Whether I'm hypocrite or snowflake notwithstanding, the point is that there is a consistent disdain for Trump that goes beyond rationality, even to the point of hoping for his failure despite who may suffer in his path. The truth is that the US has controlled the virus as well as any other nation so far and hasn't shown any greater ineptitude than the others. There's also the lingering question about the malaria drug, which might show greater promise than expected and that would not have gotten as much traction as it did without Trump. — Hanover

Again, if you think I'm hoping for that, you haven't been reading my posts. I'm warning you and I have been warning you and Tiff since before Trump was elected, that the man is a danger. That it requires something like a pandemic to make people acutely aware of that fact is a tragedy. The malaria drug has had hastily (and therefore badly executed) phase 1 testing in other countries well before Trump picked up in it. I already posted about it on February 18th (the effect of chloroquine was already indicated in labs in 2004).

About 75% of drugs that pass phase 1 are ultimately not brought to market because they are not safe enough. So we can hope, but on the basis of what we know about drug development it would be pure luck if (hydro)chloroquine is indeed the solution.

Yeah, I have been talking about TDS, which I see as real medical situation. (Scott Adams says the same.) — Nobeernolife

Well, according to Matt Groening you're wrong and Trump really is a dick. I dunno. Who to believe??

Maybe we should just talk about coronavirus and leave the orangeutan/saviour of the world (take your choice) out of it for a while.

Yeah, but no. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/newpage_00032.html

Maybe we should just talk about coronavirus and leave the orangeutan/saviour of the world (take your choice) out of it for a while. — Baden

Is the choice really between orangeutan and saviour of the world? No nuanced opinions allowed any more? This tribe mentality really is the problem today. If you do not join one tribe, the members automatically assume you belong to the other. Not a good basis for communication....

This article provides a very interesting perspective on the spread of coronavirus, its containment, and prospects for returning to normalcy.

Summary of the article: Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society, saving millions of lives along the way. If we don’t take these measures, tens of millions will be infected, many will die, along with anybody else that requires intensive care, because the healthcare system will have collapsed. — Relativist

This. We need to hammer the virus and control it before it hammers us. Then we will have more time and options for dealing with it.

I would encourage people to sign the petition to get this idea to the White House as soon as possible. 75,000 more signatures required.

You accuse everyone here who criticizes Trump of having TDS. That's not nuance. That's slavish devotion. If you think you are being nuanced, God help you. But whatever, probably better done on the Trump thread.

What should his administration have done differently? — frank

If you just want to isolate the epidemiological failures from the broader economic ones like funding healthcare and universal healthcare access; the quicker responses like quarantine and non-essential for society's basic functioning business closures are adopted, and the quicker travel is restricted, the lower the ultimate effected number of the population is expected to peak, and the slower it is expected to spread. The USA administration has failed to act or acted too slowly on all of these measures.

It's not just Trump, the UK fucked up royally (hur hur) too.

So while instituting a travel ban on China (for foreign nationals), but combine that with not checking people coming in is simply incoherent. In the one hand you acknowledge a problem in China but on the other you don't check anyone (US nationals) coming in. — Benkei

You're saying that prior to closing its borders, the US should have been checking temperatures. Can you think of anything else that would have changed the present caseload?

The caseload we have now isn't undo-able. Most of the country is still ramping up, putting triage tents up in front of emergency rooms, preparing to wash disposable masks (oh my fucking god), marking off blocks of hospitals for covid-19 (I work in a massive regional referral center).

We actually had time to screw around and fuck up. We're an ocean away from you guys.

Whether I'm hypocrite or snowflake notwithstanding, the point is that there is a consistent disdain for Trump that goes beyond rationality, even to the point of hoping for his failure despite who may suffer in his path. — Hanover

Sure. But that's just politics. It's not exactly conductive of rationality. People are emotional. People want their political enemies to fail, sometimes people want them to fail so badly they'll accept hurting their own interests. None of this is either new or surprising. Trump certainly elicits particularly strong feelings. He's good at making people angry. And rather proud of it, too.

The truth is that the US has controlled the virus as well as any other nation so far and hasn't shown any greater ineptitude than the others. — Hanover

I'd call that more of a guess than "the truth". But you have a point in that there really isn't any indication, as per the numbers, that the US is doing especially badly.

the quicker responses like quarantine, non-essential for society's basic functioning business closures are adopted, and the quicker travel is restricted, the lower the ultimate effected number of the population is expected to peak. — fdrake

I'd argue that a community should wait until the virus is present to start shutting down businesses. The goal is not the stop the spread, it's to slow it down. If you close businesses before the virus is there, you aren't slowing anything down. You're just hurting the economy.

In other news, barring significant changes during the last couple hours of the day, it looks like the measures taken in Italy are starting to have an effect. Numbers from France and Germany also seem to show a reduction of the exponential factor.

No, I said that if you have a travel ban for foreign nationals is doesn't make sense to not check us nationals coming in. Something a lot of countries have done. Including "shit hole" countries.

If you close businesses before the virus is there, you aren't slowing anything down. You're just hurting the economy. — frank

The US administration has known of the great risk of the virus spreading to its shores since at least mid February, received briefing on what the response should be to mitigate the pandemic, especially widespread testing for the disease, and waited a month to take minimal preventative measures. While administration members were happy to use the information for insider trading.

Most European countries have been taking preventative measures for about a month. Schools started to close in the last few days in the US. Responding to a pandemic; if you wait for the first confirmed case in an area to do literally anything, you're already way too late.

You're a healthcare worker right? Surely you know this.

You accuse everyone who here who criticizes Trump of having TDS. That's not nuance. That's slavish devotion. — Baden

No, I critize the automatic, emotional, content-less, kneejerk criticism of OrangeOtan as TDS. I critize Trump myself when I think is wrong. That not "slavish devotion".

Take your BS to the Trump thread like I said.

We actually had time to screw around and fuck up. We're an ocean away from you guys. — frank

Also this:



And this:

I'd argue that a community should wait until the virus is present to start shutting down businesses. The goal is not the stop the spread, it's to slow it down. If you close businesses before the virus is there, you aren't slowing anything down. — frank

The virus spreads before you know it's there. If you know it's going to make its presence felt (say, within a couple of weeks), you know it's already there. And you need to hit it then to slow down the spread.

Most European countries have been taking preventative measures for about a month. — fdrake

There have been very different reactions in European countries, based on different philosophies. As late as Feb 1, they had a "Hug a Chinese" day in Florence, to make sure not to be accused of "racism":
https://pluralist.com/hug-a-chinese-florence-coronavirus/

No, I said that if you have a travel ban for foreign nationals is doesn't make sense to not check us nationals coming in. Something a lot of countries have done. — Benkei

I think the US has closed its borders now. What timeframe are you talking about?

Most European countries have been taking preventative measures for about a month. Schools started to close in the last few days in the US. Responding to a pandemic; if you wait for the first confirmed case in an area to do literally anything, you're already way too late.

You're a healthcare worker right? Surely you know this. — fdrake

Schools just closed because it just got here. We've been planning since we learned from Italy that this virus is not what we were expecting it to be.

I'm just going to keep repeating this point on the "mild cases" issue that is sometimes used to downplay the danger of Covid.

"80% of cases are mild-moderate but the symptoms are still severe. Anything short of needing oxygen to survive is in this category."

I'd argue that a community should wait until the virus is present to start shutting down businesses. The goal is not the stop the spread, it's to slow it down. If you close businesses before the virus is there, you aren't slowing anything down. You're just hurting the economy. — frank

That's true if you have comprehensive testing and tracing in place. If a state waits until they're treating sick people to get serious, they're already up to two weeks behind the virus spread and with no knowledge of where exactly it is.

You don't say, "I'll wait for my bed to catch on fire before I get up and do something about it."

The virus spreads before you know it's there. If you know it's going to make its presence felt (say, within a couple of weeks), you know it's already there. And you need to hit it then to slow down the spread. — Baden

My point was that closing businesses should not be done in excess of what's absolutely necessary to slow the spread. We want it to spread. We need people to get it and recover from it. Until we have either a cure or a vaccine, people developing immunity to it is our only way of protecting the vulnerable.

I know this is a tricky thing to grasp.

Herd immunity is one way to approach it. But only if the spread is manageable, i.e. less than 1:1. Then, yes, we potentially get better overall immunity and buy time like you said. But you need to hammer it first to get to that stage as per "The hammer and the dance" article that @Andrew M put up. So, initially the idea is to smash it with extreme social distancing and quarantining measures, and yes, shutting everything down. And then gradually lay off until you're at a low level that's controllable. Short term economic hurt for long-term economic sustainability.

Do you think it is possible that a “second wave” may hit? that after all the huddling indoors, bailouts and lockdowns, that it may have been all for nothing?

Just read the article, dude. This is actually all explained.

My point was that closing businesses should not be done in excess of what's absolutely necessary to slow the spread. We want it to spread. We need people to get it and recover from it. Until we have either a cure or a vaccine, people developing immunity to it is our only way of protecting the vulnerable.

I know this is a tricky thing to grasp. — frank

This is not tricky, you are simply flat out wrong.

People developing immunity through getting the disease is how you maximize the chance vulnerable people will also get it. If it's too late to contain the virus, then slowing down the spread is the only way to make it manageable for vulnerable people, and healthy people where the disease takes a bad turn, to get medical care. Slowing down also buys more time for health systems to prepare and for treatments to be worked on.

I see just posted the point about the spread needing to be manageable, as I say above, but this is not reaching herd immunity as a way of protecting the vulnerable; herd immunity is just the outcome of any endemic process regardless of how it's managed.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

This is also useful:

:up:

Herd immunity is one way to approach it. But only if the spread is manageable, i.e. less than 1:1. Then, yes, we potentially get better overall immunity and buy time like you said. But you need to hammer it first to get to that stage as per "The hammer and the dance" article that Andrew M put up. So, initially the idea is to smash it with extreme social distancing and quarantining measures, and yes, shutting everything down. And then gradually lay off until you're at a low level that's controllable. Short term economic hurt for long-term economic sustainability. — Baden

I agree. That's pretty much what we're doing.