Mar 222020
 
 March 22, 2020  Posted by at 11:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


DPC Grand Central Station and Hotel Manhattan, NY 1906

 

Italy To Shut All Non-Strategic Business Activities Until April 3 (R.)
India Starts 14-Hour Curfew To Curb Virus Spread (R.)
FDA Approves New Coronavirus Test That Can Diagnose Within Hours (Solomon)
Most Cases In New York City Are Of People Under 50 (NBC)
38 Positive For Coronavirus In NYC Jails, Including Rikers (AP)
Britain ‘Two Or Three Weeks’ Behind Italy On Coronavirus: PM Johnson (R.)
NHS Could Be Overwhelmed Like Italy – Boris (R.)
Doctors Given New Guidelines On Choosing Which Patients To Treat (Ind.)
Airlines Appear To Come Up Short In Bid To Win Cash Grants In Rescue Package (R.)
Grocery Clerks Unlikely Heroes In US Coronavirus Fight (R.)
Banks Pressure Health Care Firms To Raise Prices On Drugs, Supplies (IC)
Russia Ready to Send 100 Specialists Including Virologists to Italy (Sp.)
The Coronavirus Did Not Escape From A Lab. Here’s How We Know. (LiveScience)

 

 

 

Cases 311,796 (+ 32,476 from yesterday’s 279,320)

Deaths 13, 071 (+ 1,481 from yesterday’s 11,587)

 

 

I dubbed it “Virus Time” myself, but even my brain has trouble comprehending what that truly is. It’s been less than two days since I wrote:

My prediction: The US has overtaken France, and will in the next few days pass Germany, Spain, and then Iran.

Less than 48 hours later, it’s done. This is what things looked like the day before I said that:

 

 

And here we are this morning:

 

 

 

Difference in timing of emergency declarations between San Francisco and Miami-Dade:

 

 

The virus still is a time machine. Project the next two weeks:

 

 

 

 

Here are the usual graphs. Note: I replaced the last one, COVID2019.app, with COVID2019Live.info, because the former keeps on closing off access.

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening (before their day’s close)

 

 

From Worldometer -NOTE: mortality rate for closed cases is at 12% !! –

 

 

From SCMP: (SCMP appears to have given up on timely updating)

 

 

From COVID2019Live.info: (Replacement for COVID2019.app, which -again- had their pages closed)

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s real wartime measures. Contrast it with Germany politely asking its car manufacturers to produce medical equipment. Everyone’s waiting till the very last moment, and that’s always too late. But that’s politicians for you, and we’re not going to change that anytime soon.

Italy To Shut All Non-Strategic Business Activities Until April 3 (R.)

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday that all Italian businesses must close until April 3, with the exception of those essential to maintaining the country’s supply chain, in the latest desperate effort to halt the coronavirus epidemic. Italy recorded a jump in deaths from the virus of almost 800 on Saturday, taking the toll in the world’s hardest-hit country to almost 5,000. “It is the most difficult crisis in our post-war period,” Conte said in a video posted on Facebook, adding that “only production activities deemed vital for national production will be allowed”.


Supermarkets, pharmacies, postal and banking services will remain open, Conte said, and essential public services including transport will be ensured. “We are slowing down the country’s production engine but we are not stopping it,” he said. The government is expected to publish an emergency decree on Sunday to make the latest crackdown immediately effective.

Read more …

So let them roam free for 10 hours a day, and that should solve what exactly?

India Starts 14-Hour Curfew To Curb Virus Spread (R.)

India launched a 14-hour curfew on Sunday (March 22) to limit the fast-spreading coronavirus epidemic in the country, where 315 people have so far been found to have contracted the disease. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an address to the nation last week, urged citizens to stay indoors from 7am to 9pm local time – a move that he said would be a crucial test for a country to assess its abilities to fight the pandemic. “Let us all be a part of this curfew, which will add tremendous strength to the fight against the Covid-19 menace,” Mr Modi tweeted minutes before the curfew commenced. “The steps we take now will help in the times to come.” Health experts said India’s cases have been growing at a rate seen during the early stages of the outbreak in other countries, which subsequently reported exponential increases in infections.


Several Indian states announced measures to curb the spread of coronavirus. Four cities in Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat have declared a complete shutdown until Wednesday. The neighbouring desert state of Rajasthan ordered a shutdown until March 31, while eastern and central states suspended inter-state bus operations to prevent an exodus of daily wage earners from urban centres to villages. State leaders urged citizens not to rush to villages and avoid crowding trains and buses to prevent the virus spread. Tensions have mounted, however, with angry labourers protesting at some bus stations against sudden closures of basic transport services.

Read more …

Funny they don’t say who gets to be tested, and who doesn’t. Until we know, what’s the difference with today?

FDA Approves New Coronavirus Test That Can Diagnose Within Hours (Solomon)

The Food and Drug Administration announced approval Saturday for a new coronavirus test that can diagnose patients within hours, instead of days. The new rapid test, manufactured by California-based Cepheid, is expected to be in the market by March 30, officials said. “The test we’re authorizing today will be able to provide Americans with results within hours, rather than days like the existing tests,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. “With the development of point of care diagnostics, Americans who need tests will be able to get results faster than ever before.


“More and more options for reliable, convenient testing are becoming available at an incredibly rapid pace, thanks to the hard work of our FDA team and the ingenuity of American industry.” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the approval “marks an important step in expanding the availability of testing and, importantly, rapid results.” Hahn said because the rapid test can be administered at the point of care, it “means that results are delivered to patients in the patient care settings, like hospitals, urgent care centers and emergency rooms, instead of samples being sent to a laboratory.”

Read more …

Tell the braindead on the Florida beaches that. I was thinking: let them get infected, good riddance. But they will infect others too, and besides, shouldn’t the blame rest with Florida state for leaving the beaches open, with the stores and bars for serving them, and with the parents who send their kids into the infection pools?

Most Cases In New York City Are Of People Under 50 (NBC)

Most people who have tested positive for coronavirus in New York City are younger than 50, according to figures released by the city Saturday. This does not reflect the ages of those who have died, only people confirmed to be infected with the virus. Overall, 57 percent of those who have tested positive in the city are 49 or younger. People 18 to 49 years old make up the majority, 54 percent, the city said. The next largest group are those age 50 to 64, who account for 23 percent of positive test results so far. The accounting reflects data known to the city through 5:30 p.m. Friday. On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “We are now the epicenter of this crisis” in the United States.

Read more …

About 2.5 million people are incarcerated in the US.

38 Positive For Coronavirus In NYC Jails, Including Rikers (AP)

At least 38 people have tested positive for coronavirus in New York City jails, including at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, the board that oversees the city’s jail system said Saturday. In a letter to criminal justice leaders, Board of Correction interim chairwoman Jacqueline Sherman wrote that at least 58 other people were currently being monitored in contagious disease and quarantine units. “It is likely these people have been in hundreds of housing areas and common areas over recent weeks and have been in close contact with many other people in custody and staff,” Sherman warned, predicting a sharp rise in the number of infections.


“The best path forward to protecting the community of people housed and working in the jails is to rapidly decrease the number of people housed and working in them.” In the past six days, she wrote, the board learned that at least 12 Department of Correction employees, five Correctional Health Services employees, and 21 inmates have tested positive for the virus. The city’s jail agency and its city-run healthcare provider did not respond to messages seeking comment on the letter. On Friday, the city’s Department of Corrections said just one inmate had been diagnosed with coronavirus, along with seven jail staff members.

Read more …

Of all the failing “world leaders”, Boris is vying for the no. 1 position. This came one day after he refused to close pubs and schools.

What triggered him is this: “UK yesterday saw total deaths reach 233. Italy was at exactly that figure on March 7th. 2 weeks behind.”

Britain ‘Two Or Three Weeks’ Behind Italy On Coronavirus: PM Johnson (R.)

Britain was only “two or three” weeks behind Italy on the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. In comments carried in the Sunday Telegraph and other Sunday newspapers, Johnson said Britain’s health service could be overwhelmed. “Unless we act together, unless we make the heroic and collective national effort to slow the spread – then it is all too likely that our own NHS will be similarly overwhelmed,” he said.

Read more …

Turning around on a dime with no mea culpa whatsoever should really boost people’s confidence in you.

NHS Could Be Overwhelmed Like Italy – Boris (R.)

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) could be “overwhelmed” by the coronavirus like the Italian health system in just two weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned. The death toll in Italy reached almost 5,000 on Saturday, while in the UK it hit 233. In comments carried in the Sunday Telegraph and other Sunday newspapers, Johnson again urged Britons to stay at home to stop the spread of the virus. “Unless we act together, unless we make the heroic and collective national effort to slow the spread – then it is all too likely that our own NHS will be similarly overwhelmed,” he said. “The Italians have a superb health-care system. And yet their doctors and nurses have been completely overwhelmed by the demand,” Johnson noted.


He advised people to keep away from elderly parents on Mothering Sunday (March 22). “The single best present that we can give … is to spare them the risk of catching a very dangerous disease,” he said. Earlier, Britain urged 1.5 million people identified by the NHS as being at higher risk of severe illness if they contract coronavirus to not leave their homes to protect themselves. On Friday, Johnson effectively closed down the United Kingdom, ordering pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and gyms to shut their doors to fight the virus. Stores are also starting to shut.

Read more …

Also from f#*king Boris. And I kid you not: in the corner of my eye I see a BBC show called “The Big Questions”, in which people who all sit the “correct” 10 feet or so apart, discuss the urgent issue: “Should fat-shaming be against the law?”, as their health system is set to crash. And I’m thinking: those glaciers can’t melt fast enough.

Doctors Given New Guidelines On Choosing Which Patients To Treat (Ind.)

New guidelines have been published to help doctors and nurses decide how to prioritise patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) was produced amid concerns that the NHS would be overwhelmed by the demand for intensive care beds and ventilators. It follows reports from the worst-hit parts of Italy where older and sicker patients had to be rejected in favour of the younger and fitter. The three new Nice guidelines, which have been drawn up within a week rather than the usual timescale of up to two years, cover patients needing critical care, kidney dialysis and cancer treatment.


They say all patients admitted to hospital should still be assessed as usual for frailty “irrespective of Covid-19 status”. Decisions about admitting patients to critical care should consider how likely they are to recover, taking into account the likelihood of recovery “to an outcome that is acceptable to them”. Doctors are advised to discuss possible “do not resuscitate” decisions with adults who are assessed as having increased frailty, such as those who need help with outside activities or are dependent for personal care. The document says critical care treatment should be stopped “when it is no longer considered able to achieve the desired overall goals”, following a discussion with family, carers, the patient or an independent advocate.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1241651932810412033

Read more …

“If there was a meteor racing towards earth right now, they would be passing a bill to give that meteor a tax credit.”
– @jimmy_dore

Airlines Appear To Come Up Short In Bid To Win Cash Grants In Rescue Package (R.)

A last-ditch effort by the chief executives of major U.S. airlines to try to win cash grants to weather the coronavirus crisis looked to be unsuccessful, four congressional aides and airline officials said late Saturday. Airlines had made a last ditch plea urging that $29 billion of $58 billion sought in assistance for airlines be in the form of cash grants. They had offered not to make any job cuts through Aug. 31 if they won the cash and to accept restrictions on executive pay and to forgo paying dividends or stock buybacks. The CEOs of 10 U.S. passenger and cargo carriers had said in a letter that without direct cash assistance, “draconian measures” such as furloughs may be necessary.

Senate Republicans hope to unveil the text of the rescue and stimulus package Sunday that could total $1.6 trillion and is set to include $50 billion in collateralized loan and loan guarantees for passenger airlines and $8 billion for cargo carriers. Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer said there was still “no deal,” so it is possible the final airline provisions could change in negotiations. Senator John Thune, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said earlier airline grants were not winning backing “at this point, I don’t sense support for it here or with the administration. But like I said, nothing is done.”

Airlines are expected to soon turn their attention to applying for government collateralized loans and the terms the legislation will include. The initial Republican plan said the U.S. Treasury could demand stock, warrants or options as part of any airline loans. The global coronavirus outbreak has forced airlines to cancel tens of thousands of flights and resulted in massive revenue losses. On Saturday, United Airlines said it was canceling 90% of its international flights in April.

Read more …

It’s been obvious for a long time that Americans have completely lost sight of what a hero is. But even then. Pay them a decent salary, then we can talk.

The article is the picture painted for you. The reality is:

“I have been coming in sick because I’m worried that I’ll lose my job or just be punished if I call out,” said Angel Duarte, a package handler at a UPS hub in Tucson, Ariz. “I am 23, and I have no savings, and I have a 4-month-old son.“

Grocery Clerks Unlikely Heroes In US Coronavirus Fight (R.)

For Philip, a grocery store clerk, it’s not a matter of if he gets coronavirus, but when. He is among millions of supermarket employees who have been classified as critical U.S. workers at “essential businesses” that will stay open to prevent disruption in food supply. While other workers are being told to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, these employees are being asked to put themselves in constant contact with the public. Coronavirus cases are beginning to appear among them. Whole Foods Market on Thursday reported a positive case in a New York City worker.

California late on Thursday issued an unprecedented statewide “stay at home order” directing the state’s 40 million residents to hunker down in their homes for the foreseeable future. Grocery stores, along with pharmacies, banks and gas stations, will remain open under the order. Working low-paying jobs, these unlikely heroes in the produce section and behind the meat counter are both terrified and gratified to be on the frontlines of the U.S. coronavirus fight. Some employers have raised wages and granted paid sick leave, but there is pressure on them to do more.

“I didn’t sign up to be in a position where I’m constantly exposed to a deadly virus, but I understand too that if grocery stores close then there are way bigger problems,” said Philip, who works in the produce section of a Whole Foods store in a southern U.S. state. Philip asked that his last name and location not be used. “I’d just like to get the virus now, and get it out of the way, so I can come back to work,” said Philip, who is in his 30s. “Everyone’s terrified there, deep down, apart from the few who think it’s not a big deal yet.”

Read more …

Words? Not me.

Banks Pressure Health Care Firms To Raise Prices On Drugs, Supplies (IC)

In recent weeks, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis. The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices in the health care industry stand to gain from billions of dollars in emergency spending on the pandemic, as do the bankers and investors who invest in health care companies.

Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices. In some cases, bankers received sharp rebukes from health care executives; in others, executives joked about using the attention on Covid-19 to dodge public pressure on the opioid crisis. Gilead Sciences, the company producing remdesivir, the most promising drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms, is one such firm facing investor pressure. Remdesivir is an antiviral that began development as a treatment for dengue, West Nile virus, and Zika, as well as MERS and SARS.

The World Health Organization has said there is “only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy in treating coronavirus symptoms” — namely, remdesivir. The drug, though developed in partnership with the University of Alabama through a grant from the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, is patented by Gilead Sciences, a major pharmaceutical company based in California. The firm has faced sharp criticism in the past for its pricing practices. It previously charged $84,000 for a yearlong supply of its hepatitis C treatment, which was also developed with government research support. Remdesivir is estimated to produce a one-time revenue of $2.5 billion.

Read more …

Just days after the EU accused Russia of using the virus to spread disinformation in Europe.

Russia Ready to Send 100 Specialists Including Virologists to Italy (Sp.)

“In accordance with instructions from the Russian Defence Minister, Army Gen. Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Aerospace Forces have completed the creation of a necessary air group to deliver forces and equipment from the Russian Defence Ministry allocated to assist the Italian Republic in the fight against the coronavirus”, the statement says. The ministry added that nine Il-76 military transport aircraft with trained crews had been transferred to the Chkalovsky military airfield in the Moscow Region from the Pskov, Ulyanovsk, and Orenburg regions.


The group of about 100 people, including experienced virologists and epidemiologists, is ready to depart for Italy, the ministry said. On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte by phone that Moscow was ready to promptly assist Rome in the fight against the coronavirus. The defence ministry then said that Russia would send eight mobile teams of Russian military virologists and doctors, vehicles for aerosol disinfection, and medical equipment to Italy.

Read more …

For your daily group discussion,. WHich you’re not allowed to have anymore.

The Coronavirus Did Not Escape From A Lab. Here’s How We Know. (LiveScience)

As the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 spreads across the globe, with cases surpassing 284,000 worldwide today (March 20), misinformation is spreading almost as fast. One persistent myth is that this virus, called SARS-CoV-2, was made by scientists and escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. A new analysis of SARS-CoV-2 may finally put that latter idea to bed. A group of researchers compared the genome of this novel coronavirus with the seven other coronaviruses known to infect humans: SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2, which can cause severe disease; along with HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E, which typically cause just mild symptoms, the researchers wrote March 17 in the journal Nature Medicine. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” they write in the journal article.


Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, and his colleagues looked at the genetic template for the spike proteins that protrude from the surface of the virus. The coronavirus uses these spikes to grab the outer walls of its host’s cells and then enter those cells. They specifically looked at the gene sequences responsible for two key features of these spike proteins: the grabber, called the receptor-binding domain, that hooks onto host cells; and the so-called cleavage site that allows the virus to open and enter those cells. That analysis showed that the “hook” part of the spike had evolved to target a receptor on the outside of human cells called ACE2, which is involved in blood pressure regulation. It is so effective at attaching to human cells that the researchers said the spike proteins were the result of natural selection and not genetic engineering.


© Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

Here’s why: SARS-CoV-2 is very closely related to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which fanned across the globe nearly 20 years ago. Scientists have studied how SARS-CoV differs from SARS-CoV-2 — with several key letter changes in the genetic code. Yet in computer simulations, the mutations in SARS-CoV-2 don’t seem to work very well at helping the virus bind to human cells. If scientists had deliberately engineered this virus, they wouldn’t have chosen mutations that computer models suggest won’t work. But it turns out, nature is smarter than scientists, and the novel coronavirus found a way to mutate that was better — and completely different— from anything scientists could have created, the study found.


Another nail in the “escaped from evil lab” theory? The overall molecular structure of this virus is distinct from the known coronaviruses and instead most closely resembles viruses found in bats and pangolins that had been little studied and never known to cause humans any harm. “If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness,” according to a statement from Scripps.

Read more …

 

German doctor, during plague in 14th century:

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 22 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 45 total)
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  • #55753

    DPC Grand Central Station and Hotel Manhattan, NY 1906   • Italy To Shut All Non-Strategic Business Activities Until April 3 (R.) • India Starts
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 22 2020]

    #55754
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    “For your daily group discussion,. WHich you’re not allowed to have anymore”

    Well. The discussion was nice while it lasted.

    #55755
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Regarding the last article: as I read it, it assumes that viruses in labs don’t mutate outside designers’ prerogatives. Also, attempts to model evolutionary processes and/or create virtual digital forms of life (or life-y if you prefer) are already decades old. Using computer modeling methods would easily bypass human design bias (‘them spikes won’t work’) and show designers that an approach that looks unpromising at first but l;ater works well indeed.

    I don’t know that I care much whether this thing was bioengineered or not, but it is quite possible that it is both bioengineered and naturally evolved. The prevailing view of the bioengineered hypothesizers is that it escaped. I toulc have escaped some time before the suspicious circumstantially evident dates the hypotheses cite, and found its own funky way to being an uncommonly sneaky virus.

    Typoical conspiricay “theory” debunkers of 911 would say that secrets can’t be kept enough for such to happen. But they are all the time because the people are well and duly hypnotized.

    However, the hypnotized are awoken when the terror used to corral them by fear doesn’t turn its combative opposition onto foreigners while we sleep comfy at night, but instead, turns on us, both biologically via viral transmission of pathogens and politically through government imposityions and transparent displays of malignant incompetence.

    So I tend to think that if this thing were released intentionally, it’s the dumbest thing the wizards of Oz have done since Dubya said, “Heckuva job, Brownie.”

    Did I already put my marlker down on the notion that if a foreign power decides to attack us in some way during our weakened pandemic state, it will be rolling blackouts of the internet. Make people talk to each other without media guidance. That is usually very bad for the government.

    To do a cyber-attack on the grid would create an enormous war crime against humanity would likely lessen hatred of USA and possibly trigger some scary ballistic warfare. But to attack our hypno-screens would be a form of (what I shall call) negative soft power.

    #55756
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “At least 38 people have tested positive for coronavirus in New York City jails,”

    Considering that most people stay far away from jails, I think that, even with our enormous prison population, this number of infected prisoners in one city shows that the virus is already much more widesprfead than people admit/realize.

    #55758
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    My son in Seattle said that, as of 2 days ago, younguns were all over the beach at Lake Washington, crawling over each other, etc.

    #55759
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Looks like China is still lying.
    Or am I reading it wrong that their 81,000 cases of corona… virus would have to triple by 4/2/2020 to reach the Fibonacci projection of 255,966?
    Perhaps the Chinese officials are not counting the asymptomatic positive COVID-19 testers.

    #55760
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I toulc have escaped”

    Supposed to be ‘It could have escaped’, of course. I specialize in these kinds of typos cuz not only am I getting old age dyslexia, my right hand is dyslexic due to one of mny two forefinger tendons being rerouted to my thumb to replace a tendon that fell apart.

    #55761
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    boilingfrog: “UpstateNYer – great input, thank you. I’m isolated in the New River Valley of the South Central Appalachians. Your take is much appreciated.”
    Thank you. Wasn’t sure anyone would be interested. Thanks back at ya for the chicken story!

    Dr D Rich: “And we’re back to China bashing which was a not infrequent theme on TAE over the past two months.”
    I don’t see this happening. Commenters aren’t supposed to criticize China even slightly, but the US is fair game? Why? The majority of people in the US don’t agree with our government, but just like in other countries there’s little we can do about it. (please don’t tell us to “vote them out”. It’s impossible in our system where two choices are offered up: worse and worser).

    And the name “Wuhan Coronavirus” is racist. Along those lines I’m proposing we change the name of Lyme Disease. It unfairly stigmatizes Lyme, CT, where it was originally identified.

    Meanwhile back at the ranch …

    – Coronavirus: Which workers get hurt most, least due to state-ordered business shutdowns?

    “Independent contractors are not eligible for unemployment benefits, so they won’t even receive an unemployment check to cushion the blow … there are more than a million such workers in New York.”

    That would be me. Independent contractor, no health insurance. Part of me agrees with Dr D’s take on the virus. Feels like we’re fish in a barrel and it’s darned easy to get picked off right now as everything slams shut here in NY. The other part of me doesn’t want to watch a train wreck happen here like it has in Italy. Probably too late anyhow.

    #55762
    John Day
    Participant

    Anybody who thinks or says that this is ONE VIRUS is either misled or misleading.
    So much for that “didn’t escape from a lab” story.
    Piffle with a budget.
    I’m about to double post what I just tagged onto the end of yesterday’s comments, because I awoke with this song and meaning burning, and the question of “Who is the enemy of us all?”

    #55764
    John Day
    Participant

    Well, the attempt to double-post was futile.
    Please do look at the last post from last night on page 2. It’s The Boy In The Bubble lyrics, official music video and reflections. It’s our everyday lives, now…

    #55765
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “in the latest desperate effort to halt the coronavirus epidemic.”

    Could they just not add “desperate”? Here’s a nation that has 30% of things wide open (critical) including the post office (transmission), clearly they are 1,000 miles from “desperate.” Read a book. Stop lying.

    On that, they’re talking about a hundred coffins. In a real pandemic, that’s a luxury long past. They killed 100 times that in two hours. In 1862. 200? 200,000 were lost in a day in the Somme over 100 years ago. We survived that few worries. And you’re going to impress me with this? The snowflakes, oh the snowflakes.

    they don’t say who gets to be tested, and who doesn’t.

    Because media can’t make “phone calls” and get “statements” the point is that they have now got a standardized test that works quickly on U.S. standardized lab systems. That means they will ramp up wildly now and EVERYONE will shortly have a test. But no one knows when because it involves feedstock, factories, trucking, etc. As we won’t have 330M tests on the 30th that means they WILL be rationed, but on a furiously sliding-scale as the test quantity increases by thousands per hour. And those test will also be (relatively) accurate and not cause a nationwide panic. You know, more than already for the number who die of natural causes in the self-same New York, every day. But hey, give up your rights for it if you want to.

    Doctors Given New Guidelines On Choosing Which Patients To Treat (Ind.)”

    All this has existed every day since Hippocrates practiced medicine back in Kos. Sorry to introduce you to everyday reality of “limits” and “costs” this way, but trust me, the world is full of them. If you didn’t triage cases, you’d instead destroy humanity by paying for 80% of ICU ventilator beds to sit empty for 50 years, just in case. You’re a human, raised by humans: this is what it’s like.

    Airlines Appear To Come Up Short In Bid To Win Cash Grants In Rescue Package (R.)”

    Dore had a different statement. Why would we bail out the Airline’s sh–ty, toxic service so they can pay employees instead of having the employees get unemployment plus $2k in stimulus? I mean, other than running those billions through their books so they can extract salaries and bonuses from them? And don’t they tell us little people “How irresponsible you don’t have more than $500 savings for an emergency! Why aren’t you smart and responsible like us?” Then having wasted 100% profits PLUS 200% in new debt to make reckless stock buybacks, come to us with your problems.

    There’s no problem. Airlines aren’t going to end, they would just change owners from feckless morons to the 3rd baggage handler that’s actually worked a day. So here’s his solution: Fire everyone on the board. The fact they need a bailout says all they need to know about their abilities. Audit the books with a fine-tooth comb and claw back all fraud and breeches of fiduciary duty. Jail the multiple felonies that you find in their books. Take the bailout in form of equity swap that you can later sell at a profit. Then turn to the next companies and say, “Any of the rest of you f—ers want a bailout?

    Again: point is, if they ALL went bankrupt. TOTALLY. Tomorrow Joe Pilot would buy up the assets and be the new owner and start flying by Thursday. It just won’t be run by feckless morons who stole company assets. It’s super easy, people. It’s called “Capitalism.” Try it some time.

    Americans have completely lost sight of what a hero is” Mulvany says that a “Hero” according to the NY Post, is “a guy who does his job.” That’s appropriate, since nobody does theirs, and it is now indeed exceptional. Just like the Soviets. If you add the same system with the same crooked incentives. Just as predicted in 1954.

    Russia Ready to Send 100 Specialists Including Virologists to Italy (Sp.)”

    An easy offer because they’ll say no. But they forget that everyone in Italy is ALREADY a Russian spy. And Britain, and America, and Trump, and all the Progressive candidates…

    “It is so effective”

    It’s so novel, unusual, unprecedented, and unnatural that it just HAS to be from natural causes. Nice bait and switch looking at the outside instead of the payload. And the “computer model” thing is so stupid it sounded smart. They want to explain how Wuhan had published open papers crowing about their “chimera” virus spliced from three parts, that lives in bats, exactly like this one, 2 years ago? And, um, Science? If SARS hasn’t been seen in years, how is it out in the wild mutating?

    Which leads to today’s celebrity roast of experts, Richard Epstein (NYU) “Don’t Expect Millions To Die From Coronavirus”

    Not only can you not possibly have smooth exponential growth since behavior immediately adapts, but blast from the past where an ‘expert’ epidemiologist wrote him in 1985 that all human life would die of AIDS by 2015. Still here. That’s their “math” and “models” for you, smart enough to use calculus, but not smart enough to realize what you put in the garbage can is in the garbage can. Like 30 years of AGW models? Anyway, discusses how this self-regulates, like all natural systems. If not, we would have all died every 200 years for the last 100,000 years in a row. Bad. At. Math. You’re fired.

    So sure, be careful. Life is dangerous. You won’t get out alive. But don’t lose your rights and your family fortune for things that are 0.1% and under. The real threat, the Panicdemic.

    “In Sweeping Power Grab, DOJ Seeks Ability To Detain People Indefinitely Without Trial”

    “3% of Americans believe they are currently infected with COVID-19 (mathematically impossible), full-on panic is blocking our ability to think clearly and determine how to deploy our resources”

    Besides, aren’t these the ‘experts’ who told us just last month to be overjoyed at a massively lower population? To agitate for and enforce at the earliest opportunity to save us all? Cheered by prepubescent children?

    ‘I want you to panic’, they say. But we don’t. And we shouldn’t. Apocalypticism is a luxury of the new elites for whom crises are often little more than opportunities for the expression of their decadent disdain for modern society. To the rest of us, [it is just a] problem.

    #55766
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “and don’t cry, baby, don’t cry…”

    #55767
    zerosum
    Participant

    Here is your perfect example of the rifraf coughing on the elites.

    On Friday, the city’s Department of Corrections said just one inmate had been diagnosed with coronavirus, along with seven jail staff members.
    —–
    People who enjoy playing with number are going to be able to prove anything that they want by selecting the coronavirus data that they want.
    Also, the effects of the variety of approaches to try to influence the trajectory of the future of the coronavirus.
    Hot, cold, dry, wet, rich, poor, old young, country, rifraf, elites, social changes, economic changes, etc.

    #55768
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “200,000 were lost in a day in the Somme over 100 years ago. We survived that few worries. ”

    I suppose one could survive a mugging, too, but that hardly diminishes the mugging.

    They called that demographic of youth from which 200K died in the Somme the Lost Generation. My granddad was in that war and got mustard-gassed in (Flanders, I think). He had shrapnel in his leg but managed to get up a tree above the worst of the gas.

    Came home, married, made 9 kids, worked hard in PIedmont area South Carolina as a textile mill loom setter, the day’s equivalent of computer programmer. HIs PTSD fucked up all but the very youngest of them kids. Probably a big part of why me Mum was a covert malignant narcissist who majorly fucked with my head.

    Snowflakes? Survived? As in “we survived”? Well, then, fuck them young dead soldier boys. Buncha snowflakes. Survived? Yeah, fuck them surviving war-scarred veterans. Buncha snowflakes.

    Or am I reading you wrong, Doc D?

    As for postal service, all I’ve read says the virus only lasts 24 hours on paper. Just delay pickup for a day or two and use standard precautions. We simply cant’t stop some forms of shipping, because very few urban areas if any can last on local production. Postal service, Amazon, alla same. Packages can be handled with a very high degree of safety: they don’t suddenly sneeze like people do.

    Meanwhile, we all know that “desperate” is just some jopurnalist trying to write with something like flair, just as we know that the use of the word is not false.

    One must pick a lot of nits to get a reasonably straight accurate concept of what’s happening, but that doesnt’t mean one should pick ON said nits, glorifying them to a significance they don’t possess.

    “All this has existed every day since Hippocrates practiced medicine back in Kos. Sorry to introduce you to everyday reality of “limits” and “costs” this way, but trust me, the world is full of them. ”

    Please, tell us something we all don’t already know, nor pretend that new guidelines are somehow silly machinations designed to conceal another vast conspiracy rather than merely bumbling through as we usually do.

    The Russian aid is on its way. Looks like Italy accepted. Not everything is political. Politics are a subset of human reality, not voice-versa.

    #55769
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Not only can you not possibly have smooth exponential growth since behavior immediately adapts, but blast from the past where an ‘expert’ epidemiologist wrote him in 1985 that all human life would die of AIDS by 2015. Still here. That’s their “math” and “models” for you, smart enough to use calculus, but not smart enough to realize what you put in the garbage can is in the garbage can. Like 30 years of AGW models? Anyway, discusses how this self-regulates, like all natural systems. If not, we would have all died every 200 years for the last 100,000 years in a row. Bad. At. Math. You’re fired.”

    The 1985 AIDS computer model simply said, “If this goes on,” it’s point being to spur said adaptive behavior that wopuld render the projection false. The point of its accuracy was to foment the defeat of the outcomes it projected. The computer model was first order linear thinking/projection, which is what you need to informedly adapt to something as invisible as viral transmission through a population, using second-order and even third order thinking, which is where the calculated rubber of hypothesis meets the road.

    #55770
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Some folks today say Malthus was wrong because, hey, look, 7-plus billion people adding numbers every second or three. He wasn’t wrong, and when the oil runs low enough, billions will die. Around the time old Thomas was writing, the global population was around 800 million to 1.25 billion, best we can tell.

    Around then, Enlightenment science/engineering met coal and the enormous population bloom of the past 200 years kicked in hard. One should pay attention to such people and their projections so long as their current data basis is correct. They’re like triage. Such prophecies give us the means to potentially prove them not just a bit off but virtually false.

    When the data bases changes, so does the projection. That’s science.

    #55771
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    Along the lines of John Day’s song, there’s also The Wrong Child by REM (Green album).

    “I’ve watched the children come and go
    A late, long march into spring
    I sit and watch those children
    Jump in the tall grass
    Leap the sprinkler
    Walk in the ground
    Bicycle clothespin spokes
    The sound, the smell of swingset hands
    I will try to sing a happy song
    I’ll try and make a happy game to play
    “Come play with me” I whispered to my newfound friend
    Tell me what it’s like to go outside
    I’ve never been
    Tell me what it’s like to just go outside
    I’ve never been
    And I never will
    I’m not supposed to be like this
    I’m not supposed to be like this, but it’s okay
    Hey, hey, hey, those kids are looking at me
    I told my friend myself, those kids are looking at me
    They’re laughing and they’re running over here
    They’re laughing and they’re running over here
    What do I do, what should I do?
    What do I say?
    What can I say?
    I said I’m not supposed to be like this
    Let’s try to find a happy game to play
    Let’s try to find a happy game to play
    I’m not supposed to be like this
    But it’s okay, okay”

    #55772
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Regarding toilet paper:

    “After much badgering, Queenie finally allowed John to take up the instrument. Required to practise out of his stepfather’s sight and earshot, Entwistle would shut himself in the toilet. One day, he was amazed to discover the belated arrival of toilet paper.

    “I found the usual knotted squares of newspaper to be missing,” he wrote. “Anxiously, I shouted out, ‘Where’s the paper, Gran?’ ‘It’s the white stuff on the roll,’ she replied. No more newsprint on my bum. We were on our way up!”

    from

    John Entwistle

    #55773
    zerosum
    Participant

    The virus is the strongest motivator ever seen.
    Stronger than the bankers.
    Stronger than the military establishment.
    Stronger than politicians.
    Stronger than capitalism.
    Stronger than socialism.
    Stronger than critical thinkers.

    #55774
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Our morning line up from NYS Governor Cuomo:

    The number of coronavirus cases [in NYS] is more than 15,000, with nearly 2,000 hospitalized. (My note: on Wednesday, March 18th there were only 2,382 cases)

    NYS has 114 deaths. About 70 percent who died were people 70 and older who had underlying health problems. The majority of people younger than 70 who died also had another health issue

    53 percent of New York’s cases involve people 18 to 49 years old

    New York has tested more than 61,000 people. Nearly 16,000 were tested in the last day or so

    The governor is calling on all hospitals to expand existing hospital capacity by 100 percent

    [Cuomo] is requiring that hospitals increase their treatment ability by at least 50 percent. “I’m not just asking you as governor,” he said. “This is a law,” he said of the 50 percent goal

    Starting Wednesday, all elective, non-critical surgeries will be canceled across the state. “That is a mandate,” [Cuomo] said

    Drug trials will start being used on Tuesday in New York. It’s an anti-malaria treatment

    [Cuomo] asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to start building four temporary hospitals in the New York City and Long Island areas

    Cuomo also is asking FEMA to build four hospitals at the Javits Center in New York City. Each FEMA hospital has 250 beds, he said

    The drs on here can speak to the medical mandates better than I can. It does look like we’ll be using malarial drugs here.

    #55775
    hostebbe
    Participant

    @bosco Thank you. It really needed saying.

    #55776
    John Day
    Participant

    The Boy In The Bubble, Paul Simon, 1987

    I awoke a couple of hours before dawn, with the question still burning of who is the enemy? Also, this song was answering, but I could only remember a few words and the refrain.
    It is really worth a careful read, look and listen again.
    We are in the battle for and against life-on-earth. The”loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires” is invisible, distributed, has henchmen in every niche of the machine that controls and bleeds life.
    There is no decapitating strike.
    There is persistence in life, and sharing with other living entities.
    There is intuition, heroism, clairvoyance, inspiration and serendipity.
    Choose life. It transcends you and me.
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/03/fearless-life.html
    The current best treatment for coronavirus consists of 21 pills of hydroxychloroquine and 6 pills of azithromycin, both cheap, generic, and widely used medicines in the US and throughout the world.
    It’s a really effective treatment. Test widely and treat early.
    https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf

    Power-lizards need a crescendo of fear to get societal buy-in for martial law…
    Fear is optional, a waste of life force.
    (Sorry, I forgot who sent this story.)
    US authorities are taking practical steps to introduce a state of emergency in which power can pass from civilian to military. This is reported by a large article by William M. Arkin published in Newsweek entitled “ Exclusive: inside top-secret military plans in case the coronavirus cripples the government .”
    An article in Newsweek reported that on February 1, 2020, US Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper signed orders directing NORTHCOM to implement nationwide plans to fight the pandemic. In addition, Minister Esper also secretly signed Warning Orders, WARNORDs to NORTHCOM and its subordinate military units on the US East Coast “to deploy in support of potential emergency missions.”

    REVEALED: U.S Plan for Military Rule under Coronavirus Threat – Newsweek

    #55777
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    The Enemy Within: A cautionary tale of disease, indifference and devastation | The Seattle Times
    https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20041022&slug=pacific-pflu24

    #55778
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Why are some persuaded by who or what comes before them? Why then are others dissuaded by the same people and similar information?

    In medicine, a good physician pays attention to their cognitive biases. After all, what patient wants to be saddled by the wrong diagnosis?
    A wrong premise must be rejected or else it confounds all future tests. boscohorowitz understands the null hypothesis.

    Cons succeed for inducing judgment errors—chiefly, errors arising from imperfect information and cognitive biases. 

    #55779
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    The Coronavirus Did Not Escape From A Lab. Here’s How We Know. (LiveScience)

    Here’s how they “know”: A letter to the editor (“Correspondence”, which is typically not peer-reviewed) was published by the journal Nature. The summary states, unequivocally, “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” Yet, their evidence only shows that SARS-CoV-2 is probably not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.

    Examples of their not-so-definitive findings:

    “Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise.”

    It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

    “Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used.”

    “However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

    #55780
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Doc Robinson

    Yep
    I read that too.
    I’m not knowledgeable enough to believe or not believe.
    I’m sure there will be more articles that will be pro or anti

    #55781
    zerosum
    Participant

    The MMTvirus news is coming too fast at ZH for me to keep up.
    Too much.
    Changes are happening.

    #55782
    Dr D Rich
    Participant
    #55783
    zerosum
    Participant

    Will the social workers that are helping the mentally challenged, the physically challenged, homeless, poor, etc. continue to do their job as essential service provider ?

    #55784
    zerosum
    Participant

    The coronavirus is traveling by private jet.
    The elites, the enablers, the enforcers, the puppets are getting the coronavirus.

    #55785
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:. It is rather interesting but not surprising that the rich skiers are doing their best to community spread the coronavirus far and wide!

    Skiers from Iceland, Norway, and Sweden flying to the Italian Alphs to bring home the virus! Italians skiing in Vail. Mexicans skiing in Vail! A virus circle if I may say!

    #55786
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Most young people can’t get their heads around this. I get reports from my son in the heart of Gen Z downtown Seattle. That’s my impression too.

    #55787
    zerosum
    Participant

    Larr K., the welfare capitalist/businesses is cheering and bragging on 30% of GDP being negotiated to save the elites.

    I’m not convinced by the tiny bit of money for the minimum wage earners. ($3,000) is the objective for giving, printing, all that money

    The elites that have created this need for this MMT have no shame.
    “They are laughing all the way to the bank”

    #55788
    zerosum
    Participant

    boscohorowitz
    WES

    Yep! I set up facetime so that I can spend time with the family. My 6 yr old grand child was ecstatic to see us and talk to us on her i-pad.. It was total new experience for her. There is no school, all public places are closed.

    #55789
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    I just spoke with a friend at the community health center and she said that for all intents and purposes, no PPE for them. Tomorrow they are going to start making masks out of paper towels and rubber bands. I was shocked and will drop my construction masks with her in the morning.

    She had spoken to a mutual ER doc acquaintance who reportedly said, “The New River Valley (Virginia) will probably be on curfew by the end of the week”. I have no idea what exactly the doc meant by curfew, but know she’s got good contacts with police and emergency management-type folks.

    Dr. Rich, I don’t have a good understanding of the “null hypothesis”, but will read more. Very much appreciated the link to Camus, have shared.

    I printed out a list of the 15 Most Common Logical Fallacies about two months ago, and con artists may simply know them by intuition…. would be the basis of an interesting drinking game as one watches the news: “Doh! ANOTHER one… everybody drink!”

    Regarding the finding a more sane place between “corporations bad!” and full-on “socialism”, Stockman had some thoughts (that won’t happen, of course). Let them go bankrupt, let the gamblers take it in the chin, and sell assets in bankruptcy. New management (ESOP’s?) opens as quickly as possible after trash gets taken to the curb.

    Futures already limited down. Buckle up.

    #55790
    John Day
    Participant

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no longer asserting that the drinking of bovine urine by faithful Hindus will cure or prevent coronavirus illness?

    … I miss something?

    Bad way to die. I hope poor Harvey Weinstein doesn’t have to die like this:
    https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes–terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients
    “It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube and out of his mouth. The ventilator should have been doing the work of breathing but he was still gasping for air, moving his mouth, moving his body, struggling. We had to restrain him. With all the coronavirus patients, we’ve had to restrain them. They really hyperventilate, really struggle to breathe. When you’re in that mindstate of struggling to breathe and delirious with fever, you don’t know when someone is trying to help you, so you’ll try to rip the breathing tube out because you feel it is choking you, but you are drowning.

    “When someone has an infection, I’m used to seeing the normal colors you’d associate with it: greens and yellows. The coronavirus patients with ARDS have been having a lot of secretions that are actually pink because they’re filled with blood cells that are leaking into their airways. They are essentially drowning in their own blood and fluids because their lungs are so full. So we’re constantly having to suction out the secretions every time we go into their rooms.”

    #55791
    zerosum
    Participant

    coincidence
    If you don’t believe in printing money for yourself and/or your friends. Guess what you should do to avoid retribution from your party.

    Update (2115ET): Senate Democrats were able to successfully block the coronavirus stimulus package from moving forward as five GOP senators were absent due to coronavirus or precautionary self-quarantine.

    #55792
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    hostebbe: That’s nothing. Watch this: su-per-ca-li-fra-gi-lis-tic-ex-pi-a-li-do-cious. 😉

    Oh um-diddle-iddle-iddle um diddle-aye

    #55793
    zerosum
    Participant

    market manipulation – in your face

    Update (2335ET): With futures still flirting with limit down as of this writing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has set a new vote on the motion for Monday morning at 9:45 a.m. – “15 minutes after the (US) markets open to see if there’s a change of heart,” he said.

    #55794
    zerosum
    Participant

    5 Republican Senators now in self-quarantine and will most likely not be able to vote.

    – Rick Scott FL
    – Cory Gardner CO
    – Mike Lee UT
    – Mitt Romney UT
    – Rand Paul KY

    Dems have the majority in the Senate.

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