He is exactly the person we thought he was:
After President Donald Trump issued scathing comments about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying she’s “not stepping up,” and “doesn’t know what’s going on,” she told WWJ 950 the state is having trouble getting the equipment they need to fight the novel coronavirus.
“What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts — They’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan,” Whitmer said live on air. “It’s really concerning, I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
The other stuff was Trump speaking with Sean Hannity on FOX News about Whitmer, a Democrat who has said very pointed things about the federal government’s lack of coordinated response to the coronavirus crisis. Trump said of Whitmer, “She is a new governor, and it’s not been pleasant … “We’ve had a big problem with the young — a woman governor. You know who I’m talking about — from Michigan. We don’t like to see the complaints.”
Michigan’s request for disaster assistance has not yet been approved by the White House, and Trump told Hannity he’s still weighing it.
Emphasis mine. People are going to die because of Trump’s gigantic ego, but their needless deaths won’t just be on Trump. They’ll be on every Senate Republican except Mitt Romney because the senators had a chance to remove this deranged bully from power before disaster struck, and they didn’t do their duty.
Nora
I guess his assholery with respect to New York doesn’t really matter as we were NEVER going to vote for him anyway, but imagine telling the governor of the state at the epicenter of the epidemic that you just feel he’s asking for too many ventilators.
He needs Michigan. He only won it by 10,000 votes last time, and it’s a swing state. But he doesn’t care.
laura
This needs to be wired around every single solitary Republican’s neck like an egg suck dog. Let them live with the consequences of their inactions and may they be reviled and shunned and spat upon every time they open their pie holes from now till the end of time. Fuck those fucking fucks.
MJS
@Nora:
He’s acting like someone who doesn’t care, or like someone who thinks the fix is in, so he doesn’t have to even pretend to care.
Emma from FL
If anybody is interested: https://www.law.miami.edu/faculty/speaker-series
SPECIAL: THE LAW OF COVID-19 WEBINAR
alkequash
Idi Amin Dada :
“In any country there must be
people who have to die. They
are the sacrifices any nation has
to make to achieve law and
order.”
Martin
Governors need to stop being nice to him. They’re still getting fucked but it’s happening in the dark where nobody can see it. Push it into the light. Force Senators to defend it. Force the media to bring it up. We can’t fight a pandemic while trying to negotiate with a domestic abuser.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MJS: None of Trump’s actions during this have been rational by his own logic. I think he in way over his head and just try to bluff his way threw now.
WaterGirl
Holy shit. Trump needs to be removed now. He is a tyrant king.
MomSense
I want him hanged.
schrodingers_cat
Can he be impeached for his dereliction of duty?
Archon
When does a sociopathic level of negligence end and criminality begin?
Kelly
We’re still healthy and maintaining isolation. Mrs. Kelly is very down just now because the Salem, OR Art Fair for early July is canceled. We go every year. It draws wonderful artists from far away. It’s not the individual event that has gotten to her but the realization this is going to be the situation for a while. We may not visit the grandkids all summer let alone the usual summer overnight stays playing in the river.
satby
@MomSense: me, too.
frosty
Thanks for the reminder. I just left a message for Toomey telling him his cowardly vote to keep Trump in office will lead to the deaths of thousands of his constituents and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
VMG
Let’s be real, though, given Pence’s record with HIV in Indiana, a lot of us would probably also still be killed even if Trump had been removed
But since this current pandemic is highly likely to become a permanent seasonal disease, it will still be incredibly important to remove both of these incompetent malicious assholes in November
Major Major Major Major
Interesting charts from 538. The fastest detected-case growth is in Trump states, while the most testing is being done in Clinton states. This suggests that Texas in particular is fucked, with the highest growth rate this week (297% to New York’s 78%, California’s 73%, Washington’s 29%) and one of the lowest testing rates (7.4 per 10k to New York’s 62.8).
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-coronavirus-isnt-just-a-blue-state-problem/
MattF
@Archon: And where will it end? One needs to know.
trollhattan
Today marks off a few checklist items, namely two weeks since our last public event, two weeks since my last “regular” workday at the office, three weeks since the kiddo’s last day of school. We don’t know anybody who has tested positive and just one healthcare professional who has been self-quarantining because he was exposed at work and one of his daughters is immunocompromised.
So far, so…good? No news is certainly good news and this was one of the country’s earlier areas with cases and deaths and the locals have been on edge longer than many.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh and Boris Johnson has the virus.
TriassicSands
Betty, you wrote this in your last post:
I’m afraid that won’t happen. It is probably more likely that those people will “learn” exactly the wrong lesson from this. After all, they didn’t get where they are because of their towering intellects. This is America, where the stupid and ignorant far outnumber the smart and informed.
Martin
Addressing the dichotomy between state closure orders is going to be hard when this is over.
L85NJGT
Stalker behavior. Michigan betrayed him by electing a woman, and politically they are looking to scapegoat a woman. See Kathleen Blanco & Katrina.
She needs to tell him to pound sand.
West of the Rockies
I believe it likely that Michigan will no longer be a swing state. No way Clump doesn’t lose some support there now.
Major Major Major Major
Two of my friends probably have it (minor lung stuff, no sense of smell, mild fever, also they are boyfriends). I went for a walk near the second one Saturday; he started showing symptoms on Monday or Tuesday. I kept my distance and had a mask and we were outside, and it’s been almost a week, so statistically I’m probably fine. Still! Yikes!
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: That’s because many states with Dem governors told the FDA and Trump to fuck themselves. Tests in WA and CA were rolled out in opposition to FDA orders.
States that can do this without the feds are in much better shape than smaller states that can’t. Some states are reliant on the Feds. Others just choose to be.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Dude, stay inside. You’re still building up those NY grime antigens. It takes a while.
trollhattan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yup. Somehow this is good news for Brexit. So does the health secretary and the chief medical officer is showing symptoms.
Jolly good show.
Cermet
if only the orange gas cloud developed Covir-19 himself and required a venalator; his view might change, a bit. Better still if he progressed to end stage and made all the world a cleaner place. Still, the royal f-up in Iraq by the cheney led gov killed far more innocent people than the fart cloud appears headed for. Karma might be a bitch after all.
bemused
Has trump retaliated against male Democrat governors stiffing them on getting medical supplies? If he has done this to Gov Whitmer which I wouldn’t doubt, it would be more likely that he would pick on a woman.
Leto
@Major Major Major Major: if it wasn’t for the fact there’s a lot of good people in those states, I’d say wall them off and let them live with the consequences of their actions. They’re party of self responsibility, correct? You had a chance to do the right thing and you failed. Live with it.
I’m voting in November regardless of what happens. In no way can these fuckers be allowed to control anything. I don’t even want them controlling the road sign directing traffic during a construction event. Combine this with Puerto Rico and the amount of deaths he’s directly responsible for is just staggering.
cain
@L85NJGT:
Even if she manages to pull Michigan through, through leadership and what not, Trump will claim victory and gaslight the whole thing saying it’s because of him.
It’s absolutely amazing the power this man wields on the psyche of this country. That he can make complete fabrications and get away with it scot-free because of a pliant party and even more pliant voter base. It’s quite frightening.
We just got a meeting about layoffs and so far, I’m safe for now, but who knows in two months. Govt competence is going to be something that we are going to look to if we want to survive this crises somehow.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Texas managed to elect a lieutenant governor even worse than the vile Abbott, so I can only wish them well.
Just Chuck
Time to draw up new articles of impeachment. I hope Whitmer refers this to the Michigan AG.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: I do stay inside. I also sometimes go for a walk, which is allowed and even encouraged by most lockdown policies and public health experts. There are not very many people to dodge along the East River over here.
Adam L Silverman
Well that clarifies this bit from last night’s Task Force press conference!
lgerard
There has got to be something, somewhere in the Constitution about best “two out of three” votes on impeachment
low-tech cyclist
No reason the House shouldn’t give the Senate another chance, specifically on account of Trump’s dereliction of duty with respect to COVID-19. I’ve said this elsewhere, but I really don’t get why there aren’t calls for Trump to resign, for his Cabinet to invoke the 25th, for the House to impeach.
It’s blatantly obvious that Donald Trump is the main obstacle to an effective and coordinated national approach to fighting the coronavirus. So getting rid of him – or at least throwing another opportunity to do so in the Senate’s face, to be held against them in November if they refuse it – should be Job 1.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
He should be, but
HumboldtBlue
We saw the radio mashup a few days ago and it’s a song I’ve belted (and it happens to be a song perfect for my range and when I say belt it I mean belt it) out many a night while stirring a pot for dinner and now the NHS staff have gotten in on the act.
Just Chuck
@West of the Rockies: Nope. Rural Michigan will say it’s mostly the blahs and mooslims in Detroit who deserved to die, and everyone who dies outside the city is just making a sacrifice for Dear Leader, with the real fault being with the governor for being just a stupid girl who didn’t know enough to kiss the ring.
Trump’s cult will rationalize _anything_. It’s the closest approximation of rationality they have.
Martin
@trollhattan: Californians are mostly past the point of highest risk. If you don’t have symptoms by now, the odds of contracting it are falling fast. Ms Martin has some symptoms but not others – no fever. She’s not accustomed to being cooped up like this and tends to get stress headaches and depression lethargy, so we think it’s nothing other than that. Symptoms usually develop after 6 days on average, but can take up to 11. It’s been 8 for state lockdown and 11 for Bay Area. It’ll be nice to see states getting checked off that list.
Also, it’ll still spread after lockdowns, but the odds of spread drop with each day. Still need to keep our guards up, keep following instructions. Always act like you can get it when you’re out and about, but if you’re healthy, remind yourself that you’re increasingly likely to stay healthy so long as you keep doing it.
4 weeks ago today was my last day in the office.
eric
@Martin: here is Minute Physics explaining growth of the virus
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: When I lived there we would have commented that there weren’t many people to dodge in the East River.
Hunker down hard, man. NYC is about to go through some shit.
ET
Didn’t he win Michigan? Doesn’t he need to win it again?
Hoodie
I wouldn’t say that Trump has an enormous ego. Cuomo has a big ego; Trump’s is fragile. He views even the most innocent comment as a slight or insult, he requires constant catering to his insecurities. You see that a lot of the people around him have fallen into that practice, ritually praising him at each public communication.
He seems to be showing even greater levels of fragility during this crisis, which I suspect is because he feels completely out of control and, at least subconsciously, realizes he fucked up royally and may be held responsible the deaths of thousands and untold economic damage. Trump has never done anything remotely serious in his entire life and is completely unequipped to deal with life and death decisions. All he cares about is self-protection and, because of his sociopathic tendencies, he appears to think he can undo the economic damage by sacrificing lives, rationalizing that somehow the economic damage won’t be equally as bad or worse if he goes ahead with his insane notions regarding lifting of restrictions, failing to invoke the DPA, etc.
West of the Rockies
@Major Major Major Major:
Keep in mind that an asymptomatic carrier is less likely to be shedding the virus–no sneezing, coughing, etc. Best wishes, 4M.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TriassicSands:
Trump isn’t going to come out of this smelling like roses, I can guarantee that
Adam L Silverman
In case anyone was wondering where the US’s medical surplus supplies for responding to a public health outbreak went, they went to China at the beginning of February.
https://ge.usembassy.gov/the-united-states-announces-assistance-to-combat-the-novel-coronavirus-february-7/
low-tech cyclist
Yikes indeed – hope you stay well, and best wishes for your friends to recover quickly!
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: I’m pretty sure the super-fast growth in MA on their chart is because massive testing by Quest Diagnostics happened to kick in during their sample period.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
I don’t get it. Aren’t you just as susceptible once you go back into society? Aren’t we all susceptible until there’s a vaccine/treatment?
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
It’s almost as if his boasting about “shaking the hands of coronavirus patients” (He didn’t, it was a lie) and giving press-conferences with zero social distancing in which he’d blather on justifying his Government’s politically motivated foot-dragging (while people were loudly coughing in the background) might not have been the actions of an era-defining genius.
tldr – Area bellend gets what he deserves shocker.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That doesn’t mean it will work. He’s gotten away with shit because of a lot of his base hasn’t been affected by his worst fuck-ups. A virus doesn’t care who you voted for
Just Chuck
@zhena gogolia: If fewer people are spreading it, fewer people have it, and your odds of getting it drop.
bemused
Two main characteristics drive trump, craving adulation and enacting vengeance.
catclub
I am disappoint. I am no longer shocked.
waspuppet
@Nora: Donald Trump is a domestic and substance abuser. Abusers never, ever think “Gee, I might need this person/state/etc., so I maybe shouldn’t piss them off.”*
She made him feel bad, so he must make her feel bad. That’s all they do. That’s all they know.
*(Whatever else you wanna say about Mob bosses, they know this, which is why I object whenever someone calls Trump that.)
Also: Trump thinks that not referring to Whitmer by name makes him sound tough. It makes him sound senile. But one look at the guy makes it clear that self-awareness is just not something he does,
John Revolta
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah he’s talking about Jay Inslee there. What’s disgusting is how nobody calls him on his dime-store mobster shit at these con-ferences.
Mary G
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: I don’t see the numbers of new cases in California really tailing off yet. There might be an inflection point just barely visible.
JoyceH
““What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts — They’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan,” Whitmer said live on air”
Good golly! If that’s true, and it ought to be easily determined by sworn testimony of the contractors in question, that calls for a Congressional inquiry (when we reach the point where we can do that again), and if it turns out to be true – Impeach him again!
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay:
He thinks he’s Napoleon at Jaffa.
West of the Rockies
@ET:
He won by 10,000 votes. If he loses 5,001 of those, he loses. Call me an optimist, but after these last 3 years and now this, I think 5,000 Michiganers will wake up.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: I am well aware. We have started getting groceries delivered (IMO the biggest danger I could face would be at the grocery store). I also sometimes go for walks on thoroughly deserted streets while wearing a mask (both for myself and as a courtesy to others) in order to pick up takeout. The odds of transmission unless I get hit by a runaway infected cyclist are vanishingly low.
That said, this is not like a habit or anything.
Ksmiami
@MomSense: and his enablers and his family. And and and.
Martin
@eric: That’s a VERY good video.
It does what my post yesterday is also trying to do. We take different approaches – they use cases, which I don’t trust, where I use fatalities that I argue is more reliable (though not perfect). The upside to cases is that you see that break point sooner, where fatalities takes longer. The downside is that they’re having to take a 1 week average, so they’re losing a bit of that advantage through a moving average.
But in the end we’re both doing the same thing. My other reason for tracking fatalities is that politically that will matter in the end. Nobody will care how many people got sick, but the number who died will be everywhere. It will forever be attached to this event, and it’s the number that motivates people.
But I strongly encourage everyone to watch it. It’s just a few minutes, and it does a good job of explaining the weaknesses of the model, almost all of which apply to mine as well.
trollhattan
@Martin:
A hopeful summary, thanks. My arbitrary wishful target is we make through the next two weeks without maxing out the area’s hospital capacity. We receive patients from a huge geographic mostly rural area in addition to the metroplex and the timing may differ. i.e., might there be a delay before the farflung regions are impacted? It could spread out their impact to healthcare.
Prisons and jails are gonna present their own problems.
Betty Cracker
In case you need a laugh.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major:
Sounds right. I am really, really dreading this asshole lifting the restrictions in a couple weeks.
trollhattan
@West of the Rockies:
And perhaps with a D governor, lack of voter suppression will get another 10k Biden voters to the polls.
Major Major Major Major
Daily temperature check, no fevers here, husband still coughing and sneezing because WHY WON’T YOU TAKE YOUR ANTIHISTAMINES DUDE
Hildebrand
My good friend was just released from the hospital today. He had a nasty bout of pneumonia stemming from COVID-19. He needed oxygen but never needed to be on the ventilator. He said its pretty damned grim in the hospital. I am thrilled he is home.
Fair Economist
@Martin:
I wish that were true, but the case diagnoses are not showing it. Cali and Washington are showing distinctly slower growth than most of the country but we are getting close to 2 weeks of sheltering in the Bay Area and still not flattening. Cali is complicating analyses by ramping up testing, starting a day or so ago, but it still doesn’t look to be flattening.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
OMG, cat=small child to a T. :-)
Subsole
@West of the Rockies: Do we have any Michiganders here? How likely IS this to cost him?
mrmoshpotato
FUCK YOU, YOU TRAITOROUS, SOVIET SHITPILE MOBSTER CONMAN! You’re a public servant, you bitch-ass motherfucker!
You fucking serve the public!
We’re allowed to complain! We SHOULD complain!
Don’t like it? FUCKING RESIGN!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Good! Does your husband get allergies around this time? That’s probably what it is
Two weeks ago, I remembered we needed cold medicine and some of the decongestants were out of date! So I had to go to the grocery store to buy some more cold medicines
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
No shit. Take them if for no other reason than stop scaring yourself and anybody nearby.
I’m three weeks since the last allergy shot and the clinic has not figured out an accommodation, so my shot regime will be backsliding in tandem with every goddamn thing being in bloom or simply jetting out pollen (“City of Trees” my ass).
I normally just take them as needed but it’s daily for the duration.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: Wouldn’t you only expect to see flattening start like, nowish? If at all, considering the manner in which tests are being rationed?
That cloud thermometer company (for whatever that’s worth) is seeing a big decrease in anomalous fevers from a peak a week ago. It’s an interesting data point to follow. Suggests distancing measures are decreasing both coronavirus cases and regular seasonal bugs. https://healthweather.us/
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He’s been coughing since he got home last Monday, and it started pretty much when he got here. Phlegmy.
Subsole
@Cermet: I highly doubt he would change, even as he sizzles on Satan’s frying pan (where he belongs). Prolly whine about how unfair the nasty asshole in the blinding white halo of fire was at his sentencing…
cain
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This is true, but he will still do it. The FYNYT will find some Trumper who will say he is still committed to the President despite everything that has happened.
In the end, he won’t likely survive it because it’s hard to gaslight when people are directly affected by it – once trumpers experience a few deaths and start to question how they got it that’s when they will look into it and then remember what the president said.
Till then…
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: So, yeah. One tricky aspect of situations like this is that it’s hard to weight things. The Bay Area encouraged work from home 23 days ago, and if a lot of people did that, you should easily see that in the data. Since that was also where most of the cases were, it may even be enough to influence the entire state’s data. Their lockdown was 11 days ago, so we should start seeing a case decline there any day now, but likely around Monday. The rest of the state will be more like Thursday.
CA’s fatalities have been trending slightly better than expected. I don’t put a lot of stock into that, because the numbers are still small. 16 fatalities state wide yesterday. You add or subtract 1 person and it’ll move the curve a surprising amount. We came in 3 fatalities below trendline yesterday and when I recalculated the model it subtracted 1200 fatalities from when I expect the peak to hit.
That doesn’t tell me things are improving, though. It just tells me the model is unstable and could go up or down wildly from day to day. It’s still pointing at ‘thousands’ for the state at peak. A few more days in a row of slightly lower than projected fatalities would tip that down to ‘hundreds’.
But that also speaks to the risks the governors are taking. Every action they defer, every day they wait, every negotiation on gathering size, or what business is critical or not risks knocking them from hundreds into thousands. That’s why I say that you have to take the most severe measure you could ever consider imposing and impose it now. The faster you get to the end, the less economic damage you’ll do and the more lives you’ll save. It’s win-win.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
A Trumpy buddy of mine was talking the other day about how “all these people who want open borders are saying not to gp to the mall.”
Now I know this is a non-sequitur built on a straw man, but I didn’t come up with a retprt fast enough.
It dpes occur to me, though, that some people who reject the idea of public health spending think we can solve this pandemic with xenophobia.
Tony Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Lovely analogy. I’m having that.
As an aside, the very same Tory trolls who insisted that Johnson’s entirely in character ‘joke’ about naming any crash project to produce ventilators “Operation Last Gasp” (smirk) was just a bit of fun and actually really funny, are losing their shit over everyone else’s refusal to rend their garments and sacrifice the nearest firstborn to the health of Our Bloated Overlord.
Fuckem? Why thank you, I think I will.
(Honestly, if it wasn’t for hate and the surprisingly enjoyable “The Witcher” I don’t know how I’d be getting through this period)
germy
Long thread, but:
Major Major Major Major
Meanwhile at ground zero
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
From a pharmacist friend: Generally speaking, unless they’re WAY past date just take them, they’re probably still viable. As he puts it, “There’s a date because the rules say there has to be a date.” Some are more stable than others, of course. (e.g., If your aspirin smells like vinegar, pitch it.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
LOL.
“Eww”
I’ve watched videos of cats walking on two legs and it is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen
Cat Walking on Two Legs
https://viralscape.com/cats-acting-like-humans/cat-walking-on-two-legs/
mrmoshpotato
The deaths will also be on every asshole who used their vote to “send a message.” That message? “Fuck you, Hillary!”
Eighty thousand votes across 3 states. You can’t fill Michigan Stadium with 80,000 people. Entire sections would be empty.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Damn good work, that.
Our convention center (probably 1/10 the size) is handily being remodeled so that’s out. But we have an unused basketball arena with a giant-ass parking lot that I could envision being put into use. Plus the hotels are mostly idle, if not outright closed down.
Brachiator
Perhaps Trump’s reaction to Puerto Rico wasn’t just because that island is not a state, or because the people are Latino.
If he cannot use a natural disaster to make himself look good, if something is actually asked of him, he runs away and backs off.
He is failing the country, right before our eyes. And yet some people still support him.
ETA: And of course, Trump is Mr Nasty when dealing with women who oppose him in any way.
mrmoshpotato
@MomSense: Welcome to the club. Come sit 6 feet away from anyone else.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: Theoretically we should be to the point that a lot of patients who caught it past distancing measure should be coming down with it, so there should be some flattening.
The cloud thermometer data is showing plummeting fever rates, but it’s probably flu and colds decreasing. Flu positive rates on testing were down to 7% last week and are probably negligible by now. The distancing measures should certainly be enough to effectively kill endemic respiratory illnesses, and IMO that’s what we’re seeing. Unfortunately fever rates below normal with endemic respiratory diseases at low rates says little about COVID rates other than “we’re not currently Italy”.
Hildebrand
@Subsole: I am from Grosse Pointe, just outside of Detroit (though my church is in Detroit). Gov. Whitmer is being cheered for her dogged determination to help the people of our state. Yes, there are troglodytes in the message sections of the papers and whatnot, but they are being shouted down by a growing crowd of folks sick to death of Trump’s posturing and bullying. Trump is not doing himself any favors by shitting on the Governor.
trollhattan
@cain:
Not going to be hard to find that loyal Trumper, based on that poll yesterday showing 85% of Republicans trust him the most on COVID response. Eighty-five percent. Sigh.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major: lol We really are ridiculous when we get sick, aren’t we?
Hope you stay safe and in good health, man.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Wait, I thought it was the women who were nasty.
danielx
@Archon:
A distinction without a difference.
Major Major Major Major
ETA nm
germy
@trollhattan: Yes, his overall approval numbers have gone up.
bemused
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I love cats, have two, but those videos are kind of terrifying
Brachiator
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
RE: And of course, Trump is Mr Nasty when dealing with women who oppose him in any way.
It’s always projection with Trump. He is a trashy, nasty man.
Martin
@Fair Economist: It’s going to be hard to spot. China had the benefit of basically putting their population in jail. They got a really nice inflection point as a result. Ours is likely to be a fairly gentle turn.
Even so, Italy has the same problem and if you lay out the data right, you can see a very clear inflection around 3/13 that is sustained thereafter. Something clearly happened there. I’m expecting the next one in 2-3 days.
I may put together a confirmed case model this weekend. I’ll post the results of that.
West of the Rockies
@trollhattan:
Oh, I hadn’t even thought of the anti-Clinton sentiment in my remark!
joel hanes
@MJS:
He’s acting like someone who doesn’t care, or like someone who thinks the fix is in
Or like someone who is absolutely driven by his grievance and need for revenge for any slight, any shaming
Ever since he announced, he’s been getting his revenge on the entire nation because Obama shamed him in public at the White House Correspondents Dinner. That’s why he is so driven to destroy everything Obama created or accomplished. That’s why the pee-pee hookers in Russia.
trollhattan
@West of the Rockies:
Can Biden be “Sleepy Joe” and “Nassty Manss” simultaneously? Stay tuned to find out!
laura
@trollhattan: No kidding, the pollen is plentiful and it’s taking an average of 2 hours to clear my noggin of mucoso on the daily. No lung stuff, just acres of sinus. Gah. I’ve been holding off on the flonase in the am figuring it gets stopped by the snot and wasted and using it in the afternoon when my head has lost a few pounds.
Ella in New Mexico
So this morning I woke up to Group Text messages from our kids reposting a shitty Reddit thing about some woman claiming Joe Biden “fingered” her in a radio interview with the Hill which quickly devolved into a giant swirling vortex of depressed negativity because “Great! thanks to the Red states canning Bernie and everyone else being sexist now we’re gonna have to vote for which rapist is better” and “The Democratic party is no better than the Republicans” and “we’re all doomed Trump’s gonna win in November!!!!”
OMG they’ve all been stuck at home “teleworking” too long and its only been 2 weeks
R-Jud
Ah. Right down the M42 from me.
joel hanes
@Major Major Major Major:
Watch the growth in fatalities, not the growth in cases.
IMHO, California’s high growth in confirmed cases is largely driven by the increasing availability of test capacity.
laura
@trollhattan: old Arco also has a jail and a medical center in the basement. They really should’ve planned a Kaiser hospital there for the convenience instead of downtown between the 2 rivers.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: I had a cat who loved broccoli. I had another one who loved lima beans. They were perfectly mornal in every other way…
smintheus
trollhattan
@laura:
Never saw it put quite that well before. :-)
HEPA filter in the bedroom does help at night, I’m finding.
mrmoshpotato
For someone who’s been a pile of shit his entire life…
trollhattan
@laura:
IDK what the condition might be. Have they been doing at least minimal preventive maintenance or is it a gutted decaying shell. No idea.
joel hanes
@L85NJGT:
She needs to tell him to pound sand.
Governor Whitmer must protect the health and welfare of the people of Michigan. All of them.
Trump is using federal support as a weapon, holding those people hostage. He is already causing grave harm, and promises to cause more. Remember that the states in general cannot deliberately run a budget deficit, and that the federal government must backstop their finances in emergencies. Trump is playing revenge games with that aspect of the national emergency measure, too.
Governor Whitmer will not tell Trump to pound sand, because she is an actual adult, he’s holding a gun to the head of her people.
Subsole
@Hildebrand: Thanks for the info.
Sorry y’all are going thru this. Stay safe up there.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
“He smells vaguely of Tang. We’re not sure why.”
joel hanes
@Martin:
Pretty much all the states are vulnerable to Trump playing revenge games with federal financial backstopping under the state of emergency declaration, and he is playing those games.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
Huh. As I’ve always understood, medications lose their effectiveness after expiration dates
joel hanes
@Matt McIrvin:
Watch the number of fatalities, not the number of cases.
Tom54
Formerly livinginexile trying a new nym and e-mail. Difficulty posting.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
Not to go all totalitarian, but when this is over t ge e right wing noise machine needs to he crushed. Fox, OANN, all of it. Negligence, criminal neglect, I dunno. But they need to be held liable. We don’t let people put lead powder in baby food to make it sweet, and that’s exactly what these assholes have done the last few decades.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: That’s going to be hard to staff. China put them out in the open – easier for nurses to scan the room.
We don’t have a surplus of nurses to preserve dignity.
hitchhiker
@cain:
There was a very, very long priming of the people he calls his base. I’m talking decades of bullshit, day after day after day. The elites are laughing at you. The people on the coasts think you’re ignorant. Democrats are snobs.
I’m one of the people who was utterly surprised at how deeply all of that sank in. Says me (Seattle) to my brother (Michigan), “You realize when you talk about Democrats on the coasts, you mean me, right?”
Silence.
He does think, somehow, that I’ve secretly held him in contempt all this time. Rush told him so. That’s how trump has power over all those psyches … he embodies the vicious fuckyou they feel entitled to deliver upon the rest of us.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@cain:
From your mouth to the FSM’s ears; except for people dying of course
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Could just be a cold too. As long as he doesn’t start having a fever or dyspnea, he should be fine. Be sure to watch skin color, confusion, etc. Confusion, along with dyspnea, is an early sign of not being properly oxygenated
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: I imagine that keeping them enclosed is good for minimizing droplet spread.
Martin
@joel hanes: You have to call him out on that. Go on TV and yell, drop an F bomb so it goes viral. He can only do it if you let it happen away from the public.
I know it’s going to cost lives in the near term, but it’ll save more in the long term.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: They already have it. That’s why they’re there.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@bemused:
Yeah! Especially the siamese cat!
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: My gf’s cat loves asparagus, and will steal it right off your plate.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: I know, but I think the combo of a big increase in cases and very little testing is extremely troubling.
@Martin: For the nurses and other support workers who may be on day five of a stretched-out respirator or even going without.
Elizabelle
The USNS Mercy, a Navy hospital ship with 1000 beds, has arrived at the Port of Los Angeles (ie. San Pedro). It left San Diego Monday. The Mercy will care for non-COVID patients.
From the LA Times:
joel hanes
@Krope, the Formerly Dope:
I thought it was the women who were nasty.
Every accusation is a confession.
It’s always projection.
jonas
His supporters don’t give a damn — even as they lie dying without a respirator, they will just blame the governor for not kissing Trump’s ass enough like she should have. Where this could come back to him, of course, is if enough independents or people who stayed home in 2016 are pissed off enough to turn out next November just to hate-vote against him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s already happening at least one of my local hospitals. My clinical instructor sent us a screenshot of guidance from hospital admin about reusing N95 respirators until they basically fall apart. It was up to five times before and originally only single use
Betty Cracker
@Ella in New Mexico: Same. Le sigh. I don’t know what to think about that charge yet. Haven’t listened to the interview with Halper, but allegedly the accuser’s brother and a friend say she told them about it at the time.
Fair Economist
@Martin: Hard to see an event in Italy that could drive a shift around March 13. The big lockdowns were just before; and other events were piecemeal. Maybe the school closures around end Feb – start March, but you’d think that would have a longer delay, since children don’t show up in Italian statistics – you need a second round where they infect adults.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: “His pumpkinheaded breath smells of ass. We aren’t sure why. And who’s Daddy Vladdy?”
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: That’s not the influence op being rolled out. It’s going to be Sleepy Joe and Creepy Joe.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/joe-biden-metoo-times-up/?comments=1
There are some factual errors in Grim’s reporting. The subject of the reporting has a history of making pro-Putin posts on social media. And if there was actually any there there, this would’ve been used as oppo against Biden years ago.
Major Major Major Major
NYU is graduating their medical class early. Don’t know if we covered that here.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Exactly. Droplet containment is valulable in that scenario.
Betty Cracker
@Just Chuck: We had friends with a pair of cats who were obsessed with olives. I thought it was especially weird that BOTH cats were nuts about olives.
Ksmiami
@Leto: At this point any one in the GOP power network should lose their right to live on this planet.
@Subsole: Burn Fox and Clear Channel to the ground. salt the earth
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: They need to be in full hazmat gear as they did in China. That place will be swimming in virus. An N95 won’t do shit. Put on a diaper and suit up like John Glenn for the next 8 hours.
You don’t need to worry about spreading it. You just need to care for people – oxygen, fluids, referrals for the ICU.
A Ghost to Most
Wife (RN) just got violently ill and has bad vertigo. Not classic symptoms. She’s currently at urgent care, and we can’t be. So it begins.
Best of luck to all.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman:
I am shocked, SHOCKED to find inaccuracies in this man’s writing.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: Well, they don’t have full hazmat gear or anything approaching it, so they have to make due with the best effort.
Look, I don’t know if they’ve put up curtains to intentionally minimize droplet spread or not, but I do know that the people working the space won’t be properly protected, and we have piles of anecdata about initial viral load exposure being related to severe cases in healthcare workers. I don’t really see an upside to having no curtains when we have no nurses or PPE.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What ever happens it will go up, because testing is only now ramping up. The death rate is one to look and, turns out those digital thermometers are in touch with the manufacturers and a couple days ago that was showing a big drop in leavers in San Fransisco. Laura did a post on it wensday.
Adam L Silverman
@Ella in New Mexico: See my comment at #142.
Miss Bianca
@Hildebrand: Wow, if even Grosse Pointe is standing up for Whitmer, that’s something!
(I too grew up in GP. I can no longer talk at all to one of my Trumper brothers who still lives in Michigan. The other one I can manage to talk to just because we stay on a strict “no politics, no religion” conversational diet the couple times a year we do speak to each other.)
Martin
@Fair Economist: There was a quarantine in Lombardy almost exactly 3 weeks before, on Feb 21. That’s where the biggest outbreak was, so you’d expect that relatively small lockdown to have an outsized affect on the numbers. Remember, I’m tracking fatalities, so it takes a bit longer to show up than cases.
HumboldtBlue
@Adam L Silverman:
You see the news from the Roosevelt in Apra Bay?
HinTN
The thing that calls itself president has no need of any assistance with its venality.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
As I understand it, the suits that staff would need are actually fairly cheap if not entirely air-tight. They’re those tyvek zip up suits (not the ones that look like space suits). Like $40 retail.
Of course in the meantime, an N95 or better mask with goggles should suffice, should it not? Hell, swimming or ski goggles would work in a pitch, wouldn’t they?
HumboldtBlue
@A Ghost to Most:
Here’s hoping for the all the best for you and your family.
catclub
@Elizabelle: What day did trump say it was on its way? Two weeks ago?
wow, it was only a week ago – mar 19th.
seems like forever.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: And they’re stupid ones. Like Richard Painter worked in the Obama administration. He did not. He was the Bush 43 administration’s second Assistant White House Counsel for Ethics.
Full disclosure: I know Painter.
Adam L Silverman
@HumboldtBlue: The quarantine? Yep. It is gonna get ugly on that carrier.
Fair Economist
@A Ghost to Most: Best to the wife, Ghost.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
The only thing they have to fear is… fear itself. And a deadly virus!
Imagine being quarantined with this thing on a submarine. Shudder
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most: Oh, no – so sorry to hear it. Best of luck and care to you both.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, the city has it – trust me. They’ve not been using it because it makes it hard to treat a mixed population of patients, it’s hard on the staff, it scares the fuck out of the patients, etc. But this is the environment to break it out for – you’re amortizing the cost of using it (not in dollar terms, but in use of scarce resources terms) across 2100 patients which is about as good as you’ll get.
It’s not disposable. You decontaminate when you leave the facility, put it back on the next day. So you don’t need a huge number of them.
chopper
@A Ghost to Most:
oy! it feels odd to be saying this but here’s hoping it’s just food poisoning!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
It should also be noted that those yellow gowns you see medical staff wearing on tv and pictures for the drive up testing are isolation gowns that are meant to be disposed of. They’re only meant to be worn once and not decontaminated. I’ve used at least 2-4 in a single day caring for a patient in isolation. And that’s over an 8 hr period, not a full 12 hr shift. This partly explains why so many stocks of PPE that should last an entire flu season are being gone through so quickly
Feathers
@Fair Economist: When Josh Marshall was writing all the time about De Blasio not shutting the schools, he quoted studies showing that shutting the schools were major inflection points in previous pandemics. Partly the vector shutdown, but also the signaling that this is very serious and will impact your life. People just naturally start taking the recommended precautions more seriously. It’s like snow. It’s a serious storm if the close the schools.
terry chay
@Nora: You have his number.
@TriassicSands: Voting patterns don’t bear your statement out. People “learn” not by switching their vote but by becoming non-voters (or the smart ones becoming voters). When you look at the outrage going on I think Trump/republican behavior is activating a lot of voters (when an overwhelming amount were already activated in the 2018 midterms). Trump voters/bots on social media seem to be running defense similar to where Bernie supporters are.
We all know how Bernie’s support has collapsed, expect to see similar for Trump. It sounds impossible right now, but so did a two-week crash in the stock market to 2016 levels just a month ago. Just like the 3 day rise in the market was a blip, so too will Trumps gallup numbers look in hindsight.
A Ghost to Most
@HumboldtBlue: Thanks. It’s possible it has nothing to do with covfefe-45, but we’ll see. Lots of people are worse off than us.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The submarine folks are taking this very seriously.
terry chay
@Martin: I knew about NY tests in opposition and WA’s initial override to confirm their first cases/deaths, but is that true for CA? If so, why is CA so lagging all the other blue states in tests/capita?
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not really. I mean, it helps… They’re going to be exposed to thousands of times the dose that us in the public are getting sick off of.
Nurses in China in regular hospitals were wearing the Tyvek gear, and taping the goggles/masks to their skin to seal them up. They had HUGE bruises all over their face and lesions from how tight they needed to be to the skin. The ones in the fever clinics had backpack respirators everywhere that I saw with decontamination showers where they exit. The fever clinics were set up to minimize the number of staff needed. I think they were doing 12 hour shifts in the suits.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: Gotcha, I assumed you meant the Tyvek pesticide-application gear that they’ve been buying from hardware companies (and the almost-identical medical equivalents).
terry chay
@Just Chuck: Rural Michigan is likely to lose the 10k votes (to death) that Trump needed to pull his win out. It bears repeating again and again: the way modern U.S. politics works, you don’t need to change anyone’s minds. All that is needed is for a single demographic to vote a little more/less than they usually do. How do you think Michigan elected this “nasty woman” in the first place?
Elizabelle
The nation goes John Cole and Baud.
CNN:
Why Walmart is seeing a rise in sales for tops, but not bottoms during the coronavirus crisis
clue: it’s teleworking and teleconferencing
Martin
@terry chay: Different approach. We made a decision early on to not ask people to come to hospitals/clinics. If you’re getting a 5% positive rate, then you’re exposing 19 healthy people in line to the one sick person, for the benefit of one confirmed case. You’re just exploding the contact rate.
The early rush to test before putting social distancing in place, dedicated intake for Covid patients, etc. was probably counterproductive in the long run. The time to do mass testing was early. CA was the first to step up and say that this was not containable, that the number of cases didn’t matter for now, the focus had to be on minimizing fatalities and put their eye on that ball. We’re doing a better job of testing front line workers from what I understand. I’ve been hearing about doing strategic mass testing, but not sure that’ll happen.
So CA really only started community testing when we had drive through testing. Otherwise, you basically need to be sick enough to be admitted to the hospital to get a test. If everyone acts as though they have it, it doesn’t matter right now if we confirm that or not. That’ll matter a LOT in the next phase of this. We’ll know what is and isn’t working by how many are dying.
trollhattan
Trump’s team of Goebbelses (Goebbeli?) have made themselves an ad praising Dear Leader. Not recommended if you just ate.
terry chay
@Martin: I doubt this. Re-run Los Angeles numbers, they are bad and only look good relative to New York City or New Orleans. Also, take into account our atrociously low testing numbers (per capita). We should see a spike because of Los Angeles/San Diego testing ramp up and as it spreads outward from there. It’s easy to forget among the memes of the “Left Coast” but if the red parts of California were a state, it’d be the 3rd most populous red state.
Bay Area may have avoided the peak breaking our system, but that’s about it. We are approaching two weeks of shelter-in-place here, but until more tests are done, I am loathe to call it.
dr. luba
My small community hospital in the outer Detroit suburbs is getting full up with COVID-19 patients. Two of our units are now strictly COVID-19, with many of the patients having been transferred to us from larger Detroit area hospitals.
One of the first cases of documented COVID-19 in Michigan was a coworker from my labor and delivery unit, who had recently returned from Europe. We have a scrub tech out, PUI waiting 9 days for test results. Our CCN nurses are also mostly out (quarantine).
I am off work for the duration on my PCP’s recommendation, and that of my fellow staff, as I am really high risk (over 60, asthma, ARBs and a crappy immune system). If it gets really bad, though, and they need me, I’ll go back and help of course.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle:
This headline just hit one of my gay quarantine chats. PHRASING!
Barbara
@trollhattan: Whenever you see party breakdown in polls you have to remember that party affiliation is very fluid. People willing to “represent” themselves as Republicans are likely affected by how they would be inclined to answer that question. IOW, there is a significant chance that willingness to identify as a Republican is increasingly identified with willingness to support Trump no matter what. That number is never going to go lower than 80% on most metrics because a sizable percentage who do not support Trump will not be willing to identify as Republicans in the first instance. The only thing that makes it slightly less than pointless to ask for party identification in polls is to figure out whether independents (so-called) are closer in viewpoint to Democrats or Republicans.
cain
@trollhattan:
That’s a signal to Republican politicians that they still have to play ball with Trump. So expect more weak kneed assholery from them.
terry chay
@Martin: Interesting take. I still think you are optimistic since our numbers due to testing are too low to correctly map out what our curve looks like. Deaths are, unfortunately, a three week lagging indicator and our protocols have only been in place for two weeks in the Bay Area, one week in LA, and under a week statewide.
Subsole
@A Ghost to Most:
Shit, man. Good luck.
terry chay
@ET: Yes to both. Theoretically the only state he needs to win is Florida (there is only one simulation out of millions where he wins without winning Florida), but practically, he needs to win every state he won in 2016 to win at all. No state on the bubble has been trending red since he got elected (what little gains he have are in areas he was already strong in).
ballerat
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve lived in red states and I too expected the mortality to be higher in red states, for the reasons Silver cites.
I also expect higher infection rates in red regions of blue states because I live in one of those and they still think it’s not serious and will abandon intervention efforts whenever Trump hints about lifting them or not being necessary.
They’re going to get the downsides of what they wanted and they’re going to get it good and hard. Unfortunately all the rest of us likely are, too.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@A Ghost to Most: Oh no. Holding you all in the light.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major:
Didn’t Grim come from a “real” news background? I mean, I knew the guy went full Bern-out, but prior to the catastrophic craniorectal inversion didn’t he have some actual cred?
Martin
@terry chay: I should add, CAs public health infrastructure is huge for a state. We don’t have CDCs expertise necessarily, but we have more infrastructure than they do. So if CA decides the information out of the federal government is unreliable, we can develop our own strategy without them.
We have most of the nations biotech firms here, and a huge base of expertise across our universities (UC as well as Stanford, USC, etc). I mean, CA still should have moved faster, but we made a lot of our own decisions.
cain
@jonas:
Those trumpers who die won’t be voting for anyone. of course we’ll be losing blue voters too…
I wonder if after all this we need to do a consensus again… I do think that our population make up is going to change in 18 months.
catclub
They are certainly taking it seriously, but at least the population on a sub should be outside all the bad demographic groups with co-morbidities.
But the news where ’34-year-old dies from cv19 ‘is still scary.
Thaddeu
Third world country…
https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=272039&u=
.. lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the lives of many were troubled including that of the stray dogs. But in Kerala, the state’s chief minister is making an effort to avoid such a situation. CM Pinarayi Vijayan has also intervened to fill the bellies of monkeys at temples.
Elizabelle
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: And all the best to you and Mr. hedgehog. (Has had some serious health challenges, for those who missed the thread.)
@A Ghost to Most: Hope it turns out to be a nuisance ailment and not COVID or anything serious.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They looked more like the ones we use at work (for things worse than infectious diseases) which aren’t disposable, but you’re right – I might have confused them.
trollhattan
@A Ghost to Most:
Best wishes, truly! Hang in there.
Ruckus
@Nora:
No, he doesn’t. He also doesn’t understand anything that isn’t in front of him at the moment. And he doesn’t understand 99% of what is. He is, if not in actual fact, in the embodiment, a fucking idiot. Nothing that will fit in his tiny little brain is about anything other than himself and then only at the moment. And anything that he sees/hears that isn’t 100% about him and positive to him at that moment is “nasty,” horrible, death to him. And the only things he can remember are those. He is the human example of the definition of horrible.
mad citizen
@John Revolta: Yes yes yes! I had our local news hour on last night and they cut to trump and showed 2-3 minutes. We got the Tom Brady part and they cut it off right before the “one governor” remark. But yes, I always wonder why the WH press don’t asked simple but pointed questions, like “Why do you find it necessary to point out one governor raising an issue during the 50 state call?” “What was the issue?” Just do follow-up after follow-up. When trump goes to next person, they should continue the same line of questioning. It is really unbelivable how bad the WH press corps is at their jobs.
Was watching Jon Karl on ABC News the other night reporting on trump’s “back by easter” comments, and there was no context, no reaction, no nothing. Just a flat retelling of this crazy batshit thing our leader said that day, and nothing else. WTF?
terry chay
@zhena gogolia: Ro changes when practice changes. Biologically you are just as susceptible but Ro is a function of the number of potential opportunities you have to come into contact of the disease.
We don’t know the true normal Ro, but lets say it is as high as 4.8 and the time step is as low as 5 days. Imagine how much contact you’d have in a 5 day period. To flatten the curve, Ro has to fall below 1 so social-distancing and other measures would have to reduce that amount of contact by a factor of almost 5. This is the worst-case numbers which should give you an idea of just how safe say take out food is (and, conversely, just how dangerous a conference or a sports game or concert are).
Because of the varied response to the disease both here (locally, statewide) and worldwide, epidemologists will have a field day with the data. I think we’ll find things like:
These things happen. I’m told that sociologists and psychologists still study results from Japanese prison camps and German concentration camps because no one can mess with populations in such an inhumane way. We’re doing the same, by accident.
gbbalto
@A Ghost to Most: My best hopes and wishes. Sucks to not be able to be with her.
Nora Lenderbee
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Expired meds lose their effectiveness gradually, not all at once. Expired aspirin or antihistamines may become somewhat less effective, but they’ll still work (mostly) for a long time.
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost to Most: We’re keeping good thoughts! Keep us updated as you can.
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam L Silverman:
Holy crap, after reading some of the weird, kind of vague “details” she “remembered later” (like, was it common practice for female Senate staffers in 1993 to wear skirts with no underpants on underneath?) and then finding out she’s a disgruntled Sanders supporter then this below:
it’s all looking really sketchy now…when do we find out she’s making her money teleworking, too, just maybe just it’s for Bernie or worse, PUTIN
Baud
@A Ghost to Most: All the best to her.
PenAndKey
You should ask your kids why they’re so eager to propagate GRU propaganda. This particular attack has been percolating for days and started at the Intercept, and is being broadcast by the same accounts that have been trumpeting about Biden having dementia. It has all the subtly of a two year old after a cheetos bender
Also, ninja’d by @Adam.
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman:
Given how strained as a concept truth has become, does that logic hold, though?
I mean, all they have to do is shout loudly and let the media both-sides it. Could they not spin this up into a viable attack? I mean, look what they did with her emails. Thank god we have that deep bench…
Unrelated, I saw Putin admit the Second Empire of Muscovy is just too large to adequately protect from the ravages of covid. Would it be fair to say that’s a tacit admission his government is too weak to administer its territory?
lgerard
Whitmer is doing it wrong. Evidently she needs to buy ads on Hannity’s program to be aired in DC in order to reach him
burnspbesq
@Archon:
Right about where we are now.
Baud
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’m comforted by the fact that even on Reddit, the Bros are struggling to make this story gain traction.
terry chay
@Major Major Major Major: Interesting about a fever because from WHO analysis of China data, we know that 80% of Coronavirus-positive tests cases had a fever. Temperature is, ironically, a great proxy for the disease spread (Unfortunately, since it is a Type II error, it can’t be used as a diagnostic.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major:
I was a Grim fan when he was at Huffington Post– they have and have had some good people– but there is more than one personality cult in our politics these days that make people lose their shit
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Subsole: Yeah, I used to like the guy well enough but I had to unfollow him ’round about Iowa.
Ruckus
@John Revolta:
His supporters in or out of congress are dime store characters themselves. They are the crowd that went to hangings, to nailing people to crosses, that cheer when a ball player gets hit and carried off. Their only way to get ahead is to push someone else down the stairs.
Mary G
@Martin: The numbers from the Orange County Board of Health don’t seem like we’re testing that much:
Gin & Tonic
@Ella in New Mexico:
I don’t think the 13,000 Ukrainians who have died as a result of his invasion and continued occupation of that country would agree.
terry chay
@Martin: We have been seeing the Bay Area in the data (scroll down). The problem is, as Matt has said, we aren’t seeing it flatten yet. Slow growth, yes! Inflection possible!
As he mentioned, improved testing response overwhelms the data. It’s only in the last two days we’ve gotten that and there was a large spike throughout the state caused by it.
Looking at other countries and our slow growth is reason to be optimistic that the Bay Area may have a handle of it and possibly even the state as a whole, but it is an optimistic assessment.
In any case, we’ll have a good idea in the next week. New York City was looking crazy when they ramped up testing last week. Now that testing has almost caught up there, it looks really bad, but New Orleans looks worse now.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: I’m not sure what, if anything, is going to break the saturation coverage of SARS-CoV2/COVID-19. I do know that rose twitter, as well as the usual Russian bots and trolls, are trying to amplify this on social media. There’s an entirely new account, BernieorElse, which is less than a month old, registered in PA, with the registrant’s phone # in Iowa. So…
joel hanes
Um, it looks very much as if that chloroquine thing is not gonna pan out.
https://twitter.com/schneiderleonid/status/1242889208651448322
Alex
@Brachiator: Yes, and that mayor in Puerto Rico he objected to so much was a woman, too. It’s pathological.
Sister Golden Bear
@Major Major Major Major:
Aren’t tops always in demand. //
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman:
JFCOAC, and they didn’t immediately start replacing them?
dr. luba
@Nora Lenderbee: Re drug expiration dates
“It turns out that the expiration date on a drug does stand for something, but probably not what you think it does. Since a law was passed in 1979, drug manufacturers are required to stamp an expiration date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug.
Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date.
“So, the expiration date doesn’t really indicate a point at which the medication is no longer effective or has become unsafe to use. Medical authorities state if expired medicine is safe to take, even those that expired years ago. A rare exception to this may be tetracycline, but the report on this is controversial among researchers. It’s true the effectiveness of a drug may decrease over time, but much of the original potency still remains even a decade after the expiration date. Excluding nitroglycerin, insulin, and liquid antibiotics, most medications are as long-lasting as the ones tested by the military.”
Add also aspirin, from what I’ve read, to drugs which degrade quickly.
Jeffro
Looks like ZERO Democrats were invited to the stimulus bill’s signing at the WH this afternoon.
On the one hand, F*** this petty jerkwad and I hope he gets what he deserves, in spades
On the other hand…I don’t want Nancy Smash or any other Dem legislators within range of the Orange Contaigon.
Let’s make sure to make hay of the all-trumpublican* pics and video that are sure to run this evening…
*for some reason spellcheck changed that to ‘traumapublican’ for the first time I can recall…not too bad, there, spellcheck! :)
joel hanes
@mad citizen:
I always wonder why the WH press don’t asked simple but pointed questions
Because revenge-obsessed Trump will see to it that their press credentials, and those of their colleagues at the same organization, will be revoked if they do.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Golden Bear: Never did understand why there’s a constant nationwide shortage. It’s… a fairly straightforward process.
Feathers
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If we knew their actual expiration dates, that would be the case. However, every prescription I get comes with either the actual expiration date or 1 year. And I know not all medicines are bad after 1 year.
Miko
@Kelly: Same. We’re gonna miss out on a bunch of fun stuff this year, darn this virus!
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Well, to be honest, that was the right thing to do. That’s where the need was at that time. But key to that strategy is to not turn around and immediately blame China and threaten to hold them accountable for everyones economic losses. We kind of fucked up that part pretty bad, making reciprocity difficult to ask for.
joel hanes
@terry chay:
Temperature is … a great proxy for … disease spread
health “weather” map from a major manufacturer of network-enabled healthcare thermometers.
https://healthweather.us/
Ella in New Mexico
@PenAndKey:
I essentially reminded them of how they’re a group most targeted right now for that kind of crap while at the same time reviewing all the dumb ship Jaob Wohl’s buddy paid some dude to say about Elizabeth Warren raping him.
@Baud:
If you are anyone here has some links to good critiques of this story I’d really appreciate it. This 22-35 year old demographic is a bit cynical after 2016 right now. And kind of angry too, from what I heard this morning.
@Gin & Tonic:
Sharing in my Family Group Text response if you don’t mind :-D
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: That was the starting point of the convo :)
Ella in New Mexico
@PenAndKey:
I essentially reminded them of how they’re a group most targeted right now for that kind of crap while at the same time reviewing all the dumb ship Jaob Wohl’s buddy paid some dude to say about Elizabeth Warren raping him.
I also had no idea how many people in their age group get their news in headlines off Reddit. My husbands two 26 year-old new hires at work are the same and they got pushed into voting for Trump last time around, albeit they’re former military.
@Baud:
If you are anyone here has some links to good critiques of this story I’d really appreciate it. This 22-35 year old demographic is a bit cynical after 2016 right now. And kind of angry too, from what I heard this morning.
@Gin & Tonic:
Sharing in my Family Group Text response if you don’t mind :-D
Subsole
@Mary G: Yeah. I heard we were doing like 250 tests a day over in Dallas. You could have knocked me over with an eyelash.
Elizabelle
Dumbass finally got a clue.
WaPost breaking:
Trump orders GM to manufacture ventilators under the Defense Production Act
President Trump on Friday compelled General Motors to manufacture ventilators to help handle the surge of coronavirus patients, using his power under the Defense Production Act.
Trump announced that he’d signed a presidential memorandum requiring the company to “accept, perform and prioritize” federal government contracts for production of the much-needed medical equipment shortly before signing into law a $2 trillion stimulus package to help prop up the economy during this public health crisis.
“Our negotiations with GM regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course,” Trump said in a statement. “GM was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.”
“GM was wasting time.” It is ALWAYS projection with this dumbass.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ella in New Mexico: Last night I saw (don’t remember which news source now) that she also was on TV awhile back claiming to have been secretly engaged to Putin. So yeah, credibility issues…
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Confusion was why I took wife to ER as she was affected by septic shock from pneumonia. Now I have a pulse/oxygen sensor for our fingers as well as a Braun temperature sensor to taking daily temps.
When we got to the ER and they asked her what her birthday was, she answered “1913” and they had her in a wheelchair headed back in under 90 seconds. Was in hospital for the next 9 or 10 weeks.
Wife spent between 3 and 4 weeks on a vent, came back from normally fatal situation, much to the delight and surprise of family doc. But spending more than 2 months in the pretty advanced teaching hospital with her was a real educational experience, the mostly great people saving lives and comforting people and the very few hateful ones doing rote things without caring.
Wife and I have traveled to Europe, Spain, France and Italy, and across America, seen the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Navajo Nation, she kissed a whale since then.
She is not interested in an ambulance trip into town at 71 to be triaged at this stage of her life. Has often said, the only way to get her out of our home is “feet first on a slab”… so, that will be hard for us, but my dad did it for mom.
Mom was pretty blunt, after dad called 911 that last time, she told him, if you need to go into the other end of the house and wait, you can do that, but don’t be calling 911 again. Wasn’t necessary, her heart gave out completely early one morning soon after and she died in his arms. Called me immediately, I was standing by the phone in the kitchen and knew before I touched it what had happened. Happy ending actually, in a strange way.
I hope this isn’t too grim and dark… but there are worse things than dying in your own bed the old-fashioned way. Triaged out of acute care into a waiting to die ward in a hospital garage or gym would be one of those things in my opinion…
terry chay
@Ella in New Mexico: People who didn’t vote in the primary spreading lies about someone isn’t going to cause them to be any different than the non-voters they already are/were. Who cares?
I see the same shit on my Facebook before I defriend them. The reality is none of them are saying, “I voted for Bernie over Biden” they’re mad that someone else didn’t. Turnout among Bernie’s best demographics is down massively from 2016 (youth) or has gone heavily to Biden (white working class). Given where Hillary lost (rust belt, where Bernie and other Clinton surrogates campaigned heavily for her), analytics will probably say Bernie actually brought nobody into the fold: he just split up Obama’s coalition (minority vote) and was able to cannibalize on what Obama brought in (youth vote). Now that those “new” voters are 12 years older, they’ve aged into a new demo and we see Bernie hasn’t brought “youths” in. In fact, the few he has are antipathic to voting as actual youth that actually vote are not Bernie supporters (c.f. 2018 midterms vs 2020 primary)
In other words, given 2018 and 2020, instead of the news saying Biden losing white college-aged people to Bernie just barely in record low modern turnouts is bad news for Biden, they should be saying that Bernie has been proven again-and-again to actually not add move Democrats to the left so much as to steer the Left away from the party and political participation in general (and that there’s a potential large pool of young voters who don’t seem to care who the Democrats nominate as long as it isn’t Trump).
The kids are alright.
Adam L Silverman
@HinTN: Not that I’m aware of.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
But if, baby, I’m the bottom
You’re the top!
– Cole Porter
.
lgerard
@dr. luba:
When i was helping a clinic in a hospital prepare for a JCAHO inspection I was surprised to find even inert stuff like gauze pads had expiration dates. Some of the nurses were surprised as well.
MattF
@Elizabelle: And he’ll deny that he ever did otherwise. Also, Obama is to blame.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, by the way, how is your mother doing? Sending best wishes.
Ella in New Mexico
@Sister Golden Bear:
Sweet baby Jeeeebus.
raven
@Martin: My brother in LA is really worried. He has asthma and is sweating bullets.
Elizabelle
From the WaPost story:
And he may be lying about this too. Time will tell. It’s a well balanced story, with lots of tweets and comments by leading Democrats, too. Worth a click, and possibly free under their coronavirus coverage.
Martin
@lgerard: Expiration can be for odd reasons. For masks, it’s usually how long the rubber will remain elastic in an oxygenated environment. CAs strategic supply was stored to prevent that.
For something in a sealed package, it might be how long the seal lasts. I know I’ve pulled gauze out of an emergency kit and found that the packaging was no longer doing its job so it was no longer sterile.
terry chay
@joel hanes: I wish Sam Wang had shut about that. Deaths are a three week lagging indicator and their numbers initially are so small as to have large error bars attached. Deaths are a bad indicator until (pardon the pun) post-mortem. They are only good when looking at countries that are lying about it 1.5 months after it has already spread past containment (Iraq now; Russia, India, and Indonesia in the coming weeks).
Even though positive cases are susceptible to test-rates and the data needs to be adjusted for it (e.g. New York), they have only a 1 week delay and the numbers are large enough to run real regressions before it is too late to do anything about it.
Another Scott
@dr. luba: It’s horrible. :-(
Best of luck to all of your colleagues, patients, and people there. Take care.
Best wishes,
Scott.
NotMax
@Igerard
Legal requirement, surely. Probably related more to degradation of packaging possibly compromising sterility than to contents.
A Ghost to Most
Something folks may want to aware of, at least folks along the Front Range. I called our doctor’s office, for advice about my wife (big practice).
A recording said the practice was so slammed, they were no longer taking calls. Damn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Right-leaning AB Stoddard on my TV (MSNBC) gassing on about how Obama and Bush need to come forward and tell people trump is a threat, I’m all for it, but I hope somebody points out that Donald trump is a problem created and maintained by racism and the Republican Party, and it falls first and foremost on Republicans– the Bush brothers I would put in the first rank, with John McCain dead. Then Romney…. I can’t think of anyone else with national standing who hasn’t exposed themselves to be completely around the bend.
oatler.
Fuckwad’s live presser featured all Rs, starting with Mitch who thanked all republicans for getting the bell done.
Ella in New Mexico
@terry chay: Well, mine have all voted, in every primary and election, since they were 18. They’re totally not the typical demographic for “young voters”.
But I think they’re feeling so demoralized and so defeated watching Trump appear to beat all the institutions we’ve always believed would have prevented him from what he is today. They’re starting to feel he’s invincible, that no matter what they do “we are so fucking fucked” to quote them this am…which TBH isn’t much different from what I hear from every age group.
Elizabelle
A WaPost reader comment by JL West (on story about Trump finally using the Defense Production Act for ventilator manufacturing); italics are JL’s:
zhena gogolia
@terry chay:
Thank you. I still don’t really understand, but that’s okay.
So you’re saying takeout food is okay?
I’d like to support our local favorite restaurant, but I thought maybe it was risky.
Spring Pam
@Archon: when you convict after the impeachment.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: She’s fine. She keeps telling everyone that she has her own chef, baker, grocery shopper, and now personal trainer as she’s been using my TRX. She’s fine. I’ve made it clear that I have one job: to ensure she makes it to 78 if it drives her crazy and/or kills me in doing so!
Thanks for asking. I hope that you, your family, and everyone else’s here and their families are doing well too. And that no one has had too much trouble get their parents or other relatives to take this seriously.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: we just about lost it at that song when we saw Anything Goes. I wonder if the terms were the same in Porter’s era.
Martin
@raven: Los Angeles or Louisiana? If Los Angeles, and he’s gotten this far, he’s looking okay if he stays in the house. Have him hunker down for another week. This moment is why he was saving that jar of capers.
Louisiana, man, they may have a rough few weeks. It’s possible we’ve in the Mardi Gras spike, and then it’s waiting for the cases they spread it to. I think they’ve been locked down for 5 days now. So, they’ve done what they can. Just need compliance now.
Hoodie
NC Governor Cooper announces state-wide stay at home order, thank god we have a Dem governor.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
He also hinted at forthcoming announcements about arrangements with other companies.
This is what Trump does when he’s pulling it out of his ass i.e. lying shamelessly
Staff will be tasked with making it true.
Remember the “unbelievable” report he promised from his investigation into the circumstances of Barack Obama’s birth.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Golden Bear: My understanding is she’s now claiming all of the pro-Putin stuff she’s said or posted was because of a Russian friend in a creative writing class who exposed her to how wonderful Russia is. She’s also, apparently, writing a novel about something having to do with Russia.
terry chay
@Miss Bianca: The thing is Grosse Pointe is EXACTLY the sort of demographic that has flipped in 2018 against the Republicans: High education, mostly-white, suburban, post Reagan-conservative strongholds. How is Grosse Pointe any different than Orange County other than the state its in? That’s why Michigan was never really in contention in 2020 (even though it is marked as such because of 2016).
All states where most of the Republican vote comes from suburbs rather than rural areas are probably battlegrounds this election cycle (that’s most of the states since suburbans/exurbans have experienced huge growth at the cost of a similar decline in rural areas over the last 40 years and now are the single largest voting cohort between the three). Of course, COVID-19 has upended the map, so who knows at this point?! But somehow I don’t think this favors the sitting president.
raven
@laura: My brother graduated from Mc George there!
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: This stuff only retains its value if it is new in box. Or new in clamshell on the card. The minute you take it out and play with it, it looses all of its value on the collectables market.//
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Elizabelle: Thank you!
raven
@Martin: Los Angeles. My whole family is there but one niece is going back to her campus apartment at UC Santa Cruz because it will be better for everyone. No one asked for my advice on this but she’s 20 and can make up her own mind.
Adam L Silverman
@Ella in New Mexico: Give them this to read.
Martin
Best health care system in the world.
Mai naem mobile
@Elizabelle: Trumpov can’t handle strong successful women. I have a feeling he must have gotten turned down for dates by a lot of strong successful women and it hurts his ego. And I am sorry but Dr Birtz has a little bit of Nancy Reagan looking at Ronnie at the Trumpov2020 infomercials. Somebody really needs to sacrifice themselves for the greater good in those idiots standing behind him and grab the mike from him and just say out loud that he’s full of shit and a sociopath and putting peoples’ lives at risk.
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam L Silverman:
Have you also noticed that the same types are posting under the “Warren Democrats” trend on Twitter today
Also, that “BernieorBust” account has gotta be a paid troll.
joel hanes
@terry chay:
I don’t know how anyone can confidently adjust the confirmed-test-result numbers for the facts that: there has almost always been extreme bias in the people who get tests (almost all symptomatic, for a long time only if they had travel histories regardless of symptoms presented), the availability of tests is and has been geographically uneven, and then the availability of tests rapidly increases.
Agreed that the three-week lag in mortalities is a serious disadvantage, agree that many ARD deaths are probably being attributed to pneumonia because no coronavirus testing of corpses, especially when tests are not available, but deaths are a matter of public record.
trollhattan
@Hoodie:
SC Gov says “Hold our beer.”
J R in WV
@A Ghost to Most:
Sorry to hear about your wife… hope it’s a regular illness and she is home soon.
Best of luck, hoping hard for you both!!
Sister Golden Bear
@Adam L Silverman: Well alrighty then. //
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Great songs, silly book. Funnest time directing I’ve had (close runner-up a tie between Li’l Abner and Little Mary Sunshine).
Baud
@Ella in New Mexico: I don’t really have anything. I just ignore it unless it blows up.
Adam L Silverman
@Ella in New Mexico: I haven’t, but I haven’t been looking for it. Doesn’t surprise me though.
catclub
was it Tolstoy who had something to say about happy families and unhappy families?
Hoodie
@trollhattan: Makes me glad we don’t live in Charlotte. Too close to the wilderness.
A Ghost To Most
@Elizabelle: Thanks. If she had a migraine, It would be a “nuisance” thing we are used to dealing with. She has no headache, so it is likely not a migraine. That is abnormal, but migraines without headache do happen. So we wait for the tests.
I am concerned that the doctor’s office is already swamped.
Stay safe, and happy hunting at the grocers.
catclub
unbelievable, incredible and amazing, will all need a few years rest
and rehabilitation after he is gone.
John Revolta
@raven: Dayum. Tell his ass to stay in the house. Is that your singin’ brother??
Better L.A. than LA, anyway.
raven
@John Revolta: Well he does song all the time but he is actually Which One’s Pink lawyer, manger and pig noise guy.
raven
@catclub: She and her mom ain’t getting along too well.
terry chay
@Martin: Initially I felt the same as you every time I got news: “Good, it’s about time. It’s too late/too slow, but I’m glad.”
Then I realized that when San Francisco decided to do “shelter-in-place” they needed to get five other counties to agree to it to prevent a “race to the bottom.” This was easy for Santa Clara and San Mateo which were hit harder than San Francisco (and have slightly weaker per capita medical infrastructure), but Alameda and Contra Costa? Also, there are nine counties in the Bay Area and only six agreed to the order so they had to move on with three counties silently objecting to it.
The same implies why not L.A. Though the Bay Area was hit earlier, L.A. was hit harder? But then the delay doesn’t seem strange when you consider Orange County. What’s a ban in L.A. city proper (where nobody lives) or even L.A. County when O.C. is loathe to put a similar measure into place?
The same can be said for the delay statewide. Governor Newsome would need to know he has the support. Until Southern California sent a strong signal that they would support the measure, there is no way he would have the support to override Central California in Sacramento.
These delays are political reality. I’m going to live in it, even if I wished people realized the physical reality is moving so quickly that the political reality will have to follow no matter what.
piratedan
testing is STILL lagging as not everyone who wants to be tested can be and those who should be tested are not because of the lack of kits. Still a great deal of uncertainty regarding the bottom line considerations of where to get kits, their reliability and the materials needed to perform the testing. Our hospitals have finally gotten approval for in house testing to take place and my understanding is that we’re still ahead of the curve thankfully just in time to deal with the window of the expected surge in patients. Thankfully we’re still not at capacity yet, but we still have about 7-10 days to go before our hospital system will know if we’re going to be overwhelmed. the main key is, we STILL do not know how many people are infected, we have game plans and have done the ground work to handle rapid expansion and room considerations but you’re never assured as to if it will be enough… people are tired, both physically and mentally from the strain of anticipation and losing ourselves in just doing what we can where we can atm…. Once testing starts picking up steam, we’ll have a clarified picture of what we’re facing and can start doing the hard work of attempting to separate those who carry from those who are not and take the means necessary to keep those cleared from being exposed.
Ksmiami
@dr. luba: Are you at Beaumont? I used to live in Birmingham-
Mohagan
@Chief Oshkosh: Years ago we had a Siamese mix who loved mushrooms. We would give her the trimmed stem ends while cooking dinner and the other cats would come running to share the treat, sniff the mushrooms in disbelief, and then look at us as if to say “what is this shit”?
C Stars
@A Ghost to Most: Sending good thoughts to you and your wife.
raven
@Hoodie: That’s in North Carolina.
terry chay
@joel hanes: Thanks!
J R in WV
@Mohagan:
We used to have a white Tom with lots of bright red spots, who would sit at the table for dinner, had his place set and a chair. He was very polite and well behaved, and would occasionally pat his saucer with a paw to ask “May I have another bite, please?” and someone would hand him a shred of whatever protein we were having.
He would inspect it for suitability, and if it met his requirements, which were not strict at this dinner, he would politely nibble it away. Fish, chicken, meats were favorites, but a macaroni with good cheese or such was OK too. Was better manners than some people we have had.
ETA fix who I was responding to
Mohagan
@Betty Cracker: My husband heard an interview on Democracy Now (Amy Goodman) and it apparently happened (sigh) in the 1990s, in the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill era. Which explains some of Biden’s horrible behavior during the hearing. My only comfort is the 1990s were a while ago, and Joe hopefully has learned better.
terry chay
@Ella in New Mexico: I suspect they’re aging out of the 18-29 demo then which is my point. Also, I suspect they are spreading it out of fear it might be true (or not but will hurt Biden anyway), rather than someone (like my brother who is 50yo and told me straight up he is not voting in 2020) spreading it to try to get me to not vote also, or my former Facebook because they’re wackaloons who don’t even vote anymore either.
Common sense is that if Biden was guilty of anything other than being Biden (which is pretty damning enough) it would have come out at least before 2008 when he was Obama’s running mate. Democrats aren’t like Republicans, we don’t nominate some snow-billy on a whim to “shake things up.”
Aleta
Re: 215 @terry chay; “New Orleans looks worse now.”
Post:
…
Nelle
@lgerard: That’s what the Iowa Corn Growers did when he wasn’t protecting the ethanol plants enough. They bought challenging ads on Fox’s Sunday morning shows. Don’t know how that turned out for them. I suppose it depends on what moment one happens to check.
Ella in New Mexico
@terry chay:
Yes, that’s exactly what was going on. Plus they do like to argue with their Mom and Dad a lot.
And I’d just like to say thank you everyone here who offered your encouraging words during today’s “Biden Finger Gate: What Do I Tell The Children” episode.
They’re fully apprised of the smart and thoughtful comments I got here today and are actually pretty relieved. A couple have even apologized for doubting me. :-D
Dan B
@germy: Thanks, great thread about sterilization overkill. It seemed from the video about sterile procedure that it was one step from requiring everything, living or not, be run through the autoclave. Since most people’s immune systems can handle a few germs, and do so everyday, that we’d have more trouble from environments so sanitized that our systems get weak. We live in an invisible germ soup and need reminders that kids who had pets and played in dirt have fewer allergies, lower rates of asthma, and fewer serious illnesses than kids that don’t.
Not to say we should go get us exposed to Sars CoV-2 but we can be fine with a small exposure.
terry chay
@zhena gogolia: All contact is risky, but the risk is very small in the case of takeout food. I’d put far more risk in the air around the place you pick up (or the state of the delivery person if you are having it delivered) than some latent virus managing to live in or on a heated plastic container.
Here is the number one vector for the disease: someone coughs, it is aerosolized to thousands per micro-particle of water, you breath in a bunch of those particles of that water, one or more of those viruses particles survives to infect your tissue in your respiratory tract, it progresses down to your lungs before being recognized by your immune system.
Here is the theoretical most-likely vector from takeout food the way most people think of it: someone who has it coughs into their hand, they then handle the food or package, it leaves there and survives for a time (theoretically yes, but it’s basically going to die if it either dries up too much, gets too warm, or isn’t exposed to another lipid like soap) enough for you to touch it, you don’t wash your hands, you then touch your eyes or mouth (if not, you touch something that then touches your eyes or mouth and it manages to live through all that). And then one or more of those virus particles (now numbering in the 10’s or less at best) manages to infect your tissue in the respiratory tract etc.
Still can happen, but much less!
That’s the think about looking at R0 (infection rate) is you can back trace it to make estimates on the risk of each contact (each individual risk is small but multiplicative and some risks are much more than others. Overall it makes the risk high over enough time as more people get it). A food service delivery person who is sick and isn’t wearing a mask when they hand you the food is a more likely vector than a person who is sick cooking your meal. But any social contact entails risk and some non-social contact does too! A commonly used metal or plastic surface that remains cold like the elevator buttons in your apartment building.
It’s all just risk and we are all playing the odds. From a public health perspective the odds become statistical (and thus predictable/measurable), but for us as individuals? Not so much.
We do what we do for others (the public in aggregate), not ourselves. For ourselves there is not much we can predict.
misterpuff
@Elizabelle: Why not use the DPA to force Ventilator manufacturers to increase production and at a set price?
After all they are the experts.
Does GM have the engineering plans and the equipment to do this now?
Nora Lenderbee
@dr. luba: Great explanation, thank you.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Dad suffered from Alzheimer’s. First affects noticed 20 yrs before he passed. He passed in hospice in my arms. He got great care from the homes he lived in for the last 12 yrs of his life. My sister tried to take care of him, she lasted a few weeks. It is a lot of work to keep someone alive who can do nothing for themselves and even harder if they have no idea what is happening. For someone lucid but dying a slow death, I’d bet it’s even worse.
I don’t think we value life too much, but we are mostly woefully out of touch with the concept that everything dies and not often quietly while asleep. Living is messy and dying is a part of that. We’ve invented an entire side of life to explain that in a supposedly non threatening way, but that just makes us less prepared for the reality.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Glad to hear the Mominator is doing well. Was thinking about her and you this morning, hoping that that would be so.
My family appears to be taking it all seriously with the possible exception of RWNJ older brother, who as recently as a week ago (a century ago?) was putting out the “it’s all a hoax, and besides the flu kills more people” BS on FB. The mildest thing I could think of to say in reply was, “Well, bro, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that this post isn’t going to age well.” Haven’t heard anything from him since.
Darkrose
That, to me, is the biggest red flag. I simply don’t find it credible that, in the wake of Bill Clinton and John Edwards, Obama’s team didn’t vet the everliving fuck out of Biden before adding him to the ticket. The idea that they didn’t check out a young female staffer who abruptly quit is inconceivable (and yes, I do know what that word means).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@terry chay:
Four million people might disagree with you on that.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, that’s good. Thanks for the news. It’s not easy doing all that even in the best of times. I think about how hard it would be now if my mom were alive. (Though I wish she were.)
80 y.o. friend in the neighborhood has a birthday today. (Actually my dog picked them out as his friends before we knew each other.) Her husband is having a rough time with this; he’s having flashbacks to being a toddler in late-wartime Europe when he had to go out alone by bus to find food in empty fields to bring back.
They’re being very conscious of no contact, but of course it’s hard. So I wanted to leave her some birthday presents and a card outside their house, but without worrying her about exposure.
We haven’t been in any stores or buildings in 2 weeks, and no contacts (my partner is quite high-risk). But I still spent 1/2 the day taking precautions so she wouldn’t worry OR feel any pressure to politely touch the stuff. I felt like I was way overdoing it time-wise, but I couldn’t not do it either.
Wore gloves and mask, wiped down some pre-packaged shortbread from the Isle of Mull and a box of chocolates I’d ordered and other things with alcohol. Put each thing into its own ziplock bag and card into a clear sleeve so she could see them w/ touching right away. Wiped down each ziplock etc. with alcohol. Wrote note: no need to open right away, you can set these aside for days… Clear sleeve, wipe that down. Feeling like a wreck by this time.
Arrange everything in an open box, visible in 2 bags that she could carry in but leave the box outside… New pair of gloves in a ziplock on top, disinfect….
Wearing gloves and mask (yes overkill, but the point was to reassure her and her older husband), set it down outside her house and phoned her from outside. “Don’t come out yet!”
Took hours. But on our way back from the park with the dog, they came out of the house to thank us (we were across the street). They looked happy, we all air hugged and it was worth it.
debbie
How is the Trump administration prohibiting vendors from shipping to a specific state not a federal racketeering crime?
Nyrobbin
@MomSense:
Come sit by me
J R in WV
@debbie:
I don’t think Trump’s people are prohibiting shipping to a specific state… I think they’re holding shipments up until some other state — any other state offers to pay more for the shipment.
For which extra payment someone wants some fraction of the payment for their ‘effort’ in arranging the more profitable transaction.
Capische??
Ruckus
@A Ghost To Most:
Good luck to both of you.
I’ve been told that I’ve had migraines for things that involve no pain and I’ve been getting migraines for many decades. The one’s I’ve been told that about are unlike my normal migraines, which always follow the exact same pattern. One was I lost my eye sight for about 15 minutes, completely black blind. There was nothing wrong in any testing, MRI, etc. And it’s never happened again. This was over 20 yrs ago. I’ve had extended times of no migraines, I’ve had extended times of several a month.
Once again good luck to both of you.
Ohio Mom
Aleta: You win the Went an Extra Mile Award. So much strategizing, so many steps, so much making sure your neighbors would feel comfortable and not threatened by the package on their doorstep. Love in action.
MomSense
@A Ghost to Most:
I’ll be sending healing and strength to her – and hugs to you. Please check in.
dww44
@bemused: just as he picked on the female CEO of GM. Unfairly, too. It took Trump’s natural antipathy to powerful women to cause him to finally do something others had been begging him to do: invoke the National Defense Production Act. It took these events today to convince spouse to say at dinner tonight that he now finally sees what a misogynist Trump is.
pluky
@Major Major Major Major: oh yeah, and Cole knew EXACTLY what double entendre was in play.
“What is Central Park without a sailor?”
daverave
Thats my experience too trollhattan