Coronavirus

[broncofan]

Can anyone comment on why California has done so much better in containing the virus? I think I read that they had twice as many returnees from China as New York state, yet deaths in New York are 30 times greater relative to the population.

I think a part of it is that California had its earliest diagnosed case in January and even though they did not take their first statewide action until March 11, the cdc was already looking for community spread in February. We didn't have adequate testing anywhere, but mayors in California were urging caution whereas New York was completely blindsided. Cali also had the benefit of at least one very good mayor early on who was conscientious and took a leadership role in San Francisco which probably wasn't hit as hard because of this. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-breed/609808/

Meanwhile, NYC is an incredibly densely populated place, relies on public transportation more than any city in California and by the time they diagnosed a case probably had significant spread. They diagnosed their first case on March 1st but probably had super-spreader events. You can't go anywhere in that city without running into hundreds of people in face to face interactions. The mayor of New York City told people they should be out enjoying themselves on March 2. This wouldn't have been as dangerous if March 1st was really the first day they had a case but it was only their first diagnosed case and you can't manage what isn't measured.

I also think the guidance the cdc and who have provided about how far someone can stand from someone else and be safe gives a false degree of confidence about transmission. Are you safe in a room with a thousand people if you're always three feet from others? Six feet? I've read studies and it's not entirely clear, but in New York, if you're in public you're surrounded by thousands at all times in my experience.

[broncofan]

I've read studies and it's not entirely clear, but in New York, if you're in public you're surrounded by thousands at all times in my experience.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00974-w

I don't know enough to have a position on whether it's spread only in large droplets or also occasionally in aerosols or somewhere in between. Even if it is primarily spread through the former, a subway in NYC or frankly any crowded store might test that proposition.

[TheGreatestLiar]

here is the governor of Florida demonstrating the misuse of the N-95 in two ways. shouldn't he have given it to the first responder in the background, who has a surgical mask? I also don't think he fitted it properly. https://twitter.com/RexChapman/statu...00355582935046
this is the douche bag who the douche bag in chief entrusted with the public health of his state. Unbelieveable.

[Del06]

All this talk about whether elections should be postponed -- what about vote by mail? This would solve all the social distancing problems. Of course the Trumpers don't want it, not because of supposed voter-fraud, but because more non-Republicans would vote: Trump actually said that. In Oregon, they've had mail-in voting for years, with no significant voter-fraud problem.

[blackchubby38]

I think a part of it is that California had its earliest diagnosed case in January and even though they did not take their first statewide action until March 11, the cdc was already looking for community spread in February. We didn't have adequate testing anywhere, but mayors in California were urging caution whereas New York was completely blindsided. Cali also had the benefit of at least one very good mayor early on who was conscientious and took a leadership role in San Francisco which probably wasn't hit as hard because of this. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-breed/609808/

Meanwhile, NYC is an incredibly densely populated place, relies on public transportation more than any city in California and by the time they diagnosed a case probably had significant spread. They diagnosed their first case on March 1st but probably had super-spreader events. You can't go anywhere in that city without running into hundreds of people in face to face interactions. The mayor of New York City told people they should be out enjoying themselves on March 2. This wouldn't have been as dangerous if March 1st was really the first day they had a case but it was only their first diagnosed case and you can't manage what isn't measured.

I also think the guidance the cdc and who have provided about how far someone can stand from someone else and be safe gives a false degree of confidence about transmission. Are you safe in a room with a thousand people if you're always three feet from others? Six feet? I've read studies and it's not entirely clear, but in New York, if you're in public you're surrounded by thousands at all times in my experience.

If I remember correctly, the first patient admitted to the hospital that I work at was on March 9th. Before that, there was a cluster of cases in New Rochelle. For those not familiar, its a city in Westchester County about 30 minutes from Manhattan. They had to quarantine a good portion of a neighborhood. But it wasn't like China did with Wuhan province.

Once more cases started popping in the city, things moved too quickly for the both city and state officials to get ahead of it. It wasn't until March 15th, that Mayor Deblasio decided to close the schools. Governor Cuomo's stay at home orders changed from week to week as he wanted to see how significant spread was going to be until they became what they are now.

Along with the lines about what you're saying in regards to Mayor Deblasio's mindset about the virus on March 2nd, the following is from a letter that was circulated around my apartment building dated on March 3.

Dear Shareholder:

We have been following news reports tracking the development of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that was originally identified in China and is now diagnosed in other countries. In light of newly released guidance for businesses and employees from the CDC, we want to share with you how we are monitoring the situation. As of today, the U.S. is not currently facing a pandemic spread of the virus, but it seems reasonable that we will see an increase in cases of COVID-19 in the future.

We are closely monitoring information from the CDC, along with the New York State Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health. Our planning and decision-making will be based on information from these and other reliable sources. We are also maintaining contact with the Real Estate Board of New York and Building Owners and Managers Association International to ensure we are up to date on industry-specific preparations and responses.

The rest of the letter just talks about general illness preparation.

So now the question becomes what information did Deblasio have on March 2nd to say people should be out enjoying themselves. Furthermore, what information did Nancy Pelosi have back in late February when she said it was safe for people to come to Chinatown.

[broncofan]

https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/t...-u-s-response/

This is an interesting document that is a comprehensive timeline of the U.S.'s Coronavirus response dating back to 2019. I agree that the quality of Mayors and Governors had an impact on regional outbreaks, but our federal government has resources for pandemic preparedness states don't have access to. Of particular interest to me are emails in the Red Dawn email chain that include the Surgeon General, people from Health and Human Services, the CDC, and the NIH discussing frustrations that they were flying blind with respect to testing and that the window was closing with respect to implementation of social distancing. They knew this in late February but none of that urgency was communicated to the public.

A few things that are noteworthy: Dr Fauci was asked on February 29th whether the U.S. should be implementing social distancing measures. He said no but he did mark "community spread" as the time when such measures would be necessary. Several regions already knew they had community spread by that point.

Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but there are people whose jobs it is to prepare for such events. The two to three week delay cost tens of thousands of lives, one can tell just based on the timing of when people died. Even when the curve flattens, a large percentage of new infections are carried forward from some who were infected because we didn't shut down. It was a colossal screw-up, most significantly in New York, but throughout the country. The failure to deliver tests is at the center of our errors, but there are also institutional failures that may have resulted from defunding pandemic response and brain drain, as not enough urgency was communicated to the public.

Interesting letter from your management company. Numbers from New York looked pretty good when I checked today. My state just updated their death totals with probable deaths this morning.

Edit: when I say numbers from New York looked pretty good, of course I mean relatively...

Also for those interested, here is the Red Dawn email chain linked separately

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthel...ull.pdf#page=1

[broncofan]

I'm looking at the progression of emails throughout from Dr. Carter Mecher, senior medical adviser for Veterans Affairs, and he looks really prescient. The email from February 28 calling for action and looking at Italy with foreboding was right on the money.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthel...ull.pdf#page=1

[Stavros]

A woman demonstrating over the weekend was on the BBC-2 Newsnight programme this evening (21st April) and on film she said that she no longer trusts scientists, but only God. It seems to me that in the unfolding tragedy some people take the view 'if I get sick and die, that is what God wants', 'if my neighbour gets sick and dies, I don't care'.

That the demonstrators aso brandish battlefield weapons underlines what may be the deepest crisis since 1776, because the President has abdicated his job to host a TV show, there is no leadership in the country, and crucially neither this President nor the Republican Party care.

It is as if they have decided to opt out of the Constitutional Republic because it has been 'bought' or 'captured' by non-White Americans, but whereas in 1861 they not only seceded from the US but attacked it, in this case I think the death of the US will take place over several years as individual States decide to simply ignore anything the Federal Govt says.

If the demented baboon gets another four yeas, it is over. He literally could not care what happens, he has his money in offshore accounts, he has an inflated opinion of himself, he has been part of the Murdoch Plan to end American Government and create a libertarian market-based economy with no governent interference, and the 45th, possible the last President far from resisting collapse, seems to both welcome it, and encourage the uneducated mob by tweeting 'Liberate Michigan'. Had the armed men stormed the Governors's office and shot her dead, the President might even pardon them of their crime and give them a medal.

He has said he hates what the USA has become, and then says of the FBI's officers who dedicated 30 years of their lives to their country -"You know what they are, though, they’re scum, they’re human scum," So Americans are now Human Scum, and unless I didn't read it, did anyone in his party object to the language? So those Americans served the US for 30 years during which he expected American tax-payers to service the debts he accrued from his failing businesses -that tells you all you need to know, for what President would stoop so low with this constant barrage of insult and abuse levelled at Americans? A President who doesn't care. To paraphrase de Blasio, it is not a case of telling New York, but the USA -'Drop dead'.

It may not be the end, but the US is now on the brink, and it may be the beginning of the end.

[Fitzcarraldo]

A woman demonstrating over the weekend was on the BBC-2 Newsnight programme this evening (21st April) and on film she said that she no longer trusts scientists, but only God. It seems to me that in the unfolding tragedy some people take the view 'if I get sick and die, that is what God wants', 'if my neighbour gets sick and dies, I don't care'.

That the demonstrators aso brandish battlefield weapons underlines what may be the deepest crisis since 1776, because the President has abdicated his job to host a TV show, there is no leadership in the country, and crucially neither this President nor the Republican Party care.

It is as if they have decided to opt out of the Constitutional Republic because it has been 'bought' or 'captured' by non-White Americans, but whereas in 1861 they not only seceded from the US but attacked it, in this case I think the death of the US will take place over several years as individual States decide to simply ignore anything the Federal Govt says.

If the demented baboon gets another four yeas, it is over. He literally could not care what happens, he has his money in offshore accounts, he has an inflated opinion of himself, he has been part of the Murdoch Plan to end American Government and create a libertarian market-based economy with no governent interference, and the 45th, possible the last President far from resisting collapse, seems to both welcome it, and encourage the uneducated mob by tweeting 'Liberate Michigan'. Had the armed men stormed the Governors's office and shot her dead, the President might even pardon them of their crime and give them a medal.

He has said he hates what the USA has become, and then says of the FBI's officers who dedicated 30 years of their lives to their country -"You know what they are, though, they’re scum, they’re human scum," So Americans are now Human Scum, and unless I didn't read it, did anyone in his party object to the language? So those Americans served the US for 30 years during which he expected American tax-payers to service the debts he accrued from his failing businesses -that tells you all you need to know, for what President would stoop so low with this constant barrage of insult and abuse levelled at Americans? A President who doesn't care. To paraphrase de Blasio, it is not a case of telling New York, but the USA -'Drop dead'.

It may not be the end, but the US is now on the brink, and it may be the beginning of the end.

His approval rating is at 46%. It was exactly the same a year ago. Those who disapprove must vote against him this fall.

[broncofan]

If the demented baboon gets another four yeas, it is over. He literally could not care what happens, he has his money in offshore accounts

He owns a lot of commercial real estate. I haven't looked at his holdings in a while but those properties have large mortgages. Banks aren't going to want to foreclose on owners any more than landlords are going to want to evict their tenants when there is nobody to replace the shuttered businesses. But I imagine he's shuffling money around to pay mortgages.

I hate to attribute all of his stupidity to avarice and conflicts of interest, but it's not a good time to be in commercial real estate given that everything is leveraged in that business. His high end residential and offices are probably fine but what about hotels, entertainment, etc. I'm sure he wants the economy to be back even if it kills people.