Depressing but completely expected update:
USA COVID-19 stats as of 12:30 PM on May 26, 2020
? Cases ?: 1,712,626 (+1,685.0)
☠️ Deaths ☠️: 100,004 (+54.0)
Updated AZ,MN,NC,OK,SD since 12:00 PM on May 26, 2020— USCovidDeathBot (@USCovidDeathBot) May 26, 2020
Open Thread
brendancalling
This isn’t going away until Trump is gone. Trump is the virus, the vectors are the GOP and his cult of personality.
No One of Consequence
What a sorrowful and sorrow-filled milestone.
I have no words.
It has been said that Osama Bin Laden showed the world that the USA was a paper tiger.
It took a President Donald Trump to show the world, even that image was too fearsome for reality.
And Lincoln was right, in his address to those lawyers in Kansas City: no foreign army will set a single boot on the hills of Appalachia. If destruction comes to this great nation, we will do it ourselves, *TO* ourselves.
Take courage. The war is not yet lost, more and more Americans are realizing the clear and present danger presented by Our President.
Three things may not long be hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth.
Pray it still matters when revealed to All.
Peace,
– NOoC
(edited for typo)
Queens Lurker
The death delta is perhaps overly precise
ETA: really both are.
Jerzy Russian
Keep in mind the official death toll is probably too low by a factor of two or more.
WereBear
They have done some weird math and determined saving our lives will cost them money.
Shrugged, and moved on.
Villago Delenda Est
Not to worry. Russia and Brazil are on a path to compete with us in body count.
aliasofwestgate
The med professional in me from my years as a pharm tech just cringe at that count. Which could have been a LOT lower had things not been ignored, pushed away, and disregarded. So much more wrong with it. A very shitty milestone.
Baud
@aliasofwestgate:
Fixed.
MagdaInBlack
@WereBear:
We are “human capital stock.”
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not going to happen, at least by official counts. Trump doesn’t control enough of the reporting infrastructure to suppress the body count as effectively as Putin or Bolsonaro.
gene108
*** Shrug ***
It’s only going to get worse, with the damn the consequences reopen.
Cat’s out of the bag. Genie’s out of the bottle.
Keep yourself as safe as possible, and hope for the best.
I don’t know what else we can do now.
Miss Bianca
@WereBear:
QFT. Alas….
MattF
Infuriatingly, Trump minions continue to suggest that the reported numbers are an overcount. One simply has to look at the excess deaths analysis to realize that the reported numbers are an undercount. Grr.
Edmund Dantes
@No One of Consequence: problem is Trump is theirs; they are not his.
Current gop, supporters, and it’s infrastructure is our real problem. Trump is but a symptom.
Kirk Spencer
I fear that we are still at the start of it all – that we the world, not just the nation, are still in denial or ignorance.
If we shall have no vaccine till after the new year at best and after years at worst, then the sole way of keeping the totals down is continued lockdown. And varying degrees that is not going to happen.
At only (how I hate that word) a thousand deaths a day the US will see over 300,000 dead by Christmas. Given the recent displays of shortsightedness I think it will be higher.
Edited to make math more accurate.
Baud
Major Major Major Major
Open thread?
This made me think of my AI post from the other day:
Mike in NC
100,000 and counting dead Americans is the price the GOP is happy to pay to remain in power.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
‘”For all this, we thank the Fuhrer”
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: I assume that Trump will at some point order the CDC to redefine “COVID death”, blame Cuomo and Whitmer for artificially inflating theirs, and claim victory at 50,000.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It will go back up. Probably by the end of the week. The red states are going to pay a huge penalty for their “open it up” idiocy, sooner rather than later.
I don’t want to say “they deserve it” because too many innocents such as the underpaid service people who have to work for the idiots, are going to suffer during this bloodbath. The virus is not selective and that is the whole point of lockdowns.
But it’s going to happen.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
Just for the record, I would try to maintain a safe distance from that truck myself, so the Tesla may be wrong on the specifics and correct on the response.
Roger Moore
@Edmund Dantes:
I’m not sure I agree 100%. I agree that Trump is a symptom of a deeper underlying pathology, but he’s more than just a symptom. He’s making the underlying pathology worse. For decades, the Republicans have felt a need to keep their racism and corruption hidden. Trump has changed that by being openly racist and corrupt, and he’s encouraged the rest of the party to go along. That was not an inevitable consequence of a random member of the Republican Establishment winning the election, and it’s definitely making the country a much more dangerous place.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: US numbers are already trending up if you leave out the Northeast, so as that region continues to fall and the rest rise faster… yeah.
Betty Cracker
Gotta give props to CNN for banging the drum on the dangers of the virus and putting the blame for the spread where it belongs: on Trump and his oppositional defiant disordered cult. Their continued employment of Chris Cillizza is unforgivable, of course, and they have more than their fair share of political hacks on staff. But they’ve generally been good on the COVID-19 issue.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s Trump. He’ll demand the CDC report that the U.S. actually gained lives as a result of his response to virus.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: All those traffic fatalities that didn’t happen!
ETA: I have read that it is entirely possible that, worldwide, we will have net positive quality-adjusted life years due to pollution reduction. But surely a Republican would never suggest that pollution is bad.
MattF
@Baud: It’s that cubic polynomial fit to the data. Goes below zero, any day now.
Barbara
@MagdaInBlack: Someone should definitely use that quote or clip in a pro-Biden ad. It’s just ghoulish as hell.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jerzy Russian: More like it’s under-counted by 30% going by the unexpected deaths, outside The South, the US isn’t that far gone yet
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I am going to take a slightly contrarian take: the state governments’ attempts to reopen are not going to bring back the kind of rapid exponential growth we saw before the shutdowns. There are two big reasons for this:
Between those two things, I expect we’ll see a growth in cases, but not the kind of explosive growth we had before. And I hope and expect that when the numbers show there has been growth, the state governments are going to stop opening up and even put back in place some of the restrictions they’ve loosened. I still think it’s dumb to reopen as quickly as some states have, but it’s not quite as dumb as it’s been made out to be.
randy khan
Not that people here need any reminder, but here’s a brief recap of Trump’s moving target:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 10: ““Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
April 10: “‘The minimum number was 100,000 lives and I think we’ll be substantially under that number,’ Trump said during a White House press conference. ‘Hard to believe that if you had 60,000, you can never be happy, but that’s a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking.'”
April 30: “. . . we’re probably heading to 60,000, 70,000.”
May 4: 100,000
There’s also a time when he said 100,000 to 200,000 would be a good job. So we have a way to go until that one. Let’s hope we don’t get there.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I don’t watch CNN but I sometimes read USA Today. I happened to get the past weekend edition and I thought the Covid-19 reporting was extensive and cut trump no slack. A lot of local papers feature USA Today for their page of national news.
MattF
@Roger Moore: The counter-argument is that we’ve already done the slow exponential buildup. Changes now to the infection level will be roughly at the order of magnitude of the current level.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore: It feels like Trump morphed the Right’s racism and classism into acting like a complete ignorant Know Nothings and useless Twatwaffles who breaks things just because they think it’s funny. Remember the GW Bush admin was able to get it’s act together on SARS. In today GOP that is the act of a snowflake libertard.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I also think most of the reopenings will go “smoothly” (expected uptick but not apocalyptic, as has been observed everywhere else iirc). My main concerns are:
MagdaInBlack
@Barbara:
Ive been breathing fire over that comment since I heard it.
scav
It’s also possible his innate tendency to brag about big BIG bigger THE BEST MOST PERFECT Numbers kicks in. We do allllll the testing, and his minions will chime in with praise about all the comorbidities we also lead the world in!! Truly we have been blessed by The Lord by his mercy of installing Republicans as National Shepards at This Time.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
I guess what I’m saying is that people are acting as if states that reopen are going to see the same 3 day doubling time we had back in March when there were no restrictions in place. That’s not going to happen, and it’s very important that it not happen. We expect there to be a lag of as much as two weeks between policy changes and people testing positive. If we were going to go back to a 3 day doubling time, a 2 week wait would correspond to a 20-30x jump in the number of infected people, which would be catastrophic when starting from the current caseload. But by opening up slowly- both by the government relaxing restrictions slowly and people not going hog wild the moment they’re given a chance- I expect we can keep the doubling time to something more like the 2 week lag between policy changes and test results. That means a jump in cases from policy changes will be bad, but not anything like what we saw in March.
Cameron
@randy khan: And by August he’ll be saying if the toll stays under 1,000,000, that means he’s done an outstanding job.
sdhays
If the majority of the reason that we’re not going to see a huge spike is because of your point #2, then it’s every bit as stupid as it’s been made out to be. It’s a total abdication of leadership and relying on people to randomly do the thing that you aren’t willing to tell them to do.
But it will look less stupid because we won’t see the spike.
Major Major Major Major
@sdhays: even “rely on people to spontaneously do the right thing when you tell them to do it” isn’t having great infection results in collectivist Sweden (though they do have an impressively high rate of people acting responsibly). Compared to their neighbors, that is; Sweden is still looking good compared to a lot of the world.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
While we’re at it, can we get some better educational material on how to wear a mask properly? Anything you exhale can be infectious for minutes or even hours. That means covering your mouth and nose, not taking the mask off to talk, and wearing the mask any time you’re in an area where other people may be, even if they aren’t there at the moment. It’s not technically difficult, but it apparently requires more discipline than many people have.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: yes that would be great!
I’d blame the lack of a federal response, but the responsible states aren’t doing a very good job communicating it either. F for the fed, C- for NY.
Delk
Meanwhile, Georgia, Texas, and Florida are fighting over the chance to further risk their populations by hosting the RNC Convention.
Major Major Major Major
opiejeanne
@MagdaInBlack: I missed it, which cretin referred to “human capital stock.”? I would guess the Cretin in Chief, but there are so many choices.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: I can see how the rate of doubling of infection could be less in June than in March. But it seems like the virus has had time to spread into the counties which it had hardly touched in March. The result may not be a spike or wave so much as a storm surge. What contact tracing and quarantine measures we’ve stood up probably won’t keep up even without compliance problems.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I’m not sure that wasn’t an eventuality. The conservative plan is to keep grifting till they own it all. How else would they accomplish this without going all in? And while it’s possible that they could have accomplished this in a less obvious way, what they have done with shitforbrains just took less time, and the reality is that the virus and shitforbrains reaction is hurting them, the overall results don’t hurt them all that much, as long as you aren’t using a humanistic measuring stick. Which they are incapable of doing.
Brachiator
@gene108:
I am not sure that this is true, yet. There is still much that can be done to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. However, we may be screwed if people think that we just should go back to exactly the way things were before the pandemic.
It is not just about what you can do to keep yourself safe. It never has been. And for some reason, even some people who keep up with news about the pandemic keep falling into this trap.
We are all trying to protect ourselves and protect other people as well, particularly those who might be most at risk of becoming ill or dying. And we do this not only by our our decisions, but by the responsibility that we give to government.
The insanity is that the “liberation” nuts think that the Constitution, or Trump, gives everyone the absolute right to do whatever they personally think is cool.
The virus don’t care.
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: They’re trying to figure out ways that the excess deaths were actually caused by the lockdown rather than COVID. Or that the lockdowns are actually making people get COVID. Often there’s no mechanism offered, just some weird and specious comparisons of graphs. I was just told that “the lockdown is illogical as a means of reducing deaths from all causes because it’s singling out a single cause of death”.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
When I say “open it up idiocy” I’m talking less about state policy and more about local idiots, many of them goaded by Fox News or the astroturf groups organizing the protests. People like the Texas GOP County Chair who told a meeting that the virus is a liberal hoax, prior to having everybody unmask and hug. People like the Missouri hairdressers who between them exposed something like 140 people. People like the idiots from neighboring states who flocked to Georgia restaurants when they reopened. People like the evangelicals whose churches have never closed or made any effort to impose social distancing. People pushing the “masks make you look weak” message, who get up in the face of people who are wearing masks and sneeze on them.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: A flood is a really good analogy–the way it takes time to gather, and the really serious flooding can happen long after people think it’s all over.
catclub
The weird thing for me is Brazil is watching us and saying “hold my caipirinha” on the total deaths.
narya
I am not the expert on this, but it appears that Chicago’s persistent level of new infections is going to delay “reopening,” if I interpret the FYNYT article accurately. Which is absolutely the smart (if hard) thing to do. (Hell, I”m not going out anyway, even if things ARE “reopened.”) There isn’t a huge spike, even as testing increases, but it’s not dropping, either, and none of the Mayor’s requirements are being met (e.g., consistent decline in cases and ER visits, significant testing capacity), so . . .
Fair Economist
@Geminid: “Storm Surge” is a good description of what’s been going on here in OC CA for over a month now. Cases and hospitalizations just keep climbing – slowly, but it will eventually be a big problem if it never stops.
Dahlia
@opiejeanne: Kevin Hassett, economic advisor to the President
cbsnews.com/news/human-capital-stock-kevin-hassett-trump-economic-advisor-back-to-work/
BBA
@Dahlia: call him by his full name, Kevin “Dow 36,000” Hassett
MisterForkbeard
@Jerzy Russian: In the U.S. I think it’s been off by about 30-40%, but: I also expect that to be much worse as Trump pressures the CDC and states (especially red states) see a benefit to downplaying the numbers.
Major Major Major Major
@BBA: oh god he’s that guy??
MisterForkbeard
@Dahlia: I think “human capital stock” is… not a great term and a weird thing to talk about, but “HR” is now often referred to as “Human Capital Management” now. “Human Capital Stock” is probably another semi-official term.
clay
@Cameron: August? He said that today. Not even kidding.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m a little bit more sympathetic to those hairdressers than I am to the rest of those people. They’re being pushed to ignore illness by a system that denies them sick leave and threatens to cut off their unemployment benefits if they don’t come back to work regardless of the public health situation.
MagdaInBlack
@Dahlia:
Thank you, I was distracted by feline roommate needs.
Yes, him. That asshat.
Major Major Major Major
My coworker (and friend) had the On Call rotation last week, and apparently did not do any of his tickets. I have the rotation this week and am furious and I’m not sure how to communicate that. He has acknowledged “owing me one” at least…
otmar
@Mike in NC: this so reminds me of Shrek: Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: And at least they were wearing masks.
They were symptomatic though. I assume they did not have paid sick leave? Knowingly spreading it makes me less sympathetic.
jl
Important to add that there is zero evidence that there will be any economic reward for premature and recklessly sloppy reopenings, and the bad and mad herd immunity policy. No evidence anywhere in the world that there is a trade-off between aggressive control of this kind of infectious disease and economic growth.
Sweden’s botched herd immunity policy got them no economic dividends. UK hit hard, no evidence that their very expensive initially botched lurch towards herd immunity policy got them any economic dividends. Available evidence indicates that much of the US is embarking upon a lose-lose policy.
Sweden had no lockdown but its economy is expected to suffer just as badly as its European neighbors
PUBLISHED THU, APR 30 20206:25 AM EDTUPDATED THU, APR 30 20207:31 AM EDT
Holly Ellyatt, CNBC
@HOLLYELLYATT
cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-to-contract-as-severely-as-the-rest-of-europe.html
And all policies that claim to aim toward herd immunity are botched on purely epidemiological terms: letting large epidemics rip overshoots herd immunity by such a huge margin, it is equivalent to just a do nothing policy. Letting an epidemic get out of control and then trying manage is very very difficult to do, as if I needed to point that out to any sane person. If you want to attempt to manage an epidemic to get large enough to achieve herd immunity, but have a soft landing at herd immunity, you need shut down policies that are lengthier than if you do the smart thing and whomp on it at the first sign of an outbreak, so you can start test, contract trace and isolate asap, and keep shut downs as short as possible. AKA South Korea and New Zealand.
Put in plain terms, any herd immunity policy that can avoid just letting the epidemic rip, requires the very disease control policies that it claims it can avoid. It is all incompetent innumerate nonsense.
Letting an epidemic run and claiming that somehow it will get a society to herd immunity quickly to limit economic damage is akin to claiming you are fire proofing your house by allowing it to burn down.
It can still be done here, if we had a sane federal executive. Estonia, for example, probably because a big tourist destination, got slammed as hard as any European country at the outset, but now have new cases down more than an order of magnitude below US. See Our World in Data daily cases per million graphs.
LuciaMia
@Delk: All states I would NOT like to visit during the August heat.
VeniceRiley
@Fair Economist: Yes, it’s a slow steady climb. Testing sites at my work are also steady. People aren’t exactly rushing to the drive-thru here like they are at our LA sites. occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/coronavirus-in-oc is where I go to look at official OC numbers. I’m sure there will be an update for the weekend later today
Cameron
@clay: Damn. I turn away from the TV, and the SOB’s dumped another zero onto his Measurement of Awesome Victory.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Yup, him and Jim Glassman.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Do you know why he didn’t do the tickets? I’m assuming there wasn’t something more urgent.
Escalate to your boss, if just to let him know why the ticket metrics are going to be bad and why you have to take time off from your normal duties to do work that wasn’t accomplished when it should have been. Let your boss handle it at that point.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I don’t allow anyone to get that close to me but if someone did that I have no idea how I’d react. I’m not sure I would not take that as a violent assault and act accordingly. The only thing is that I’m not sure I could pull off an “act accordingly response” at my age, and that might just make things a lot worse.
I haven’t heard about this happening in socal but that isn’t saying much, CA absolutely has it’s share of knuckleheads.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: He was just having a shit week mentally. I will cover for him if I can manage it within normal hours. OC never takes sprint tickets. STILL
ETA: “Cover for him” is perhaps the wrong phrase. He’s valued and liked and very upfront about mistakes. I just see no reason to bring it up unless I have to.
MisterForkbeard
@LuciaMia: Even better, now people can all hang out in rooms with massive amounts of re-circulated Air Conditioned air! Good thing there’s not a virus that thrives in that environment.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh yeah, a real peach of a moron. Hey an entire new species of peach, peacheces moronicas.
germy
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Gotcha. Still not a bad idea to let your boss know you’ll be a bit late on your other tasks. Just tell him you’re tackling a larger than normal amount of on-call tickets.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: Months(?) ago–I did a post about it here–some buskers in Times Square saw me wearing a mask and proceeded to taunt me and yell CORONA! in my face. The three of us were probably 50% of the Times Square foot traffic. I just skittered away, they were bigger than me and obviously aggressive.
(Based on location, occupation, and skin color, I’d say they were very unlikely to be Trump supporters.)
@MisterForkbeard: Yeah, I already mentioned ticket load at today’s standup. Fortunately I have no other explicitly assigned tasks right now, we just started the sprint.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: When Larry Kudlow is the restrained, by the book economist, on the economic team, you have a team of cheerleaders unconnected to reality.
yeah, that guy.
sdhays
@narya: The picture in the rest of the state isn’t great either, since Illinois is surrounded by idiot states hell bent on doing shit. Iowa is doing pretty much nothing, and we all know about the shit show in Wisconsin. Even if Chicago is able to get its own cases finally under control, they’ll continue to be seeded by the rest of the state (and surrounding states).
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I agree with your larger point, but Trump has never been a member of the Republican Establishment. He has always been opportunistic and has talked about running for office as a Democrat, Republican and Independent. He is a low ranking and ambitious member of the American plutocracy, and his racism and corruption dovetails nicely with GOP aims and policy.
Totally agree with you here, although I will note that we don’t know whether states will be successful. But some people, even perhaps some Balloon Juice commenters, seem to think that the only options are to stay locked down until a vaccine is discovered or to watch as we “return to normal.”
But clearly, most states are trying to do some kind of gradual, or phased re-opening. And there may need to be long term or permanent changes to how we do some things in public.
And one measure of success might be a decrease in the rise in number of infections, and more directly whether hospitals can effectively deal with an increase in illness, and of course whether we can reduce the number of fatalities.
The crazy thing is that some of the people calling for the government to butt out and totally return to the way things were before are assuming that an increase in deaths might be acceptable, as long as only the old and the “right people” die. But they skip over the catastrophe that would happen if hospitals were overcome with people who have become ill.
Nora
The library where I work is not open to the public yet, but we will be opening in a limited way two weeks from now (I’m in Westchester County, New York, one of the hotspots of the state). We have a security guard who’s in the building while staff are coming in piecemeal to get things set up. Today he told a would-be patron that we’re not open yet, and the would-be patron threatened to sneeze in his face.
My personal thought is, what an asshole, but as a manager I’m wondering how much of that kind of nonsense we’re going to have to deal with when we do open up to the public. We’re going to require masks, and people are mostly smart and complying with government orders, but you never know just how many nutcases are around.
low-tech cyclist
@Baud:
OK, so let’s wait for another 100,000 or so to die, then get a new President. That’s the Juicer way.
MisterForkbeard
OT, but I had Quesa Birria tacos a few days ago. Basically: Beef tacos covered in small amounts of mexican stew while they’re cooked and then dipped in the stew when eating – sort of like a mexican french dip. Loved it.
Now I’m thinking of actually cooking some birria myself, since I love stews and it doesn’t seem too hard. Has anyone else here made this before?
MisterForkbeard
@low-tech cyclist: What are you suggesting to get a new president now?
MagdaInBlack
@MisterForkbeard:
Its an economic term, and probably neutral, but coming from these folks its just another case of dehumanizing.
I guess they feel they have excess human capital stock they can afford to lose.
mrmoshpotato
It’s 83 degrees in Chicago. Has the heat killed off the virus yet?
No?
Fuck everyone who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: I liked in A Deepness In The Sky how the bad guys called their slave-management department Human Resources.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m more worried about what my immediate reaction might be, I’m not a hothead but I really would like to live through this and yet do have to go out into the world a bit.
Here, in LA county we have a mask requirement to go inside public buildings, stores, etc. Target and the grocery stores are being very proactive about it. Most buildings that large numbers of people would enter are actually closed, like Ikea. So we have some control and that seems to be working not unreasonably. I’ve not seen anyone being a total ass about it, possibly because it’s not unusual to see mask wearing and social distancing. At least it’s laid out that way in stores. One supermarket I go to even has a lane taped out on the floor for lining up for the registers, and a person sending you to the next open casher. It actually works in this store pretty good. It’s a major supermarket but spacing never was all that reasonable.
Skepticat
Friends keep asking when I’m returning to the States, as I usually leave the Bahamas in the middle of June. Why would I want to leave a country that locked down early and has had 100 cases with only 11 deaths—the last one more than a month ago? I do worry the heat will melt me, but at least I feel safe from the pandemic.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato:
???
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
RE: People like the Missouri hairdressers who between them exposed something like 140 people.
The hair stylists may be self-employed, even if they rent chairs in the salon. So the issue of “sick leave” and unemployment compensation would not necessarily apply.
We may have a larger problem that we don’t have a system that provides support for small business and independent contractors.
Still, the larger issue is that these people kept working despite having symptoms of illness. This is only going to become more of a problem as things continue to open up.
I hope there is follow-up to this story to see how many patrons of the hair shop test positive.
The other issue here is that close proximity to people for significant periods of time may negate the value of wearing masks. This could be an issue for restaurants and other places that are opening up.
Also, I wonder whether barbershops and hair and nail salons might become a hotspot for infections as people visit these places before returning to work.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Yeah, I didn’t express myself well. I was trying to contrast a Trump victory to a victory by a random member of the Republican Establishment, not to suggest that Trump was a member of the Republican Establishment.
That said, I think Trump’s politics has mostly been about what was good for Donald Trump, not about any kind of deep political belief. For much of his career, he saw that New York was a Democratic stronghold, so he nominally aligned himself with the Democrats. More recently, he saw the Republican Party was ripe for a takeover by a grifter like himself and executed that takeover. But his core beliefs- racism, sexism, plutocracy- are obviously a much better fit for the Republican Party.
sdhays
@Skepticat: What about hurricanes? The Bahamas got hit pretty bad last year, didn’t they?
catclub
as to the 100,000. Don’t fall asleep on Brazil. They are up’n’comers. I think they passed Russia.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like this is unlikely to be the case. Japan is doing pretty well, even though they never really locked down, at least not as we think of it. They famously cram themselves into train cars like sardines, for sometimes-lengthy commutes, but they have a strong mask-wearing culture and–this may be the critical part–strong cultural norms about not talking on trains.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
To me, the big difference is between people pushing to open things up and the people being pushed. Fairly or not, I see people like the Missouri hairdressers as being pushed to open up, while people like the GOP chairman claiming the virus is a hoax and encouraging everyone to hug are doing the pushing. I’m not quite as sure how I’d categorize the people crossing state lines to go out to eat. They’re obviously being encouraged to go back to normal, but their behavior is pushing the restaurant workers to go back to work.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Did Japan suspend rail service during their lockdown? Also, it wasn’t just wearing masks, it was about identifying infected people and isolating them. In the US and elsewhere, for example, there have been outbreaks of infection in nail salons and similar places where the workers wore masks.
So in this most recent US case, the workers still came to work even though they likely were ill. So even though they wore masks they still may have infected their customers. It would be interesting to see some follow-up to get a better idea of what happened.
narya
@sdhays: Yeah . . . I have tickets for an event that was rescheduled from late June to mid-July, at a location that actually would have room for distancing (RoadAmerica), but even trying to think through what it would involve (e.g., going to the rest room; not showering at the campsite for 3 days; getting ice at the convenience store) makes me anxious; too many dolts, and people from all over the country converging. What could go wrong? And I am convinced that Wisconsin is going to spike in the next 7-14 days, after seeing the Bozos in Bars pics.
Miss Bianca
@germy: OMG, she worked for the DNC!!11!!//
Alaska Reader
@Major Major Major Major:
Uh, no. Sweden is not looking good.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
The end result is the same whether people are pushing to open up or being pushed to do so. More infections.
Also, as I noted before, a long lockdown could not be maintained. State and local government had to move to the next phase. And both here and in Europe and elsewhere, I can also understand people being human and wanting to get outside for the summer, even if they are being stupid about it.
And again, many hair dressers are self-employed, so again it’s not just about being pushed. Unless you come up with a program that is going to subsidize their lost income at close to 100 percent, you cannot reasonably expect these people to sit home and suffer.
ETA. Obviously the elephant in the room is the failure of the federal government to provide leadership and support. But we don’t live in that alternative universe.
Major Major Major Major
@Alaska Reader: I didn’t say Sweden was “looking good, full stop.” It is looking better than us, the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Iran, Canada, Holland, China, Turkey, and India. Per capita—a metric of questionable utility—Sweden is still better than France, Italy, the UK, Spain, and Belgium.
ETA: that’s for deaths. By confirmed cases they look even better.
This is why we compare them to their neighbors, as I did.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Trains were running, restaurants and (non-karaoke) bars were open.
They do have a decent contact-tracing program. Curiously, they focused on superspreading events (SSE’s), under a then-fringe theory that it was the main form of transmission. But I really do think “masks + don’t talk on the train” is a huge factor in reducing SSE’s.
Alaska Reader
Sweden’s per capita death toll in recent days has been the highest in the world
Per capita, its deaths are about four times those in Denmark and eight times those in Norway — countries with similar healthcare systems, political systems, and population densities.
Sweden is also reporting more than 400 new cases a day, compared with about 20 a day in Norway and about 60 a day in Denmark.
Olle Kampe, a professor and senior consultant in endocrinology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said:
“We are not testing,” he said. “We are totally in the dark. This is not an example to follow.”
businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-plan-is-a-cruel-mistake-skeptical-experts-say-2020-5
Alaska Reader
@Major Major Major Major:
Still wrong, I suggest you do some more reading and less of the telling others what is factually in error.
Sweden’s death rate per capita eclipsed everyone else.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/sweden-becomes-country-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-per-capita/
Major Major Major Major
@Alaska Reader: Yes, which is why I said we should compare them to their neighbors if we want to use them as a control group. Per-capita figures are not very useful when looking globally–they mostly just make small countries look bad–but it’s useful when comparing them to… their neighbors.
@Alaska Reader:
lol nm fuck you why did i try to be nice
Princess Leia
@Fair Economist: Got a jury duty summons for the OC Superior Court. Do I trust they will have everything safe? No. Do I live with vulnerable people, (and in a congregate stetting)? Yes. Do they have any special categories for excuses from jury duty in a pandemic? No. And rumor is that Judges don’t have to wear masks because they are far away from other people. In a closed, air conditioned room. Where people have to sit for hours. We are doomed.
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: it’s a very traditional Mexican goat stew. To do it right, step 1 is find a goat, kill it , skin and butcher it and then cook it slowly all day in a broth of veggies and seasonings. I think you should start with abondigas and work your way up…
Brachiator
@Princess Leia:
The courts were closed during the lockdown. I would think that procedures will be put in place to protect everyone. It’s going to be interesting.
MisterForkbeard
@Ksmiami: Sounds like a plan. You’re supposed to use lockdown to pick up new skills, right?
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Sweden is not a good example. If some of the news stories are correct, they let people in nursing homes die who might have been saved otherwise.
And the last I saw, Sweden had higher death rates than other Scandinavian countries.
terry chay
One thing bothering me is the 5% infection mortality ratio when there were only a few incidences of a complete breakdown in our medical system (where IFR goes from 0.7% to 8%).
Makes me thinking that we are still under-reporting infections by a country mile.
terry chay
@Major Major Major Major: He is right you are wrong. I’m pretty sure he realized you were trying to qualify your statement, but you don’t seem to realize, even qualified, your statement is incorrect. In real terms Sweden is doing terrible even worldwide and it’s about to completely collapse. Their infection rate is now among the highest in the world, their testing rate is abysmal (still too high a positive rate meaning they are missing lots of infecteds), and they have one of the weakest intensive care systems per capita in all of Europe (it is easy for them to get overwhelmed). In fact, they are already overwhelmed, they are just letting them die in homes instead of spinning the few open ICU beds they have.
By your math, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are “looking good” when you compare them to New York and New Jersey. The fact is, they are not doing well. New York and New Jersey are on the downswing and those four states are on the upswing. So is Sweden relative to Spain.
Sweden has benefited because their neighbors took positive action and because others took positive action. Orange County benefited just because LA County took positive aggressive action. Pittsburgh and Central PA benefited because they are in the same state as Philadelphia.
However, in Orange County, in those states, in Sweden, the disease is already starting to outpace their capacity to handle and is still on the upswing. They are not “looking good.”
We compare it to the neighbors because the neighbors are what bring the disease in and have similar spread patterns. Sweden far outpaces its neighbors and has had no economic benefit by refusing to close (which is also why its spread HAD BEEN been slower UNTIL RECENTLY than Spain or Italy which was hit early and hard, much like New York City and New Orleans in the U.S.). Now, they have one of the highest rates in the world when looked on a per capita basis.
Helen
This all seems like a repeat of the ‘Robber Baron’ period in history. From the owner’s perspective, it’s too bad that children die in the coal mines but what can we do? It’s just the cost of doing business. These people saw themselves as civilized Christians and I’m sure slept well at night.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You know the drill with the Right JL ; “the Swedes weren’t cruel enough, Heard Immunity can only be failed, it can never fail”
Anyone with any sense and can read a history book know just ignoring a pandemic doesn’t work or societies in the past wouldn’t resort to such drastic measures as walling the ill alive in their homes to stop the Plague like the English.