Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

Not quite Dean Man Walking yet as there are a lot of twist and turns to play out, but obviously not looking good.

BIden won't be restrained by Congress any more than Obama was. Obama accomplished virtually all of what he accomplished via executive orders and appointments. For that matter, Trump hasn't 'been very heavily constrained by Congress.

I don't agree that we will all be better off, save for the evening news being more pleasant to watch and Thanksgiving politics discussions being less contentious. The massive underlying problems that Trump rode to election aren't going away any time soon.

[iam416]

[Hannibal]

To be fair, PDJT got PDJT'ed more than he got corona'ed People rally around a strong leader in times of crisis. He got an approval bump a few weeks ago.

[iam416]

[Dr. Strangelove]

When you're a President who thinks messaging is the solution to every problem, it's ironic to then be a terrible messenger.

Actually that's somewhat unfair to him. He's a terrible messenger in a crisis.

I don't know how his staff can convince him to stop at this point, because he loves being on tv as much as possible, but these daily press conferences are just providing endless material for the Biden camp to use in the fall.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jeff- Regarding the earlier conversation I was simply calculating (deaths/total confirmed cases). By that measure alone, Michigan is around 6.25% of all known patients have died. That's higher than any other hotspot that I looked at. I don't have an explanation I was just suggesting some. If it's really that high, perhaps what I've heard about nursing homes is true. Otherwise there could be a lot of uncounted cases.

Restricting it to Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties, you're looking at 21,065 cases and 1,372 deaths = 6.5%. So only a little above the statewide average. But that's because those five counties represent over 80% of the known cases. Mortality rate in the rest of the state is about 5%

EDIT: Sorry, first version of the post had the number of deaths in Wayne County wrong

[Jeff Buchanan]

DSL, got it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

EVgfX3rWoAAscTX?format=jpg&name=small.jpg

[iam416]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump's stuck in an untenable position right now where he wants to look strong while evading actual responsibility for anything. He wants you to give him credit for everything you LIKE about the covid response while blaming somebody else for everything you don't. It's why he says wildly conflicting things day to day, sometimes (like today) hour to hour. One minute he says governors are responsible for any equipment shortages and they need to be the ones coming up with plans. The next minute, perhaps sensing that argument makes him look "weak", he claims he's the one calling all the shots and no one does anything without first getting his permission.

[lineygoblue]

In the "I'll take any good news" category, our county health department said today that we are below the projected number of cases for today's date issued at the end of March. We were projected to have at least 80 cases as of today, and we have only 54. Out of that 54, 14 have now fully recovered. Only one fatality, and there is some debate in the local sites as to whether he really died of Covid. Some of his friends have said he actually died of a blood clot in his lung due to his extended hospital stay. I have no idea how truthful that is.

I believe we've also seen a flattening of the curve in new cases.

As I said, any good news ...

[froot loops]

The COVID situation at my wife's hospital would best be described in stasis. They are starting to send some people home but they still have a bunch of converted units tending to these patients. I'm not sure if it is all because the measures, some of it is because they have been able to transport them to other hospitals to load balance. We'll see if there is a post-Easter surge, they are kind of afraid of that. Not so much because of COVID cases but because hospitals tend to fill up after holidays like Christmas, Easter and 4th of July. She is hoping to get off midnights and back to her regular job.

The best treatment so far is if they are starting to go bad, you sedate them in prone position and put them on a vent.

[froot loops]

Trump's stuck in an untenable position right now where he wants to look strong while evading actual responsibility for anything. He wants you to give him credit for everything you LIKE about the covid response while blaming somebody else for everything you don't. It's why he says wildly conflicting things day to day, sometimes (like today) hour to hour. One minute he says governors are responsible for any equipment shortages and they need to be the ones coming up with plans. The next minute, perhaps sensing that argument makes him look "weak", he claims he's the one calling all the shots and no one does anything without first getting his permission.

He has a lot of problems that can't be fixed, but worrying about credit and grievances with the media is near or at the top of the list. It is like he has never observed what previous presidents do is crisis situations like this. I'll never get over how a guy who has talked about being president for 30 years can get in office and have no idea what the job entailed and how you worked the system. When you get elected president you get criticized every day. Even The Rock will get criticized when he is elected president.

[lineygoblue]

To me, that's something I don't think I'll ever understand about Trump. He declares all-out war on anyone that dares to criticize him. I don't understand why its so important that he nuke anyone with an opposing view. He was elected, he's the President, and he should ignore those who disagree with him. Obama and Clinton were excellent at ignoring critics. They had that little sneer that they'd put on their faces when they were criticized, and they'd go on, and keep doing what they were doing.

Right now, politics is at the bottom of my list of priorities. What I want is for elected officials to do what is right for everyone. I don't care what letter they have after their name. I'm not a big fan of Gretchen Whitmer, but so far, I think she's doing about as good as can be expected. No other governor has ever had experience with something like this.

[Ghengis Jon]

Here's something that the President can claim responsibility for and truthfully call it the greatest in the history of the world. Well done, Donald!

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/04/13/Watchdog-Report-Debt-will-exceed-US-economy-in-2020/6091586804042/?sl=15