Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

It’s a doggy dog world.

I was promised a recession.

The revolution will be supervised.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Wednesday/Thursday, March 11-12

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Wednesday/Thursday, March 11-12

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  2. 2.

    debbie

    Has there been any information about the specific type of pneumonia this can cause? Is it its own type or something more known, like from strep?

  3. 3.

    Chetan Murthy

    @debbie: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19

    Spectrum of illness severity — Most infections are not severe, although many patients with COVID-19 have critical illness [31,33-38]. Specifically, in a report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention that included approximately 44,500 confirmed infections with an estimation of disease severity [39]:

    ●Mild (no or mild pneumonia) was reported in 81 percent.

    ●Severe disease (eg, with dyspnea, hypoxia, or >50 percent lung involvement on imaging within 24 to 48 hours) was reported in 14 percent.

    ●Critical disease (eg, with respiratory failure, shock, or multiorgan dysfunction) was reported in 5 percent.

    ●The overall case fatality rate was 2.3 percent; no deaths were reported among noncritical cases.

  7. 7.

    Chetan Murthy

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/12/pelosi-trump-coronavirus-126178

    Mnuchin had just spent an hour huddling with Senate Republicans as President Donald Trump tried to sell wary GOP lawmakers on his plan to prevent an economic collapse from the coronavirus pandemic. Pelosi, who was having a hard time hearing Mnuchin due to poor cell phone reception, asked if he just wanted to come to her office across the Capitol instead.

    Just hours before, Trump had taken his latest shot at Pelosi in a morning tweet. But that didn’t deter the speaker, who huddled with Mnuchin for a 30-minute meeting in her office.

    I read this and my first thought was: “oh shit, she’s gonna get infected from one of these corpse-fuckers!”  Jeezzzzzzz, I hope she’s taking every possible precaution, and damn whether Mnuchin feels disrespected or not.

  8. 8.

    Punchy

    I suspect today”s the day Powell and/or Mnuchin is canned.  Dow futures are sub 1K and Agent Orange has no patience for this stuff.

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    @Punchy: I agree it seems like Trump is going to fire someone soon to shift blame, but good god, getting rid of either Mnuchin or Powell will panic investors even more.   Powell is competent.  Mnuchin is, i don’t  know, incompetent by normal standards but a financial genius compared to everyone else in the administration.

  10. 10.

    Shalimar

    Monday was only the 11th worst decline in Dow Jones Industrials history.  Another 2000 point fall will put Trump in the bottom 10.

  11. 11.

    TS (the original)

    PARIS — European officials strongly condemned President Trump’s decision to severely restrict travel from Europe to the United States on Thursday, a surprise decision that took them by surprise and that many saw as politically motivated.

    Of all the slights between Washington and Europe in recent years, the new travel restrictions had all the makings of a historic rupture.
    In a short statement on Thursday morning rare in its directness, the European Union expressed only exasperation.

    “The Coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,” the statement read, co-signed by E.U. Commission President Urusla von der Leyen and E.U. Council President Charles Michel.

    “The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation.”

    From the Washington Post

    Europe blindsided by Trump’s travel restrictions, with many seeing political motive

     

  12. 12.

    burnspbesq

    Whatever appears to work best, we can be confident that Trump will order the polar opposite.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @Shalimar:

    ut good god, getting rid of either Mnuchin or Powell will panic investors even more.

    Unless Trump replaces them with Jared.  Everyone trusts Jared.

  14. 14.

    Spanky

    I find it interesting that I never see Russia in the Covid-19 numbers

     

    ETA – The JHU numbers show 20 cases total and zero deaths. I’m, uhhh, skeptical.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    @Punchy

    Office of the chair of Federal Reserve is not one in which the holder serves at the pleasure of the president. So cannot be dismissed by the president. Pressured to resign, yes, but not fired.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    France, Spain and Germany are about 9 to 10 days behind Italy in #COVID19 progression; the UK and the US follow at 13 to 16 days. In Italy we waited too long,

    Italy is a mess not just because of their government, they are a mess because the Italians refused to follow the guidelines because not socializing was to much of a sacrifice for them. This is doesn’t work if the population refuses to go along.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Spanky: I posted yesterday, that Ukraine has taken the now-standardly-aggressive quarantine actions, while Russia has done nothing of the sort.

    They have, however, passed legislation allowing comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich to be President until 2036, so I’m sure they’ll be OK.

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @Spanky:  I’d think 20 cases and 0 deaths is believable for the first detection in a country.  If Russia’s been reporting the same numbers for a month (or are doing so a month from now) then yeah, they’re lying.

  22. 22.

    Lapassionara

    Looks like the travel ban only encompasses the Schengen Area, so many countries on the continent are not included. We can still go to Latvia!

  23. 23.

    Shalimar

    @Spanky: Ukraine started nationwide quarantine yesterday.  I agree it seems very doubtful Russia has less of a problem.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Posted in the wrong thread:

    FTFNYT, meanwhile, from a real world leader:

    Chancellor Angela Merkel is on her way out and her power is waning, but in her typically low-key, no-nonsense manner, the German leader on Wednesday laid out some cold, hard facts on the coronavirus in a way that few other leaders have.

    Two in three Germans may become infected, Ms. Merkel said at a news conference that reverberated far beyond her country. There is no immunity now against the virus and no vaccine yet. It spreads exponentially, and the world now faces a pandemic.

    The most important thing, the chancellor said, is to slow down the spread of the coronavirus to win time for people to develop immunity, and to prevent the health care system from becoming overwhelmed.

    “We have to understand that many people will be infected,” Ms. Merkel said. “The consensus among experts is that 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected as long as this remains the situation.”

    Ms. Merkel’s estimates were probably a worst-case scenario, though not wildly out of line with those of experts outside Germany.
    ………………..
    In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has staged photo-ops with scientists at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but with this crisis, as with others, he has seemed to pride himself on following his own advice. “I like this stuff, I really get it,” Mr. Trump said at the C.D.C. “People are surprised that I understand it.”

    Ms. Merkel, for her part, spent time studying science before becoming a politician: She is a trained physicist.

    On Wednesday, when she addressed her fellow Germans, flanked by the health minister and the head of the public health institute, she took pains to say that the information she was sharing had come from the experts. And that information, she said, informed the public health decisions being made by the authorities.
    …………………………..
    At the news conference on Wednesday, Ms. Merkel did not make big promises. Her announcement, sober in tone, was more a call to arms. The chancellor urged Germans to observe restrictions and stand in solidarity with one another, for the common good. Soccer games will play to empty stadiums. Big events will be canceled. If need be, Germany will even suspend its cherished balanced budget and borrow more.

    “We must take all necessary measures,” Ms. Merkel. “That is true for the government and everyone in a position of political responsibility. But it is also true for all citizens, the 83 million people who live in our country. It is about protecting older people, those with previous illnesses and vulnerable groups.”

    “This is putting our solidarity, our common sense and our openheartedness for one another to the test,” she said. “I hope that we will pass it.”

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: Well, if you’re going to repost your news, I guess I’ll repost my snark (after all the blog title promises a heaping helping):

    Ms. Merkel, for her part, spent time studying science before becoming a politician: She is a trained physicist.

    I suppose studying and training are OK, if you’re not able to pick it up by osmosis from your uncle at MIT.

    (And for added value in this thread:  That bragging strikes me as someone who knows deep inside that most of their family doesn’t have any real accomplishments.)

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    @Shalimar

    The Federal Reserve is a unique animal, not an agency of the executive. Emphasis added.

    The Federal Reserve System is not “owned” by anyone. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act to serve as the nation’s central bank. The Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., is an agency of the federal government and reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress.
    [snip]
    The Board—appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate—provides general guidance for the Federal Reserve System and oversees the 12 Reserve Banks. The Board reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress but, unlike many other public agencies, it is not funded by congressional appropriations. Source

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    It’s kind of amazing that Trump manages to do exactly the wrong thing, every time! Like he has some kind of incredible Stupid Instinct, and he has advisors with the same skill.

  32. 32.

    Shalimar

    @NotMax: I understand.   You understand.  But you seriously don’t think Jared is talking Trump down now from his plan to send the Secret Service over to physically oust Powell from the building?

  34. 34.

    WereBear

    Oh, and the word on the digital street is the death rate is for COVID19 among Type 1 diabetics is 100%.

    If you know any, bunker them NOW.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @Punchy

    Odd as it sounds to say it, there’s still enough of a majority in Congress that does, when it comes to things in their powerhouse.

  40. 40.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here’s how The Grauniad headlines the big speech: “‘He’s gonna get us all killed’: sense of unease after Trump coronavirus speech”

  41. 41.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @TS (the original): Of course he didn’t tell European leaders ahead of time. He probably only decided on that travel ban 5 minutes before he went on the air.

    I have a friend who works for the Fed. Her division was getting ready to shift to work from home next week. Some other divisions have already done that. This morning, the co-worker she spent most time with yesterday woke up with a 101 temperature.

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax:I’ll see your majority in Congress that cares enough to defend it’s prerogatives and raise you one cowardly, subservient Republican Senate.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: Oh shit, did not need to hear that, because my husband is 73 and a Type 1 diabetic. I sincerely hope the digital street is exaggerating. I’m not the panicking kind, but I’m getting more frazzled by the day because concern about this is always in the back of my mind.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m sure my friend has been too. Probably weeks or more. (not only is she very smart, she’s very competent too) Until you mentioned the FED tho, I hadn’t thought of her. This has probably got her working night and day.

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Punchy: Mnuchin maybe, but not Powell:

    The chair is the “active executive officer” of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. … The chair does not serve at the pleasure of the president, meaning that he or she cannot be dismissed by the president, though the chair can resign before the end of the term. (Wikipedia)

  49. 49.

    WereBear

    @Soprano2: Channel that energy into action. Create an “airlock” like Mnemosyne was talking about with her mother living with her brother. Mother stays in her area, brother comes home, showers and changes in the bathroom most distant from her.

    Bunker, people. Bunker!

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    I have been accumulating little things since I heard Trump fired Obama’s Pandemic Response Team. I knew what that meant.

    Prescriptions filled, pantry stocked, double cat food shipments. Nudged the office with info, moved my work at home days to today and tomorrow. We all have permission to work at home if we think we should.

    I think I should. I want to be part of the solution.

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We’re going to early vote today and I have a mammogram appointment next week. At the moment, I plan to still do those. I’ll go to the gym in the building in a few minutes, use the machine, and then take a weight class. That only people in this building plus the instructor. I don’t have to decide about my writer group until next Wednesday. It’s funny. I’m simultaneously alarmed and having a hard time seeing that group as a dangerous place to go because it’s so routine for me.

  52. 52.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: Well, we only have one bathroom, plus I can’t keep him from going out and doing things.  He’s not that worried about it, because he’s always had a strong constitution.  I wish we could do such a thing, but he’s stubborn, and I could never get him to go along with it.

  55. 55.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WereBear:  This sounds fishy to me. Particularly if earlier reports (repeated here many threads ago) on the putative cause of death from COVID-19 are valid. (To recap: SARS-CoV-2 is able to cross the blood-brain barrier – which apparently weakens with age – & upon entering the central nervous system interferes with the breathing reflex.)

    This mechanism doesn’t appear to have any relationship to the inability to produce insulin or blood sugar levels. I’d ask how many of those deaths were associated with better-established risk factors, e.g., age & other comorbidities.  I’d also ask for corresponding mortality rates amongst type II diabetics, again controlled for age & comorbidities.

    Correlation does not imply causation, as all statistics students learn. Also, Heinlein’s second-best way to lie: Tell the truth, but not all of it. (Not saying anyone in particular is lying about this, but they might, with no malice aforethought, be relaying something less than the whole truth.)

  56. 56.

    JR

    Is it just me or did Trump really look not well last night? He does a weird cough/hiccup at about 45 seconds in — if someone did that in front of me I’d be like you should get that checked out.

    I am a virologist and I worked with the CDC on the Zika response…while I do not claim special expertise on non-arthropod borne diseases, I can say that this is a clusterfuck of the first magnitude, and I can say with almost complete certainty that it was caused by political interference in the CDC’s work rather than incompetence at the CDC.

    And that selective European travel ban that excludes only the places where Trump has resorts? Absolutely crazy.

  57. 57.

    p.a.

    Signed up for a charity raffle at the pub last night without knowing what for.  WON!  4 Tix to soccer match at Gillette ???.  So far it has not been cancelled.  Unsure what I’ll do.  Trending towards no-go.

  58. 58.

    WereBear

    @Dupe1970: It’s personal, but from a very informed Type 1 with an informal care network. But really, that’s a serious — if manageable — illness and so they are very much at risk, anyway.

    If the “no co-morbidities” order goes out in overwhelmed hospitals… that will lead to a high risk all by itself.

  59. 59.

    snoey

    @JR:

    Stuff happens even at the CDC.  This is why there is supposed to be an organization that could have seen this as it happened and called for plan B on the test kits.  Too bad for us the wrong kind of President created it.

  60. 60.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m simultaneously alarmed and having a hard time seeing that group as a dangerous place to go because it’s so routine for me.

     

    Hurricane mornings are gorgeous. Because the whirling winds are just offshore and have sucked all the clouds into themselves.

    I’m reminded of the scene in Shaun of the Dead, where Simon Pegg goes through his normal routine while surrounded by zombies. And he is on auto-pilot and doesn’t notice.

  61. 61.

    JR

    @snoey: What I’m saying is that there was likely active suppression of the CDC’s response by a political appointee. Nobody at the CDC is this incompetent.

  62. 62.

    WereBear

    @Soprano2: I wish we could do such a thing, but he’s stubborn, and I could never get him to go along with it.

     

    Then try the second best thing and put him to bed as soon as he doesn’t feel well. Rest might let his body dodge complications. That’s the real issue. If things do get really bad, he might be a victim of rationed care. That can certainly contribute to a bad outcome.

  63. 63.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @JR: And that selective European travel ban that excludes only the places where Trump has resorts? Absolutely crazy.

    Not entirely crazy. The travel ban applies to the Schengen zone, which includes most of the EU plus Iceland but excludes the UK and Ireland.

    Within this region, people move freely, without customs or border controls. Travelers from outside the zone (e.g., USA) encounter passport and customs control when they enter the zone, but not again until & unless they leave it.

    Someone from a Schengen country (e.g., Italy) could travel  anywhere else within the Schengen zone without ever being screened for anything. (I myself have literally walked across a bridge connecting Germany & Poland at Görlitz in Germany and Zgorolec in Poland with nary an official in sight – and a longer one over the Danube between Štúrovo in Slovakia and Esztergom in Hungary with nothing but a small sign to show the change in jurisdiction.) So if you want to keep residents of a Schengen country with a high COVID-19 presence out of the US without being screened for the virus over there, you basically have to exclude residents from the entire zone.

    The real problem in transmission is allowing US citizens, permanent residents, etc. to come home. IIUC the plan is to restrict return flights to a limited number of US airports where screening facilities (& quarantine/isolation housing) can be set up. Somehow I doubt that’s going to work all that well.

  64. 64.

    WereBear

    This just in:

     

    The most distinctive comorbidities of 32 non-survivors from a group of 52 intensive care unit patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the study by Xiaobo Yang and colleagues
    1
    were cerebrovascular diseases (22%) and diabetes (22%). Another study
    2
    included 1099 patients with confirmed COVID-19, of whom 173 had severe disease with comorbidities of hypertension (23·7%), diabetes mellitus (16·2%), coronary heart diseases (5·8%), and cerebrovascular disease (2·3%). In a third study,
    3
    of 140 patients who were admitted to hospital with COVID-19, 30% had hypertension and 12% had diabetes. Notably, the most frequent comorbidities reported in these three studies of patients with COVID-19 are often treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors; however, treatment was not assessed in either study.

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30116-8/fulltext

    However, even more important was the three deaths in my person’s health circle. That WILL make a person sit up and take notice, FYI.

  65. 65.

    snoey

    @Uncle Cosmo:  Particularly if earlier reports (repeated here many threads ago) on the putative cause of death from COVID-19 are valid. (To recap: SARS-CoV-2 is able to cross the blood-brain barrier – which apparently weakens with age – & upon entering the central nervous system interferes with the breathing reflex.)

     

    Per my daughter the ID Doc:

    No, people die of pneumonia

  67. 67.

    Sebastian

    @Spanky:

     

    Russia, and especially their male population, will be among the hardest hit globally. Medical care is atrocious, highest rate of smokers globally (for men), machoism, poor, no information/disinformation.

    On the other hand, Russians tend to be smart and science oriented.

  68. 68.

    Bruce K

    I feel like a selfish heel for thinking like this at this sort of time, but…

    Dual national, US and Greece. Almost everyone I care about, including the most important person in my life, is in the US and I’m in Greece. If I stay isolated from them for too long I’ll go insane. I booked flights for a 1-week trip to Baltimore, May 1-8. I can’t figure out what last night’s news does to my plans.

    Quarantine? Exile? Never see my loved ones again?

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    @Sebastian:

    This virus is going to decimate America. Hypertension? Diabetes? You just described 65% of the country.

     
    I know! Which is why I’ve been, in person, accused of OVERreacting ever since the news broke that, hey, BTW, we don’t have a working CDC any more.

    I hit the alarm then and didn’t stop. I made sure the manager chairing our what-to-do work meeting got the Italy news right between the eyes. I switched my work at home days to the end of the week this week because we were 11 days out from total mayhem… a few days ago.

    I’m not an epidemiologist but I do listen to them.

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    “Be cool! Step out in style! Relax and enjoy your shoes! Relax and enjoy your shoes!!“

  72. 72.

    Fair Economist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Italy is mostly a problem from the lag to hospitalization. Aside from quaranting the  dozen initial towns, significant distancing only started about 2 weeks ago. Reported cases should go linear about now.

  73. 73.

    Spanky

    Dow Jones record high in February was 29568. Closing value on Inauguration Day 2017 was 19827. A few minutes ago it was 21779.

    All of Trump’s “beautiful” stock market. Wiped. Out.

    Gotta stock up on cat food. I have no idea what the cats are going to eat.

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