COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[bmags]

29 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

Disney did that with Onward because it had already been released in the theaters and there was no going back. They have one other film that is going to straight to Disney+ (which is slightly different than Trolls anyways because they are trying to boost subscribers). But films like Mulan and their other big releases are being rescheduled.  Trolls brought in 100mil,  thats really not much to Disney and if Avengers/Frozen/Mulan did that at theaters theyd be considered a massive flop.

Yeah because trolls is not a disney/marvel movie, it's a marginal franchise. I mean, Mulan is almost certainly going to be a massive flop so they may take $100mm domestic.

[bmags]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/gilead-remdesivir-trial-for-covid-19-has-met-primary-endpoint

[Jerksticks]

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

You spew nonsense and fake BS endlessly - you have since this thread started. You are not rooting for good news; you're lying and creating your own narrative and set of facts. You've done it this entire thread.

 Where do you get off barking at me like some junkyard dog online.  I am the Preside...

Dude, all I’ve been saying is due to the reported infectiousness of Covid, the spread must be way more massive than reported and asymptomatic populations must be quite large.  I don’t KNOW that though, because the data isn’t there yet.  Nobody knows shit because the data isn’t there.  That’s it.  I’m still sticking with that.  Nobody knows shit.  
 

Sure enough, Sweden is probably the closest thing the world has to a controlled science experiment ATM.  And it’s not even close to perfect.  But it does seem to be the closest, for what it’s worth.  The cruise ships are interesting but the sample size is too small to get any real data in the tenth, hundredth and thousandths of percents.
 

What makes Sweden and the ships interesting is that you get the closest thing to full exposure, which is an actual data point of interest.  But since the ship populations are so small, Sweden is really all we got.  The closest thing to “full exposure”.   And even if you conservatively estimate that only 25% of Sweden’s population has been exposed (2,500,000), you’re still looking at a tenth of a percent death rate.  And that’s with the virus ripping up senior homes that they are rightfully pissed about.  
 

So if there aren’t 25,000...50,000...100,000 dead Swedes in the coming weeks, well that’s a fucking great thing for the world.  A magnitude or TWO under 1% would be incredible.  It’s okay to root for that.  I know I sure am.  
 

People getting mad at less people dying and rooting for more death, just to say “I told you so”, is super depressing.
 

 It’s okay to admit the data isn’t there yet.  

[Balta1701]

2 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

 Where do you get off barking at me like some junkyard dog online.  I am the Preside...

Dude, all I’ve been saying is due to the reported infectiousness of Covid, the spread must be way more massive than reported and asymptomatic populations must be quite large.  I don’t KNOW that though, because the data isn’t there yet.  Nobody knows shit because the data isn’t there.  That’s it.  I’m still sticking with that.  Nobody knows shit.  
 

Sure enough, Sweden is probably the closest thing the world has to a controlled science experiment ATM.  And it’s not even close to perfect.  But it does seem to be the closest, for what it’s worth.  The cruise ships are interesting but the sample size is too small to get any real data in the tenth, hundredth and thousandths of percents.
 

What makes Sweden and the ships interesting is that you get the closest thing to full exposure, which is an actual data point of interest.  But since the ship populations are so small, Sweden is really all we got.  The closest thing to “full exposure”.   And even if you conservatively estimate that only 25% of Sweden’s population has been exposed (2,500,000), you’re still looking at a tenth of a percent death rate.  And that’s with the virus ripping up senior homes that they are rightfully pissed about.  
 

So if there aren’t 25,000...50,000...100,000 dead Swedes in the coming weeks, well that’s a fucking great thing for the world.  A magnitude or TWO under 1% would be incredible.  It’s okay to root for that.  I know I sure am.  
 

People getting mad at less people dying and rooting for more death, just to say “I told you so”, is super depressing.
 

 It’s okay to admit the data isn’t there yet.  

You kept saying "Wait for the antibody tests they will show you 50% of the population had it". We have antibody tests from like 4 places now - one place in Colorado with an incidence of 1%, Los Angeles and another spot in California with incidence of 5%, and New York City with incidence of 25% - and the latter 3 are clearly biased samples in favor of people who thought they had been infected and with false-positive rates on the test of 5-10%. So, we can't say that Los Angeles has 1% or 2% infected, but that sample clearly rules out 10% of Los Angeles being infected. The data can't prove everything, but it's very clear that only a small fraction of the US population has had it, even in the New York area. 

So, what other data are you waiting on that is inconsistent with your hypothesis?

[Chisoxfn]

10 hours ago, greg775 said:

Nope. This is the USA. Nobody ever cut his/her own hair before the pandemic. I ain't starting now. I'm letting it grow to Spicoli levels. Only problem is long hair gives me a headache.

I just gave myself a trim on Sunday.  Was nice. But I cut my hair on a pretty regular basis. Good ole #2

[turnin' two]

2 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

And conservatives should realize if Sweden actually comes through their “let ‘er rip” social experiment, they will then be forced to extol the virtues of a socialized health care system, lol.    Bernie Sanders ultimately gets his revenge.   The GOP walked right into that one.

That doesn't seem to be the case at all.  There are plenty of countries with socialized health care that are experiencing (or experienced) a lot of trauma and death.  Saying Norway or Sweden is a case for national health case is just as biased as saying Italy and the UK aren't.  It is a far more complicated issue in general, as is how different countries have approached covid.  

And you pointed out earlier, Sweden's overall health makes it a terrible comparison for the US.  In general the health of the US is problematic for socialized health care.  As you mentioned, Sweden has the 2nd lowest obesity rates in the world.  The US, I think, is 2nd highest.  If Bubba and Betty can't invest in their health at all, eat fast food 8 meals a week, only drink Pepsi, smoke a pack a week, never exercise, and never make a healthy choice, why should other people have to invest in their health?  

[ron883]

18 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

That doesn't seem to be the case at all.  There are plenty of countries with socialized health care that are experiencing (or experienced) a lot of trauma and death.  Saying Norway or Sweden is a case for national health case is just as biased as saying Italy and the UK aren't.  It is a far more complicated issue in general, as is how different countries have approached covid.  

And you pointed out earlier, Sweden's overall health makes it a terrible comparison for the US.  In general the health of the US is problematic for socialized health care.  As you mentioned, Sweden has the 2nd lowest obesity rates in the world.  The US, I think, is 2nd highest.  If Bubba and Betty can't invest in their health at all, eat fast food 8 meals a week, only drink Pepsi, smoke a pack a week, never exercise, and never make a healthy choice, why should other people have to invest in their health?  

My biggest gripe with the issue. There would need to be some sort of fat tax or incentive to being in shape and healthy. 

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, Chisoxfn said:

I just gave myself a trim on Sunday.  Was nice. But I cut my hair on a pretty regular basis. Good ole #2

I did mine for the first time.  My flat top turned into a buzz cut.  It will grown back.

[southsider2k5]

11 minutes ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:

My biggest gripe with the issue. There would need to be some sort of fat tax or incentive to being in shape and healthy. 

The silly thing is that people don't think they are paying for people who aren't taking care of themselves now.  Why do you think hospital stays are so expensive?  You are paying for everyone else's risk factors, as well as the uninsured.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, turnin' two said:

That doesn't seem to be the case at all.  There are plenty of countries with socialized health care that are experiencing (or experienced) a lot of trauma and death.  Saying Norway or Sweden is a case for national health case is just as biased as saying Italy and the UK aren't.  It is a far more complicated issue in general, as is how different countries have approached covid.  

And you pointed out earlier, Sweden's overall health makes it a terrible comparison for the US.  In general the health of the US is problematic for socialized health care.  As you mentioned, Sweden has the 2nd lowest obesity rates in the world.  The US, I think, is 2nd highest.  If Bubba and Betty can't invest in their health at all, eat fast food 8 meals a week, only drink Pepsi, smoke a pack a week, never exercise, and never make a healthy choice, why should other people have to invest in their health?  

Simply because Finland, Norway and Sweden are always in that very top tier in “world happiness” rankings, much higher tax rates, lower (generally) social inequality, more investment in public education (Finland especially), etc.   Heck, even Trump once made the comment about wanting more “quality” immigrants (or models?) wanting to becoming US citizens from that same region, right?

Basically, those three are the gold standard of “socialistic” utopias on earth...along with Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia/NZ.    Maybe Germany, Switzerland and Austria as well in that next tier down.

Have never really seen Italy, Spain, France and UK accorded the same status.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/business/meat-processing-plant-workers-reaction-executive-order/index.html   
Meat pack workers to Trump:  We Aren’t Going To Show Up...uh oh

Edited April 29, 2020 by caulfield12

[soxfan49]

Damn, Lori Lightfoot just destroyed Trump. Whoa

[Texsox]

So we're opening up restaurants using 25% of their capacity. As much as I really want to support a couple restaurants I just can't see myself going anytime soon. Now I'm not even comfortable with takeout if there are so many people passing through the doors. 

[bmags]

Well, we are at 14k tests again.

We are at 2k new cases again.

Very frustrated at how illinois has been unable to bend the curve downward.

[Texsox]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess MADD will be against it but

Quote

Alcohol to-go sales: Gov. Abbott said based on what he's heard from Texans that ordering alcohol to-go from you favorite restaurants and bars could continue even after social distancing is over and dining rooms open again.

 

[caulfield12]

Mass layoffs begin in cities and states

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/29/cities-states-layoffs-furloughs-coronavirus/

In fact, the calls for federal aid have been bipartisan, And many states entered the latest economic downturn in a far better financial position than they did the 2008 recession, thanks in part to healthier cash reserves. The data has not assuaged Republicans, including McConnell, who told Politico in an interview that the Senate would not “finance mistakes they’ve made unrelated to the coronavirus.” His office declined to comment for this story.

Other Republicans led by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) similarly have mobilized in opposition to open-ended aid to struggling city and state governments, breaking with local officials even in the states they represent. “We believe additional money sent to the states for ‘lost revenue’ or without appropriate safeguards will be used to bail out unfunded pensions, reward decades of state mismanagement, and incentivize states to become more reliant on federal taxpayers,” Scott wrote in a draft letter to the president, which he has circulated among his colleagues for signatures. His office confirmed the letter, which attacks New York and Illinois for their financial decisions.

Ironic how much of the Federal financial assistance went to corporate stock buybacks and executive bonuses/golden parachutes in 2008-09...forcing us to bail out many of those industries once again.  But that’s white collar corporate socialism....only Bernie Sanders supporters and left wing nut jobs really care about that, right?

At any rate, here comes the next emerging financial tsunami.  Roughly 1/3rd or 1/4th the state and municipal authorities being furloughed as financial austerity measures are increasingly imposed.   It’s totally reminiscent of the EU arguments between Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and France that are adamantly opposed by Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

The key difference here in the US is that most of these coastal states pay a lot more in Federal taxes than they receive back (see earlier discussion up thread), with the majority of of those “socialist welfare” benefits redistributed to poorer, rural, Red States with a disproportionate influence in Congress.

If you are elderly, work for a small business, are unfortunate enough to live in a Blue state, are surviving on fixed income programs like Social Security or Medicaid, work in retail/fast food/minimum wage jobs, are an immigrant or minority, hold public sector or union jobs...you suddenly have a massive target on your back.

 

And you can pretty much forget nationwide contact tracing through public health agencies with all these layoffs.   But hey, the stock market was up again today despite all this horrific economic news, why worry?

Edited April 29, 2020 by caulfield12

[Texsox]

On 4/28/2020 at 2:00 PM, southsider2k5 said:

 

We went through this when packaging companies were taken to task in The Jungle.  They swore regulation and common sense would put the price of food out of range of the common person, and it would put farmers out of business.  That never happened.  It is also worth noting that if the President's economic plans hadn't have largely destroyed farming in this country over the past couple of years, the industry wouldn't be in such dire straights already.

To spin this back around, how much death from the food supply are you willing to tolerate, especially with the consequences for those poisonings being largely removed.

Here's another scene from The Jungle. It's after Jurgis moves to the country and finds farm work. At the end of the season the farmer is telling him goodbye and hopes he'll be back in the spring. Jurgis looks at the horse and points out there is no work for the horse yet you will feed him and provide a place to sleep. Why not for a human?

 

[StrangeSox]

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

[caulfield12]

Noam Chomsky is more appropriate today.

https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-covid-19-has-exposed-the-us-under-trump-as-a-failed-state/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=7135e5f4-c0e9-486f-9b96-d6576625d16d

 

He is certainly no fan of Biden, Obama, Clinton and the neoliberal world order...it’s quite painful to read, and extremely LONG, but a stark reminder of how much still needs to be done in order to leave a better world (and more abundant opportunities) for the next two generations of Americans.

[turnin' two]

I wanna pet the rabbits George.

[southsider2k5]

I really hope that enough states stick to their guns about staying closed longer so that we can collect divergent data sets to prove who is right and wrong here for opening up this early.

[The Beast]

2 hours ago, soxfan49 said:

Damn, Lori Lightfoot just destroyed Trump. Whoa

I can’t find it, can you please share?

[The Beast]

58 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Mass layoffs begin in cities and states

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/29/cities-states-layoffs-furloughs-coronavirus/

In fact, the calls for federal aid have been bipartisan, And many states entered the latest economic downturn in a far better financial position than they did the 2008 recession, thanks in part to healthier cash reserves. The data has not assuaged Republicans, including McConnell, who told Politico in an interview that the Senate would not “finance mistakes they’ve made unrelated to the coronavirus.” His office declined to comment for this story.

Other Republicans led by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) similarly have mobilized in opposition to open-ended aid to struggling city and state governments, breaking with local officials even in the states they represent. “We believe additional money sent to the states for ‘lost revenue’ or without appropriate safeguards will be used to bail out unfunded pensions, reward decades of state mismanagement, and incentivize states to become more reliant on federal taxpayers,” Scott wrote in a draft letter to the president, which he has circulated among his colleagues for signatures. His office confirmed the letter, which attacks New York and Illinois for their financial decisions.

Ironic how much of the Federal financial assistance went to corporate stock buybacks and executive bonuses/golden parachutes in 2008-09...forcing us to bail out many of those industries once again.  But that’s white collar corporate socialism....only Bernie Sanders supporters and left wing nut jobs really care about that, right?

At any rate, here comes the next emerging financial tsunami.  Roughly 1/3rd or 1/4th the state and municipal authorities being furloughed as financial austerity measures are increasingly imposed.   It’s totally reminiscent of the EU arguments between Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and France that are adamantly opposed by Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

The key difference here in the US is that most of these coastal states pay a lot more in Federal taxes than they receive back (see earlier discussion up thread), with the majority of of those “socialist welfare” benefits redistributed to poorer, rural, Red States with a disproportionate influence in Congress.

If you are elderly, work for a small business, are unfortunate enough to live in a Blue state, are surviving on fixed income programs like Social Security or Medicaid, work in retail/fast food/minimum wage jobs, are an immigrant or minority, hold public sector or union jobs...you suddenly have a massive target on your back.

 

And you can pretty much forget nationwide contact tracing through public health agencies with all these layoffs.   But hey, the stock market was up again today despite all this horrific economic news, why worry?

I fully anticipate paying higher taxes to live in Illinois because of the fallout from COVID-19 and the looming pension crisis. I’m glad I refinanced because it is going to get ugly.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

I really hope that enough states stick to their guns about staying closed longer so that we can collect divergent data sets to prove who is right and wrong here for opening up this early.

Do you really expect that states who fail aren’t simply going to follow the Trump playbook and blame that divergent data on “interstate commerce” or travel/tourism or “imported cases from neighboring states”?

Buried deep in Chomsky is something that cuts to the heart of the matter on the current vaccine efforts as well (this has been already discussed, with Balta taking the most extreme position on why public health might not be prioritized over pharmaceutical industry profits).

 

 

The depth of the pathology is revealed clearly by one of the most dramatic — and murderous — failures: the lack of ventilators that is one the major bottlenecks in confronting the pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services foresaw the problem, and contracted with a small firm to produce inexpensive, easy-to-use ventilators. But then capitalist logic intervened. The firm was bought by a major corporation, Covidien, which sidelined the project, and, “In 2014, with no ventilators having been delivered to the government, Covidien executives told officials at the [federal] biomedical research agency that they wanted to get out of the contract, according to three former federal officials. The executives complained that it was not sufficiently profitable for the company.”

Doubtless true.

Neoliberal logic then intervened, dictating that the government could not act to overcome the gross market failure, which is now causing havoc. As The New York Times gently put the matter, “The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government’s goal of preparing for a future crisis.”

 

We’ve already witnessed this particular conflict play out in the realm of testing (prioritizing those 3 immense commercial labs vs. public hospitals and health centers.)  

Currently, we are building out an additional stockpile of around 65,000 ventilators at around $15,000 a pop through GM and Ford....and they MIGHT be ready in June or July, MAYBE???   It was all eminently avoidable, and had even been anticipated as a future need by HHS, but broke down with a corporate response Ayn Rand herself likely would have delighted in.

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

If you divide deaths (and Florida is already deliberately trying to cover up their numbers already) in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark (2462/206/443/207) and divide by country’s total population,

then multiply by that rate to apply to it the US (where we don’t have universal health care/hospitals with built out capacity/a massive amount of preexisting condition or obese population)

you’d get the equivalent so far in American deaths:

 

Sweden   78,216   (27% worse than the US)

Finland    12,133   

Denmark   24,798

Norway     12,533

 

US actual number as of now (according to worldometers) is 61,618 deaths.   Sweden is fighting to get to 20-30% herd immunity, but with a total population smaller than the entire city of Wuhan and not close in terms of population density (which is primarily why major cities are getting smashed.)   The US is instead choosing no coordinated national or Federal strategy...just a patchwork quilt of differing approaches, which means we are essentially forcing ourselves into herd immunity, one way or the other.    The UK calculated these herd immunity scenarios early on and determined the same philosophy was going to lead to disaster there and (relatively) quickly reversed course.

Edited April 30, 2020 by caulfield12

[soxfan49]

3 hours ago, The Beast said:

I can’t find it, can you please share?

A reporter asked her about Trump singling out certain cities that have many immigrants and she responded with "we don't follow that racist and xenophobic ideology." 

Same reporter/different reporter went to ask about "Trump has said.." and Lightfoot interrupted by saying "he has said many questionable things in the last 3.5 years."