Covid-19 Pandemic Discussion

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Dr. Dipwad said:
@DaAxeMan:

So, to sum up: I think the White House team (on this topic, at least) is being smart by not overestimating their own smartness. The current president is prone to boasting; here, he correctly boasts of his policy's humility. Every GOP administration since (I think?) Eisenhower has been accused of fascism. But in this case the administration disappoints its critics by not invoking what they would surely describe as an Enabling Act. By avoiding the distractions such a move would predictably generate, the administration probably achieves the same levels of PPE and test production, faster.
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This doesn’t make much sense. States know what they need looking at local conditions, but the power of the federal government is much stronger in ensuring that they get what they need and to act as an overall coordinator. Assuming it was run by someone competent in supply chain and logistics.

Smaller states without an adequate war chest are getting outbid by wealthier states. These are not 50 different countries - information should flow up, reconciled at the fed level and then the fed needs to step in where governors are unable to. This applies to many other things, distribution of excess ventilators or PPE from one state to another for example, building temporary hospitals etc. It’s ridiculous to want all states to operate in a silo without any coordination.

And since there doesn’t seem to be a competent politician at the fed level to handle this, the military is our best shot.
 
count_chocolat said:
You folks should play more guitar.
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LOL this made me laugh and I get what you’re saying but this is so serious at this point that ignorance isn’t bliss. Despite this crisis I still rock out daily but until we all wake up to what is going on our guitar playing days are numbered.
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
Yep, it does, and in particular, I agree about local authorities who still deny severity.

It is severe: But as you say, "not much can be done about that." And frankly, I think they'll come around...usually a week or two later than optimal, but soon enough to be arguably not incompetent.

BTW, regarding my "So, to sum it up": Maybe I was being too low-key, but that whole paragraph is intended to be read as heavy on irony. Don't take it as a straight-read; take it as if I'd peppered it with a lot of these ;) and these :rolleyes:.

To me, the whole dynamic is darkly amusing: One of the most, uh, robust egos on the planet uncharacteristically takes the more-restrained (and far more legally defensible) approach, and in response, the same people who normally armchair-psychoanalyze his totalitarian streak (their words) are aghast that he's letting a crisis go to waste. That, in combination with bodice-rippers like this and this, makes me think there's a daddy complex and a lot of projection behind it all. (Sure, that's me indulging in armchair psychoanalysis, too. It's hard to resist when everybody's going nuts.)

Forget "rain on your wedding day," which is just bad luck; that's ^^^ ironic.

Anyway, thanks for the back and forth on this. I'm very willing to hear argument to the effect that a massive military boots-on-the-ground presence on Main Street, coupled to centralized top-down factory-management from the White House, might have gotten us past the one-billion-mask threshold by this week instead of, say, week-after-next. But I have less faith in the White House than you do, it seems. I'm just not convinced of it would have gone so smoothly; I think it would produce a lot of other potential problems that the Subsidiarist approach deftly avoids, at comparatively little cost.
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I do not and did not talk about "boots on the ground". Being a combat vet myself, I understand the implications of that.
I am talking about the logistical capabilities of the military to organize and centralize the issues. The General (admiral?) that finally got Katrina together suggested just 2, that's 2 officers from the military in each hospital to take charge of counts and listen and report the needs of each hospital. Yes I would trust that over the chaos that is happening now and will continue.
 
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Stratman68 said:
I do not and did not talk about "boots on the ground". Being a combat vet myself, I understand the implications of that.
I am talking about the logistical capabilities of the military to organize and centralize the issues. The General (admiral?) that fibnally got Katrina together suggested just 2, that's 2 officers from the military in each hospital to take charge of counts and listen and report the needs of each hospital. Yes I would trust that over the chaos that is happening now and will continue.
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A simple yet brilliant strategy that should be immediately implemented!!
 
Stratman68 said:
I do not and did not talk about "boots on the ground". Being a combat vet myself, I understand the implications of that.
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Oh. Good to hear.

Stratman68 said:
I am talking about the logistical capabilities of the military to organize and centralize the issues. The General (admiral?) that finally got Katrina together suggested just 2, that's 2 officers from the military in each hospital to take charge of counts and listen and report the needs of each hospital.
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Sure, I'd be okay with that. That's a fundamentally different picture than what I thought you were proposing.
 
Aside from what the Fed and States should be doing, have you seen what is happening with PPEs right now? The states are bidding against each other, and then the Fed is just outright taking the shipments and then just redistributing with no communication or reasoning.

Case in point - Massachusetts has had secured orders of ventilators, respirators, and masks basically stolen from them by the Fed. You know something isn't right when the only way they can get much needed medical equipment is to have the football team smuggle it in from side deals directly with China.

What other states are having issues with the Fed outbidding or stealing from them specifically? Michigan, Illinois, etc. I'll keep it apolitical here but it should also be noted that there are some southern states that have received supplies they didn't even ask for. It's not right to play with lives like this.
 
plexi59 said:
I agree with @yyz67 that excess deaths would be a more meaningful metric.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

But, she added, an analysis of excess deaths is “the simplest and most straightforward way of measuring how many people have died from an extreme event” and can offer a more accurate accounting of the actual impact than the daily death counts provided by officials.​


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plexi59 said:
https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2020-0...t-That-Will-Ship-in-the-U-S-Starting-Tomorrow

1 million antibody tests this week, 1 million each week thereafter. And that's just Abbott.
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This still means at least two months before we are testing appropriately to mitigate the virus. An instant home test kit with contact tracing via your phone realistically is the only way to get a large work force out there again too. Your news is positive but one wrong move in the next few weeks and a great depression will be a certainty. We need more!
 
DaAxeMan said:
This still means at least two months before we are testing appropriately to mitigate the virus.
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It means no such thing. For all we know once we randomly administer antibody tests we might find out that a significant chunk of the population already had the disease asymptomatically, in which case we could open things up much sooner. Randomness lets you collect approximate, statistically robust measurements with error bars that you could rely on when making population-wide decisions.

We need more!
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Yes, and as I said before, I'd like a billion dollars. Doesn't mean it's doable. Ramping up production of something as complicated as a molecular test from zero to a million a week in just a few weeks is a very impressive thing. Normally it'd take months, and months more for approval.
 
yyz67 said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

But, she added, an analysis of excess deaths is “the simplest and most straightforward way of measuring how many people have died from an extreme event” and can offer a more accurate accounting of the actual impact than the daily death counts provided by officials.​


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This chart looks like hosrseshit to me. Simple arithmetic: 8.4M people in NY, assume generous 80 year life expectancy - that's 105K people dying per year, or 8750 per month. You're being lied to.
 
plexi59 said:
It means no such thing. For all we know once we randomly administer antibody tests we might find out that a significant chunk of the population already had the disease asymptomatically, in which case we could open things up much sooner. Randomness lets you collect approximate, statistically robust measurements with error bars that you could rely on when making population-wide decisions.



Yes, and as I said before, I'd like a billion dollars. Doesn't mean it's doable. Ramping up production of something as complicated as a molecular test from zero to a million a week in just a few weeks is a very impressive thing. Normally it'd take months, and months more for approval.
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If only it was the year 2020 and not 50 years ago with Apollo 13 obviously doomed in space. Wait a second it is 2020 and we saved Apollo 13. Remember we are capable of special things in daunting times fellas.

PS - I will wager roughly only 10% of the US population has been infected and I wouldn’t be counting on your assumption to keep mass production of tests from happening.

PSS - Random testing will be fine for helping us see where we are at but one asymptomatic person easily will exponentially spread the virus around causing it to go out of control again. Mass testing is the only solution here. Also Americans need the mental knowledge that everyone else out there has been tested. If 30 million Americans can indefinitely eat a Twinkie daily then we can do the same for testing (30 million instant home tests a day with contact tracing should be enough).
 
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plexi59 said:
This chart looks like hosrseshit to me. Simple arithmetic: 8.4M people in NY, assume generous 80 year life expectancy - that's 105K people dying per year, or 8750 per month. You're being lied to.
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That assumes the age of population is distributed evenly. Have you been to NYC? See a lotta old people there?
 
DaAxeMan said:
Never mind guys. We’re all saved.

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Don't know about the rest, but Kushner, Mnuchin and Lighthizer are A-players, and I'm glad they are on the team. I had some reservations about Kushner early on (nepotism and all), but after watching a few interviews with him those reservations evaporated. Trump is getting good value out of $0 he's paying the guy. Ross is secretary of commerce. Of these I'd get rid only of Ivanka TBH. I don't see how she'd add any value.
 
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