OT: COVID-19 thread #2

[AKfanatic]

Not much talk about how Sweden is doing.

They didn’t shut down. Just smart precaution.

How do their death rates compare to other European countries? Last time I checked, they were doing worse than all the other nordic countries.

Sweden has reported a record number of new coronavirus infections for the second day in a row - just as the country threatens to close bars and restaurants that do not follow social distancing measures.

Sweden posted a record 812 new Covid-19 cases today, adding 61 to the record 751 tally it reached the day before.

Major Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet declared ‘the corona curve is going in the wrong direction’ after the numbers were announced.

The country also saw an additional 131 new deaths, leaping from 84 on Thursday. Sweden's new infections record represents a 4.8 percent rise on the previous day, and a 6.5 percent rise in new fatalities.

The grim statistic comes as Sweden vows to close down bars and restaurants caught flouting social distancing recommendations.

This, as the country's top disease expert Anders Tegnell admitted a lockdown might not have saved lives because half of Sweden's coronavirus deaths are in care homes where visits are already banned.

Sweden has to date recorded 17,567 cases of coronavirus and 2,152 deaths.

Sweden sees record number of coronavirus infections for second day in a row - 812 - after warning it may CLOSE bars and restaurants if people keep ignoring social distancing

[The 6ft Hurdle]

Not much talk about how Sweden is doing.

They didn’t shut down. Just smart precaution.

How do their death rates compare to other European countries? Last time I checked, they were doing worse than all the other nordic countries.

Sweden has reported a record number of new coronavirus infections for the second day in a row - just as the country threatens to close bars and restaurants that do not follow social distancing measures.

Sweden posted a record 812 new Covid-19 cases today, adding 61 to the record 751 tally it reached the day before.

Major Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet declared ‘the corona curve is going in the wrong direction’ after the numbers were announced.

The country also saw an additional 131 new deaths, leaping from 84 on Thursday. Sweden's new infections record represents a 4.8 percent rise on the previous day, and a 6.5 percent rise in new fatalities.

The grim statistic comes as Sweden vows to close down bars and restaurants caught flouting social distancing recommendations.

This, as the country's top disease expert Anders Tegnell admitted a lockdown might not have saved lives because half of Sweden's coronavirus deaths are in care homes where visits are already banned.

Sweden has to date recorded 17,567 cases of coronavirus and 2,152 deaths.

Heh, this is the first time I open this thread, but I remember a few weeks ago this BBC article calling Sweden's response, "unusual" as if it was quirky and maybe they found a way around it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52076293

It had the tone of "maybe they know something we don't?"

Guess not, unfortunately.

[coldfish]

There only seems to be one tactic that has proven to work. Do massive testing and contact tracing before the virus takes hold. A few countries pulled it off, like South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iceland, etc.

Other than that, the responses have been various levels of not good. None of the lockdown nations have really been successful in quelching this yet. Nations like Italy seem to have got to a steady state where deaths per day are slowly falling but don't look to ever go away. Them and several other major european nations looked to be screwed for a very long time.

Germany will be interesting. They have been pretty aggressive but are a larger nation with a lot of cases. If they kill this, we really need to study what they did.

[rosenthall]

There only seems to be one tactic that has proven to work. Do massive testing and contact tracing before the virus takes hold. A few countries pulled it off, like South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iceland, etc.

Other than that, the responses have been various levels of not good. None of the lockdown nations have really been successful in quelching this yet. Nations like Italy seem to have got to a steady state where deaths per day are slowly falling but don't look to ever go away. Them and several other major european nations looked to be screwed for a very long time.

Germany will be interesting. They have been pretty aggressive but are a larger nation with a lot of cases. If they kill this, we really need to study what they did.

A common denominator in all the success stories seems to be some combination of being a high-compliance society, previous experience with pandemic risk, and perhaps a little bit of geographic luck thrown in (being an island, being warm, etc).

Unfortunately, for the countries not handling this well, I don't think there's a way to improve any of these things.

[Dresden]

I do like that idea from the NYT article I posted earlier about doing a nationwide, targeted testing program, to get accurate data on how many people are affected, in what areas. They say that doing this will make our mitigation strategies much more effective, and will allow some to go back to work. It's a way to monitor what is going on much more accurately than the way we are doing it now, and will allow for much quicker responses to areas where the virus is getting worse, and also where it is decreasing. It would not require more than about 100K tests per day, which we can easily do. But it has to be a coordinate program, and the data has to be quickly shared with health professionals nationwide.

Our approach thus far has been to let each state figure it out for themselves, and it's not working.

[musiqsoulchild]

The conversation still has to be about disease management and prevention. The cure is is NOT what the President or ANYONR should be talking about. They should be working about it but not talking about it.

We really need to ramp up our supply of:

1) Medical Masks and Golves
2) Non -Medical Masks and Gloves
3) Ventilators
4l Hospital bed capacity
5).Hand Wash and Hand Sanitizer products

Prevention and Managament are the only tangible things to work on NOW.

All this nonsense about "defeating the invisible enemy" is just that. Nonsense.

The virus doesn't go away after the stay at home orders are lifted. Neither should our common sense. And our government's.

[paxson_4_3]

The conversation still has to be about disease management and prevention. The cure is is NOT what the President or ANYONR should be talking about. They should be working about it but not talking about it.

We really need to ramp up our supply of:

1) Medical Masks and Golves
2) Non -Medical Masks and Gloves
3) Ventilators
4l Hospital bed capacity
5).Hand Wash and Hand Sanitizer products

Prevention and Managament are the only tangible things to work on NOW.

All this nonsense about "defeating the invisible enemy" is just that. Nonsense.

The virus doesn't go away after the stay at home orders are lifted. Neither should our common sense. And our government's.

Health insurance for unemployed (and everyone else without) seems another important issue. Or at the very least, full coverage of health-care-bills for any treatment related to Covid-19.

Less talking, less campaigning, less self-centeredness and more help for those who need it the most.

[musiqsoulchild]

Also want to add: We need to focus on creating a faster supply line of medical professionals as well.

[Dresden]

Also want to add: We need to focus on creating a faster supply line of medical professionals as well.

And we need to pay them better, too. I read somewhere that the average pay for a hospital orderly was around $14/hr, and about half don't have health insurance. And we're asking them to risk their lives on daily basis for that.

[Dresden]

By the way, Denmark, one of the first countries in Europe to lock down, has now begun sending their children back to school.

[Dresden]

Sounds like the jury is still out on whether Sweden's approach will work or not:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866

[wolffy]

The only way out of this is to stay quarantined until testing is damn near unlimited.

[dice]

The only way out of this is to stay quarantined until testing is damn near unlimited.

we should be testing 500K daily, but...

-by mid-march we were still barely off the ground w/ testing
-ramped up to around 100K per day by end of march
-as of a week ago we were only at 150K

at this rate it'll take us until the end of september to get to where we should already be

[dice]

impractical, of course, but it'd be interesting to see how it would play out if the first states to re-open for business were forced to seal their borders until it could be determined that their infection rates were not spiking as a result

[dice]

Some people look back at the great depression with rose colored glasses and think that public works projects will save us. They didn't back then. The depression lasted until we had a world war.

the public works programs didn't save the economy, but the DID save a whole lot of people who needed a job. and they were doing meaningful work. and what was WWII in economic terms, after all? a gigantic public works program! the number of men receiving US military paychecks was enormous. and women were pushed into the workforce in large numbers

what is this country in dire need of right now? infrastructure upgrades. it is times like these that are tailor made for huge infrastructure public works programs. even trump came into office claiming to want to get something done on that front. unfortunately, he has had "infrastructure weeks" that were basically just for show and all the republican congressional proposals have been larded with giveaways for big business

[dice]

I know it's hard to prove casuality in these things, but can it really be just a coincidence that the 3 biggest meltdowns we've had in the past, I don't know, 50 years, have all been with a republican administration in charge? 9-11, Great Recession, and now this? And if those are related, how? Are republican administrations just less willing to act soon enough when a crisis is unfolding? Are they not good at picking up warning signs? Are they more likely to deny warning signs when they do flash? I do think Bush and Trump were/are particularly weak presidents (and most presidential historians agree on this), so maybe it's just the persons, and not the political party involved.

I'm asking this not as a political barb towards republicans, but just on a theoretical basis, how do you explain that?

-bush largely ignored the threat of bin laden (partly because his family is connected to the bin laden family), but that's hard to attribute to republican policy positions

-the great recession was a complex scenario with plenty of blame to go around, but certainly lack of regulation played a part (particularly in the derivatives market). and low regulation is a big part of the republican platform

-it's hard not to attribute a good portion the spread of COVID-19 here to the republican position of small government, including leaving decisions to states (federalism) and reliance on private industry. the self-fulfilling prophecy of "government sucks, elect us and we'll prove it." as well as the distrust of science and the "liberal media" that has been sewn by the right wing media

[coldfish]

Some people look back at the great depression with rose colored glasses and think that public works projects will save us. They didn't back then. The depression lasted until we had a world war.

the public works programs didn't save the economy, but the DID save a whole lot of people who needed a job. and they were doing meaningful work. and what was WWII in economic terms, after all? a gigantic public works program! the number of men receiving US military paychecks was enormous. and women were pushed into the workforce in large numbers

what is this country in dire need of right now? infrastructure upgrades. it is times like these that are tailor made for huge infrastructure public works programs. even trump came into office claiming to want to get something done on that front. unfortunately, he has had "infrastructure weeks" that were basically just for show and all the republican congressional proposals have been larded with giveaways for big business

If you go on the CA board you will see that I made multiple posts saying that if there was ever a time for a "Green New Deal" its now. I would be down with a $5T infrastructure bill, heavily emphasizing renewable energy. I don't disagree with you.

The point I was trying to make with the post you are replying to is that you can't just turn the american economy on and off like a lightswitch. If we kick off a deflationary cycle, its going to be really hard to reverse and stick around for a long time. Some New Deal type proposals might mitigate the pain of such a depression but I seriously question if they will actually stop it.

[MrSparkle]

Some people look back at the great depression with rose colored glasses and think that public works projects will save us. They didn't back then. The depression lasted until we had a world war.

the public works programs didn't save the economy, but the DID save a whole lot of people who needed a job. and they were doing meaningful work. and what was WWII in economic terms, after all? a gigantic public works program! the number of men receiving US military paychecks was enormous. and women were pushed into the workforce in large numbers

what is this country in dire need of right now? infrastructure upgrades. it is times like these that are tailor made for huge infrastructure public works programs. even trump came into office claiming to want to get something done on that front. unfortunately, he has had "infrastructure weeks" that were basically just for show and all the republican congressional proposals have been larded with giveaways for big business

I totally agree.

Now also, not to ruffle any feathers, but I'm pretty big on UBI (Yang) not from a "welfare" point of view but simply from a "tech and disaster" point of view.

Being born in the 80s, my brain is wired differently than anybody's born after 2000, and I was surfing the BBS internet when I was 5-10. But tech evolved exponentially before basically flattening the curve the past 10 years. People born in the 21st century, growing up with iPhones and social media are wired differently. They simply are. As a bridge generation, "I get it". There's no way my much older in-laws get it. They use flip-phones cause smart phones freak them out.

Our government's branches and military are predominantly run by people who were young and alive during Martin Luther King's era. Hell, a lot of people from WW2 are still alive. I acknowledge that some experience and maturity translates universally... but for the most part, they just don't get it. AK47s, nukes and tanks aren't the tools of destruction anymore, besides for a few cases of mentally ill terrorists. There is no "invisible enemy" - it's a very visible enemy, and it's not really an enemy as much as nature. Overpopulation, tech making jobs obsolete, viruses (just wait till those ancient frozen Arctic strands run loose) and flooding/extreme-weather are going to be catastrophic for the next 60 years.

They're a good 30 years behind the curve. This current unemployment system is a completely overcomplicated disaster. The repercussions on the housing, health care and insurance markets haven't even come close to hitting. Just wait till they do. The $3-trillion UBI idea that Yang proposed is going to seem like pennies as some new disaster hits the fan every 5 years. Injecting all this stimulus money into the stock market and big companies, but not citizens... The new standard of living next year and on is going to be garbage for the average American. You thought it was unlikely for a millennial to buy a house or a new car? Good luck next year. And the boomers aren't gonna be spending their last savings on any frivolous luxuries. This will br the global event that caused the world to re-think its 20th century politics and economics.

Here's the fact: if everybody had $2000 ubi, yes, it would be "costly", but it would also be easy for the average person to:

A) Start a savings account, which in turn would ween people off pensions, SS and over senior programs that are already well beyond capacity.

B) Have money in an economic freeze like this one, and not need any bailouts for citizens.

C) Be able to fund some of that back into health insurance, auto industry.

It's tricky for people to wrap their heads around it, but it really does reduce the complications in the grand scheme. I filed for unemployment last week cause surprise surprise, I'm affected. I appreciate these Illinois programs since they're the only public thing there, but good grief is it going to get messy in the next month. The verbiage is confusing for part-time/free-lance workers. Think of the admin costs (and hint, pensions for those city workers) looking through these millions of applications. Makes my head hurt.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just say "OK Folks - $2000 for everybody for the next 3 months, we'll see what happens. Stay home, work if you can. Pay your bills."

Yeah, it would. There's nothing that could possibly convince me otherwise. The only people who wouldn't be able to survive with that setup are people living WAY beyond their means with service sector jobs that have been directly frozen, in downtown condos with jacuzzis and no savings account. And big companies would survive just fine cause the banks would be moving money, products would continue selling, rents and mortgages and insurances would be paid.

Right now, this sporadic and confusing partisan battle for passing stimulus packages that are securing most funds for big businesses (FOR WHAT? There is a strong chance a 2nd wave hits the globe harder and Q3 and 4 are also messed up!!!! Then what do you do? Bail out the planes, autos, banks and fast foods again?).

[Dresden]

Trump did not show up at the daily briefing today. He was quoted as saying it may not be "worth his time" to continue appearing at them. Which is humorous considering what else he does with his time. The NYT reported yesterday that according to WH sources, Trump often doesn't show up until noon, after spending the whole morning "rage watching" what the news stations are saying about him.

It's very concerning that in the midst of a crisis of this magnitude, the president is more concerned with monitoring his popularity than he is in steering us out of this storm.

[johnnyvann840]

USA already over 54k dead. The last couple of days have been the highest reported new daily cases with over 35k each day (nearly 40k on Friday). Deaths are still averaging over 2000 per day. Like I said earlier in this thread staying under 60k is not even remotely possible. In fact, we're going to blow right past 60k in the next few days and 100k by the end of May (unless some miracle cure/treatment is found in the next couple of weeks).