Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

This fight is for everything.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Bark louder, little dog.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Saturday / Sunday, April 18-19

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Saturday / Sunday, April 18-19

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90Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is now briefing the media. 84 new cases as of noon today, total 5,389; one death, total 89. 2,103 active cases, down from 2,115 yesterday,

  2. 2.

    JPL

    Although informative, the CDC study is terrifying.    Next time I go to a restaurant, I’ll be sitting away from the AC.     Geez why bother going.   I assume the same thing would happen if you are sitting outside depending on what way the wind blows.

  3. 3.

    ThresherK

     One asymptomatic person infected 10 (out of 91) at restaurant—but *only* if they were in direct line of air pushed by the A/C.

    My wife is one of those “please don’t sit me under the A/C vent at a restaurant” type. She’s been practicing to avoid this contamination her whole life.

  5. 5.

    ThresherK

    @raven: Hey, remember that street organ music snippet?

    Just wanted to answer your reply: As far as my brain can tell, that’s the bridge to Let Me Entertain You.

    The next time I’m on a carousel, I wanna hear Let Me Entertain You, Ten Cents a Dance, and Hey Big Spender.

  8. 8.

    satby

    Well I was just given a 24 hour time out on Facebook for calling the astroturf protesters and their seditious preznit white trash. Because in spite of all the garbage and misinformation FB allows that violated their community standards.

  9. 9.

    Ohio Mom

    Satby: Good for you! Logic doesn’t work on those people, they might as well get a taste of how angry they make the rest of us.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @Ohio Mom: ironically, no one will see it, the algorithm flagged it within minutes. Though misinformation and conspiracy theories continue to flourish with occasional warnings that they might not be true.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    @satby: Well I was just given a 24 hour time out on Facebook for calling the astroturf protesters and their seditious preznit white trash.

     
    It’s living in this Post Truth period that drives me angry as much as the mishandling of the pandemic does. How can we solve the problem when we are not allowed to accurately describe anything important?

  13. 13.

    New Deal democrat

    Trump has reverted to his original plan on coronavirus, with one addition. The plan: (1) minimize testing, so that case reports are as low as possible; (2) claim that the virus is magically going away. That was his plan in February, and that is his plan now.

    The addition: blame governors for the fact that the economy is in an induced coma, and the virus is, in fact, not magically going away.

    Until the regional State consortiums find a way around his refusal to provide help in ramping up testing, there is no hope of opening up on even a limited basis.

    The tiny silver lining: the best econometric election model I know of, which is 1st quarter head to head polling + Index of Leading economic indicators, forecasts Trump heading for a historic loss.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    And yeah, I was trained to not use the term “white trash.” I guess that has been put in the filter as a slur: and it is.

    But boy howdy, do these people get on my last nerve with a pipe file.

  15. 15.

    satby

    @WereBear: I’ve been restraining myself for a while from using that specific term, but I don’t know another that fits quite as well. Garbage humans might be close, but the reality is these are white garbage humans. Hence, shorthand.

  16. 16.

    germy

    I’m a little nervous because Senator Kelly Loeffler just bought 600,000 shares in a company that makes gigantic fly swatters.

    — Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) April 18, 2020

  18. 18.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @satby: Well, you might be glad to know that I found out via a problematic friend that they also give people time-outs for the gay F word and casual demands that one kill oneself.

  20. 20.

    evodevo

    @satby: Really….I’ve been saying all kinds of stuff like that on my site for months, and they pulled only one of mine, which they reinstated when I protested…and all my posts are “public”….I bet someone on your list complained anonymously….

  21. 21.

    evodevo

    @satby: Well, my black friends don’t like it because it always implied that black people were the “other” trash, so I usually use “trailer park trash”….though, to be fair, I lived in a trailer park for 4 years at one point….

  23. 23.

    satby

    @evodevo: and all my posts are “public”….I bet someone on your list complained anonymously….

    All my posts are public too because I mostly stay on FB as a way to counter the spread of propaganda and to stay in touch with my former exchange students. Not sure anyone had time to complain, it was a pretty rapid response. IDGAF anyway.

  24. 24.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @evodevo: I bet someone on your list complained anonymously….

    Would make sense considering it took “minutes” and wasn’t basically immediate.  Computers work fast.

  25. 25.

    zzyzx

    I read the CDC study and there’s one thing that worries me about it from a practical matter, “The only known source of exposure for the affected persons in families B and C was patient A1 at the restaurant”

    Now that we know that asymptomatic transmission is a real thing, that’s a huge assumption there that someone being the only known source means that it’s the actual source.

    I mean, it definitely is interesting enough to require more research and to keep an eye on, but don’t over rely on it.

  26. 26.

    randy khan

    It is true that the U.S. has a quarter of all reported COVID-19 cases, but relative to population, the U.S. is in the middle of the pack.  (I was looking at these numbers last night because I’m an obsessive.) And while the U.S. testing regime is, uh, inadequate and we almost certainly have more cases than we’re reporting, a fair number of other countries look like they are underreporting  in a systematic way to avoid looking bad.

  27. 27.

    zzyzx

    @randy khan: Not getting the per capita difference is driving me crazy. And while we were definitely slow getting testing started and that prevented an early test and trace approach, right now we’ve tested more people per capita than South Korea (11,245/million v 10,905, source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ )

    We still need more testing and faster testing, but the days where it makes sense to talk about how South Korea is the gold standard for testing that we need to achieve no longer makes sense.

  28. 28.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I see far worse from his supporters on my page and none of them seem to be put in time out. I’ll have to start reporting them.

  29. 29.

    ThresherK

    @evodevo: I understand what you mean, but in all seriousness the virus travels out of the duct to me, too, I think.

    I’m gonna look up the history of Legionnaire’s Disease and then wrap myself in a ball for an hour, after which I’ll be ready to face the day.

  30. 30.

    YY_Sima Qian

    It me or is the Trump administration really starting to jump the shark on blame shifting, with the bureaucracy seemingly guided by Trump’s tweets? Trump rages against Chinese lying about the early extent of the outbreak, and every department in federal government and all of the conservative media immediately kick into gear, dragging parts of the MSM along. Trump rages against the WHO and its director general on twitter, and again both the bureaucratic (including diplomatic) and the conservative media machinery kick into gear, again dragging parts of the MSM along. Trump (and members of his administration) again start to float the so far unfounded speculation that, while not necessarily challenging its natural origin, the SAR-CoV-2 virus escaped from a Wuhan lab. Same pattern repeats, though fewer of the MSM is necessarily playing along. Trump tweets that China is lying about the death count (ironically, after Wuhan just made a 50% correction), and now Dr. Birx tries compare deaths per 100K population as a metric between the US, Belgium and China in teh daily briefing, declaring that Chinese deaths figures are impossibly low.

    Anyone capable of even a bit of analytical thinking should know that the epidemic was largely contained within Hubei Province, and Wuhan accounted for the vast majority of cases and deaths within Hubei. Not a surprise that per capita death rate for all of China is extremely, given China’s 1.4B population. Deaths per capital in Wuhan is in line with Italy and Spain (though not the hardest hit parts of Italy and Spain). Other provinces in China have case counts measured in the hundreds (or just over a thousand) and deaths in the dozens. One might argue that the nations and regions that have successfully contained the epidemic are advantaged by their island geography (South Korea, for all intents and purposes, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore). New Zealand and Australia are quickly reaching containment as well, both islands. However, if Chinese provinces with multi-modal transportation links (and no physical borders) to Hubei can contain the epidemic, what is the excuses of countries continents and oceans away?

    It’s like the federal government is personifying its sun-downing chief executive, all in attempt to deflect blame and shift attention.

  31. 31.

    zzyzx

    Perhaps a better phrasing is that our problem now is that we’re not doing enough with the data we have, not that we’re not collecting enough data.

    When the first wave recedes, we now have the logistics to test at the level that South Korea is doing. The challenge is to direct it correctly.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    It me or is the Trump administration really starting to jump the shark on blame shifting, with the bureaucracy seemingly guided by Trump’s tweets?

    Rest assured, it’s not just you. Trump is back in blame-everyone-else mode. Nobody outside his Trump über alles base is falling for it, though.

  35. 35.

    sheila in nc

    I saw an email update from a state senator here in NC (good guy) giving what looked like a cogent assessment of the local situation. Lockdown has done a good job of flattening the curve and avoiding overwhelmed hospitals. But lifting lockdown needs to be done hand in hand with much wider testing. Local impediment to more testing? Continued lack of sufficient PPE. I guess you can’t open a drive up testing station or some such if you can’t protect the people taking samples. And the market for PPE, nationally and maybe globally, seems to be particularly messed up. The email described it as “the Wild West.”

  36. 36.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @satby: Once you are set free by our Facebook Lord and Masters, try “honkey.”  I’m shocked at what happened to you — I guess calling Trump a “pig-ignorant lard ass” is okay.

  37. 37.

    evodevo

    @Cheryl from Maryland: I called him a fat, Henry VIII version of Joffrey today…I think only my GoT fan facebook friends will get it, while a lot of the right winger nutjob relatives/acquaintances don’t .  Doubt if an algorithm would either…

  38. 38.

    germy

    NYT journalists fluffing each other:

    I've seen reporters dominate city halls and state houses, but never a dominant White House reporter like @maggieNYT. Of course Trump is obsessed with her.

    — Ben Smith (@benyt) April 18, 2020

  39. 39.

    Gvg

    @YY_Sima Qian: Trump is not very smart nor educated and he is total out of his depth in this crisis. In addition he is a media creature, who basically lives based on TV. Most of his problems in life have been handled by successful spins being figured out. He just cannot learn that reality of this sort can’t be solved by saying something on TV.  I also suspect that he believes what he chooses to watch on TV is reality and so do his most loyal idiot followers. He is a bigot, so what he chooses to believe tends to blame non white scapegoats also. I started to really worry about this currently republican tendancy when I heard multiple reports of Bush’s administration using arguments based on the TV show 24 which had US agents using torture to race the clock and prevent horrible civilian deaths. They didn’t get that writers get to pick the reality and write for dramatic effect which has no relation to actual reality. Trump and supporters are gullible, but they chose which cons they fall for and are writing their own. They don’t get virus science and don’t want to hear anyone who tries to tell them uncomfortable truths so Trump just can’t get a handle on this crisis and doesn’t even understand why.

    thats also why what success we have had involves ignoring him. He isn’t useful.

  40. 40.

    leeleeFL

    @JPL: As a career server, in FLORI-DUH, this picture looks like retirement and retraining to me and, at 69 yo, I gotta say, buying this computer for my Birthday is looking prescient AF.

  41. 41.

    charon

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Because Trump retaliates harshly against any and all who are insufficiently effusive in their sycophancy and praise for him.  Parroting what Trump says is essential to avoiding retaliation, punishment.

  43. 43.

    Kirk Spencer

    @WereBear: Personally, I’ve gone to “how evil.”

    I know, evil is a complex and somewhat subjective term. But I /think/ everyone agrees that unnecessary harm done to others is evil, and it’s my opinion that a person who repeatedly does unnecessary harm to others is either stupid or evil.

    Given how often these people were warned of the consequences, can SEE the consequences, and still continue the actions?

    Evil.

  44. 44.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yeah, I knew Trump’s character since the campaign, but what I find frightening is much of the bureaucracy following suit immediately and to the letter. It seems anyone with the barest minimum of competence, integrity and professionalism have been driven out. Dr. Birx is leading the federal effort (or at least is the face of), and she is talking nonsense to the nation and the world! Even Dr. Fauci has had to occasionally massage Trump’s ego.

    Furthermore, when it comes to China, the “deep state” isn’t serving as a break in Trump’s tendencies, since so much of the bi-partisan national security establishment is myopically focused on great power competition with China (even in the middle of a pandemic ravaging the US in every aspect), with some itching to launch a new Cold War while the US still holds an advantageous position. Such types are greatly over-represented in the current Trump administration. For some among the political and policy elite, they seem more worried about China gaining power and influence during the pandemic, following its early recovery (so far), as opposed to the pandemic itself (even in the US). Well guess what, the best way to ensure the US does not surrender its privileged position is to mitigate, contain and suppress COVID-19 as quickly as possible, and not act like sociopathic d*ckheads toward everyone else.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    Love the African dog school teacher. “Who’s a good student? You are, you’re a good student! Now, what’s the cube root of sixty-four?”

  46. 46.

    lahke

    We can compare the unnecessary coronavirus deaths to another manifestation of American stupidity and say that we’ve now attained one annual gun death unit (AGDU?), and are on track to hit at least 2 AGDUs in this first COVID19 wave.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @germy:

    Safe-Prediction Sunday prediction: Mags will sack up and take the abuse to keep her precious access. “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

    The Dean Baquet School of being a winning winner who wins.

  49. 49.

    trollhattan

    @lahke:

    At some future time when epidemiologists are allowed to study school shootings, the 2020 data hole is going to require footnotes galore.

    Will no-one think of all those poor, idle guns, that unexpended ammo?

  50. 50.

    joel hanes

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    is the Trump administration really starting to jump the shark on blame shifting

    Trump’s entire term of office has consisted of a near-daily series of jumps over ever-larger sharks.    His cultists are absolutely willing to sacrifice the lives  of others to watch this spectacle , and it’s turning out that they’re willing to risk their own lives and the lives of those they love.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    It’s impossible to live in the middle of the Hurricane Trump and guess “Has he finally gone too far?” Like peak wingnut, peak Trump is an untested theoretical endpoint. Until November we cannot know.

  52. 52.

    planetjanet

    @evodevo: What puzzles me about the study is how the people at table C were infected if the AC is blowing from them to the infected person at A1.  There is an exhaust vent on the other side of the room.  How would the droplets get from Table A to Table C?

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @planetjanet:

    Good question.

    Perhaps the air current forms eddies that rotate back in that direction? (I’m pretending I took fluid dynamics for just a sec.) Also, where are the return vents all located?

  55. 55.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Pretty sure the restaurant in the study does not have central air conditioning, the exhaust fan’s air flow is unlikely to be equal to that of the A/C, so there is circulated air flow going in the other direction (dashed lines), although I would think the return currents would move along the wall at the top, as well as the line dividing the two sectikns of the room.

    The A/Cs are probably the standing box type that can blow both cold air in summer and warm air in winter, very common across China. Only modern and top end commercial and residential properties (and most hotels) have centralized A/C.

  57. 57.

    planetjanet

    @trollhattan:

    The AC is on the right side of the diagram and an exhaust fan is on the left side.  Wouldn’t that increase the likelihood that Table D would be affected?

  58. 58.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @planetjanet: The small circles around each table represent patrons, I think D was unoccupied.

    By the way, I think the study assumes A1 is the index patient, due to earlier confirmation. It could be C2, with a longer incubation period or later confirmation.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @planetjanet:

    If those are self-contained ACs–it doesn’t say–they can be set for fresh air supply or recirculate (as in a car). If it’s the second option, they will be pulling in inside air while simultaneously putting out chilled air. This would create a backdraft to the unit.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @zzyzx: I disagree.  We’re still not doing anywhere near enough testing.  Yes, our numbers of tests per million are similar to SK’s, but their number of positives per million are 208/2232 = 9.3% of the USA’s.  We need to do about 100/9.3 = 10.75x as much testing as we are doing now to be on-par with them.  Like 1.6M tests a day instead of 150,000.  (These are just ball-park averages, of course.)

    And we need to get ready to ramp up contact tracing.  Testing alone will not get us where we need to be.

    We’re still way, way behind where we need to be if we want to be smart about “opening up” the economy.  And all the indications are that Donnie’s administration doesn’t care and still is trying to minimize numbers rather than actually give us the information (and PPE, and testing infrastructure, and …) needed to address the problems.

    It’s infuriating!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    laura

    @YY_Sima Qian: it’s not just you – and I cant help but believe that the trump administration has also roped the Australian government into rumor mongering the China lab and WHO blame casting. Morally bankrupt and causing moral injury on top of the actual likelihood of increasing the numbers of ill and dying by downplaying testing and denying the true scope of the pandemic.

  62. 62.

    Mandalay

    Ruh-roh…

    More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.

    A number of CDC staffers are regularly detailed to work at WHO in Geneva as part of a rotation that has operated for years. Senior Trump-appointed health officials also consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO as the crisis unfolded, the officials said.

    The presence of so many U.S. officials undercuts President Trump’s charge that the WHO’s failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the United States.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @Mandalay:
    Regional Office for WHO for the Americas

    General information
    Regional Office for the Americas
    525, 23rd Street, N.W.
    Washington, DC 20037
    USA

    There’s no excuse for Donnie ignoring – and now blaming- the WHO.  None.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Suzanne

    @JPL: There’s starting to be some evidence that it is overwhelmingly transmitted in interior environments, not outdoors. (Though I wouldn’t stand immediately downwind of someone outside, either.) But if this is true, it fits with the patterns of other diseases.

    That also means that pressurized buildings, like high-rises and most hospitals, will present more risk.

  66. 66.

    Suzanne

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Only modern and top end commercial and residential properties (and most hotels) have centralized A/C.

     

    Not true. Most commercial buildings built in the last 20 years in the US have what non-building people would call “central AC”.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @trollhattan: Yeah, I just looked at this study and it is not very enlightening in this regard. Saying “air conditioned” doesn’t really tell us much. Is it individual split systems? Or are the two air supplies on one system, like a VAV or dual-duct?

    All this really implies is that the virus gets blown around in interior environments in a linear fashion…. which I suppose is helpful to confirm, but is absolutely what we would expect to see. But it doesn’t really give us any insight as to which kinds of HVAC systems are more or less likely to transmit it.

  70. 70.

    Ohio Mom

    Suzanne: So all these years I have railed against buildings without openable windows, I was on to something?

    Mandalay: I’m betting that somewhere in the early COVID timeline there was a PDB that was titled “Virus Determined to Strike US” that Trump shrugged off with, “Okay, you’ve covered your ass.”

    Of course I am being a little metaphorical. There might not have been an actual PDB about CV-19 but there were certainly other reports, and while those were probably not Trump’s actual  words, the meaning was the same.

  71. 71.

    Jinchi

    @Suzanne: All this really implies is that the virus gets blown around in interior environments in a linear fashion

    That was a single specific case study, and I thought the takeaway was that everyone in the direction of the air flow (as measured from the infected person) got infected, but those outside of it didn’t.

    If the virus was aerosolized it would have cycled through the entire room. The implication is that the virus is mostly tied to water droplets and falls out of the air more quickly.

  72. 72.

    James E Powell

    @Gvg:

    They didn’t get that writers get to pick the reality and write for dramatic effect which has no relation to actual reality.

    But they did get that voters’ beliefs about the world come from TV shows more than from reality. How many of those who ordered or did the torturing suffered any career damage?

  73. 73.

    JaneE

    Ever since this made the news, experts have been saying that testing is the key to getting a handle on it.  We are seeing first hand the results of not doing enough testing from the beginning.  Where  I am, you still need to be symptomatic to get a test.  Until about two weeks ago, the turnaround on results was a week or more.  Then we got down to two days.  We are supposed to have the two hour tests by now.  Whatever test we have, the person (1 in 10 here, based on the published numbers) who is infected will probably have passed it on for at least two days before they were tested, and depending on how long they waited to decide they were sick enough to ask for a test it could be a week or more.

    The first immunity tests indicated that 2.5 – 4% of the population had antibodies, so presumably had it and didn’t know it.  Everyone is saying how great it is that some cases are so mild and that means the mortality rates are overstated.  They seem to forget that as herd immunity goes, 4% is absolutely pitiful.

  74. 74.

    James E Powell

    @trollhattan:

    Safe-Prediction Sunday prediction: Mags will sack up and take the abuse to keep her precious access. “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

    It’s part of their game. Every once in a while he slams her apropos of nothing. It helps her maintain her “both sides hate me so I must be right” credibility index for the rest of the time when she is caping for him.

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: Operable windows are awesome but they present some problems in certain types of buildings. They are actively disallowed in some building types/localities.

  76. 76.

    Jinchi

    @JaneE: They seem to forget that as herd immunity goes, 4% is absolutely pitiful.

    Point out that 40,000 people have died already and at least 96% of us haven’t even caught it yet.

    1,000,000 Americans would die if we tried for herd immunity and just let it run through the population.

  77. 77.

    Kent

    @Another Scott: I google mapped it.  The WHO headquarters for the Americas is 5 blocks from the White House and across the street from the State Department.

    And, as others have noted.  It is full of US employees and US government employees on detail from other agencies.

  78. 78.

    debbie

    @Ohio Mom:

    Don’t forget about “sick” buildings. Operable windows aren’t the issue there; it’s crap in the vents, which will likely never disappear.

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @Jinchi: Uh, yeah… that’s what I meant when I said that the virus essentially got blown in a straight line — the line of the airflow.

  81. 81.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: It’s thought that the biggest factor in “sick building syndrome” is volatile organic compounds and other potentially hazardous chemicals in the building materials, not debris or germs.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @Jinchi: Yes, and that’s great. But I am trying to figure out how to make interior spaces safer, and there’s no good takeaway here. We can’t not provide HVAC.

  83. 83.

    WhatsMyNym

    American deaths = 37,154
    Worldwide deaths = 154,241

    New York state deaths = 17,626
    WTF?!

  84. 84.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Suzanne:

     

    But I am trying to figure out how to make interior spaces safer, and there’s no good takeaway here.

    The only way I could see is decrease the pressure of air coming from vents. Yes, I know that would be very hard/expensive.

  85. 85.

    joel hanes

    @WhatsMyNym:

    New York City has some characteristics that enable contagion:

    – lots of housing with shared corridors and elevators

    – subways and commuter trains

    – reliance on taxis, uber, lyft

    – many residents rely nearly completely on restaurants for meals

    – culture of public gatherings

    – crowded streets

    – many large businesses whose employees travel extensively before frequent face-to-face meetings.  Crowded office spaces.

    Many of these obtain to a lesser degree, or not at all, to e.g. Seattle or Silicon Valley or LA, so although New York shut down only a couple days after the west coast hotspots, the rate of infection in NYC was higher.

  86. 86.

    joel hanes

    @Suzanne:

    Cloth “tents” that separate individual airspaces, combined with a personal air purifier with filter/UV-C per person?

    (just brainstorming; I have no expertise)

    (When I was in basic training in winter, the training brigade suffered an outbreak of meningitis that killed trainees and hospitalized many.   They issued us extra sheets, had us construct “sneeze-sheet” cubicles over each bunk, and that measure apparently helped.)

  87. 87.

    sdhays

    @Ohio Mom: Mandalay: I’m betting that somewhere in the early COVID timeline there was a PDB that was titled “Virus Determined to Strike US” that Trump shrugged off with, “Okay, you’ve covered your ass.”

    Now, now. That’s not fair. W at least heard and acknowledged the report. Dump probably just yelled at whoever was delivering the report to shut up and get out because the people on the teevee were talking about him.

  88. 88.

    MoCA Ace

    @JaneE:  MoCA Spawn is now 10 days into a probable COVID19 infection and never got tested.  This was based on rec’s from the university health services doctor because they are so backlogged and/or still saving them for hospitalized patients.  He seems to be recovered and the nursing home where he works, and was likely exposed to the virus, wants him back at work on Thursday.  He said their requirement is 72 hours after last symptoms and no fever for 7 days… no testing required!

  89. 89.

    TriassicSands

    America accounts for 24% of worldwide deaths. We make up 4% of the world’s population.

    Yeah, but we’re responsible for 62% of the world’s stupidity and 73% of its ignorance.

    It goes without saying that we were doing well in these enviable categories before Trump took office, but after that happened we made our world leadership undeniable.

    Note: In honor of Donald Trump, the statistics cited in this comment are made up.

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