Who Pays the Coronaman? - Covid #8

[IheartIheartTesla]

Looks like Trump now thinks 100,000 deaths means we would have done ok. What a change from 15 cases that will go down to zero. Well, at least he backed away from reopening the country on Easter.

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

ETA: Have no problem believing that in Italy and France there are excess deaths not being counted as covid because of lack of testing and other factors. Retrospective analysis will clarify this. I don't believe there is any widespread governmental effort at a national evel in those countries to deliberately downplay numbers... well, not in France anyways.

I wouldn't be so sure. Macron's neo-liberal government was squeezing the life out of the public healthcare system and had been facing strikes for a year (dozens of ER services were on strike, nurses and doctors demonstrating... etc) when the pandemic hit. The former health minister (who'd left the ministry to campaign for mayor of Paris) also confessed that she had warned of the danger weeks before the government did anything about it but was overruled by Macron and PM Philippe. It was also revealed that the country had both plans and equipment to face just such a pandemic after 2006... Now, because of budget cuts hospitals are lacking equipment and are turning to citizens for various items (in my gaming club a nurse was asking people with 3D printers to print parts for respirators, I saw paramedics asking for protective gear... etc). The situation on the ground is described as hellish by professionals and doctors are highly critical of official decisions...
Basically the government is being severely blamed for its response to the crisis and it was already quite unpopular to begin with... It has every interest to downplay numbers. The difference with China, of course, is that it won't get away with much.

[Fragile Bird]

12 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

A woman after my own heart.   

Every time I hear the news out of Michigan I worry about you, my sweet! Take care of yourself and Mr.Tears! 

[Derfel Cadarn]

My wife’s a neural theatre nurse (in UK) and has prepped a bag in case she is in contact with an infected patient, in which case she’ll move in my mum’s (who is at my sister’s for next few weeks).

She says they’re expecting it to get bad. The masks theybhave are meant to be disposed of after 1 hour. On realising they would run out, that was upped to 4 hours, then 8. Supply is dictating guidance rather than the other way round.

Also they had to hide their clean scrub supply box as the ward staff were stealing the scrubs from fear of their uniforms getting infected...

She also noted last week she had two attempted suicides to deal with, perhaps an increase due to covid fears.

Yesterday in my supermarket I saw a guy going around with latex gloves and a small mask on. Fine except he kept touching his face, adjusting his mask (which failed to cover his nose most of the time).

Still waiting for a work laptop so I can work from home (currently off anywau as immune compromised. Off those meds so may be immune normal soon. Blood test this week

 

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

The last sentence is ridiculous and you know it as long as you are capable of rational thought. Of course the official wording is correct (from a „legal point of view“). But that’s besides the point. It is misleading.

I honestly wouldn’t know how else to phrase it, there’s no sleight of hand, they’ve just openly said that that’s the figure for hospitals. The impression I’m getting is that pandemics are incredibly difficult to manage without adding a cold and calculating political motive. I’m not saying it’s entirely absent, but I just don’t think anyone’s got time to figure out how to smuggle numbers inside clever wording.

[Ran]

An interesting podcast from Lawfare, talking to nine people in various parts of the world discussing their experiences with what's going on in their countries in relation to coronavirus. A rather droll MEP  from Poland, Radek Sikorski, mentioned how his son had to cross the German-Polish border on foot and the apparent consequent quarantine order he received... and then notes that while there's an app you can voluntarily download that tell the police where you are at all times (rather than having them come round and visit on a dialy basis), he himself doesn't use it because he believes the ruling Law and Justice party  bought the Pegasus spyware system and he suspects he's a subject of interest, thereby making him suspect they already have his location data anyway. Obviously, he himself is not a member of the Law and Justice party, so... take that with a grain of salt. But it was amusingly put.

[Kalbear]

Remember: South Korea and the US has the first confirmed case of Covid19 on the same day:

 

 

[Paxter]

Italy has recorded its lowest number of new cases in nearly two weeks. It is possible therefore that Italy is reaching its peak number of fatalities/day (at least for this first wave). 

ETA: Deleting references to Spanish data that was incorrect. 

[Zorral]

As to what are 'western governments' one may wish to recall Hungary's is then a 'western government.'

The haters in D.C. of 'western-style governments' continue even in this very moment to assiduously beaver away at getting rid of 'Obama care.'

 

[Fragile Bird]

An ultra-orthodox Jewish community in a suburb of Montreal has been hard hit by Covid-19, mainly, it appears, because we didn't shut down the border with the US fast enough. Twenty members of the community went to NYC to celebrate Purim in early March. Being a tight-knit community, those people came back and have been spreading the virus. So far 40 test results have come back and 20 were positive, and there are many more tests in process.

The community wanted a lockdown (they all live in the same area, as they are tightly connected to their synagogue) which they could not do on their own, so they reached out to the police and between them have shut down a number of streets in the suburb. Community members are patrolling the streets to keep people in, with police stationed in cars in the area to act as back-up and support if needed.

I now add this community to the 'fucking idiots' list from the start of March: the 15,000 person dentistry convention in Vancouver, the 72 member doctor's curling bonspiel in Alberta and their 11 sick doctors, the snowmobilers club that had their group dinner for 110 in Saskatchewan after the province warned against large gatherings, and the champion super-spreader in Newfoundland who travelled outside the province (don't know where, possibly a cruise) returned home and attended two funerals and their wakes. 111 out of 149 [68 of the102 old number] people infected in Newfoundland trace back to this person.

"sighs"

People are stupid.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I'm not interested in the difference in authoritarian governments and democratic ones, as I am in a decentralized versus centralized one. In my opinion, for a real emergency the patchwork state-by-state approach leaves much to be desired and is a real barrier when you have a virus that can easily cross state boundaries. At the same time, giving too power to the federal/central government has its perils (particularly with someone like Trump in charge).

Just spitballing here, but to play devil's advocate for my own point, the European nation's have been tackling this only a countr-by-country approach rather than a 'Euro' approach.

[Fez]

And Virginia just issued a stay-at-home order through June 10th. I already wasn't planning on going anywhere for a while, but now its official.

I'm a little surprised that Northam didn't issue a shorter order and then extend it when the time came, as many other governors seem to be doing. Guess he's trying to take the tack of conveying just serious this all is.

ETA: I just remembered that Northam is an actual doctor too, and was still practicing as recently as 2016 I think (he was Lt. Gov, but that's not exactly a full time job in this state), so it could be he's also more clear-eyed about what the future looks like than some governors.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Never seen a store that dead before. Only say two other shoppers. 

And they're running out of meat, or at least what they're displaying. And there will be no more seafood for a while.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I went grocery shopping this morning, I stood in a line-up spaced out essentially by grocery cart lengths. Luckily they called out for seniors to go to the head of the line. Very limited entries.

When I got home I left the jugs of Tide and vinegar (I wash things that could get musty, like towels, with a cup of vinegar) and the 6 pack of tissue on the porch and headed for the bathroom, where I washed everything I bought in soapy water, or wiped down some things with a Lysol wipe, or transferred items to plastic containers (the strawberries, the cherry tomatoes, the mushrooms) or went to the kitchen and cut off packaging and let stuff drop into the sink (the cauliflower). The packaging has been dropped into my recycling box and then the box emptied into the recycling bin outside. Also, wiped down my telephone, because I used it to register my points card, and my car keys. Oh, and my debit card and my card case.

Then I took a couple of wipes and went outside to my car, wiping down the car door handle, the steering wheel, the turn signal, the shifter handle, the turn signal, the interior door handle, the button for the push start and the quarter I used in the shopping cart, because I wore latex gloves while in the store and who knows what I picked up.

On my way back into the house I wiped down the porch door handle, the screen door handle, the front door handle and then stepped in and wiped the door knob inside. Back to the bathroom, wipe down the faucet parts and the interior of the sink.

This routine is why my trips to the grocery store have been cut back sharply.

The stuff on the porch can either stay there a couple of days, or I will fill the sink with an inch of water and some Lysol and I will wash all the bottles. The tissue boxes can stay there for a few days.

I started this routine after reading this post by someone who had a bone marrow transplant and worked very hard to make sure they didn't die during the months needed to build up their immune system.

https://medium.com/@amcarter/i-had-no-immune-system-for-months-after-my-bone-marrow-transplant-1b097f16040c

We can't live like this for a significant amount of time. Otherwise we're all going to die by being crushed by all the used wipes! 

[Zorral]

There is another consideration that my own throat taught me:

Breathing these disinfectant solutions on wipes, bleach cleaners and others often in the day, even for short times, particularly in enclosed spaces like laundry rooms affects one's respiratory system.  Again, like the virus, smoke, perfume, exhaust, the particles hang in the hair even when no longer wiping down the machines before use. 

I've been disinfecting on a rota almost, bathroom and kitchen fixtures and the doors of course.  For the first time in about three weeks, having not gone out at all even to try and breathe due the gdd runners and cyclists who ride on the sidewalk right past our door, I didn't do that.  The sore throat and coughing (which clearly wasn't a c19 thing) went away.

I do not know if wearing a mask will help with that.  But in the end hot water and soap are the best for everything.

 

[RhaenysBee]

I just checked worldometer, dear lord, what is going on in the US? They have over the double amount of infected as China.
And Italy and Spain... my god. If we ever get to travel again, my first trip will be to Italy to help to rebuild tourism with what little my trip can contribute  

Over here, we will probably hit 1000 by the weekend. Our partial lockdown resulted in more people being out on the streets because the order specified all the things that are allowed and now people feel justified. The bloody nail salon reopened(!). National news insists experts do see the flattening of the curve. I don’t know. In terms of closed cases, we have a 30% mortality rate. They always make it a priority to meticulously specify that the newly deceased was a very old person and/or had (often multiple) pre-existing, serve chronic conditions. 

Oh and if there wasn’t enough irony in this pandemic ordeal already, guess who sent us the first foreign fund? The American billionaire about whom we write our conspiracy theories. I hope a lot of people feel incredibly stupid right now. 

 

[felice]

7 hours ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

So here's a thought........they're now saying the rona could kill 100-200,000 people, here in the US.  With obesity accounting for roughly 300,000 deaths a year and tobacco killing almost 500,000 people a year in America, why not combat those issues with the daily numbers like they're are with the rona?

Because those are possible death numbers for Covid-19 with action taken to reduce the spread. If it had been completely ignored instead, the death toll could be 10-20 million.

[williamjm]

10 hours ago, Ran said:

ETA: Have no problem believing that in Italy and France there are excess deaths not being counted as covid because of lack of testing and other factors. Retrospective analysis will clarify this. I don't believe there is any widespread governmental effort at a national evel in those countries to deliberately downplay numbers... well, not in France anyways.  Regionally, I couldn't say.

According to the BBC the French seem to be using the same criteria as the UK: "The total death toll is now 3,024, although French officials only count those who die in hospitals."

[HexMachina]

5 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

Does anyone even READ my posts??    I quoted a Detroit Free Press news article that basically said Detroit was "burning." 

As my husband and I are definitely in the at-risk group, you might say I'm a wee bit nervous.

 

And, yeah, a large number of people do use plastic for purchases, but there're still things that require cash to be handled.  

ETA:  C-19 germs are lurking on those keypads when you're entering pin numbers. 

I feel like I'm spending my downtime thinking of ways the Covid's gonna get me.  

Yes, that's why UK have encouraged contactless payments. (mine fixed itself today, for some reason). 

[the Greenleif Stark]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Did you write this on your iPhone from a Spring Break beach?  

Absolutely, because my spouse and I working from home with our 2 year old son running around is basically spring break, right? However, I have never owned and iPhone, so no, I did not write that on an iPhone.  But your snarky response is greatly appreciated, thanks.