Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread V (Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[Badonkadonk]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/

One of the best non-medical articles I’ve see on how this may play out.

This was an excellent read.

[Richfield]

It is a fact this message was communicated to the citizens of the United States, just over one month ago today, by the United States Commander in Chief.

Read on Twitter

I'd like to see folks stop shifting the focus to 20 year old kids for doing what many of us did at that age:

a) not watch the news
b) think they're too healthy to catch it
c) doing what they were legally allowed to do (trusting the law)


If we're going to honestly improve our responses to this in the present but also into the future.. I'd rather see the grown ups held responsible for what they knew and when they knew it. The people in charge that are trusted with protecting us that should have known the beaches should be closed. Grown up leaders with inside information who are responsible for knowing a rough statistical projection of the spread and how it works. People who have and had the resources to the real information.

[LKN]

Read on Twitter

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[G R E Y]

So I'm going through my film collection, alphabetical, and chose "28 Days Later". Hmm. Slightly terrifying, not a good choice late at night.

Watching the Special Features section now, and they're talking about the increasing threat of infection on a worldwide scale, major pandemic coming. Odd how a lot of those voices from the not so distant past who were sounding alarms were drowned out. And here we are.

"The organism will take the opportunities which we increasingly offer it." Not to sound paranoid, but yeah, it continues to fall on deaf ears.

[MotownMadness]

And of course ive been throwing up now for the last 10 hours with some sort of stomach bug. Flu still doing its thing as well

[TMU]

This is just the beginning folks. Brace yourselves and make smart decisions. Stay safe.

[Chandan]

my roommate is under 14 days quarantine because he just flew back to Hong Kong from Canada. He has a wrist band that's connected to bluetooth + app on his phone that alerts the authority if he leaves the premise.

[Ville5]

Estonia had 404 cases in total up to yesterday. Today, the new number is 538. That's an increase of 33% in one day. Plus, I saw a tweet about a big sale in department stores yesterday before closing everything down today. That will surely increase the numbers. And yeah, 500 cases might not seem like much but when a country has a population of 1.3 mil, it's a lot.

As someone who lives in Latvia, I'm still hoping for the best. Our total number is 244 today, with 20-30 new cases per day. Most stores and even some restaurants are still open but people do practice social distancing in general. Our prime minister and many other government officials are in self-isolation after having meetings with one MP who later turned out to be infected. Our government really tries to lead by example and I appreciate that.

[Nutty Nats Fan]

my roommate is under 14 days quarantine because he just flew back to Hong Kong from Canada. He has a wrist band that's connected to bluetooth + app on his phone that alerts the authority if he leaves the premise.

Nice.

Here in Hawaii, they are hoping the hotel workers will rat out any tourists who try to sneak out during their quarantined 14 day period..

[Slava]

Apparently Chinese company is scamming Spain with coronavirus tests that don't even work 30% of the time promising a 80% accuracy.

Los test rápidos de coronavirus comprados en China no funcionan bien

Los laboratorios de microbiología comunican que las pruebas que adquirió el Gobierno tienen una sensibilidad del 30% cuando deberían superar el 80%

https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020-03-25/los-test-rapidos-de-coronavirus-comprados-en-china-no-funcionan.html

[Optimus_Steel]

update on the bill

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/bernie-sanders-4-gop-senators-threaten-to-hold-up-coronavirus-stimulus-bill.html

Bernie Sanders threatens to hold up coronavirus bill after 4 GOP senators push to cut unemployment aid

PUBLISHED WED, MAR 25 20203:47 PM EDTUPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Jacob Pramuk

KEY POINTS

*The prospect of a planned Senate vote on a $2 trillion stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic dimmed Wednesday as senators threatened to hold up the legislation.

*First, four GOP senators said they could delay the bill over a core unemployment insurance provision.

*Then, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he would delay the bill if his Republican colleagues did not drop their opposition.

Chances for a planned Senate vote Wednesday on a historic $2 trillion relief package in response to the coronavirus pandemic appeared to dwindle as senators threatened to delay it over a key unemployment insurance proposal.

Earlier in the day, four Republican senators — Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Rick Scott of Florida — threatened to oppose the chamber’s push to pass the rescue package through fast-track procedures. They argued a proposal to add $600 per week to unemployment insurance for up to four months, a core provision of the near-final legislation, could encourage companies to lay off workers and Americans to stay unemployed, urging a vote to cap the aid. (Sasse introduced an amendment Wednesday night saying the benefits should not exceed previous pay).

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., then said he would delay the bill if his GOP colleagues did not drop their opposition, calling it an “outrage” to prevent Americans from getting emergency unemployment insurance. In a statement, he said he is “prepared to put a hold on this bill” to lobby for tighter restrictions on companies receiving aid from a taxpayer pool of $500 billion.

The prospect of an impasse in the Senate appeared to hit U.S. stock indexes at the end of Wednesday’s session, as markets closed in the green but off their highs. Investors hoped Congress could quickly approve the legislation, which gives direct payments to Americans, loans to businesses large and small, and resources to states and hospitals to fight the outbreak.

Asked about the GOP senators’ criticism of the unemployment plan during a White House briefing Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said “I don’t think it’ll create incentives” not to work. He said state systems were not equipped to assure Americans would only get benefits equal to their previous pay, adding “this was the only way we could assure that states could get money out quickly in a fair way.”

“Our expectation is this bill passes tonight and gets to the House tomorrow,” he said.

Lawmakers rushed to put together the stimulus plan, which the Senate hopes to pass by Wednesday night after several false starts during frenzied negotiations in recent days. After Democrats blocked an earlier version of the legislation twice to try to secure concessions, Republicans accused them of delaying aid desperately needed to boost a reeling economy and health-care system.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday that he would give representatives 24 hours’ notice before a vote on the relief package. By about 7 p.m. ET, the Senate had not released the final version of its legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told PBS on Wednesday that the chamber could try to pass the bill by voice vote with the vast majority of representatives still out of Washington. If a member requests a recorded vote to document individual responses, lawmakers would have to come back to the Capitol.

First, though, the Senate has to overcome its remaining hurdles to approve the package. Pelosi criticized the GOP senators for their opposition to the legislation.

“Please don’t resent our lowest paid workers in America for getting $600,” she said.

The emergency unemployment insurance provision, a compromise reached between Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump administration, aims to help workers hit by widespread layoffs as regular businesses in the U.S. ground to a halt to slow the pandemic’s spread. Earlier Wednesday, the four Republican senators said some workers would get more money from the insurance than they did from their jobs.

“Let’s just make sure we make people whole. Let’s not increase their salary, because you can’t afford to do that,” Graham told reporters.

In response to the lawmakers’ concerns, a senior GOP aide said that “we’ll have to do something” to secure their support.

Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, which drafted the unemployment provision, said “nothing in this bill incentivizes businesses to lay off employees, in fact it’s just the opposite.” He noted that the legislation aims to both make sure companies have enough money to cover payroll and create a stronger unemployment insurance program for those who lose their jobs.

“This increase is designed to make the average worker whole. It’s also important to remember that nobody who voluntarily leaves an available job is eligible for [unemployment insurance],” he said.

Sanders’ counter threat to hold up the legislation revolves around perhaps the biggest Democratic concern that emerged from an earlier version of the bill. They worried Mnuchin would have too much discretion over how the government doled out the $500 billion in aid and how companies would use it.

The Trump administration and Republicans agreed to add an inspector general and congressional panel to oversee the fund. However, some Democrats still worry about repeating the mistakes of the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial meltdown of 2008, when banks awarded executives with bonuses after receiving bailout money.

Sanders said that if he did hold up the relief bill, he would push to “make sure that any corporation receiving financial assistance under this legislation does not lay off workers, cut wages or benefits, ship jobs overseas, or pay workers poverty wages.”

Rick Scott is such a terrible person. "Helping everyday people? Why?". Florida stop being fooled by this grifter.

[nymets1]

I just looked right now at bing.com/covid and the (recovered) number in the USA has went up from 393 last night and right now our number for (recovered) in the USA is 616 !!! It's only 7:55 am right now and we have a whole day to increase that (recovered) number in the USA from 616 to hopefully reach 1000 by midnight.

United States has 69,219 confirmed cases and China has just over 81,000 confirmed cases. We cannot have the USA pass china in confirmed cases that would be very very sad as:

USA population is 327 million
China population is over 1 billion

In the event that USA confirmed cases reach 81,000, We need to start hiding the numbers. The confirmed cases have to be reported to the CDC,etc but maybe they can stay quiet about it.

[Driguez]

In the event that USA confirmed cases reach 81,000, We need to start hiding the numbers. The confirmed cases have to be reported to the CDC,etc but maybe they can stay quiet about it.

Why? We need transparency, not lies. Have enough of those. Also, we will easily surpass that number.

[topsearch92]

I just looked right now at bing.com/covid and the (recovered) number in the USA has went up from 393 last night and right now our number for (recovered) in the USA is 616 !!! It's only 7:55 am right now and we have a whole day to increase that (recovered) number in the USA from 616 to hopefully reach 1000 by midnight.

United States has 69,219 confirmed cases and China has just over 81,000 confirmed cases. We cannot have the USA pass china in confirmed cases that would be very very sad as:

USA population is 327 million
China population is over 1 billion

In the event that USA confirmed cases reach 81,000, We need to start hiding the numbers. The confirmed cases have to be reported to the CDC,etc but maybe they can stay quiet about it.

Why would we hide numbers? How would that help awareness powering social isolation, nursing and healthcare provider situations, ect....

[Antti22]

Estonia had 404 cases in total up to yesterday. Today, the new number is 538. That's an increase of 33% in one day. Plus, I saw a tweet about a big sale in department stores yesterday before closing everything down today. That will surely increase the numbers. And yeah, 500 cases might not seem like much but when a country has a population of 1.3 mil, it's a lot.

As someone who lives in Latvia, I'm still hoping for the best. Our total number is 244 today, with 20-30 new cases per day. Most stores and even some restaurants are still open but people do practice social distancing in general. Our prime minister and many other government officials are in self-isolation after having meetings with one MP who later turned out to be infected. Our government really tries to lead by example and I appreciate that.

the information about Estonia is a little bit skewed. The increase is 2 days of data (there was a change in the system so they did not update it for one day) and they increased testing to about 2 times as much in the past few days (was about 400-500 tests per day only to old people, now is about 1000 per day and increasing with more looser rules on who could be tested). Also the sale was actually one store that was claimed to be "miscommunication" that was supposed to be only e-store campaign and the store was closed very quickly. But Estonian media is an expert on blowing everything out of proportion and making clickbait headlines.

[LKN]

Read on Twitter

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[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

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That’s both sad and chilling.

[DowJones]

my roommate is under 14 days quarantine because he just flew back to Hong Kong from Canada. He has a wrist band that's connected to bluetooth + app on his phone that alerts the authority if he leaves the premise.

Man, different cultures for sure. No way would that work in America, lol.

[DowJones]

In the event that USA confirmed cases reach 81,000, We need to start hiding the numbers. The confirmed cases have to be reported to the CDC,etc but maybe they can stay quiet about it.

Why? We need transparency, not lies. Have enough of those. Also, we will easily surpass that number.

Yeah, you don't want this country to hide things. Nobody really cares what numbers China reports as they aren't trusted. Be as open and honest with the people as you can be.

[DowJones]

Read on Twitter

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I read where some people were predicting over 7 million claims, so this wasn't as bad. The Futures actually went from down 450 to slightly positive for a minute.

The bottom line is that we will see numbers like these continue. We are putting the economy on pause, something that has never been done before. We had an amazing economy overall prior to the virus, so the fundamentals are solid. There is actually a good opportunity for those with disposable income, and a long-term view, to invest in the market.