Coronavirus thread

[deaddmwalking]

World leaders don't get standard care.

[Whatever]

World leaders don't get standard care.

Are you imagining that there's a secret cure for SARS-CoV-2 that's only available if you're the PM of the United Kingdom? He'll get the best they can give, which is to try to keep his body alive and hope he recovers on his own before the virus or the ventilator destroys his lungs for good.

[Thaluikhain]

It more and more looks like this pandemic will be an event of historical proportions and significance on-par with the world wars or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Should China clearly took over the US as the diplomatic and economic superpower in the next few years, the pandemic will certainly be looked at as the turning point. So I'd expect conspiracy theories about China purposedly lying about the virus/hiding key data/having undermined medical supply lines for years/spreading the disease/... to become standard talking points of US nationalists.

Conspiracy theories are likely to stay around, we're seeing plenty of them already.

OTOHl, I don't see China (or anyone) stepping into a US shaped whole in the world's power structure. The US will continue to lose its grip on being the sole hyperpower or whatever (faster than usual), but at most I'd expect we'd go back to having superpowers, plural, rather than one replacement.

[DSMatticus]

The point is often made that you can't eat money, but you also can't inject it into your veins.

It's important to understand that when we put you on a ventilator for pneumonia (COVID-19 related or no), we are managing a symptom of an underlying condition. That symptom is not being able to breathe, and you would certainly die if we didn't manage it, but the underlying condition is that there is an infection in your body so staggeringly massive that it's begun to cause organ failure localized to its initial point of entry into your body (your lungs), and the extent to which that infection goes systemic will decide how many of your organs are piles of viral goop and inflammatory secretions 1-2 weeks from now.

So while we have an effective-ish strategy for managing the potentially lethal symptom of not having working lungs, there is no known strategy for managing a potentially systemic viral infection by COVID-19. We don't have anything proven to work. We just keep you alive while COVID-19 and your immune system battle across every inch of your body, in the hope that there will be enough left of you to call a functioning human being when the battle is over. We don't really have any control over whether or not that's the case - not even if you're a very rich and very powerful person.

[Orca]

If you're not Boris Johnson or his nearest and dearest, then 5% or 50% chance of his dying hardly matters - for those in gov't they need to plan for both possibilities and regardless he can't be effectively in charge for months if he ever is again. Dominic Raab will take whatever credit there is to be had for the UK's coronavirus response, Boris will take the blame, and Boris will dance on strings or be forced to retire if he survives.

[Username17]

The Tories have already done the "don't admit how bad it is" thing for over two days with Boris' illness. It was obvious based on actions that they took that Johnson had Coronavirus on aWednesday, but they didn't actually admit that he had it until the Friday. Also even this week when he went into hospital they claimed he was staying overnight for some tests, and admitted the next day that oh yeah, actually he's in Intensive Care.

Whenever they say how bad it is, the assumption is always that it's probably worse than that, because they continuously and repeatedly lie about exactly this issue.

Anyway, Labour has a new leader who can talk like a normal person, but it doesn't matter because the Tories were handed an absolute majority by Corbyn and they can in fact do absolutely anything they want. They also don't have to hold new parliamentary elections until the end of 2024, so they aren't going to. And they've suspended local elections due to the pandemic and don't have to hold those at all.

My assumption is that they intend to allow all the fuckups of Brexit to be subsumed in the pandemic catastrophe and just ignore all the harm they did to the country. And since they don't have to face an electorate until everyone is vaccinated, it will probably work.

-Username17

[maglag]

Remember when back in February UK companies outright banned their workers from wearing masks?

Meanwhile in the USA people who still get to go to work but wear a mask are getting straight-out fired.

So hmmm, yeah, good luck containing it like that.

[Korwin]

Apparently if you get put on mechanical ventilators, it's bad news (like DSM allready told)
From the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL5qEluaBhc
63% deaths from those concluded*
16% deaths from those on basic respiratory support

* died or discharged alive

[Username17]

Being put on a ventilator is always bad news. Lung function is permanently in addition to temporarily reduced whenever you do something shitty to the lungs. That's why smoking is so bad for you later in life even if you stop at some point (and why it's even worse when you don't stop).

If you need a ventilator, it's because your current lung function isn't enough to keep you alive. If you survive on the ventilator long enough to get over whatever your acute problem was, there will probably be long-term damage to your lung function. If that permanently damaged lung function is insufficient to keep you alive off the ventilator, you never get off the ventilator and eventually die.

The ventilators are the only hope of people who need them. But if you need them, that's really not good.

-Username17

[Iduno]

Remember when back in February UK companies outright banned their workers from wearing masks?

Meanwhile in the USA people who still get to go to work but wear a mask are getting straight-out fired.

So hmmm, yeah, good luck containing it like that.

I am being required to wear one (reasonable), and also have to provide my own.


Edit: And at least one coworker who isn't going to the doctor because of the expense. Fever over 100 F, breathing problems, the whole thing.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Why New York has 12 times as many coronavirus deaths as California
California is not in the clear yet, but its experience so far has some potential takeaways.

[...]

But California also acted more quickly than New York once it became clear that coronavirus was starting to spread in the US. The San Francisco Bay Area issued America’s first shelter-in-place order on March 16, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order three days later.

New York, meanwhile, didn’t issue a statewide stay-at-home order until March 22. (New York City didn’t implement its own order beforehand; Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he didn’t believe it would work if only one city did it.)

And there’s evidence that social distancing was taken more seriously in some parts of California even before it was government-mandated.

[...]

It seemed like California might have overreacted. It didn’t.

One of the big lessons from California: “Anytime you are dealing with an outbreak, if it appears like you overreacted, then you probably did the right thing,” Kuppalli said.

[...]

To avoid New York’s situation, states can’t let up on social distancing early

That California has so far avoided an outbreak as bad as New York’s does not mean that the state is in the clear now. To the contrary, experts cautioned, with the coronavirus still spreading quickly across the US, it’s entirely possible at this point that an outbreak could begin in any state where social distancing measures aren’t taken seriously.

To that end, California and other states will likely need to maintain such restrictions for the next few weeks, if not months. Even once states see the number of coronavirus cases and deaths decline, they will need to wait some time from now for the threat to really be over.

[...]

For California and other states, the goal now is to not only get those curves flattened and bending downward in the next few weeks, but also make sure there isn’t another bump up.

To some degree, that’ll require vigilance until a vaccine for Covid-19 is developed, which could take another year or more.

Summary:

• Population density probably played a part.
• California started mandatory social distancing a week earlier.
• California did more voluntary social distancing before it became mandatory.
• Appropriate reaction to a pandemic looks like overreaction to the public.
• Don't let up the fight until Coronavirus is actually defeated, because it could make a comeback if we hesitate. (NB: this will probably not be until 2021)

IOW: California doesn't need someone doing daily briefings like Cuomo, because they have people who were on the ball before this became catastrophic, and as a result, it is far less catastrophic there.

Gee, if only people could have started preparing two months earlier. Or four months if the PRC wasn't deliberately keeping the pandemic secret as long as it could.

[Shiritai]

Remember when back in February UK companies outright banned their workers from wearing masks?

Meanwhile in the USA people who still get to go to work but wear a mask are getting straight-out fired.

So hmmm, yeah, good luck containing it like that.

I am being required to wear one (reasonable), and also have to provide my own.

Edit: And at least one coworker who isn't going to the doctor because of the expense. Fever over 100 F, breathing problems, the whole thing.

Does your coworker have any health insurance at all? The majority of insurers in the US are waving copays for COVID diagnosis and treatment.

[Leress]

Boris is in stable condition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ObqYGQPyYo

[Username17]

Boris is in stable condition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ObqYGQPyYo

Well, according to The Guardian he's still in Intensive Care. There are certainly reasons to spend two nights strait in the Intensive Care Unit, and it's possible that they are afraid to step down the Prime Minister because no one wants to be the person who gambled with the Prime Minister's life.

The great bit is the part where the British press is starting to notice that Johnson nominating Raab to be his successor doesn't actually have the force of law and the UK doesn't have a formal means of investing executive power to another person while the Prime Minister is incapacitated.

I am shocked (but not that shocked) that the UK went through the entire Cold War without ever writing up a line of succession. But I'm genuinely ruefully disgusted that the British mainstream press didn't fact check this shit with constitutional lawyers two weeks ago while Boris Johnson was still pretending to not even be sick. Now he's been in Intensive Care for two nights straight and now the British Press is starting to ask the hard questions of what the people who aren't on oxygen supplementation can even legally do.

The amount of stupidity and complacency about all this in England is exhausting and infuriating by turns.

-Username17

[Leress]

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/new ... JwM28ycFKE

Ol' Miss Medical making relatively available ventilators. Still needs FDA approval.

[Iduno]

Does your coworker have any health insurance at all? The majority of insurers in the US are waving copays for COVID diagnosis and treatment.

Thanks, I'll let him know.

Hopefully he'll have better luck with them than I did.

[Username17]

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/new ... JwM28ycFKE

Ol' Miss Medical making relatively available ventilators. Still needs FDA approval.

The concern with proper ventilation is the pressure at least as much as the rate. I get how the lamp timer sets the respiratory rate, but I don't see how they modulate the pressure in response to varying levels of lung obstruction.

I would have to be very desperate to use one of those - since it seems more like bagging a patient during CPR than like putting them on a proper ventilator. However, I can very easily imagine getting that desperate and a lot of countries already are.

-Username17

[Leress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVK_Xs2tRo

A human trial is coming in May.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhnsGHep-HA

What Frank was talking about regarding ventilators

[Username17]

As we can see with the absolutely horrifying virus responses enacted by Republicans at all levels of government, there is an absolutely titanic difference between the shittiest Democrat and the most noble Republican. But... bureaucratic competence still matters. The difference between a competent Democrat and a random left-of-center gadfly is also stark.

America's densest metropolitan area is a horror show. The leadership is doing the right things and people are getting life saving treatment. But recall that the country's second densest metropolitan area is actually doing relatively OK. San Francisco is doing much better than New York, and even much better than smaller and less dense cities across the country.





London Breed has a future in Democratic national politics while De Blasio… does not.

-Username17

[deaddmwalking]

The total number of unemployment claims for the last 3 weeks now exceeds 16 million.

There are approximately 165 Million 'workers' in America. 10% of them have filed unemployment in the last 3 weeks. Previously, approximately 5% of workers were unemployed. The overall unemployment rate in the United States should be around 15%.

Good statistics of how this breaks down for April won't be available until June.

[Kaelik]

"Beaurcratic competence" of center leftists has never proved more incapable and unhelpful.

Cuomo has been extremely competent in leveraging a pandemic to pass the medicaid cuts he wanted and locking up more people in jails where they continue to be infected and die.

Its specifically because of Cuomos ideological commitments against the left that he wont do things he could do which would help like release and isolate prisoners in hotels or close down businesses in a timely manner or acknowledge that ny healthcare was not up for the challenge.

The story of NY is that being a "competent" centrist bureaucrat doesn't make you any better at dealing with the virus than an incompetent fool like De Blasio and you make the same mistakes in different areas because of ideology.

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/new ... s.amp.html

[RadiantPhoenix]

"Beaurcratic competence" of center leftists has never proved more incapable and unhelpful.

Cuomo has been extremely competent in leveraging a pandemic to pass the medicaid cuts he wanted and locking up more people in jails where they continue to be infected and die.

Its specifically because of Cuomos ideological commitments against the left that he wont do things he could do which would help like release and isolate prisoners in hotels or close down businesses in a timely manner or acknowledge that ny healthcare was not up for the challenge.

The story of NY is that being a "competent" centrist bureaucrat doesn't make you any better at dealing with the virus than an incompetent fool like De Blasio and you make the same mistakes in different areas because of ideology.

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/new ... s.amp.html

Were you replying to Frank's most recent post? Because I'm pretty sure that, at least in this one, he was holding up London Breed as the example of a "competent democrat" compared to De Blasio's "random left-of-center gadfly", not Cuomo.

As we can see with the absolutely horrifying virus responses enacted by Republicans at all levels of government, there is an absolutely titanic difference between the shittiest Democrat and the most noble Republican. But... bureaucratic competence still matters. The difference between a competent Democrat and a random left-of-center gadfly is also stark.

America's densest metropolitan area is a horror show. The leadership is doing the right things and people are getting life saving treatment. But recall that the country's second densest metropolitan area is actually doing relatively OK. San Francisco is doing much better than New York, and even much better than smaller and less dense cities across the country.





London Breed has a future in Democratic national politics while De Blasio… does not.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Were you replying to Frank's most recent post? Because I'm pretty sure that, at least in this one, he was holding up London Breed as the example of a "competent democrat" compared to De Blasio's "random left-of-center gadfly", not Cuomo.

Yes he was ignoring the competent centrist bureaucrat who failed miserably in all the same ways because it undermines his narrative.

It's almost like the difference between California and New York had nothing to do with "competent Democrats" vs dumb "Left of Center Gadflies" who are somehow not Democrats for this pretend example, and in fact is more about how some "competent bureaucrats" fucked up and some didn't.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Were you replying to Frank's most recent post? Because I'm pretty sure that, at least in this one, he was holding up London Breed as the example of a "competent democrat" compared to De Blasio's "random left-of-center gadfly", not Cuomo.

Yes he was ignoring the competent centrist bureaucrat who failed miserably in all the same ways because it undermines his narrative.

It's almost like the difference between California and New York had nothing to do with "competent Democrats" vs dumb "Left of Center Gadflies" who are somehow not Democrats for this pretend example, and in fact is more about how some "competent bureaucrats" fucked up and some didn't.

... I had assumed that "competent Democrat" was not meant to be a redundant title, but rather a subset of Democrats.

That being said, I think it would definitely be good to get a clean admission from Cuomo that he fucked up by not responding more aggressively and more promptly to the pandemic, even though it might have caused some short term economic damage. ( Though if the invisible hand were as smart as people like to claim it is, it would find a way to mitigate that damage. )

[Username17]

RadiantPhoenix, please stop copying Kaelik's mad rantings. I have him on ignore because he's a mental case who constantly argues in bad faith. What the ever loving fuck does Cuomo's stance on Medicaid disbursement have to do with comparisons of mayor actions in the nation's two densest cities? Cuomo isn't the mayor of either city and Medicaid doesn't make a lot of difference one way or the other once everything goes into lockdown.

For fuck's sake, it's not hard. de Blasio fucked around for several weeks before getting to work and Breed didn't. And now New York is full of zombies and San Francisco isn't.

In other news Newsom >> Cuomo >>>> DeSantis. But none of that had anything to do with what I was talking about and Kaelik is still a gibbering hatebear. Please stop quotng his bullshit.

-Username17