Thought for the Day

[filghy2]

The main reason that Trump is still generally favoured to win the election is that the US economy is doing well. Nor has there been any crisis that has affected undecided voters in ways that could change their perceptions of his Presidency. A corona-virus epidemic is the most likely risk that could test those propositions between now and November. Could this be Trump's Hurricane Katrina - the event that finally exposes the implications of his Administration's incompetence?
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/25/211505...virus-cdc-cuts
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...request-117329

One thing that seems likely is that the Administration will continue to downplay the risks. This is exactly the sort of situation in which people need to be able to trust what officials tell them, yet Trump and his acolytes have completely trashed that credibility.

[broncofan]

You're right about this. I want Trump to be right because the idea of a pandemic is terrifying. Yet how is novel coronavirus going to be contained given how easily it's spread (including the possibility of asymptomatic transmission) and tests for it aren't great right now? Look at how quickly it's spread in South Korea and Italy.

There are a couple of treatments for it that doctors in China have reported are effective. At least two anti-virals. One is called Remdesivir, which apparently is also effective against other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS. The other is an anti-malarial drug called Chloroquine. The testing for the former's anti-viral activity is in vitro and so it's not clear how effective it is clinically. The latter seems to be effective once the novel coronavirus has caused pneumonia, but the evidence is anecdotal and the recommendations are from clinicians not based on trials.

Early on it was reported the disease caused death in about 2% of people but that the number is probably lower because minor cases were underreported. As it is, it hasn't seemed to be a lot less lethal than that when you look at the overall numbers. The CDC in the U.S. has said been quoted as saying that it's not a matter of if but when novel coronavirus spreads throughout the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/us-p...emdesivir.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32075365

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32075365

[tovosan]

The corona virus frightens me. I hope a vaccine is coming soon.

[broncofan]

The corona virus frightens me. I hope a vaccine is coming soon.

Anthony Fauci from NIH was on msnbc just now. He said a vaccine will be ready at earliest in a year. I think he said the timeline was to get a vaccine ready for testing within 3 months, to do an initial trial looking at safety first and then a 6 month trial for efficacy and safety in a larger cohort. Hopefully the containment strategy is effective at keeping the number of people infected fairly low until the vaccine is ready to be used. But the CDC head sounded confident the virus will not be contained in the long run.

In the meantime, Fauci also said they are doing clinical trials for remdesivir right now. If it's effective, Gilead, the company that makes it, is going to have to produce lots of it.

It is scary. People keep pointing out that influenza kills many more thousands every year but that's because it is already everywhere. The mortality rate per infection for Covid-9 (the latest name for this coronavirus) is anywhere from 20 to 40 times higher per infection than the flu. And it seems highly transmissible.

[filghy2]

Early on it was reported the disease caused death in about 2% of people but that the number is probably lower because minor cases were underreported. As it is, it hasn't seemed to be a lot less lethal than that when you look at the overall numbers. The CDC in the U.S. has said been quoted as saying that it's not a matter of if but when novel coronavirus spreads throughout the U.S.

It is looking increasingly likely that it won't be contained. The problem seems to be the long delay between infection and symptoms showing up, as well as the fact that many carriers have only moderate symptoms to they don't go to hospital. The Spanish flu after WWI is estimated to have affected around a quarter of the world's population, so if you do the numbers it's potentially very scary.

This is an example of the sort of nonsense we will have to deal with. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...spiracy-117781

[filghy2]

It looks like socialism is being brought to the USA, and not by Bernie Sanders but by Donald Trump. In recent days we've had announcements about government mailing out checks, bailing out businesses and directing companies to produce essential supplies, as well as restrictions on what people can do. Just as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, there don't seem to be many small government believers in a crisis.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...mocrats-136462

It's the right thing to do, but I can't help noting the contrast between what Republicans are wiling to do now and what they were willing to do under Obama.

[Stavros]

And two of the sectors worst hit by Covid 19, certainly in the UK, are the Hotel and Sport sectors. I assume people are no longer boooking themselves into Turnberry for a weekend of Golf and Beef Wellington, and assume this will also mean in the US that 'prestigious' Golfi Clubs and Hotels will suffer from a lack of business, and may even need a handout from the Government/Tax Payer...

[Stavros]

Two thoughts connect here:

a) the remarkable claim by President 45 with regard to proposals in the rescue package that never made it to the final text:
“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox and Friends.

b) a campaign to end gerrymandering in Michigan, now in a documentary called Slay the Dragon.

If the Republican Party is so worried about losing votes, maybe it should make a better effort to appeal to a wider variety of American people? Just as in the UK the Labour Party has lost votes because it does not appeal to enough voters, so there is a good argument for ditching ideology for pragmatism, and seeking election on the basis of practical poltical proposals. Or is that too much to ask of any party?

Slay the Dragon article here-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...gerrymandering

President worried more people may vote (and not for him)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rm-coronavirus

[Stavros]

Has the USA now reached a point where it must decide if it wants to replace a private health business with a public health service, one that guarantees health care to every American from the moment they are born, to the moment that they die?

It has been one of the longest lasing and supposedly impossible policies to agree upon, but can the US now carry on disagreeing when it is clear there needs to be change?

[filghy2]

Trump refused to reopen Obamacare enrolment in response to the coronavirus and they're still backing a lawsuit to abolish it, so no sign of any change of heart there. On past form they are more likely to use the budgetary impact of the virus as an argument for cutting health spending once the crisis has passed.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...navirus-157788