizabeth II.

Charitably...okay, very charitably, Trump often (though only when prepped and not wandering ad lib) gets the logical stuff correct. But he misses and retracts etc. a lot to get there. Elizabeth kept it simple and did it in one take.

The last quality is ethos -- the appeal of ethical behavior and credibility. Elizabeth has Trump on the gravitas meter by at least a couple orders of magnitude.

Double reverse spin backwards overhead slam dunk by Windsor while Trump stands confused at the top of the key.

[Pannonian]

Effective Rhetoric, as has long been codified, requires an appeal on three levels: Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.

If I am charitable, Trump often (though not consistently) expresses the right kind of feelings (we'll get through this, we are tougher than this, etc.) So did Elizabeth II.

Charitably...okay, very charitably, Trump often (though only when prepped and not wandering ad lib) gets the logical stuff correct. But he misses and retracts etc. a lot to get there. Eligravitaszabeth kept it simple and did it in one take.

The last quality is ethos -- the appeal of ethical behavior and credibility. Elizabeth has Trump on the gravitas meter by at least a couple orders of magnitude.

Double reverse spin backwards overhead slam dunk by Windsor while Trump stands confused at the top of the key.

She's also part of the generation that the allied nations revere as the greatest in their history. While Trump references WWII as the reasoning for some foreign policy crud or other, she was a servicewoman in it, famously pushing to serve as soon as she was old enough.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Double reverse spin backwards overhead slam dunk by Windsor while Trump stands confused at the top of the key.

[Pannonian]

Our PM is in ITU now. We're probably looking at a succession.

[Montmorency]

Another data resource, this one a visual California dashboard. I wonder if these are available for other states.
https://public.tableau.com/views/COV...showVizHome=no

Link me examples of those American speeches you mention.

He's right, the Queen's speech comprises utterly banal, and universal, platitudes. But in politics ethos is typically not about the content of speech, but on how and when it is delivered and who delivers it. Even a stock speech can have an impact in the right context, and minimalism can be easier to get right than high-minded novelties.

But what gets me is that he singles out the pope for partisanship when the pope is conservative as they come for the general society and has basically maintained all the Church's typical practices and institutions. The sitting pope is hated by the Catholic far-right for not being the kind of reactionary to renounce the Lateran Treaty and Vatican II, redeclare integral sovereignty over the Papal States, and sufficiently terrorize the wimmenz and gays.

I'd also include Gov. Mike DeWine, GOP governor of Ohio. He declared a state of emergency on 5 March, and was one of the first governors to close schools and cancel sporting events.

I'm not saying this as a way to denigrate Cuomo's performance in particular. There's a limit to how far and fast governors will go on a limb without federal support. Compared to Trump and some of the Republicans vying for worst response on the planet, benefiting from media connections by virtue of being NY governor and a brother to a national anchor, and a measure of gravitas and projected confidence - I don't underestimate the symbolic and communicative aspects of the job - he looks golden to a lot of viewers. To my knowledge he has been an effective administrator of NY emergency logistics. And I suppose he must have something to do with facilitating or maintaining the ongoing vast NY advantage in testing that no state remains even close to touching (though we've dropped below 20% of national cumulative tests), but I don't want to lend too much credit while I still don't know exactly how this testing gap came to be.

But, like basically everyone else in the world through February and early March, he was diffident and muddled on messaging and action out of anxiety about generating panic or economic disruption. Ultimately that has to count as an absolute mark against him and others, no matter how (or whether) they subsequently turned a corner. (Also I can't help but note his winning a hard-fought state austerity budget a few days ago, that cut Medicaid and public hospitals. Hard to swallow as someone to the left of Cuomo.)

As long as we're counting governors who have done a relatively-decent job, include California's Gavin Newsom. As I recall Florida's de Santis announced a state of emergency on March 1, right after Inslee, a moment which he subsequently squandered utterly by leaning into Trumpian cult politics and doing all that he could to let the virus run wild, including keeping the beaches open and suppressing local control of stricter lockdowns. Hawaii and California were the next to declare states of emergency, on Mar. 4. I don't know much about Hawaii's response other than their noteworthy travel restrictions on the mainland, but California did initiate significant social distancing policies right away - faster than New York.

[Greyblades]

But what gets me is that he singles out the pope for partisanship when the pope is conservative as they come for the general society and has basically maintained all the Church's typical practices and institutions. The sitting pope is hated by the Catholic far-right for not being the kind of reactionary to renounce the Lateran Treaty and Vatican II, redeclare integral sovereignty over the Papal States, and sufficiently terrorize the wimmenz and gays.

Being a catholic myself, if I meant his sad lacking in the terrorising the wammen and teh gays department I'd be calling him a heretic not a partisan... I mean he technically is a heretic but, hell, so am I.

The man took sides on issues of borders migrants, and other issues outside his remit. The gravitas of his position suffered because of it, rendering him less capable than he should be of rallying people in this trying time.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Monty:

You do realize that you are reducing the internal politics/theological debates/stance of the various factions within Mother Church rather harshly, yes? That's every bit as limited as the "Left/Right" treatment of US or UK politics.

That said, there is opposition to the generally reformist tendencies of the current occupant of the "shoes of Peter." But Catholic conservatism comes in many stripes. The anti-Lateran, anti-Vatican II, hyper-traditionalists are part of what is officially a schismatic sect called 'St. Pius X.' While efforts to reconcile the schism have been made, many adherents refuse the conditions of return. Even so, the Church has stopped short of labeling them heretical per se. Other factions within the Church want the Church to remain as separate as possible from lay authority while others want the Church to change its position on barrier contraception while adhering to traditional marriage. It is actually a melange of competing ideas.

The current Holy Father reflects this in that he is, by Church standards, quite the liberal reformer in orientation. To Western society at large, however, he would be deemed staunchly traditional on any number of issues.

[Montmorency]

From England:



Need to get some mileage out of this one.

Being a catholic myself, if I meant his sad lacking in the terrorising the wammen and teh gays department I'd be calling him a heretic not a partisan... I mean he technically is a heretic but, hell, so am I.

The man took sides on issues of borders migrants, and other issues outside his remit. The gravitas of his position suffered because of it, rendering him less capable than he should be of rallying people in this trying time.

As far as I am able to glean, Francis has emphasized the Christian moral imperative for welcoming migrants and refugees, which is incontrovertibly essential to ecumenical Christianity. He has not - again, to my knowledge - offered political or policy judgements, even though those would follow naturally from an expression of abstract priorities.

If the pope offering stock Christian^TM rhetoric and nice words about migrants is intolerable to you, I don't see why that's the pope's problem. Get in line with the people who despise the pope for 'keeping the faith' on abortion and contraception and not doing enough to eradicate abuse within the Church.

The current Holy Father reflects this in that he is, by Church standards, quite the liberal reformer in orientation. To Western society at large, however, he would be deemed staunchly traditional on any number of issues.

Exactly - but most Catholics are more liberal than Francis is, so I don't see even internal grounds for reactionaries to have their day. They've already.

[Montmorency]

Does anyone have a legitimate source on recovered South Korean COVID patients testing positive in large numbers?


Welcome more discussion of the undercount issue. By now I have a strong suspicion that even apparent "peaks" in official caseload are actually artifacts of stagnant testing capacity. If you test only x persons a day, then the growth of positive cases will be linear - on paper. From a NYC study discussing the possibility of flat NYC curve, using late-March data:



To my eye that is a perfect correlation between testing levels and reported cases + hospitalizations. This has to be the figurative tip of the incidence iceberg.

As long as testing capacity grows over time - as we have seen in the US so far - it will appear as though the rate of growth in cases is accelerating. If testing capacity is stable, growth in cases will appear stable. But this will not necessarily reflect the underlying reality. Is there a surefire way to distinguish an epidemic losing steam than a combination of (1) static testing alongside declining daily positives; (2) decreasing healthcare utilization of potential and confirmed cases.

Relevant from the chair of the NYC Council health committee:

NYC’s “city morgue” is the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), which luckily is the best in the world.

But they are now dealing w/ the equivalent of an ongoing 9/11. And so are hospital morgues, funeral homes & cemeteries. Every part of this system is now backed up. 2/

A typical hospital morgue might hold 15 bodies. Those are now all full. So OCME has sent out 80 refrigerated trailers to hospitals around the city. Each trailer can hold 100 bodies. These are now mostly full too. Some hospitals have had to add a 2nd or even a 3rd trailer. 3/

Grieving families report calling as many as half a dozen funeral homes and finding none that can handle their deceased loved ones. Cemeteries are not able to handle the number of burial requests and are turning most down. 4/

It’s not just deaths in hospitals which are up. On an average day before this crisis there were 20-25 deaths at home in NYC. Now in the midst of this pandemic the number is 200-215. *Every day*. 5/

Early on in this crisis we were able to swab people who died at home, and thus got a coronavirus reading. But those days are long gone. We simply don't have the testing capacity for the large numbers dying at home. 6/

Now only those few who had a test confirmation *before* dying are marked as victims of coronavirus on their death certificate. This almost certainly means we are undercounting the total number of victims of this pandemic.

And still the number of bodies continues to increase. The freezers at OCME facilities in Manhattan and Brooklyn will soon be full. And then what? 8/

John Roberts won't have a court before his term is through if he keeps this up. [Video]
https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1247508440051847172

The Supreme Court has started issuing decisions remotely in order to protect their own safety.

One of their first remote decisions was that Wisconsin voters will have to show up in person and risk their lives if they want their votes counted.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Insisting that all responsibility for testing be offloaded from the federal government to states and hospitals, while demanding congratulations for states and hospitals increasing their testiing capacity, is a chef's kiss.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1247292542162546694


Acting Navy Secretary Modly justifies himself in person to the crew of CVN-71. They do not substantially approve. Audio included.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy...arrier-captain

Modly resigns.


I'm surprised Fox News had this guy on, it's on a level with the guest they had 4 years ago who offered that Trump's blandishments to black voters were actually meant for the white suburban middle-class.
https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status...33437519536129

Also surprising: the Trump admin has designated unauthorized workers to be essential workers! Of course it's actually SOP once you realize this essential status doesn't afford the unauthorized any relief or benefits today. This story is older than living memory.


The Avengers of the Pandemic
https://twitter.com/tifffanycuh/stat...27095522553857

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Montmorency]

It's time.

New York City officials say they will begin to report those who’ve died in their homes from suspected coronavirus complications without an official lab diagnosis.

The coronavirus death count in New York City, already unfathomable, is expected to surge in the coming days as officials begin including people who have been dropping dead at home without an official diagnosis.

Emergency Medical Service data first reported by Gothamist suggests the undercount of individuals who have likely died from the virus is massive. On Tuesday alone, 256 people were pronounced dead at home across the five boroughs. Until this month, about 25 people in New York City were found dead in their homes on a typical day, suggesting that most of Tuesday’s calls were related to the outbreak that has already killed over 5,400 people across the state and infected 140,386 more.

According to New York City Fire Department data obtained by The Daily Beast, first responders have reported 2,192 “dead-on-arrival” calls over the last two weeks. On average, the department handled about 453 of those calls over the same period last year.

That data also showed that the number of cardiac or respiratory arrest calls has exploded, from 20 to 30 a day at the end of March and the beginning of April in 2019, to 322 on one day in April in 2020—with more than 100 calls every day since March 28. While 30 to 50 percent of those calls ended in a death in 2019, more than 50 percent of those calls have ended in a death every day since March 22 this year, with the percentage steadily rising to 75 percent as of April 5.

One emergency room doctor told The Daily Beast that his hospital is “aggressively sending people home.”

“Being in the hospital is not going to change their course of illness,” the physician said, indicating the hard choices medical professionals face during this pandemic.

De Blasio said that he was hopeful the virus was starting to slow after seeing indications that the city’s overwhelmed hospital system was seeing fewer admissions—until he learned that hundreds of people are dying in their homes without seeking medical care.

A slightly older article on reporting and tallying:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next.
[...]
Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for how to certify coronavirus deaths, underscoring the need for uniformity and reinforcing the sense by health care workers and others that deaths have not been consistently tracked. In its guidance, the C.D.C. instructed officials to report deaths where the patient has tested positive or, in an absence of testing, “if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.” In infectious outbreaks, public health experts say that under typical circumstances it takes months or years to compile data that is as accurate as possible on deaths.

The federal government does not expect to produce a final tally of coronavirus deaths until 2021, when it publishes an annual compilation of the country’s leading causes of death.[...] “It is not a ‘real time’ count of Covid deaths, like what the states are currently reporting,” Jeff Lancashire, a spokesman for the National Center for Health Statistics, said.

But those who work with death certificates say they worry that relying only on those documents may leave out a significant number of cases in which coronavirus was confirmed by testing, but not written down in the section where doctors and coroners are asked to note relevant underlying diseases. Generally, certificates require an immediate cause, and encourage — but do not require — officials to take note of an underlying disease.

Then there are the many suspected cases.

Susan Perry, the funeral director from Virginia, said that she was informed by health workers and families that three recently deceased people had tested positive for the virus so that she and her staff could take necessary precautions with the bodies. Only one death certificate mentioned the virus.

“This probably happens all the time with different diseases, but this is the first time I’m paying attention to it,” Ms. Perry said. “If we don’t know the numbers, how are we going to be able to prepare ourselves and protect ourselves?”

Experts who study mortality statistics caution that it may take months for scientists to calculate a fatality rate for coronavirus in the United States that is as accurate as possible.

Some researchers say there may never be a truly accurate, complete count of deaths. It has happened before. Experts believe that widespread news coverage in 1976 of a potential swine flu epidemic — one that never materialized — led to a rash of deaths recorded as influenza that, in years prior, would have been categorized as pneumonia.

“We’re still debating the death toll of the Spanish flu” of 1918-19, said Stéphane Helleringer, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It might take a long time. It’s not just that the data is messy, but because the effects of a pandemic disease are very complex.”

I've read similar things about the situation in other states, such as Texas.

[drone]

With the egregious state of testing in the US, the death count is really the only number you can sort of trust, and with the hospitals full that will no longer be as accurate (statisticians can extrapolate). Positive tests and hospitalizations are meaningless. We only test the obviously sick or the privileged, and will never know the infected rate unless we do an antibody census to count the asymptomatic cases.

With the various state lockdowns, we should be screening at the choke points (grocery stores, essential workplaces, etc) with temperature checks followed by swab tests. Most of the country has no clue how good or bad it is.

[Shaka_Khan]

The WHO originally claimed that there was no person-to-person infection with this virus (at 5:49)...



And this other guy talks about it at 6:10...




And the WHO originally claimed that travel bans weren't needed:

[rory_20_uk]

With the egregious state of testing in the US, the death count is really the only number you can sort of trust, and with the hospitals full that will no longer be as accurate (statisticians can extrapolate). Positive tests and hospitalizations are meaningless. We only test the obviously sick or the privileged, and will never know the infected rate unless we do an antibody census to count the asymptomatic cases.

With the various state lockdowns, we should be screening at the choke points (grocery stores, essential workplaces, etc) with temperature checks followed by swab tests. Most of the country has no clue how good or bad it is.

I would have thought for tests to be worth it they'd need to be 99%+ accurate (sensitive and specific) and so far it seems a lot of them are way short of this metric.

[Beskar]

I would have thought for tests to be worth it they'd need to be 99%+ accurate (sensitive and specific) and so far it seems a lot of them are way short of this metric.

People are being tested at least 3 times before it is 'confirmed', with test 1 and 2 being negative, despite a clear presentation.

[Montmorency]

I wanted to do some original research toward a crude little validation of my hypothesis about testing masking incidence. What's a country with a putatively flat curve with a well-documented testing regime? South Korea is arguably the best representative available.

Here's an official South Korean resource compiling various vital (!) statistics, including testing.

Without taking the step of registering a prediction, here is what I found.

DATE	TESTS ADDED	POSITIVES ADDED	TESTS TO-DATE	POSITIVES TO-DATE
4/9	8708	39	494711	10423
4/8	8699	53
4/7	10500	47
4/6	5571	47
Week ending 4/5	67092	654	461233	10237
4/5	6201	81
4/4	11759	94
4/3	11530	86
4/2	10196	89
4/1	10983	101
3/31	15370	125
3/30	1053	78
Week ending 3/29	62361	686	394141	9583
Week ending 3/22	63568	735	331780	8897
Week ending 3/15	79694	1028	268212	8162
Week ending 3/8	89597	3398	188518	7134
Week ending 3/1	74352	2970	98921	3736

According to my hypothesis, a testing ceiling could potentially falsely give rise to the impression of a ceiling in case growth. For example, if you test 10000 a day and identify 1000 positives among them consistently over time, it will appear as though the disease reproduction number (R₀) has been suppressed to 1 or lower, which is to say that exponential growth in caseload has been decisively contained. But this testing ceiling could be misleading as these indicators alone would not allow an observer to discern between a contained outbreak and one that is growing at an increasing rate with hundreds of thousands or millions of unconfirmed true cases. In such a situation, it might be expected that growth in the testing rate (e.g. 10K > 11K > 12K daily) would produce a corresponding case growth as more true cases are uncovered.

[Caveat: I am not doing any proper statistical analysis here, only eyeballing]

In the South Korean figures above, from the beginning of March to now, we see the following overall trends:

1. A gradual decline in testing.
2. A gradual decline in new positives.

Could South Korea be falling afoul of the trap? Breaking down the trends should offer insight.

The number of tests being administered daily has dropped a lot since early March, as has the number of new positives added, which would be predicted under my hypothesis. However, the decrease in new positives has been proportionally greater than the decrease in tests performed. We can see that in the week ending March 1, there were 74352 tests conducted for 2970 positives, while there was even more testing in the week ending March 15 at 79694, yet there were only 1028 new positives - not even half as many. Comparing the week ending March 22 to the week ending March 29, testing each week was about the same at ~63K give or take; in the second week there were 98% as many tests as the first, but only 90% as many new positives. In the week ending April 5, more testing was done than in either of the two aforementioned weeks, yet fewer new positives.

In the daily figures I included for the past 11 days, testing frequency has varied dramatically. On March 30 there were 1053 tests and 78 positives, compared to 15370 tests and 125 positives on March 31. On April 6 and 7 the same amount of new positives - 47 - was added each day. This was despite there being 5571 tests reported on April 6 against 10500, nearly double, on April 7. Over the past two days, April 8-9, there has been the same amount of testing - ~8700 - with 53 and 39 new positives, respectively. That there could be so much variation in testing frequency that still produces positives clustered so closely together in magnitude, yet also following the overall downward trend, is evidence that the outbreak is resolving within the observed time period and that testing captures a representative sampling.

In the US the ratio of tests to positives has been (using Covidtracking.com and the John Hopkins map) 2,360,512 : 462,135 or 5.1. In South Korea it has been 47.5 per the latest cumulative figures (see top of table). At the beginning of March (see again table) it was 26.5. In the last day it has been 223.3. South Korea could be very bad at selecting testing subjects, or it could be identifying most of the true positives. With the latter scenario the skyrocketing ratio of tests to positives could reflect a genuine decrease in the rate of new infections.

Unless South Korea is astoundingly bad at picking people to test, and only getting worse with time, then the combination of low absolute case growth and steadily negative rate of growth we see above really does seem consistent with a contained outbreak rather than a masked one. The testing frequency, though inconsistent and by some intuition low, would therefore prove to be well above the ceiling at which true cases begin to slip under the cracks. This conclusion would also be consistent with most news reports on South Korea's relative success, and their trends can thus serve as a point of reference (or contrast) to American ones.


Addendum: Another avenue of validating the hypothesis for a country, one way or another, would be a view from the ground, i.e. hospital utilization, excess death rates, etc. I have not looked at South Korea's indicators for this exercise, but given the above I would expect them to comport with a contained outbreak.

[Montmorency]

Denver Post on the federal government confiscating purchased supplies.

Trump had only days before prevented Colorado Gov. Jared Polis from securing 500 ventilators from a private company, instead, taking the ventilators for the federal government. Polis sent a formal letter pleading for medical equipment, but the president took the time to make clear he was responding to a request from Gardner. We are left to believe that if Colorado didn’t have a Republican senator in office, our state would not be getting these 100 ventilators. How many ventilators would we be getting if we had a Republican governor and a second Republican senator? Would that indicate we had more Republican lives in our state worth saving for Trump and resources would start flowing? Should Utah be concerned that Sen. Mitt Romney voted to remove the president from office?

This behavior comes, of course, weeks after Trump informed states they would have to compete against one another in the procurement of medical supplies at a time of global shortages due to the coronavirus pandemic.

If the federal government turns out to be running a double-dip scam, outbidding states or outright stealing medical equipment to resell to connected private contractors who then turn around and front to the states and hospitals, that alone would be a transgression worthy of life imprisonment.


Toward the intersection of the pandemic and the electoral:

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1247658663617138691
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/...31484532928514

Absentee Ballots are a great way to vote for the many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on Election Day. These ballots are very different from 100% Mail-In Voting, which is “RIPE for FRAUD,” and shouldn’t be allowed!

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...ppression.html

“Mail-in voting is horrible. It’s corrupt,” declared President Trump earlier this week. When a reporter asked how he could reconcile that position with the fact that he had personally voted by mail in the last election, Trump replied, “Because I’m allowed to.” This perfectly circular logic — if more voters were permitted to vote by mail, they would also be “allowed to” — seemed not to satisfy him. Trump has refined his view, explaining that casting a ballot by mail is fine for members of the military and senior citizens, but is “ripe for fraud” when used by others:

Trump is not even attempting to formulate a facially neutral principle. He is simply asserting that members of the military and senior citizens — constituencies that lean Republican — can be trusted not to commit voter fraud, but that constituencies that might vote Democratic cannot. He is willing to support accommodations to allow Republican-leaning voters to vote without risking their health, but refuses to support any such accommodations for Democrats. (Trump campaign officials already confirmed this to Politico — they will allow mail voting for senior citizens, but not others.) The travesty that was Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin is his plan to win in November.

It’s not clear if Democrats have fully grasped the gravity of what Trump and his party are attempting to do. The coronavirus poses a threat to elections in general, but a special threat to urban voters, who tend to face more crowded polling stations. Republicans are very willing to take active measures — like strict voter ID, or the poll tax Florida Republicans have tried to impose — but the virus makes active measures unnecessary. Republicans have calculated that the public-health threat of the virus will suppress the urban vote for them. All they have to do is block any changes to the election system and allow nature to run its course.

That Trump has never offered any nominal commitment to neutral application of government is a kind of defense if being sardonic. We're -this- close to banana republic status.

(Grimly, Trump mentioned "when they grab thousands of mail-in ballots, and they dump it" in disparaging broadened mail-in voting. I say grim because North Carolina Republicans were discovered to have perpetrated this exact form of electoral fraud in the 2018 midterms, so egregiously that the courts vacated the election result. It's like a kiddy diddler pulling a minor into their van with the admonition that 'there are a lot of creeps out there.' criminal scum.)



These last years have convinced me that we need to amend the Constitution to reintroduce attainder.

[Shaka_Khan]

South Korea is arguably the best representative available.

I'd also check out Taiwan.

In the South Korean figures above, from the beginning of March to now, we see the following overall trends:

1. A gradual decline in testing.
2. A gradual decline in new positives.

Could South Korea be falling afoul of the trap? Breaking down the trends should offer insight.

Interesting...