Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

Why the fuck do governors of other states give a fuck what the other states are doing? Are they afraid that their states will lose out on the quicker recovery compared to states that do?

If a state thinks it's better to wait...then stay the fuck closed. Every state has it's own situation. If a business owner thinks it's not prudent to open up even if the green light is given...fine...stay the fuck closed. If you are a person in a high risk category...stay the fuck home. Jesus H we have become a nation of pussies.

[iam416]

That's the real question. When Media outside of Georgia or Florida write about the horrors of re-opening -- BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS!!! -- it's absolutely giving the game away. That's what I'm talking about.

It's one thing for the AJC to opine on Georgia. Fair enough. It's another for national media or other governors to do so.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Agreed.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There is a political cudgel for those who want to re-open. If you re-open you're on the hook for the deaths that follow. Period. That's the politics of it. The way through the politics is a consensus.

Now, perhaps the politicians who are responsible for these decisions and the politicians who want to see those politicians out of power are both going to forget that they're politicians and politics won't matter. I don't think that's the case.

As for the media, it is my opinion that the MSM has definitively sided with "keep things closed" and if you go against that you're going to be on the hook for any deaths that follow. And those won't be hard stories to write.

So, as long as you have Governors saying -- "it's too early!" then the Governors who say "no, it's not!" are going to own that decision in a big-time way.

I don't agree with you here.

The thing I don't agree with is the implication in this post: officials at the state and county level are facing the collapse of their capacity to carry out the most basic functions of government - like collect garbage. The folks won't give a shit about old people dying from COVID when the garbage starts piling up.

My take is that these officials, up against it, are going to roll the dice on a bet that says, if I reopen there are good things that are going to happen including the garbage getting picked up, people earning a paycheck and getting off unemployment. Meanwhile, the general demeanor of those that elected me will improve when it turns out the rise in case numbers and deaths were controlled and didn't come anywhere close to the numbers that the keep-everything closed crowd was insisting those would be.

You know my position on this. I'm not pulling it out of my ass - I have the data in FL. I think it's a good bet and my sense is Desantis will roll those dice.

I also think the cudgel will turn out to be a whole lot less effective than your hopeless self is thinking it will be. Hopeless is not you and that is exactly what you're sounding like.

[iam416]

Well, we disagree a bit. I don't disagree that county folks can proceed largely without catching political fire. But, I do think statewide folks will catch it and federal folks will catch it. I also don't disagree that there will be a tipping point. However, those tipping points are likely to be local. And if you're ahead of the curve on re-opening you're very much in the line of fire.

[iam416]

In some more good news, NY has released it's antibody study results. This was supposedly randomized (making it of more value than the two California studies). 14% of the people tested had antibodies meaning that upwards of 2.7M NYers may have had coronavirus. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/corona...ry?id=70301746

[Jeff Buchanan]

Fair .......while these statements below from an opinion piece I just read and published today are reflective of the economic shit sandwich world leaders are facing on the macro level, while the dollar figures are smaller, state governments, on the relative micro level are facing the very same issues.

.........A string of economic data for April released on Thursday offered further insight into the scale of the damage being inflicted by coronavirus on countries worldwide as they remain in lockdown,

European business activity plunged to historic lows4.4 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, taking the total number of jobless claims due to coronavirus to 26 million.......

Drastically shrinking revenues, with people like the Turtle telling states to declare bankruptcy if they run out of money, are going to drive state and county decision makers not the fear of bad press.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In some more good news, NY has released it's antibody study results. This was supposedly randomized (making it of more value than the two California studies). 14% of the people tested had antibodies meaning that upwards of 2.7M NYers may have had coronavirus. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/corona...ry?id=70301746

...... and this:

with a death rate of 0.5% (with that new infection #)

TBF, Cuomo also said deaths are under-reported in NY because people died at home and those may not have been reported.

I just want to keep harping on the dangers in relying on certain figures to inform people of the COVID threat and by so doing creating a general mood of hopelessness and inaction.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Tomorrow, possibly tonight, the news will be rife with headlines like this: MIRCLE DRUG REMDESIVIR FAILS!!!!

A chines study got "accidentally" released by the WHO (well, no shit) showing Remdesivir showed no benefit in a small trial conducted by the Chinese.

Two things:

(1) China has in the past and has now in the COVID circumstance actively pursued a disinformation campaign in the US.

(2) It's fucking China.

The news lopped about 100 points off the DJIA an hour ago after it was up nicely by about 325. There is so much wrong with the release of this information and the conclusions drawn from it's prematurely released results that I won't even comment on that side of it.

Be forewarned. Ignore the news tonight and tomorrow on this. There will be more, along with more reliable results from meta-analyzed data from the multiple studies going on now in the next month or two.

[iam416]

Right. Everything that comes out about this plague is a piece of information that goes to the story. I'm not seeing anything that is singularly dispositive or conclusive. Even with the NY antibody tests, that's one more piece of data to the story that suggests something on the order of a 10X or greater underreporting (and there is no way in god's green earth the deaths are 10X underreported).

Remdesvir showed positively in Chicago. Gilead feels good about the study that was run there (hopefully we'll see the result soon). The Chinese study is a piece of data that contradicts that. But, you also have to weigh that the Chinese are lying motherfuckers.

[Whitley]

In some more good news, NY has released it's antibody study results. This was supposedly randomized (making it of more value than the two California studies). 14% of the people tested had antibodies meaning that upwards of 2.7M NYers may have had coronavirus. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/corona...ry?id=70301746

Assuming that percentage holds that would indicate (at least to me) that there is a very very long way to go before people can even start to think of having a herd immunity there. It would also indicate there would a good chance of of seeing a major spike if everything is back opened up quickly.

[AlabamAlum]

Nice article on the elegant way this corna virus wreaks havoc.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes

[Whitley]

An important thing to not forget is that it is government (not going to debate whether it is good or not) that is behind the shutdown right now. Therefore it falls on government to help out the people and the reluctance to do so (on the federal level which is the one governmental place that could help with something of this magnitude) is rather disgusting.

I reject that the notion of the binary choice that is being forced upon people here. It is not and should not be Choice A (lock everything down) or Choice B (We have to open even if we are not ready). If the president pushed a sensible option C, he would win reelection in a landslide. And no---there has not been a reasonable Option C presented yet on the federal level.

[iam416]

Assuming that percentage holds that would indicate (at least to me) that there is a very very long way to go before people can even start to think of having a herd immunity there. It would also indicate there would a good chance of of seeing a major spike if everything is back opened up quickly.

Assuming that the NY testing accurately describes actual corona cases then (a) we're about 10X closer to herd immunity than confirmed cases indicate; and (b) the fatality rate is roughly 10X lower than confirmed numbers indicate. Even if you factor in a fairly healthy undercount in deaths, the fatality rate is less than 1%.

If it's less than 1% then reopen now.

[AlabamAlum]

The states have to come up with the options. We are too divided in our political silos. If Trump comes up with "reasonable plan C," the blue states would find fault and largely ignore the scheme presented. Likewise, if this had happened a few years back, the red states would have found fault with and largely ignored Obama. It's where we are.

Look at so-called 'sanctuary cities' as an example:

Trump: "We are ending sanctuary cities"

Blue states: "Fuck off."