Covid-19 exponential growth

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

2 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Okay, what would YOU have done different than Trump, with the information AVAILABLE AT THE TIME THAT THE DECISION WAS MADE!

Eisenhower once said "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Even when you don't know something you have to plan contingencies to make sure you stay ahead of it.

A proper pandemic response looks urgent, because it focuses on reducing the possibility of extreme measures, like a lockdown .  Focus on suppressing the virus so life can go on with a minimal amount of disruption.

1. Testing, testing, testing. We need to be able to test a million people within one month. Don't wait two months until providing adequate testing resource.
   1. Temperature screening at high density places - airports, metro, highrises, hospitals, etc.
   2. Temperature screening when crossing state lines, with potential of further testing if necessary
   3. All suspicious deaths should be reported and tested
   4. Tests results back as quickly as possible - through local labs, not national ones
2. Tracking of interactions
   1. Who has this infected individual interacted with?
3. Set up temporary international travel bans (local ones only if necessary)
4. Set up isolation units. If people are test positive you shouldn't send them back home to infect the other members of their family, they should be put up in a hotel or a place where they can be taken care of without risk to others.
5. Surge hospital capability! We hope we don't have to use this, but has to be in place in case the above fails.
   1. Emergency supplies for hospitals. 10% of Italian cases are healthcare workers. Use whatever means necessary to provide masks - including n95, n99, and surgical masks to the front line. 2 days of emergency reserve masks is woefully inadequate and must be fixed.
   2. Increase bed capacity in expected hotspots.
   3. Call for volunteers who would like to be trained to help on the front line. Preference given to anyone who has already recovered.
6. Surge medical research around the coronavirus including pressuring China to allow US CDC or WHO staff to the frontlines
7. Create a program to ensure that people who have no insurance are assured free tests and free medical care for dealing with the disease. Without this cases are unreported because people can't afford the hospital bill.
   1. An addendum to this. No one who becomes ill because of COVID-19 is to lose their job. While Right-to-Work is State law, work with the states to suspend it.
8. Finally, educate the public with a consistent AND accurate message.
   1. They need to know the actual support the government and businesses are providing
   2. They need to know that someone is taking things seriously on their behalf
   3. The numbers and websites they need to know
   4. Social distancing and how do we do it
   5. What the next step is if social distancing fails (and it will fail in localities)

While all of this is costly, it is cheap in comparison to shutting down a city or a country. The UK is now in lockdown, and the cost of that will be orders of magnitude greater than getting the above basics in place.

Governments should be acting like they might be going to war, do everything in their power to avert that war, but also prepare themselves if the war arrives. Their citizens also deserve to have access true information and understand their decisions rather than be subjected to constant spin.

[Qanoil + 116]

Seems relevant here.

https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1238076579466674178

[REAL Green + 65]

16 hours 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.

AH, and you believe official Chinese figures? LOL.

[REAL Green + 65]

The rabid left will use any part of this crisis to attack Trump with with an eye on the election.  Dead bodies will just make their derangement polices work out better in their warped mind.  Of course not all of the rabid left.  The ones with the dead bodies pilling up will think otherwise.  Trump screwed up the approach early on by saying this virus wasn't serious.  He failed to see the economic fallout potential.   Yet, at this point there needs to be cooperation but the rabid left smells blood.  Too bad they don't smell their own blood because they will pay a price for these politically motivated actions.

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

Trump is a walking failure - yesterday, today, tomorrow, just a stream of random lies that change every day, ridiculous narcissistic parades and and nauseating, stupid attempts to enrich himself, like that slush fund attempt. The fact that a sentient being can vote for someone like Trump as his representative does not speak well of our species as the "Homo Sapiens". 

By the way, has anybody using the cheap excuse "it kills only the old, ill and weak, so I am safe" asked himself how is it possible that so many doctors and healthcare professionals are dying from this virus while they are usually healthy men and women in their prime? (Doctors usually take very good care of themselves). 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Eisenhower once said "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Even when you don't know something you have to plan contingencies to make sure you stay ahead of it.

A proper pandemic response looks urgent, because it focuses on reducing the possibility of extreme measures, like a lockdown .  Focus on suppressing the virus so life can go on with a minimal amount of disruption.

1. Testing, testing, testing. We need to be able to test a million people within one month. Don't wait two months until providing adequate testing resource.
   1. Temperature screening at high density places - airports, metro, highrises, hospitals, etc.
   2. Temperature screening when crossing state lines, with potential of further testing if necessary
   3. All suspicious deaths should be reported and tested
   4. Tests results back as quickly as possible - through local labs, not national ones
2. Tracking of interactions
   1. Who has this infected individual interacted with?
3. Set up temporary international travel bans (local ones only if necessary)
4. Set up isolation units. If people are test positive you shouldn't send them back home to infect the other members of their family, they should be put up in a hotel or a place where they can be taken care of without risk to others.
5. Surge hospital capability! We hope we don't have to use this, but has to be in place in case the above fails.
   1. Emergency supplies for hospitals. 10% of Italian cases are healthcare workers. Use whatever means necessary to provide masks - including n95, n99, and surgical masks to the front line. 2 days of emergency reserve masks is woefully inadequate and must be fixed.
   2. Increase bed capacity in expected hotspots.
   3. Call for volunteers who would like to be trained to help on the front line. Preference given to anyone who has already recovered.
6. Surge medical research around the coronavirus including pressuring China to allow US CDC or WHO staff to the frontlines
7. Create a program to ensure that people who have no insurance are assured free tests and free medical care for dealing with the disease. Without this cases are unreported because people can't afford the hospital bill.
   1. An addendum to this. No one who becomes ill because of COVID-19 is to lose their job. While Right-to-Work is State law, work with the states to suspend it.
8. Finally, educate the public with a consistent AND accurate message.
   1. They need to know the actual support the government and businesses are providing
   2. They need to know that someone is taking things seriously on their behalf
   3. The numbers and websites they need to know
   4. Social distancing and how do we do it
   5. What the next step is if social distancing fails (and it will fail in localities)

While all of this is costly, it is cheap in comparison to shutting down a city or a country. The UK is now in lockdown, and the cost of that will be orders of magnitude greater than getting the above basics in place.

Governments should be acting like they might be going to war, do everything in their power to avert that war, but also prepare themselves if the war arrives. Their citizens also deserve to have access true information and understand their decisions rather than be subjected to constant spin.

You are looking at this ‘after the fact’. This was a totally unknown virus, originating in a foreign country. In the early stages there was incomplete or false information coming out of China and nobody knew exactly how contagious it was.

So if you are crucifying Trump for not having a crystal ball, carry on.

How can you possibly prepare for the unknown? He also had to take into account any resulting effects on the economy.

How do other Heads of State fare in your rankings?

 

[Rob Plant + 2,755]

 

Coronavirus: US may become global epicentre of COVID-19 outbreak, says World Health Organization

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-spains-death-toll-rises-by-514-in-one-day-to-2-696-11962778

[Rob Plant + 2,755]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Eisenhower once said "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Even when you don't know something you have to plan contingencies to make sure you stay ahead of it.

A proper pandemic response looks urgent, because it focuses on reducing the possibility of extreme measures, like a lockdown .  Focus on suppressing the virus so life can go on with a minimal amount of disruption.

1. Testing, testing, testing. We need to be able to test a million people within one month. Don't wait two months until providing adequate testing resource.
   1. Temperature screening at high density places - airports, metro, highrises, hospitals, etc.
   2. Temperature screening when crossing state lines, with potential of further testing if necessary
   3. All suspicious deaths should be reported and tested
   4. Tests results back as quickly as possible - through local labs, not national ones
2. Tracking of interactions
   1. Who has this infected individual interacted with?
3. Set up temporary international travel bans (local ones only if necessary)
4. Set up isolation units. If people are test positive you shouldn't send them back home to infect the other members of their family, they should be put up in a hotel or a place where they can be taken care of without risk to others.
5. Surge hospital capability! We hope we don't have to use this, but has to be in place in case the above fails.
   1. Emergency supplies for hospitals. 10% of Italian cases are healthcare workers. Use whatever means necessary to provide masks - including n95, n99, and surgical masks to the front line. 2 days of emergency reserve masks is woefully inadequate and must be fixed.
   2. Increase bed capacity in expected hotspots.
   3. Call for volunteers who would like to be trained to help on the front line. Preference given to anyone who has already recovered.
6. Surge medical research around the coronavirus including pressuring China to allow US CDC or WHO staff to the frontlines
7. Create a program to ensure that people who have no insurance are assured free tests and free medical care for dealing with the disease. Without this cases are unreported because people can't afford the hospital bill.
   1. An addendum to this. No one who becomes ill because of COVID-19 is to lose their job. While Right-to-Work is State law, work with the states to suspend it.
8. Finally, educate the public with a consistent AND accurate message.
   1. They need to know the actual support the government and businesses are providing
   2. They need to know that someone is taking things seriously on their behalf
   3. The numbers and websites they need to know
   4. Social distancing and how do we do it
   5. What the next step is if social distancing fails (and it will fail in localities)

While all of this is costly, it is cheap in comparison to shutting down a city or a country. The UK is now in lockdown, and the cost of that will be orders of magnitude greater than getting the above basics in place.

Governments should be acting like they might be going to war, do everything in their power to avert that war, but also prepare themselves if the war arrives. Their citizens also deserve to have access true information and understand their decisions rather than be subjected to constant spin.

Why are we wasting time and energy trying to blame everyone on this?

What we should be doing is focusing all our efforts in trying to find a working proven vaccine and how to manufacture this and distribute it to the masses in record time. I'm sure most are doing exactly this and they should be applauded and we should do everything we can to help if we can.

This company was making vacuum cleaners a couple of weeks ago and now they are making ventilators, they have asked my company to make some parts for it in 24 hours which we have done and will then roll this out into mass production.

https://www.gtech.co.uk/

Please stop all the bitching, moaning and stupid finger pointing that achieves precisely f*ck all in solving the problem

Is it really all Trump's fault??

[SERWIN + 749]

On 3/22/2020 at 6:50 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Really, at this point, who cares? The virus is out there, governments are doing what they can, information is being shared, and labs are working towards a vaccine.

I’m in lockdown. I couldn’t care less about graphs or curves at this point.

Soooo, we in Texas are doing the "lockdown" as it were, but the laundry list of things still allowed really only enforces what was already done. Closing bars, restaurants, concerts and other large gatherings. Everyone is still allowed to be out and about, even liquor stores are on the "essentials' List, so why bother? Maybe so they politicians involved can say that they "helped" stop the spread later... Don't get it myself. Lumber stores will still be open, I work in tool sales, we will still be open, considered "essential". My company hasn't even had the foresight to close the will call counter off, all others in this town have done that one last week. Just goes to prove, money is more valuable than people to most companies. When the recovery happens, I will be one of those changing jobs because of how my employer has handled the crisis..... I could work from home, taking orders and doing quotes, but that's not happening here....

 

Update, Houston/Harris County has just been declared...

Edited March 24, 2020 by SERWIN
Updated

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

36 minutes ago, REAL Green said:

The rabid left will use any part of this crisis to attack Trump with with an eye on the election.  Dead bodies will just make their derangement polices work out better in their warped mind.  Of course not all of the rabid left.  The ones with the dead bodies pilling up will think otherwise.  Trump screwed up the approach early on by saying this virus wasn't serious.  He failed to see the economic fallout potential.   Yet, at this point there needs to be cooperation but the rabid left smells blood.  Too bad they don't smell their own blood because they will pay a price for these politically motivated actions.

Who are you calling left? That doesn't really appl to me. Maybe if you replace "left" with "informed" you might have more of a point.

You're complaining that people aren't cooperating with Trump when he's spent 3 months refusing to cooperate with anyone else? And that he's demanding to spend $500 billion with no oversight? That makes no sense whatsoever.

P.S. Qanoil just copies and pastes propaganda from a site owned by the Moonie cult and then pretends that everyone who doesn't agree with him is a CCP propagandist. He's not worth it.

[REAL Green + 65]

20 minutes ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

By the way, has anybody using the cheap excuse "it kills only the old, ill and weak, so I am safe" asked himself how is it possible that so many doctors and healthcare professionals are dying from this virus while they are usually healthy men and women in their prime? (Doctors usually take very good care of themselves). 

 

One thing many don't understand is that systematically (rough back of napkin figure) 10% of the population with critical skills runs things.  When we loose these people systems and networks go dysfunctional.  Many of our best are older and but also younger with conditions at risk for this virus.  It is also the case of "Liebig law of the minimum" economically kicking in.  When value chains fail in a global world the weakest link can stop the whole chain.  It also should be understood a value chain is a payment chain in reverse.  So, we have the systematic issue of critical skill people dying causing dysfunction but also economic dislocations causing dysfunctions.  This then calls for a measured and balance approach of some kind.  The extremes of either will kill more.  The best practices will vary by nation and it will take the review mirror to determine what was best.

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

16 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

You are looking at this ‘after the fact’. This was a totally unknown virus, originating in a foreign country. In the early stages there was incomplete or false information coming out of China and nobody knew exactly how contagious it was.

So if you are crucifying Trump for not having a crystal ball, carry on.

How can you possibly prepare for the unknown? He also had to take into account any resulting effects on the economy.

How do other Heads of State fare in your rankings?

 

If I had a complex spreadsheet whose accuracy meant that 100,000 people would live or die, I would damn well put in contingencies.

Everything in that list would be in your average pandemic handbook. You put mitigations in place because you ARE going to be wrong and you don't want to kill people and ruin your economy. Anyone who has managed a project would understand this.

Why is it so difficult for people to accept that not only has Trump done a terrible job up until now, but his administration still hasn't come up with a national strategy of how to deal with this?

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

1 hour ago, SERWIN said:

Soooo, we in Texas are doing the "lockdown" as it were, but the laundry list of things still allowed really only enforces what was already done. Closing bars, restaurants, concerts and other large gatherings. Everyone is still allowed to be out and about, even liquor stores are on the "essentials' List, so why bother? Maybe so they politicians involved can say that they "helped" stop the spread later... Don't get it myself. Lumber stores will still be open, I work in tool sales, we will still be open, considered "essential". My company hasn't even had the foresight to close the will call counter off, all others in this town have done that one last week. Just goes to prove, money is more valuable than people to most companies. When the recovery happens, I will be one of those changing jobs because of how my employer has handled the crisis..... I could work from home, taking orders and doing quotes, but that's not happening here....

 

Update, Houston/Harris County has just been declared...

Yeah, it's going to be a long couple of weeks here as well. Kids home, still want to do work but not getting very far. It's pretty eerie when you look outside and don't see people.

My friends who are doctors and nurses are just waiting for the onslaught. They know they'll shortly have 12-hour days and assume they will fall ill at some point.

The big question I have now is what tools will be put in place when the lockdown ends. If we don't have sincere efforts to reduce infection rates we'll just have to lock everyone down again in another 3 months. Good luck - maybe you can convince the powers that be that you can "keep the lights on" as it were.

[REAL Green + 65]

1 hour ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Who are you calling left? That doesn't really appl to me. Maybe if you replace "left" with "informed" you might have more of a point.

You're complaining that people aren't cooperating with Trump when he's spent 3 months refusing to cooperate with anyone else? And that he's demanding to spend $500 billion with no oversight? That makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Nope, the left is divided between rabid and informed just like the right.  The problem is the rabid left is now the loudest voice with many issues so the unspoken informed left is drown out.  I am not into the political discussion because they go nowhere in regards to the truth.  Both sides are locked in battle as the country is lost.  With some groups I am called a tree huger and others a Trumper.  This is what happens when extremism rules and that is any dissent from the party line is condemned on either side.  I will say I used to be really tired of the right with the Obama (I voted for him) derangement but what is happening now with the extreme left and the Trump derangement is off the charts.  For a time I thought the country could pull together over this virus but I am not sure anymore.  I am into localism and against the fake green techno left and the brown capitalist.  But here in my local it does not really matter both sides will fail because they live in the status quo world of growth with finger pointing.  I will be forced to pick up the pieces around where I live.  Late stage civilizations behave this way so it is normal.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

19 hours ago, 0R0 said:

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. 

Fauci is being touted by the establishment as some sort of authority when he is nothing but a bureaucrat that is more of a hindrance than a leader. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

11 hours ago, 0R0 said:

As you pointed out repeatedly, the US was not testing and testing capacity has only come online last week. Thus numbers don't reflect the discovery of new cases, but the expansion of testing. 

The positive vs. negative results on tests are shifting down and the testing has expanded to the full 20k near total daily capacity. So I guess we are not expanding testing yet. We do need to do a broad regional sampling with antibody tests to check on how far we have gone with the virus' penetration of the community. 

Contrary to you, I think the Trump Admin, is finding a useful median between getting the medical system overrun and shutting down the economy. There is absolutely no point to trying to stop the virus entirely. It has far too widely spread long before the ban on flights from China had been put in place. I think the lockdowns instituted already should be lifted. Curfews banned. Cuomo DiBlazio, etc .should be thrown in jail for endangering people and restricting their mobility for nothing. China has not controlled its viral outbreak, Just lowered its speed to a manageable level where they can treat people without having to tell them what they have and get reasonable outcomes. In the US, outside of the dense central metro areas there is no point to the shelter in place orders, the rate of transmission is just  not high enough to create a large overwhelming wave of acute cases in low density environments. 

Governors should not be making shelter in place orders for entire states, just for the dense cities, and that should be together with the mayors. Illinois has one big metropolis and that is stuck in one corner of the state. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

3 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Yeah, it's going to be a long couple of weeks here as well. Kids home, still want to do work but not getting very far. It's pretty eerie when you look outside and don't see people.

My friends who are doctors and nurses are just waiting for the onslaught. They know they'll shortly have 12-hour days and assume they will fall ill at some point.

The big question I have now is what tools will be put in place when the lockdown ends. If we don't have sincere efforts to reduce infection rates we'll just have to lock everyone down again in another 3 months. Good luck - maybe you can convince the powers that be that you can "keep the lights on" as it were.

We need to get the working treatments approved as some insurers do not cover off label drug use. The reports from medical practices using the hyroxychloquine + zythromax combo are terrific. So far, early onset treatment results in no respiratory distress requiring hospitalization. Keep the FDA under hyper pressure to get approvals as soon as possible so that everyone can put this out as the front line treatment - if it is as good as it looks. BTW, I suspect that it would work that much better coupled with organic zinc molecule supplements

The disease is essentially over already. We just need the production of these drugs to increase with more companies taking their old plants out of mothballs. 

The only solutions are vaccines and effective treatments. The only means are broad testing. Social distancing is a joke as the Diamond Princess demonstrated. The entire boat is showing sustained live SARS COV-2 on surfaces 14 days after evacuation of rooms. You need to sterilize all public contact surfaces before you touch them. Same as you would in a serine gas attack. Fortunately, that is not a problem to do at the individual level, and not that costly for the organizational level action. It fails miserably on public transport. 

I am very curious to see how well people do working from home in tiny urban apartments vs. spread out  suburban environments where you have 100 sqm per capita vs central metro regions where you are lucky to have 1/4 of that. I think kids at home are far less detrimental to productivity in a large house with a yard and a dog where you can set up a rec room or bedroom office. 

I think that will shape the future of commercial real estate and basic economics of rural vs. suburban and exurban vs. dense urban demographics. If you can run your offices virtually in one sort of low density region but not quite in an urban setting, then central metros are toast, they will become a hole in the doughnut as they were in the late 1960s. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

7 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Eisenhower once said "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Even when you don't know something you have to plan contingencies to make sure you stay ahead of it.

A proper pandemic response looks urgent, because it focuses on reducing the possibility of extreme measures, like a lockdown .  Focus on suppressing the virus so life can go on with a minimal amount of disruption.

1. Testing, testing, testing. We need to be able to test a million people within one month. Don't wait two months until providing adequate testing resource.
   1. Temperature screening at high density places - airports, metro, highrises, hospitals, etc.
   2. Temperature screening when crossing state lines, with potential of further testing if necessary
   3. All suspicious deaths should be reported and tested
   4. Tests results back as quickly as possible - through local labs, not national ones
2. Tracking of interactions
   1. Who has this infected individual interacted with?
3. Set up temporary international travel bans (local ones only if necessary)
4. Set up isolation units. If people are test positive you shouldn't send them back home to infect the other members of their family, they should be put up in a hotel or a place where they can be taken care of without risk to others.
5. Surge hospital capability! We hope we don't have to use this, but has to be in place in case the above fails.
   1. Emergency supplies for hospitals. 10% of Italian cases are healthcare workers. Use whatever means necessary to provide masks - including n95, n99, and surgical masks to the front line. 2 days of emergency reserve masks is woefully inadequate and must be fixed.
   2. Increase bed capacity in expected hotspots.
   3. Call for volunteers who would like to be trained to help on the front line. Preference given to anyone who has already recovered.
6. Surge medical research around the coronavirus including pressuring China to allow US CDC or WHO staff to the frontlines
7. Create a program to ensure that people who have no insurance are assured free tests and free medical care for dealing with the disease. Without this cases are unreported because people can't afford the hospital bill.
   1. An addendum to this. No one who becomes ill because of COVID-19 is to lose their job. While Right-to-Work is State law, work with the states to suspend it.
8. Finally, educate the public with a consistent AND accurate message.
   1. They need to know the actual support the government and businesses are providing
   2. They need to know that someone is taking things seriously on their behalf
   3. The numbers and websites they need to know
   4. Social distancing and how do we do it
   5. What the next step is if social distancing fails (and it will fail in localities)

While all of this is costly, it is cheap in comparison to shutting down a city or a country. The UK is now in lockdown, and the cost of that will be orders of magnitude greater than getting the above basics in place.

Governments should be acting like they might be going to war, do everything in their power to avert that war, but also prepare themselves if the war arrives. Their citizens also deserve to have access true information and understand their decisions rather than be subjected to constant spin.

Testing of temperatures are useless. It is like looking for your penny under the street light though you dropped it down the grate half a block away. Sick carriers know to quarantine themselves. Healthy ones go about their business with minimum heat signatures (see optical AI "disease recognition") 60% will never have a symptom. So such screening is a waste. Enough of the carrier population will go through it so as to maintain transmission at the same level as without it. 

Testing for virus is useful. S. Korea etc. do so extensively and repeatedly. Antibody testing does not tell you if you have live virus but it is an easy and cheap test with rapid turnover like an HIV test and will tell you if you were exposed, and should go through the virus test. The CDC and FDA crunched this one horribly and are the major cause of the failed US response. 

Funding of broad testing testing paid sick leave and quarantine facilities (government funded indirectly) are low cost and effective. I do fault both Trump and congress not touching this before the outbreak actually showed up with massive hospitalizations. Also for taking as long as they had to allow cross state licensing of medical staff. 

It is not business' role to fund social programs if they don't want to or can't afford to. It is unrealistic for a shut down business to pay wages while there is no revenue. It just won't happen regardless of law. Only direct subsidy would make it possible. Preferably allowing the business to survive intact: with its staffing and finances intact to allow it to continue existing following the crisis.  The same way a pandemic business interruption insurance would. Unfortunately such a thing has not ever existed as it can't be reinsured. Nobody can muster the capital needed to pay out for a complete global outage of business. If there were no limits on banks to expand lending with abandon under pandemic conditions then all of these programs would be unnecessary and the Fed and a relatively small government loss provision fund for the Fed would be all you need.  But it can't be done because the myriad regulators of Dodd Frank can't be corralled to respond. "It is not my problem" is the universal bureaucratic response. These agencies should be shut down and replaced with nothing at all,, at least during the outbreak and recovery periods if not permanently.

The government has used every opportunity to educate the people to spread misinformation and idiotic responses. Most important was the disinformation campaign from China. They didn't have credibility before, and they don't have any now. We need to establish that government agencies have no place in "informing" or "educating". They should not even have access to a microphone or the internet. We gained sufficient information for individuals and corporations to act before any government actor had enough information to make any determinations as to which way to go. There is no place for them. They should be stripped of the authority to prevent actions by individuals, doctors hospitals and pharma. The government has bee the MAIN obstacle to every attempt at response. The biggest lesson is that when there is a crisis possible, the first response is to eliminate the authorities of the relevant government agencies, particularly  to suspend their ability to inhibit, license, guide or promote policy.

 

FEMA has mobile solutions for quarantine and medical facilities. NYC has buildings available for conversion into makeshift medical space. However, there has not been enough public or government support in NYC to maintain the hospital capacity it did have. Their value as real estate for offices and residences was too high so the level of subsidy needed to keep them open was prohibitive. Perhaps now there will be enough slack  in city real estate values to turn over the relationship and residential and office space will price according to proximity to healthcare facilities the way suburban neighborhoods price according to the quality of their schools. Coastal cities can benefit from converting some of the cruise liners into hospital ships. It is doubtful that the global cruise industry is going to recover in the near future. Perhaps DOD should already be on the phone to buy a few of them in order to convert them. Coastal cities will likely be forever at risk of pandemics overrunning their capacities.

 

[Qanoil + 116]

18 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

P.S. Qanoil just copies and pastes propaganda from a site owned by the Moonie cult and then pretends that everyone who doesn't agree with him is a CCP propagandist. He's not worth it.

Just trying to counter your persistent panic pushing.  Your hysteria gets tiring.

Meantime, perhaps the Saudi king will save the world.  But I'm not holding my breath that the Saudi absolute dictator will accomplish anything at all, except perhaps to keep his head attached to his neck by showing his loyal subjects that he is "doing something".

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Saudi-king-to-chair-G20-leaders-call-on-coronavirus-on-Thursday-622219

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

20 hours ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

By the way, has anybody using the cheap excuse "it kills only the old, ill and weak, so I am safe" asked himself how is it possible that so many doctors and healthcare professionals are dying from this virus

Viral load.  Same as Bacterial load.  A little harms no one(depending on virulence).  A lot harms a lot.  Basic knowledge at the 14 year old level.... 

Put the healthiest person in a sewer and they will get sick.  If you do not swim in sewers, the healthy are fine. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

20 hours ago, Geoff Guenther said:

Who are you calling left?

You have fallen down the ladder and hit every single lefty rung missing only the identity/group- segregation/racism rung. 

--> Congratulations!

Yup, I am an economic, social righty--> though agree on some subjects with the FAR left(basic corporation law reform required etc)....  When the shoe fits.... wear it with style. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

So, Social Darwin Awards all around, then.

Survival of the furtherest.

(Is furtherest even a word?)

ZOMG we are all gonna die ! ! !

PANIC ! ! ! !

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

2 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Viral load.  Same as Bacterial load.  A little harms no one(depending on virulence).  A lot harms a lot.  Basic knowledge at the 14 year old level.... 

Put the healthiest person in a sewer and they will get sick.  If you do not swim in sewers, the healthy are fine. 

See? You know the answer (and you are probably the only one in the thread), yet you fail to draw the correct conclusion from it. The cases show that this particular virus kills people whose viral load is high, regardless of age and condition. If you allow public gatherings, the viral load rises almost exponentially, because everyone is spraying everyone with their own version of viruses, and the number of the serious/critical cases rises. And that number is everything - with high enough serious cases, your healthcare system will run out of beds and ventilators, and soon, you will have sick and dying everywhere and nowhere to put them and nobody to take care about them.

Worse yet, once your system get overwhelmed, people will start dying on otherwise treatable problems like hearth attacks, strokes, car and other accidents, because there won't be beds and doctors to operate. Those will technically "not die by the virus", by they will die from the mismanagement of those responsible. That's why the plane of the Trump and his republican cronies is INSANE. 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

33 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

So, Social Darwin Awards all around, then.

Survival of the furtherest.

(Is furtherest even a word?)

ZOMG we are all gonna die ! ! !

PANIC ! ! ! !

Here, a preview of what is soon coming to your doorstep:

 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The weird thing is this: earlier in the month people here were saying China was underplaying the scope of the crisis and hiding just how serious it is.  Now the same group of people who said China was underplaying the scope of the crisis is saying Trump should reopen stuff because corona virus is not a big deal.

Seems somewhat inconsistent to me.  

Edited March 25, 2020 by Zhong Lu