Covid-19 exponential growth

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 minute ago, Geoff Guenther said:

I don't know if you live in the US, but when the president declares an emergency he gains authority over all sorts of things, and national security threats like a pandemic are one. The CDC, as a part of the Trump administration, should have been in there immediately.

Everything you've described are Trump's excuses to not act. Trump should not have had to become personally involved in getting more masks - the fact that he gelded the administration is why it couldn't be done earlier.

This week the US will pass China in total number of COVID-19 cases. We had over two more months to deal with this outbreak than China did and we completely flubbed it.

Johnson's use of "herd immunity" is arguably worse, but we can get into that later.

Again, you are assuming that the particulars of emergency powers give him a means to bypass the agencies. They don't. They retain their independence and immunity from personnel decisions from the Administration. Trump can only bully them by voice and shame them publicly. Not things that provide assurance to the public and don't promote the achievement of anything. 

We don't know the number of Covid 19 cases in China now, nor at any point in the past. Their deaths numbers remain hidden and their testing never included non-symptomatics - and when they did free form testing they never reported the results. The first month in Wuhan had estimated 20k per day (or was that per week?) of excess cremations. The records are useless. China can easily sample antibodies in their population to check how deeply it penetrated. I am pretty much certain that they did so regionally and are hiding the results as they would have shown millions had been infected. 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

3 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Absolutely, we have to move fast so the UK and US can follow more of an Asian path, not the southern European one. Time is short - the US passes China in the number of COVID-19 cases this week.

My biggest hope is for using the medications which have been found to work very efficiently. Is Europe and the UK moving forward with those?

My updated coronavirus/clovid 19 topic https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MXY8T0j7k0oUBsHW4BfjJM__DRIyzqrDf_FSlV4hHpw/edit#

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

12 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Absolutely, we have to move fast so the UK and US can follow more of an Asian path, not the southern European one. Time is short - the US passes China in the number of COVID-19 cases this week.

 

Again, the Chinese numbers are a selective showing. It has the relationship of a Chinese Opera to portrayals of reality. It is a statistical PR narrative, not scientific information.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

1 minute ago, 0R0 said:

Again, you are assuming that the particulars of emergency powers give him a means to bypass the agencies. They don't. They retain their independence and immunity from personnel decisions from the Administration.

The CDC is PART of the Administration. The executive is there to do things, not to legislate.

3 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

We don't know the number of Covid 19 cases in China now, nor at any point in the past.

Ditto for the true number of COVID-19 cases in America. We only started properly testing last week. Yes, I believe that China can more effectively hide data that the US can, it's also pretty difficult to hide data long term.

South Korea and Japan have models we should try to mimic - and we know their data is reasonably accurate.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

9 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

My biggest hope is for using the medications which have been found to work very efficiently. Is Europe and the UK moving forward with those?

My updated coronavirus/clovid 19 topic https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MXY8T0j7k0oUBsHW4BfjJM__DRIyzqrDf_FSlV4hHpw/edit#

I think so. It was a French doctor who suggested the treatment and they seem to be testing. I know about Japan's testing on Chinese patients with an antiviral that also seems to have merit.

WHO seems to be running four international trials as well, which include antivirals and other treatments.  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches-global-megatrial-four-most-promising-coronavirus-treatments.

I think they're basically pulling out all the stops to find anything right now.

[0R0 + 6,251]

16 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

The CDC is PART of the Administration. The executive is there to do things, not to legislate.

 

They are not. They are part of the executive branch, but are not under direct control of the White House. They are independent agencies that the Admin can appoint, the Senate confirm, and then they can cooperate with the President or not. Do we have an issue with the meaning of "independent"?

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

Just now, 0R0 said:

They are not. They are part of the executive branch, but are not under direct control of the White House. They are independent agencies that the Admin can appoint, the Senate confirm, and then they can cooperate with the President or not. Do we have an issue with the meaning of "independent"?

And we know that the president cut off the head and didn't replace it, effectively eliminating the CDC as an effective department.

Trump also seems to have a Defence Production Act that he should have used to build the much-needed hospital supplies. Again, this is a failure of the Whitehouse.  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/defense-production-act-coronavirus-trump-respirators-masks-ventilators.html

You keep bringing up very tenuous excuses for why the Trump adminstration did nothing. The fact is that they had months to do something and the powers to do it and they still did nothing except create the false impression that they had things under control.

[0R0 + 6,251]

20 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Ditto for the true number of COVID-19 cases in America. We only started properly testing last week. Yes, I believe that China can more effectively hide data that the US can, it's also pretty difficult to hide data long term.

 

Yes, we are starting to get a picture, as we go through the backlog of pending tests. But as the testing capacity is now about 22k per day and we only use 4k currently, then we can extend the testing more broadly to non symptomatics.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

5 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

Yes, we are starting to get a picture, as we go through the backlog of pending tests. But as the testing capacity is now about 22k per day and we only use 4k currently, then we can extend the testing more broadly to non symptomatics.

We still don't know why the UK stored testing. Started out so well and then, while everyone else was ramping theirs up, they stopped. At the moment US data is far more accurate than UK.

Johnson bet the farm that a particular model was right. When they tried to publish it they discovered their assumptions were wrong. Boris doesn't do backup plans, so last week they did a Hail Mary tweet (!) to find companies to build more ventilators. Amateur hour at Westminster. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

6 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

And we know that the president cut off the head and didn't replace it, effectively eliminating the CDC as an effective department.

Trump also seems to have a Defence Production Act that he should have used to build the much-needed hospital supplies. Again, this is a failure of the Whitehouse.  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/defense-production-act-coronavirus-trump-respirators-masks-ventilators.html

You keep bringing up very tenuous excuses for why the Trump adminstration did nothing. The fact is that they had months to do something and the powers to do it and they still did nothing except create the false impression that they had things under control.

It is not obvious that anyone has a clue what to do with the act. Companies have not indicated problems yet other than the regulatory hand, particularly of the FDA. No reports of any prospective producer meeting a "no" from a prospective supplier. The agency (FDA) has little if any cover under the act, nor the emergency powers act. It retains its independence in both cases. 

If you go back to the origins of the act, the DOD had maintained lists of supply chains for alternate military suppliers who may be busy with other work that would need to be disrupted to get the military goods made. Nobody maintained lists of medical supply chain companies and their capacity and particular range of output possibilities and input requirements. The Pharma industry association does have a rudimentary database. Not enough to do anything with. 

 

[0R0 + 6,251]

1 minute ago, Geoff Guenther said:

We still don't know why the UK stored testing. Started out so well and then, while everyone else was ramping theirs up, they stopped. At the moment US data is far more accurate than UK.

Johnson bet the farm that a particular model was right. When they tried to publish it they discovered their assumptions were wrong. Boris doesn't do backup plans, so last week they did a Hail Mary tweet (!) to find companies to build more ventilators. Amateur hour at Westminster. 

Find a few episodes of "up the greasy pole" and expect that Johnson is being sabotaged. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

18 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

You keep bringing up very tenuous excuses for why the Trump adminstration did nothing. The fact is that they had months to do something and the powers to do it and they still did nothing except create the false impression that they had things under control.

Legal authorities and jurisdiction are not excuses and hardly tenuous. There is what they can do and what they are not allowed to do. The key agencies involved don't function at the president's behest, they have their own missions and their processes, and they are not helpful, but instead keep putting their high hoops and asking that people jump higher because of the emergency conditions rather than making the hoop's lower to the ground. It is "not their problem". The FDA produces no drug, designs no tests, makes no equipment, and develops no medical protocols or procedures. They only block their application and development process and permit them after FDA staff get to check their little boxes as to having those satisfied. These modes of operation and institutional momentum are making them counterproductive and damaging. They need to be taken out of the loop legislatively, because the president can't do it. 

[TooSteep + 142]

3 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

"Trump's (very controversial) move to ban Chinese travel to America saved more lives than one can possibly fathom. You think this is bad? Run the figures on having fifty-thousand Chinese--half of them infected but showing no fever--infiltrate every corner of the United States. "

The travel ban was the right idea. But it was too late. They had already flown by the tens of thousands to San Francisco, Seattle and New York. The travel ban meant that the initial dose of infection was lower, but the patient (the country) was already fully infected. All the ban did was to change the timing of the curve.

This thing should peak in about 3 weeks, and most should be able to resume near-normal in about 5 weeks. (Assuming severe social distancing for the next little while, and a massive buildup of testing and public health containment capability). 

The Trump administration probably hasn't been better or worse than anyone else. Time to look forward.  I think the biggest question right now is why the German CFR is so low. What are they doing right? Will the hydroxychloroquine be an effective prophylactic (sure seems promising)? If it is, it'll get Trump reelected

 

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

18 minutes ago, TooSteep said:

The Trump administration probably hasn't been better or worse than anyone else. Time to look forward. 

The Trump adminstration has done a measurably poorer job than Japan and South Korea. I'm arguing that it still isn't doing its job and that's going to cripple the economy AND kill people - the worst of all possibilities.

Germany seems to have done a good job *so far*. They probably have the hospital beds and ventilators needed to cope with a surge. The Germans are saying that we shouldn't read too much into it - my understanding is that they are providing standard care to people and they think the CFR will rise.

The Financial Times has a page that they keep updated that shows the trajectories of cases and deaths by country.  The most striking is that US cases are growing faster than any other country at this point (18 days) in their epidemics. https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

China put Wuhan into lockdown for 51 days to gain control of the virus. A lockdown would likely have to last for about 4-5 weeks (incubation time * 2) to gain control here, and we'd have to set up strong processes after that - i.e. temperature scans before you enter buildings, 45-minute test results, public disinfection stations, proper quarantine rather than throwing the problems to families, and tracking down of individuals who may have been infected.

These things would cause less interruption in our day-to-day life than what we're about to experience. All it takes is a leader who is willing to take a risk and implement it.

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

My biggest hope is for using the medications which have been found to work very efficiently. Is Europe and the UK moving forward with those?

In Switzerland, the canton of Vaud decided to requisition the existing stocks of Plaquenil, the drug based on chloroquine capable of treating Covid-19. It will be used in certain special cases, while waiting to know more about its effectiveness.

"We asked doctors and pharmacists to limit the prescriptions of Plaquenil to patients who need it. The Plaquenil will be reserved for patients affected by Covid-19 and who need hospital care." said Rebecca Ruiz head of the Department of Health and Social Action in the cantonal government,  at a press briefing in the canton of Vaud on Monday. The objective is to avoid the creation of individual stocks. She stressed that it was an "experimental treatment" and its administration would be decided "on a case-by-case basis."

For cantonal doctor Karim Boubaker, chloroquine "is one of the few treatments that can work for severe cases. We are conducting live studies and the answers will only come in the coming weeks" However, he too reiterated that there was "no evidence" of the effectiveness of this drug, particularly in terms of prevention. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

The Trump adminstration has done a measurably poorer job than Japan and South Korea. I'm arguing that it still isn't doing its job and that's going to cripple the economy AND kill people - the worst of all possibilities.

...

These things would cause less interruption in our day-to-day life than what we're about to experience. All it takes is a leader who is willing to take a risk and implement it.

Your TDS appears to be terminal.

Since you clearly hate Trump with a passion, and state endlessly that Trump is the problem, please advise:

Which U.S. leader would you prefer to be President right now rather than Trump, and why?

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

9 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Which U.S. leader would you prefer to be President right now rather than Trump, and why?

P.S.  trending on Twitter right now:

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

10 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Your TDS appears to be terminal.

Since you clearly hate Trump with a passion, and state endlessly that Trump is the problem, please advise:

Which U.S. leader would you prefer to be President right now rather than Trump, and why?

I don't understand the question. I can give reasons that every single President since WWII would have done a better job on the pandemic. Is that what you're looking for?

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

I warned you all in early February. Who liquidated their portfolio? Other than me. 

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

Link here

Edited March 23, 2020 by Ward Smith
Didn't link properly

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

4 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I warned you all in early February. Who liquidated their portfolio? Other than me. 

 

Good article and scary read. It may well sum up the overall direction we're going. If that is the case, we'll have to rethink how we manage the economy.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

7 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I warned you all in early February. Who liquidated their portfolio? Other than me. 

If you were half the friend you pretend to be, you've have sent me a reminder. 😮

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

Maybe we should focus on when it will be time time to buy, buy, buy.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

1 minute ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Maybe we should focus on when it will be time time to buy, buy, buy.

I dunno. Ward?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

52 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Your TDS appears to be terminal.

Since you clearly hate Trump with a passion, and state endlessly that Trump is the problem, please advise:

Which U.S. leader would you prefer to be President right now rather than Trump, and why?

 

 

39 minutes ago, Geoff Guenther said:

I don't understand the question. I can give reasons that every single President since WWII would have done a better job on the pandemic. Is that what you're looking for?

 

Well then.