At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[myboynoah]

Classic. OPEN THE ECONOMY protester who is clearly among the more vulnerable telling a healthare worker who could be tending her ventilator within the month to go back to China.

murica1-e1587390569163.jpg

[Bo Diddley]

Here's a bleak forecast for the unemployed and the economy down the road.

[frank ryan]

Classic. OPEN THE ECONOMY protester who is clearly among the more vulnerable telling a healthare worker who could be tending her ventilator within the month to go back to China.

[ATTACH]10175[/ATTACH]

She's deplorable.

[jay santos]

Has there been any country where a second wave has hit or second wave has been as bad as first wave? My hunch is starting to be that this thing got out earlier than we thought, social distancing hasn't really done as much as we think it did to beat it back, it simply spread until it was maxed out, and there's no such thing as a second wave or if there is, it's very minimal. Is that wishful thinking?

[SeattleUte]

Nature interviews Sweden's top epidemiologist.

Closedown, lockdown, closing borders — nothing has a historical scientific basis, in my view. We have looked at a number of European Union countries to see whether they have published any analysis of the effects of these measures before they were started and we saw almost none.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01098-x

[SeattleUte]

Has there been any country where a second wave has hit or second wave has been as bad as first wave? My hunch is starting to be that this thing got out earlier than we thought, social distancing hasn't really done as much as we think it did to beat it back, it simply spread until it was maxed out, and there's no such thing as a second wave or if there is, it's very minimal. Is that wishful thinking?

Wishful thinking. Rates have doubled in Singapore.

Singapore Seemed to Have Coronavirus Under Control, Until Cases Doubled
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/w...e=articleShare

We may have delayed the inevitable because of the shutdown at incalculable public health(no one else is getting treated) and economic cost. We won't know for at least a year. It's clear that our governments don't know what the hell they're doing.

[Moliere]

USC released an antibody survey they performed in collaboration with LA County. It estimates 4.1% of LA county residents were infected. The margin of error puts the number of infected between 28 and 55 times the official number. Currently California has only 31 deaths per million people compared to 965 for NY and 493 for NJ. The percentage of population that was infected in NY/NJ has to be very high.

While that is not even close to enough to claim herd immunity, it's clear that the virus is not as deadly as people are assuming based on the data being published in regards to # of infections. It really is approaching time to open up the economy, at least in the next two weeks. Most, if not all people, will eventually get infected so opening the economy while keeping social distancing policies in place is the only way to keep the economy going while slowing the spread to a speed that the healthcare system can deal with. Supply chains, factories, transportation, it's all coming to a screeching halt and that can only be sustained for a brief period without severe economic distress.

One good example of the supply chain distruption is oil and gas, which is done very differently today than it was even four years ago. Most producers now drill "pad projects" where they use one location to drill anywhere from 2-20 wells, which is feasible given the directional horizontal drilling. This is capital intensive since a project can take 6-12 months or longer to complete but it's cheaper as there is less setup time and more economies of scale with the fracing/completion and facilities only have to be in one place. The problem is that when the demand for oil goes off a cliff, like what happened a month ago, you have oil companies that are in the process of drilling several of these types of projects. They can't really just stop the project since they likely have the rig locked in until it's done but they also have another couple months to go to complete it. So what you end up with is a kind of yo-yo effect where supply severely outstrips demand since things aren't easy to just shut down but if things stay down for a while and then start up you'll then have demand severely outstripping supply and you'll get a price spike (which won't be too bad given the amount of full storage). In the mean time, you have rigs being released as projects are completed, frac crews being sent home since producers will drill the wells and then just not complete them until it's economical to do so and unemployment in the oil sector goes through the roof. We are to the point where companies are now starting to just shut in wells, which also isn't always feasible given how the lease contract is structured. Anyway, kind of a perfect storm for oil and gas but it seems to be hitting every industry in some form or fashion.

[Moliere]

Wishful thinking. Rates have doubled in Singapore.

Singapore Seemed to Have Coronavirus Under Control, Until Cases Doubled
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/w...e=articleShare

We may have delayed the inevitable because of the shutdown at incalculable public health(no one else is getting treated) and economic cost. We won't know for at least a year. It's clear that our governments don't know what the hell they're doing.

Right. While I don't fully agree, this shutdown is getting pretty dumb. Thankfully Texas isn't as crazy as some of the other places (e.g. Michigan) but it's stupid that I can go shopping for darts at Academy Sports or buy hinges at Rockler but I can't buy paint at Benjamin Moore or buy filters at the local pool store. It's almost like we needed the shut down so the government could have time to figure out what they needed to do, which they should have known from the first or second week.

[SeattleUte]

Right. While I don't fully agree, this shutdown is getting pretty dumb. Thankfully Texas isn't as crazy as some of the other places (e.g. Michigan) but it's stupid that I can go shopping for darts at Academy Sports or buy hinges at Rockler but I can't buy paint at Benjamin Moore or buy filters at the local pool store. It's almost like we needed the shut down so the government could have time to figure out what they needed to do, which they should have known from the first or second week.

We should all be grateful for Sweden, because it is blazing a third way, a way where we’ll all probably wind up and we’ll have learned from Sweden’s mistakes.

[SeattleUte]

Classic. OPEN THE ECONOMY protester who is clearly among the more vulnerable telling a healthare worker who could be tending her ventilator within the month to go back to China.

[ATTACH]10175[/ATTACH]

Seriously, what is the purpose of this? You don’t think there are nut jobs on both ends of the spectrum? What’s really disappointing is the rush to politicize this. Like Crenshaw said to Maher, is the point to get to the truth or to demonize your political opponents?

[Eddie]

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...ic-still-ahead

WHO chief: worst of pandemic is still ahead.

“Trust us. The worst is yet ahead of us,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing.“Let’s prevent this tragedy. It’s a virus that many people still don’t understand.”

The pandemic globally had infected nearly 2.5 million people and killed more than 167,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Tedros's comments come as President Trump has ordered the halt of funding to WHO, citing missteps in how the organization dealt with the pandemic. The move is supported by some conservatives but was met with blowback from others, including business groups and Democrats.

Tedros urged global solidarity and national unity in order to continue fighting the virus and help limit future deaths.

Yeah - the skeptic in me wonders if cries that the worst is yet to come are based on a desire to talk Trump out of cutting funding. Global solidarity now! We're the WORLD health organization - join us and give us your money!

I'm generally not a UN conspiracy theorist. But I also know that this wouldn't be the first organization promoting its importance when funding questions arise.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Right. While I don't fully agree, this shutdown is getting pretty dumb. Thankfully Texas isn't as crazy as some of the other places (e.g. Michigan) but it's stupid that I can go shopping for darts at Academy Sports or buy hinges at Rockler but I can't buy paint at Benjamin Moore or buy filters at the local pool store. It's almost like we needed the shut down so the government could have time to figure out what they needed to do, which they should have known from the first or second week.

We are learning as we go. We have 50 states doing things a little differently and they will be taking different paths going forward. Will be really interesting to see what we figure out.

Utah has been pretty reasonable thus far.

[SeattleUte]

This is about tens of thousands of deaths caused every month worldwide by the shutdowns. Bear in mind that most hospitals are under-capacity or even empty. Brooklyn is not the archetype.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ng-deaths.html

[SeattleUte]

We are learning as we go. We have 50 states doing things a little differently and they will be taking different paths going forward. Will be really interesting to see what we figure out.

Utah has been pretty reasonable thus far.

So now we’re learning a little as we go. When the shutdown started you and CNN had no doubts, were full of bluster.

[Eddie]

We are learning as we go. We have 50 states doing things a little differently and they will be taking different paths going forward. Will be really interesting to see what we figure out.

Utah has been pretty reasonable thus far.

I think Utah has been relatively reasonable - I also think they've kind of done a statewide shutdown very similar to many other state shutdowns - but just called it by another name instead of calling it a shutdown. But when you read the directive from the governor - it's pretty dang close. Yet we still have people crying that we need the governor to shut things down!

That said - I think people's patience is about done.

My neighbor across the street has been one of the loudest of the social distancing crowd. Her facebook was initially filled with cries to stay home and stay safe while shaming anyone who doesn't comply. Her gradual move from "we need a real shutdown" to slowly doing less and less social distancing has been a sight to behold.

She made sure she had EVERYTHING she needed so that she wouldn't have to go shopping and self-isolated for the first 2-3 weeks. She's divorced and has a lot of family that lives nearby - parents a couple blocks away, a sister less than a mile away, etc. Her ex lives in the same town and has been pretty consistent taking his time with the kids. I have to give the dude credit too - she cries to him about not wanting to disrupt their schedule by sending them to church with him on his weekends - so he comes to our ward.

She was avoiding everyone to the degree that she wouldn't allow contact with any of the family, or even allow the kids to have contact with their Dad. Her ex brought a bunch of Easter stuff for them, hid eggs in their front yard, etc. Then stood by his car down the street while the kids found the eggs with gloves and masks on. Ha!

Last week her brother and his wife and one of her sisters show up and go in the house for 2-3 hours. A couple of days later I see her kids up at her parent's home. And then yesterday she's got her whole family - more than 10 of them from 4 different households - all in her backyard hanging out.

Personally, I don't care that she's having contact with her family. But I share this as an example of even the most ardent of social-distancing shelter-in-place folks getting restless and starting to push the "rules" that they once were pushing compliance for. If the government wants to open things up slowly to see what happens with positive tests, they need to start while a little bit of opening up feels like some freedom. If they wait too long, I think it's going to turn into a free-for-all.