Coronavirus

[Long Run]

There was a previous comment about schools closing and kids congregating at parties and malls. This is to be expected of teenagers, who specialize in being irresponsible and doing stupid things. Here, the grown-ups in charge are following suit -- public schools closed, but expanded daycare is being implemented to deal with the inconvenience for parents. Seriously.

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

This is worth watching:

[Gob]

Dr Anthony S Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and just about the only official in the Trump administration trusted to tell the truth about the coronavirus, said last Thursday: “The system does not, is not really geared to what we need right now … It is a failing, let’s admit it.”

While we’re at it, let’s admit something more basic. The system would be failing even under a halfway competent president. The dirty little secret, which will soon become apparent to all, is that there is no real public health system in the United States.....


.....There is no public health system in the US, in short, because the richest nation in the world has no capacity to protect the public as a whole, apart from national defense. Ad-hoc remedies such as House Democrats and the White House fashioned on Friday are better than nothing, but they don’t come close to filling this void.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... irus-trump

[BoSoxGal]

My 80-something multiple preexisting chronic conditions client has decided to self isolate in compliance with CDC and WHO recommendations for elderly. This morning I cooked him breakfast at his house, then we went for our usual Sunday drive so he could get out into the world in a sense, and at least get some sun - my first generation RAV4 with zero window tint is essentially a sunroom on wheels.

The traffic was a bit lighter than usual and the breakfast places we passed had fewer cars then usual, but there were still a lot of people out and I was shocked to see most of the churches had full parking lots - the Catholic Churches did not, as I suppose they are following directives out of the Vatican to encourage parishioners to stay home.

Americans are clearly very dumb about what a pandemic means and how it can be managed and stopped. I certainly hope that everything we know from 100+ years of experience turns out wrong and the maths turn out wrong so the projections turn out wrong - but at the moment I have a very bad feeling about what hospitals here will be facing in 30 days. We have 138 presumptive cases in Massachusetts, which means we probably have 10,380 infected at a minimum - and considering the first documented case flew into Boston’s Logan airport on a full capacity jet with over 200 passengers/crew more than a month ago, I’m thinking there are many, many more infected all around us. And they can’t seem to stay home.

[ex-khobar Andy]

While we’re at it, let’s admit something more basic. The system would be failing even under a halfway competent president. The dirty little secret, which will soon become apparent to all, is that there is no real public health system in the United States.....

Yes of course; and there is no reason to blame Trump for the existence of the virus. But this president who is not even halfway competent is exacerbating the problems.

The 'cultural revolution' in China was not, as many people supposed, anything to do with culture as in opera / Picasso / Beatles but instead the 'cult' of Maoism, belief in the abilities of the Supreme Leader - the Great Helmsman - who could not be questioned. (Interestingly, and on a side note, what is possibly the first act of the cultural revolution was Mao Tse-Tung's [Zedong's] swim across the Yangtze at Wuhan. As in COVID-19.) What we have here is a Trumpist cultural revolution - the analogy is exact. The same Trump who poo-poos science when it does not adhere to his world view - e.g., climate research - will at least pretend to acknowledge the science of epidemiology. Of course he's too manly to have to take precautions: that's the same Leona Helmsley mind set ("only the little people have to pay taxes") which sees him shaking hands during a pandemic, looking at the sun during an eclipse and yes, not paying taxes.

Yes the parochialism of the US health service means that these guys don't talk to each other. So there is no central recording of data. Worse, it has been estimated that the average doctor or nurse and their staff spend something like 50% of their time on deciding who gets billed for any specific procedure. Imagine being able to double the effectiveness of medical staff.

S Korea has a test which gives results in six hours. Meanwhile I am reading on CNN about a Nebraska Hospital lab which has - hoo-fucking-ray - just developed and is busy verifying a test which takes six hours. WTF? That test exists: but of course if you buy the technology from S Korea your company will not make $$$$$$ from it.

For too long Trump and his predecessors - the various Bushes, Reagan - and fellow travelers such as Gingrich and McConnell and many many others have tried to fool us with "The government is the problem" and ""The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." That's the problem. Trump is really only the logical conclusion.

[BoSoxGal]

^ A most excellent post!

[TPFKA@W]

[Econoline]

[Econoline]

Well played, sir.

-"BB"-

[Guinevere]

Commonwealth of MA is shut down. No schools. Only essential state employees only. No gatherings of more than 25 people. Telemedicine required to be covered. No elective surgeries or procedures. More, but I have to go back to work.

[Long Run]

How long do people think this full-on shut-down will last? The vaccine is many months away. There could be some easing of the contagion with warmer weather. Some can keep working remotely, and not take too bad a hit, but I know others who are going to lose a lot, if not everything. I am guessing the cracks will start in a couple of weeks, and people will start returning to some or all of their normal routines, right or wrong for the big picture. Back to mostly normal starting ______________?

[Scooter]

Germany confirms that Trump tried to buy firm working on coronavirus vaccine

The Donald Trump administration offered "large sums of money" to get exclusive access to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German company, Die Welt reported Sunday.

According to the article, Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine "for the U.S. only."

A spokesperson for Germany's Health Ministry quoted in the article appeared to acknowledge the U.S. approach and said that Berlin was "very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe."

On Sunday afternoon, Germany's Health Ministry told Reuters that its spokesperson had been quoted correctly in the newspaper article, confirming that Washington had attempted to take over the biopharmaceutical company. Government sources indicated that Berlin was now offering CureVac financial incentives to remain in Germany.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said at a press conference Sunday that he had heard about the CureVac reports and that it would be discussed at a crisis team meeting Monday.

Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, said on Twitter that the Welt report was "wrong."

Last week CureVac CEO Daniel Menichella was among the pharmaceutical representatives invited to the White House to discuss coronavirus vaccine development with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and members of the president's Coronavirus Task Force.

In a press release, the company said that Menichella had told U.S. officials about the vaccines it had in development, and revealed its hope to have an experimental vaccine ready by early summer.

The news prompted angry reactions from German politicians who demanded that Berlin do everything possible to prevent the U.S. from controlling access to an eventual coronavirus vaccine.

"The American regime has committed an extremely unfriendly act," said Social Democrat MP Karl Lauterbach, who said that German health workers on the front lines — as well as people around the world — needed to have access to something developed in Germany, and that no country should be able to purchase exclusive access to the vaccine.

"Capitalism has limits," he said.

[Bicycle Bill]

Whether or not the article is true and Trump did try to lock-down a possible vaccine 'for white Americans only', you realize that in today's "anything goes" world of medicine whatever company DOES come up with a reliable vaccine for COVID-19 will still be able to literally name their own price?

A hundred bucks a shot?  Five hundred?  Why stop there?  The sky's the limit.

-"BB"-

[Guinevere]

These people need to be dragged behind a chariot or something similar:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/tech ... llers.html

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them
Amazon cracked down on coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the world searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.

Jack Nicas
By Jack Nicas
March 14, 2020
Updated 11:55 a.m. ET

1423
On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

The TN Attorney General started an investigation into “price gouging” by these winners, and ordered them to cease and desist from further sales while the investigation was ongoing. Then, I imagine, with the bottom dropping out of their market, they agreed to “resolve” the investigation by working out a deal to donate the goods to first responders and local churches. Three truck loads were removed from their storage facility yesterday or today (seen on Twitter).

Hooray for the TNAG!! Next up, whether they are disgorged if their ill-gotten gains.

[Guinevere]

How long do people think this full-on shut-down will last? The vaccine is many months away. There could be some easing of the contagion with warmer weather. Some can keep working remotely, and not take too bad a hit, but I know others who are going to lose a lot, if not everything. I am guessing the cracks will start in a couple of weeks, and people will start returning to some or all of their normal routines, right or wrong for the big picture. Back to mostly normal starting ______________?

The CDC is saying 8 weeks of social distancing to keep the curve flat. So I think until April/May, and expect to see another spike in October.

Stock market goes down again, tomorrow, too. And the House-passed Relief Bill isn’t enough. Individuals and Small Biz will need additional financial assistance (and not payroll tax relief, direct aid). But we have to figure out how to do it.

[BoSoxGal]

The idea of social distancing is that if you keep people apart from one another then in those who are infected the virus will run its course and stop shedding (contagion) with no other humans to infect - so it will die down to minimal cases as has happened (allegedly) in China after total lockdown of 56 million people - they’re now getting just a handful of new cases weekly, if you believe what they’re saying - after weeks of lockdown.

I am already down to @ 5.5 hours/week because my primary client required emergency hospitalization then surgery and is now in rehab for weeks and possibly will be released to a skilled nursing facility leaving me out of a job. I signed up with an agency but no assignment yet and to some degree private caregiver work will dry up as stock portfolios shrink. My cousin does licensed massage therapy and for now her one on one work should be safe but lots of clients pay for that ‘luxury’ service from discretionary income so her business will probably be hit hard. Her husband works the auto auction which hopefully will keep operating - they’ve already modified to remove a big part of the in person component of the auction in light of restrictions on crowds.

I’m glad I bought 3 dozen Indian ready meals recently and have a bunch of rice, pasta and sauce in my cupboard because of a big sale at Job Lot recently. I’m hurting badly for money but can spend most of the little I make on feeding the fur kid and gassing up Reva since I’m fairly well stocked - and I can always hit the food bank although they are going to get stressed very hard now so I won’t go except as a last resort.

But this is going to be at the very least a mini recession if it doesn’t tip into a major one - and who knows after that.

I am pretty worried about the prospect of economically stressed people getting pushed into deeper economic pain and facing fear over this pandemic and there being a lot of guns out there. We can’t just lockdown people easily as the Chinese government can - or even the Italian government. Things here could get hairy. I hope I’m being unreasonably worried.

[Joe Guy]

Does anyone here think that having groceries delivered would lessen your chance of getting COVID-19? My thought is that it would give the shopper/delivery person a chance of getting the virus and then delivering it to you. You have no way of knowing how many door knobs that person touched or if an infected person got close to him/her. Did they wash their hands correctly?

I don't see a lot of advantage to delivered groceries. Whattaya think? And what about mail and packages? Do you disinfect it before opening it? Those mail carriers, UPS and FedEx drivers touch a lot of things every day. How about buying gasoline? That might be one of the least risky things.

[BoSoxGal]

Epidemiologists are saying mail is safe - virus can only live so long on surfaces and paper surfaces are harder and the likelihood of getting a large enough exposure to get infected from the remnants on a letter or package in the mail is very low.

Delivered food or groceries still require keeping distance from the delivery person, and in the case of bottles, cans, plastic containers etc. they recommend wiping down the outer packaging. Obviously just as always produce should be well washed before consuming.

[Guinevere]

Does anyone here think that having groceries delivered would lessen your chance of getting COVID-19? My thought is that it would give the shopper/delivery person a chance of getting the virus and then delivering it to you. You have no way of knowing how many door knobs that person touched or if an infected person got close to him/her. Did they wash their hands correctly?

I don't see a lot of advantage to delivered groceries. Whattaya think? And what about mail and packages? Do you disinfect it before opening it? Those mail carriers, UPS and FedEx drivers touch a lot of things every day. How about buying gasoline? That might be one of the least risky things.

I love delivered groceries, and that’s pretty much how I shop these days. That’s mostly because I often work six days a week, and I have a lot of night meetings, so I choose to spend my valuable free time differently. The groceries are collected by a “shopper“ and delivered in paper bags. I think it requires the same amount of trust as going to the grocery store, and being around multiple people who might be sick, Including those who stock the shelves and ring up your groceries, or bag your groceries.

As for gasoline, who touched the pump last?

Well if you need your car serviced? Who was inside your vehicle last, What did they touch, and what has been wiped down?

I’m keeping baby wipes in my car, and if I could get them, Clorox wipes too.