... more than three years of President Trump’s uncompromising “America First” approach is taking its toll on crisis-fighting efforts. An avowed skeptic of international cooperation, Trump this month imposed a travel ban on Europe without consulting European Union leaders. Even as the United States remains dependent upon China for pharmaceutical supplies and medical equipment, he has escalated a war of words with Beijing by repeatedly using “Chinese virus” to label the outbreak.
Cooperation needed but the opposite is more popular:
The “every man for himself” stance comes as many economists say a coordinated response is urgently needed to avert what threatens to become the worst global recession in nearly a century.
“It’s not all Trump. But the instincts of the Trump administration to view suspiciously anything that is jointly beneficial or anything that constitutes a multilateral or plurilateral institution is a real problem,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
discovolante wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 9:49 am
Oh I see Dobbies is staying open. Well I'm sure that won't pose any problems for Señor von Laté's 83 year old mother, and potentially vulnerable brother, who live with someone who works there.
I thought it was only shops selling essential supplies that are allowed to stay open? Or does the fact that they sell veg seeds/plants make them exempt? Mind you, our local one has a food shop within it so that bit could stay open, but it's a separate building from most of the rest. The fruit and veg stall that's permanently outside, despite being allowed to open, has closed to protect their employees. Kudos to them.
They claim that 70% of their turnover falls into the "food shops, home and hardware shops, and pet shops " essential goods categories, and they'll close off their 'non essential' areas e.g. clothing.
I've emailed a complaint via their website that they are not essential and I will not be a customer in the future if they don't take this seriously.
Oh come on, if we can’t easily buy artisanal fudge at this trying time, then we’re nothing more than barbarians.
Calm yourself Doctor NotTheNineO’ClockNews. We’re men of science. We fear no worldly terrors.
And yet his approval ratings are up nearly 5% in the last two weeks.
At this point he's about 3 days away from directly-injecting coronavirus into the eyeballs of babies on national telly.
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
And yet his approval ratings are up nearly 5% in the last two weeks.
At this point he's about 3 days away from directly-injecting coronavirus into the eyeballs of babies on national telly.
He did boast that he could shoot someone on an open street without supporters deserting him.
He's now showing this claim was far too modest:
He can cause millions and millions to be infected and many thousands to die without supporters deserting him.
Even after years, I still find myself newly shocked by how bad he is. I think we all know now what he will choose if it is a choice between millions of lives or the revenue of his hotels.
The Head of the Department of Civil Protection is suggesting that we might have 10 mild/asymptomatic/otherwise undetected cases for every detected case. The governor of Veneto has for a while now being asking to be able to test literally everybody for the virus.
But anyway I'm not sure about today's numbers. The number of new positives today is higher than yesterday, it's just that with deaths and recoveries (mainly recoveries) the number of new active infections is lower than yesterday.
Three points is barely enough to fit a function with two variables but it looks to me like the number of total positives is currently increasing, but with a very long doubling time of 8.8 days. So we need to stay locked down and wait for a few more days of data. Things may be starting to stop getting worse in Lombardy and Veneto but now regions further south are seeing outbreaks.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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lpm wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:40 pm
He has amazingly little powers in this, however.
Some Trumpist governors in red states might follow him - but even some of them have already implied they'll be draconian when their time comes.
The countries that manage to get on top of their outbreaks will, in time, have to restrict travel from those that don't, in order to lift their own domestic restrictions safely. The way Trump is acting will cut the US off from the rest of the world for longer.
And in news that will surprise nobody, The Russian Federation which had been having about 50 new cases a day for several days - all "imported cases only" now apparently has local transmission as well
lpm wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:40 pm
He has amazingly little powers in this, however.
Some Trumpist governors in red states might follow him - but even some of them have already implied they'll be draconian when their time comes.
The countries that manage to get on top of their outbreaks will, in time, have to restrict travel from those that don't, in order to lift their own domestic restrictions safely. The way Trump is acting will cut the US off from the rest of the world for longer.
lpm wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:40 pm
He has amazingly little powers in this, however.
Some Trumpist governors in red states might follow him - but even some of them have already implied they'll be draconian when their time comes.
The countries that manage to get on top of their outbreaks will, in time, have to restrict travel from those that don't, in order to lift their own domestic restrictions safely. The way Trump is acting will cut the US off from the rest of the world for longer.
“We are praying and hoping that the Messiah will arrive before Passover, the time of our redemption. I am sure that the Messiah will come and bring us out as [God] brought us out of Egypt. Soon we will go out in freedom and the Messiah will come and redeem us from all the troubles of the world.”
This remark was made by Health Minister Yaakov Litzman last week, after Yaniv Kalif of the Hebrew-language news website Hamal asked him whether Israelis will be forced to remain under lockdown until the holiday, which begins April 8. Litzman’s ignorant answer was not met with uproar.
Haaretz commentator asks:
Is it reasonable for a religious man, a member of the Gur Hasidic community, one of the most conservative Jewish communities in the world, to head the Health Ministry as it faces the biggest crisis Israel has ever known?
It goes without saying that the solution to this crisis will, of necessity, come from science, an area of human knowledge to which Gur Hasidim are less than sympathetic.
The truth is that Litzman’s unfortunate comment flew under the radar because Israel has always followed a twisted hierarchy: Religion is superior to secularism, and religious actions are more important than secular ones.
The bit with David Spiegelhalter on the risk and mortality is very interesting - my understanding isn't great on this but getting the virus is essentially the equivalent of hitting you with an entire year's worth of risk of death at once. Hence if you're old or have a health problem you're likely to be at much higher chance of dying. It also underscores the Imperial College report - it's basically a whole year's-worth of deaths in a compressed time period which would overwhelm the system.
The bit with David Spiegelhalter on the risk and mortality is very interesting - my understanding isn't great on this but getting the virus is essentially the equivalent of hitting you with an entire year's worth of risk of death at once. Hence if you're old or have a health problem you're likely to be at much higher chance of dying. It also underscores the Imperial College report - it's basically a whole year's-worth of deaths in a compressed time period which would overwhelm the system.
This has always been an interesting debate for as long as I've been an emergency planner. How many are "excess deaths" versus "early harvest". Most UK pandemic planning has always been around demand smoothing as opposed to eradication as it's perceived that total containment is effectively impossible. It can be done in small outbreaks like the imported Monkey Pox cases in the last couple of years and animal outbreaks where "stamping out" methods can be used but much harder otherwise
Seeing lots of media chatter saying that all NHS staff sould be in "full hazmat suits" which is stoking the lack of trust in the recommended PPE. I suspect the media don't realise just how few full hazmat suits there are in the world, how debilitating it is to wear them and how few people are trained to put them on, work in them and take them off. Doing more than a couple of hours wearing one results in massive dehydration and heat exhaustion. My last trust had 16,000 staff and only 100 trained staff as it's that specialist a skill
Apparently a new model from Oxford [Dropbox, PDF] suggests that up to 30 million people could be infected in the UK, with the overwhelming majority having no symptoms.
I note that the people retweeting and otherwise spreading news of this study the most enthusiastically are those of a free-market political persuasion, presumably because if it's true the UK will reach herd immunity levels in about a week and everyone can go back to Greggs.
I'm trying to work out in my head how we would expect the number of new cases or deaths to evolve if this model were correct. In the meantime, though, it seems to me that it ought to be easy to test empirically: Just pick 1,000 people at random (as for an opinion poll) and see how many positive results you get (assuming there is a test that is sufficiently sensitive to detect asymptomatic/early stage cases). 30 million out of 66 million infected is basically Remain v Leave, so 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people tops ought to be enough.
Something something hammer something something nail
sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:56 am
Apparently a new model from Oxford [Dropbox, PDF] suggests that up to 30 million people could be infected in the UK, with the overwhelming majority having no symptoms.
I note that the people retweeting and otherwise spreading news of this study the most enthusiastically are those of a free-market political persuasion, presumably because if it's true the UK will reach herd immunity levels in about a week and everyone can go back to Greggs. :roll:
I'm trying to work out in my head how we would expect the number of new cases or deaths to evolve if this model were correct. In the meantime, though, it seems to me that it ought to be easy to test empirically: Just pick 1,000 people at random (as for an opinion poll) and see how many positive results you get (assuming there is a test that is sufficiently sensitive to detect asymptomatic/early stage cases). 30 million out of 66 million infected is basically Remain v Leave, so 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people tops ought to be enough.
Like with Italy, this theory would basically imply no hot spots. There would be infections in every single town and village in the UK, with a very small percentage needing hospital treatment and a smaller proportion needing ICUs. Geographically it would be almost perfectly flat. But what we see is overloaded hospitals in north London exporting cases to little used hospitals elsewhere.
And the UK wouldn't be exceptional. You would likewise see flatter geography in the US, not huge peaks in New York vs normal activity in Michigan.
sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:56 am
Apparently a new model from Oxford [Dropbox, PDF] suggests that up to 30 million people could be infected in the UK, with the overwhelming majority having no symptoms.
I note that the people retweeting and otherwise spreading news of this study the most enthusiastically are those of a free-market political persuasion, presumably because if it's true the UK will reach herd immunity levels in about a week and everyone can go back to Greggs. :roll:
I'm trying to work out in my head how we would expect the number of new cases or deaths to evolve if this model were correct. In the meantime, though, it seems to me that it ought to be easy to test empirically: Just pick 1,000 people at random (as for an opinion poll) and see how many positive results you get (assuming there is a test that is sufficiently sensitive to detect asymptomatic/early stage cases). 30 million out of 66 million infected is basically Remain v Leave, so 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people tops ought to be enough.
Like with Italy, this theory would basically imply no hot spots. There would be infections in every single town and village in the UK, with a very small percentage needing hospital treatment and a smaller proportion needing ICUs. Geographically it would be almost perfectly flat. But what we see is overloaded hospitals in north London exporting cases to little used hospitals elsewhere.
And the UK wouldn't be exceptional. You would likewise see flatter geography in the US, not huge peaks in New York vs normal activity in Michigan.
For example, if half the population on average is infected, you wouldn't expect one county to be at 75% and the neighbour at 25%. 50% would surely result in averaging out of peaks and troughs.
For example, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire. Why would they diverge from each other in a 50% scenario? Why would known cases be different?
