Covid-19 Politics

[filghy2]

In the U.S., major league baseball has started a season. They are testing their players regularly, limiting staff, and hosting games without fans. They're still experiencing outbreaks because they have not properly isolated the players and the season will probably end up being canceled. Within two weeks there have already been two major team outbreaks and it looks like some futuristic contest of attrition. Lots of testing and common sense can go a long way.

In Australia, the major sports teams have been relocated to hubs in relatively safe areas, where the players and support staff are kept isolated from the general public. They can bring their families, but they have to be isolated as well. At present there is no Australian rules football games being played in Melbourne, which is the home of the sport. I think that is the first time ever, as they kept playing during WWII.

[filghy2]

Filghy-I'm sorry to hear there are outbreaks in Australia. I had been following for the first several months but haven't paid attention lately. I can only imagine you have responsible officials who are at least trying to control what's going on. Even countries that have been vigilant and guided by science such as Germany (and now Australia) have had some outbreaks simply because this disease is so tough to contain. In the long run intelligent efforts are rewarded though. But quarantine fatigue is real..

The appalling thing is that most of this second wave appears to have originated from lapses in the control of hotel quarantine in Melbourne, which was outsourced to private security companies. I assume that was done to save on police resources, which definitely proved to be a false economy.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...ourne/12471916
Fortunately our politicians are still mostly acting like mature adults. Even the finger-pointing and blame-shifting between politicians of different parties when things have gone wrong has been fairly constrained.

[Stavros]

So, it looks like the US did in fact have a 'National Plan' to tackle Covid 19 -but it was scuppered by Under-President Kushner -is this man ever going to make himself accountable for his decisions?

"Inside the White House, over much of March and early April, Kushner’s handpicked group of young business associates, which included a former college roommate, teamed up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing industry. Together, they hammered out the outline of a national testing strategy. The group—working night and day, using the encrypted platform WhatsApp—emerged with a detailed plan obtained by Vanity Fair.
Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and limited lab capacity, the plan would have set up a system of national oversight and coordination to surge supplies, allocate test kits, lift regulatory and contractual roadblocks, and establish a widespread virus surveillance system by the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks.
The solutions it proposed weren’t rocket science—or even comparable to the dauntingly complex undertaking of developing a new vaccine. Any national plan to address testing deficits would likely be more on the level of “replicating UPS for an industry,” said Dr. Mike Pellini, the managing partner of Section 32, a technology and health care venture capital fund. “Imagine if UPS or FedEx didn’t have infrastructure to connect all the dots. It would be complete chaos.”
The plan crafted at the White House, then, set out to connect the dots. Some of those who worked on the plan were told that it would be presented to President Trump and likely announced in the Rose Garden in early April. “I was beyond optimistic,” said one participant. “My understanding was that the final document would make its way to the president over that weekend” and would result in a “significant announcement.”
But no nationally coordinated testing strategy was ever announced. The plan, according to the participant, “just went poof into thin air.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...-into-thin-air

[broncofan]

In Australia, the major sports teams have been relocated to hubs in relatively safe areas, where the players and support staff are kept isolated from the general public. They can bring their families, but they have to be isolated as well. At present there is no Australian rules football games being played in Melbourne, which is the home of the sport. I think that is the first time ever, as they kept playing during WWII.

I went to a Manly Eagles Aussie Rules football game a while ago. I had a lot of fun but it was kind of like explaining American football to someone who's never watched it. You can explain the premise but then any time something happens you're explaining an exception or some quirk. I know I'm saying this apropos of nothing but it's a vivid memory for me. Hopefully they're back when this nightmare is over.

Anyway, that seems like the obvious way to do things. Imagine Major League Baseball's planning process though. They honestly thought they could test players and staff, allow both to go out in public where a super transmissible virus is raging, and that people would always test positive before spreading it. This illusion has already been shattered. When I heard they were having the season, I figured they could probably have the players make some commitment to quarantine or opt out if they were uncomfortable with that, and even hold all of the games in the same location without a lot of travel.

As for the hotel quarantine breakdowns, all I can say is that your administrative mistakes regard precautions we haven't even contemplated. We have people go back home when they test positive and don't even have options to provide them. I hope you get things under control. I did look at the numbers in Australia, not by region though, and they've popped, but you can definitely get things back to where they were. If I looked at the right time of day, it was 600 new cases in a country of 25 million. This would be the per capita equivalent of 8000 new cases in the U.S. For reference, when we had started to suppress the virus and get things under control before the south exploded, we had 20,000 cases and declining. So I think now is the time to act...

[broncofan]

One interesting study would be how the U.S.' response to Covid compares to our response to Influenza in 1918. The 1918 pandemic killed 675,000 Americans while Covid has killed 154,000 so far.

Take into account that in 1918 there were a lot of differences in icu care. Ventilators had not been invented yet. So while we may lament the fact that only 40-50% of those put on ventilators survive (the reporting for survival rate for people ventilated has varied a lot), everyone who would need one would be dead. Oxygen therapy had already been used therapeutically but I'm having trouble locating whether hospitals in 1918 were all equipped with it and using it. But an enormous number of people have needed oxygen to survive.

Testing was not nearly as good back then. As Trump likes to boast, we have tested tens of millions of people. The ability to work remotely was not possible then. And it's tough to know exact infection fatality rates but I haven't seen a lot of evidence that covid is more deadly than 1918 flu. Is it possible that we responded to a deadly pandemic better in 1918 than 2020?

[broncofan]

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coro...-20200703.html

[blackchubby38]

One interesting study would be how the U.S.' response to Covid compares to our response to Influenza in 1918. The 1918 pandemic killed 675,000 Americans while Covid has killed 154,000 so far.

Take into account that in 1918 there were a lot of differences in icu care. Ventilators had not been invented yet. So while we may lament the fact that only 40-50% of those put on ventilators survive (the reporting for survival rate for people ventilated has varied a lot), everyone who would need one would be dead. Oxygen therapy had already been used therapeutically but I'm having trouble locating whether hospitals in 1918 were all equipped with it and using it. But an enormous number of people have needed oxygen to survive.

Testing was not nearly as good back then. As Trump likes to boast, we have tested tens of millions of people. The ability to work remotely was not possible then. And it's tough to know exact infection fatality rates but I haven't seen a lot of evidence that covid is more deadly than 1918 flu. Is it possible that we responded to a deadly pandemic better in 1918 than 2020?

From what I have read about the The Flu Epidemic of 1918, was that it worse than the Corona Virus. Especially when you take into consideration how much living conditions and medical care has improved since then. WWI was coming to an end, so you had U.S. troops returning from Europe. Not on a plane mind you. But on a boat on a voyage that if I recall took about 6 days to complete.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

So, it looks like the US did in fact have a 'National Plan' to tackle Covid 19 -but it was scuppered by Under-President Kushner -is this man ever going to make himself accountable for his decisions?

"Inside the White House, over much of March and early April, Kushner’s handpicked group of young business associates, which included a former college roommate, teamed up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing industry. Together, they hammered out the outline of a national testing strategy. The group—working night and day, using the encrypted platform WhatsApp—emerged with a detailed plan obtained by Vanity Fair.
Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and limited lab capacity, the plan would have set up a system of national oversight and coordination to surge supplies, allocate test kits, lift regulatory and contractual roadblocks, and establish a widespread virus surveillance system by the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks.
The solutions it proposed weren’t rocket science—or even comparable to the dauntingly complex undertaking of developing a new vaccine. Any national plan to address testing deficits would likely be more on the level of “replicating UPS for an industry,” said Dr. Mike Pellini, the managing partner of Section 32, a technology and health care venture capital fund. “Imagine if UPS or FedEx didn’t have infrastructure to connect all the dots. It would be complete chaos.”
The plan crafted at the White House, then, set out to connect the dots. Some of those who worked on the plan were told that it would be presented to President Trump and likely announced in the Rose Garden in early April. “I was beyond optimistic,” said one participant. “My understanding was that the final document would make its way to the president over that weekend” and would result in a “significant announcement.”
But no nationally coordinated testing strategy was ever announced. The plan, according to the participant, “just went poof into thin air.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...-into-thin-air

Not surprised that the National Plan on how to handle the CO-VID 19 Global Pandemic was scrapped by the Silverspoon Spoiled Brat Jared Kushner,nope he's never going to make himself accountable for his decisions,because he just as delusional and toned deaf like his father in law the Clueless Buffoon In Chief is.

[broncofan]

Positive results for Regeneron's antibody cocktail in non-human primates when used therapeutically and prophylactically. This is a good sign but obviously not as good as positive results in clinical trials in humans which we're waiting on.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.02.233320v1

https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/stat...28132848214016

https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN24Z2S3

[broncofan]

A short clip of Trump being dismantled by Jonathan Swan. Apparently Trump thinks the relevant metric is CFR and not deaths per capita. He should be removed from office for being this dumb.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1290497186489348096