Friday, February 28, 2020

Here It Comes....

Coronavirus Live Updates: New Unexplained Cases Reported in Oregon and California
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/coronavirus-update.html?referringSource=articleShare

All politics aside, this is really a terrible time to have a President who can't cope with stress and who everyone knows is an habitual liar.... Trump's Twitter feed reflects his utter inability to deal with any of this..... I am starting to find this a bit scary.... and not because I'm sniffling and sneezing since yesterday (just a little cold, I'm sure).

PS: This must be a very interesting time to be an epidemiologist.

21 comments:

Layzej said...

I'm worried about the US ability to recover from the financial impacts. Your deficit is already about at the stimulus spending levels following the 2008 crash. Is there gas left in the tank?

Entropic man said...

The US and The UK.

Two incompetent governments about to be overwhelmed by Covid-19.

David in Cal said...

David - I don't know whether you watched Trump's two press conferences about Covid-19. I did. The important thing was not what Trump said, but what the medical experts said. I feel comfortable that the medical experts are doing what needs to be done.

So far, Trump has made one particularly excellent decision: the early cutoff of travel from China. That action bought us time. It's why the current number of cases in the US is so low. There will be more cases, but we have more time to figure out how do deal with them. Some Trump opponents criticized that move. They seem to automatically criticize everything he does. But, he was right, and his critics were wrong.

David - I invite you to say what things the government is doing that are wrong what things they are failing to do that you think they should be doing. I'm not a medical expert, but I can't come up with any such things. OTOH they seem be doing a lot of things that are right. Not that Trump deserves the credit. These professionals would be doing the right thing regardless of who was President.

Cheers

David in Cal said...

Layzej - I am worried, too. The bulk of my retirement is invested in stocks. I hope stocks will recover, but who knows?

Here's an irony: One reason for the falling stock market is the fear that Sanders might be elected. Yet, a falling stock market helps elect Sanders.

Cheers

Layzej said...

Trump is very interested in controlling the message. He's spreading misinformation. I'm wary of that.

For instance: he claimed that the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is “going very substantially down, not up.”

He claimed that we "will essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner."

When someone correctly stated that the flu has a 0.1% fatality rate while COVID is at 2-3% he claimed that we really don't know fatality rates for COVID and “the flu is much higher”

Trump’s acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, falsely claimed this week that the influenza fatality rate was “right around 2% as well.” It’s not.

I hope he lets the experts speak the truth and inform the response.

Layzej said...

One reason for the falling stock market is the fear that Sanders might be elected

I doubt the world markets care much about that. TSX had its largest drop since 2008... because of Sanders? Not likely.

David in Cal said...

New York Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. noted that the Trump administration took "aggressive measures like barring entry to non-Americans who were recently in China and advising Americans not to go to China or South Korea," and that this strategy worked, despite the fact that the World Health Organization officially opposes travel and trade restrictions, and "reiterated that even as it declared the epidemic a global emergency on Jan. 30."

Republican Senator Tom Cotton said on Friday that “The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month." He also acknowledged that “the so-called experts who opposed the decision at the time” eventually admitted that it “bought valuable time to prevent the spread of this virus in the United States.”

Cheers

David in Cal said...

Layzej - Yes, Trump speaks more like a promoter or a booster than a scientist. His typical exaggeration is not what we need to hear. Fortunately, he had his technical experts with him at his two press conferences. If you ignored Trump's forced enthusiasm and listened to the experts, you could get accurate information. Based on what the experts said, I believe the government is doing the right things to fight this disease.

Cheers

Layzej said...

He is trying to avoid a panic. That is good, but the right way to do that is to show that you have a strong response. By lying about the threat he makes it appear that the government is engaged in a cover-up.

David in Cal said...

Layzej - I agree.

Entropic man said...

China kept Covid-19 below 100,000 reported cases by self-isolating 60 million people in Hubei province and shutting down all but essential services. It helps to be a totalitarian state.

It would be very difficult to persuade 300 million awkward Americans to do the same.If it breaks out it becomes straightforward epidemiology.

Worst case for the US looks like 200 million cases, 20-40 million needing hospital treatment and 4 million deaths.

Layzej said...

I would think the USA would consider drastic measures too if things get out of hand. The UK has said that no option is off the table, including shutting down cities. Hopefully it becomes more manageable as the weather warms.

Entropic man said...

This may be a problem.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article240476806.html

I have the good fortune to live in the UK, where most health care is paid for through your taxes. Testing and treatment for coronavirus will cost me nothing extra.

If even a false alarm costs $3000 a lot of the US population will go untested and untreated. Containing the spread of the disease will be impossible. Obamacare might have helped. Trumpcare certainly won't.

David Appell said...

Here's a good example of the kind of thing that Trump does to undermine the experts and the effort. From David Ignatius in WaPo:

"Trump made a bad mistake when he seemed to endorse a questioner’s suggestion that the CDC was “exaggerating” the threat. “I think they are,” he said. “I’d like it to stop.” That unwise comment probably spooked the markets."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-trump-can-avoid-being-his-own-worst-enemy-on-coronavirus/2020/02/27/2baf26e6-5996-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html

David Appell said...

Even people who are quarantined by the US govt are receiving big medical bills for their care:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html

David Appell said...

And here it comes out that Trump lied right to our face at his news conference on Wednesday:

"Minutes before President Trump was preparing Wednesday to reassure a skittish nation about the coronavirus threat, he received a piece of crucial information: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified in California the first U.S. case of the illness not tied to foreign travel, a sign that the virus’s spread in the United States was likely to explode.

"But when Trump took to the lectern for a news conference intended to bring transparency to the spiraling global crisis, he made no explicit mention of the California case and its implications — and falsely suggested the virus might soon be eradicated in the United States.

“And again, when you have 15 people — and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero — that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” he said."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html

David Appell said...

Trump is psychologically incapable of doing what needs to be done. His first instinct is always to lie. Always. He has lied so much no one believes a thing he says anymore. He is incapable of yielding to experts. He is incapable of accurately viewing reality. He is terrified of looking bad, not realizing that all along smart people can see right through him and that they know he DOES look bad. It's really incredible to me what a basket case he is. His only concern about the disease, his ONLY concern, is how it makes him look and how it affects his chances for reelection. He understands nothing, it often looks. He was amazed that the flu kills tens of thousands of Americans a year, BECAUSE HE DOESN'T READ. HE's not curious. He's a walking jello ball of rampant gittering insecurity and neuroses. He has the vocabulary of a 3rd grader. He only knows about four adverbs and adjectives, and can only put "very" in front of them to express himself. People are going to die because of his incompetence.

Entropic man said...

My commisserations.

You have a payment based health system which discourages those with coronavirus symptoms from coming forward.

You have an epidemic in transition from the containment phase to the mitigation phase.

You have a government which is lying to the people.

You are in serious trouble.

David Appell said...

And we have a lot of people who don't get any paid sick leave, many of them working in the service industries (like restaurants) who don't make enough to have a big pile of money to tide them over....

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/upshot/coronavirus-sick-days-service-workers.html

Entropic man said...

Worth monitoring, as a good source of detailed information and discussion.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

David Appell said...

EM: thanks. Yes, I've been using that site for the last few days. Other sources are

Johns Hopkins:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

WHO, Situation Reports once per day, updates usually around noon Pacific Time:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports

and, for completeness:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/