The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

[Darren]

"Bye-bye shelter-in-place. Hello re-opening.

Apple’s Mobility Trends report shows that traffic in the US and other countries like Germany has pretty much doubled in the past three weeks. It had been down up to 72%. And location data provider Foursquare says that gas and fast food visits are back to pre-COVID-19 levels in the American Midwest.

Rural areas are following the same pattern.

“Gas station traffic has returned to pre-COVID-19 levels in the Midwest, and in rural areas throughout the country,” Foursquare said yesterday in a blog post. “Foot traffic to quick service restaurants (QSRs) has risen over the past several weeks.”"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsi ... 3dfe586fb5

[Guinevere]

BILL KRISTOL???!!?!?

How crazy has the world gotten, that I'm agreeing with BILL FUCKING KRISTOL?

Econo if you go back and check the record, I think you'll ind that you've been agreeing with Bill Kristol for longer than you know...

Bill has been a very public leading activist among Republican/Conservative Never Trumpers, going back to long I Boobce became the nominee in 2016.

I’ve been a regular twitter reader of his for some time. It was either Kristol or the other satan-spawn I now read semi-regularly, George Will, where I read some of the earliest advocacy for Amy Klobuchar for President...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) promised business leaders that Congress would not extend enhanced unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 crisis, saying such a continuation would only happen “over our dead bodies.”

He made the comment on Wednesday at a state task force panel about re-opening South Carolina businesses. “Our” was a reference to himself and fellow Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who was also on the panel.

Wednesday was the day the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus passed 60,000.

Graham insisted that extending enhanced benefits would incentivize people to stay home rather than return to work

.

Let's not hope for too much; Graham's prediction may not come true, even if the benefits are extended.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lindsey- ... c79250384e

[Darren]

The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation

"Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.

Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.

Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.

Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.

Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/ ... -isolation


Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.

[Econoline]

The data is most definitely *NOT* in, Darren — stop the "restart" panic and wait for the research.

Doctors around the world—including in the emergency department where we work, at Mount Sinai Hospital, in Manhattan—have learned the hard way that the coronavirus doesn’t confine its ravages to the lungs. COVID-19 can push kidneys into failure, send the body’s immune system into catastrophic overdrive, and cause blood clots that impede circulation to the lungs, heart, or brain. It’s a disease of remarkable complexity, which even the most experienced doctors are struggling to understand.

What We Don’t Know About the Coronavirus

[...] as the historian of science Lorraine Daston writes in a recent essay, it’s natural to cast about for answers at the dawn of a pandemic. “At moments of extreme scientific uncertainty,” Daston writes, “observation, usually treated as the poor relation of experiment and statistics in science, comes into its own.” Confronting a new disease, doctors have no choice but to turn to “suggestive single cases, striking anomalies, partial patterns.” Slowly, as our ideas about “what works and what doesn’t” help tell us “what to test, what to count,” the picture clarifies. Until then, “we are back in the seventeenth century, the age of ground-zero empiricism, and observing as if our lives depended on it.” One patient at a time, we have to work our way into the present.

[Darren]

The data is most definitely *NOT* in, Darren — stop the "restart" panic and wait for the research.

Doctors around the world—including in the emergency department where we work, at Mount Sinai Hospital, in Manhattan—have learned the hard way that the coronavirus doesn’t confine its ravages to the lungs. COVID-19 can push kidneys into failure, send the body’s immune system into catastrophic overdrive, and cause blood clots that impede circulation to the lungs, heart, or brain. It’s a disease of remarkable complexity, which even the most experienced doctors are struggling to understand.

What We Don’t Know About the Coronavirus

[...] as the historian of science Lorraine Daston writes in a recent essay, it’s natural to cast about for answers at the dawn of a pandemic. “At moments of extreme scientific uncertainty,” Daston writes, “observation, usually treated as the poor relation of experiment and statistics in science, comes into its own.” Confronting a new disease, doctors have no choice but to turn to “suggestive single cases, striking anomalies, partial patterns.” Slowly, as our ideas about “what works and what doesn’t” help tell us “what to test, what to count,” the picture clarifies. Until then, “we are back in the seventeenth century, the age of ground-zero empiricism, and observing as if our lives depended on it.” One patient at a time, we have to work our way into the present.

With the exception of a few states everything that was locked down has restarted or is restarting either in phases or completely. That means it will either be a disaster or it will be nothing.

After Cuomo's and DeBlasio's mismanagement which turned NY into a mess, I think the rest of the country especially the red states are back in business with nothing to see from here on out.

[Econoline]

Over 173,000 new cases—with over 13,000 new deaths—in the past week.

[Bicycle Bill]

With the exception of a few states everything that was locked down has restarted or is restarting either in phases or completely.

Friday, May 1st —
NM Gov. Michelle Grisham closed all roads leading in and out of the city of Gallup
to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gallup- ... -19-2020-5
That sure sounds like things are opening up, all right.
 

That means it will either be a disaster or it will be nothing.

Translation:  Let's throw this bucket of shit at the fan.  Maybe it WON'T splatter.

I never thought I'd post this about anybody here, but perhaps what you need is a slightly more-than-moderate case of COVID yourself.  That might give you a different tune to blow as you keep whistling past the graveyard.

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

Hey, don't feel bad. I don't find anyone in here worthy of such wrath but when I go to bed every night I'm praying to our savior, Jesus Christ, that our Grifter-in-Chief will blow an artery munching down his nighttime bucket of KFC.

And every morning I awake disappointed... again. No wonder I have problems believing.

[dales]

OPEN THE COUNTRY UP AND LET THECHIPSBODIES FALL WHERE THEY WILL!

[Joe Guy]

Over 173,000 new cases—with over 13,000 new deaths—in the past week.

Absolute proof that we're making progress and it's time to reopen everything....

[Bicycle Bill]

Do you remember learning about D-Day?  Maybe in school, or from your father or grandpa or an uncle?

That was when the Allies mounted the largest amphibious landing in the history of the world in France on June 6th, 1944, despite knowing for a fact that the casualty rate would be appalling.  General Eisenhower was told that paratrooper casualties alone could be as high as 75 percent.  That means that out of over 13,000 men who jumped from planes and an additional 4,000 who landed in gliders, less than 4500 were going to come out unharmed.

And they did indeed suffer huge, bloody losses.  And then they finally secured the beaches, moved the heavy equipment ashore, and slogged their way several miles inland.

Do you also remember learning that, upon hearing the news that the Allies had landed in France, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that the war was pretty much over?  And that he then ordered Eisenhower to turn the army around and sail everyone back to England so that rationing could end, the blackouts could be lifted, and the factories could start making cars and toys and refrigerators again, and everything could get back to normal?

Yeah, I don't remember that last part either.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

That means that out of over 13,000 men who jumped from planes and an additional 4,000 who landed in gliders, less than 4500 were going to come out unharmed.

And they did indeed suffer huge, bloody losses. And then they finally secured the beaches, moved the heavy equipment ashore, and slogged their way several miles inland.

The paratroopers did not "secure the beaches' nor did they move "the heavy equipment shore" and not did they "slog their way several miles inland". They already were several miles inland, awaiting the ground forces from the beach landings.

If you're going to patronize us by explaining what D-Day is, get it right

[dales]

The Germans flooded much of the land so the paratroopers were forced even farther away from the beaches.

Imagine that.

[Bicycle Bill]

The paratroopers did not "secure the beaches' nor did they move "the heavy equipment shore" and not did they "slog their way several miles inland". They already were several miles inland, awaiting the ground forces from the beach landings.

If you're going to patronize us by explaining what D-Day is, get it right

Somehow, Meade, I would have thought that at least you, with a modicum of military experience, would have understood that the specific reference to the Airborne divisions was intended to show that tremendous casualties among certain elements of the invasion force were expected, considered, and accepted, and that my use of the word 'they' was in reference to the entire Allied force in general, including the America, British, and Canadian grunts (along with some units of the Free French) who fought their way off of the landing craft and onto the sands of Normandy before securing the beachheads and moving inland.  But what else should I have expected of someone who failed to capitalize on his opportunity after the Battle of Gettysburg, but allowed Lee and his armies to retreat back through Maryland to Virginia rather than following and attempting to deliver a decisive blow that might have ended the Civil War almost a year sooner?  

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ah, glad you pointed to your ignorance of the post-Gettysburg action to underline your silly mistake about D-Day.

tremendous casualties among certain elements of the invasion force were expected, considered, and accepted,

Oh, so you were arguing in favor of opening the economy then? Your statement above is probably agreeable to Darren and Trump.

[Bicycle Bill]

I've heard of people being deliberately obtuse to try to make a point, Meade, but you're abusing the privilege.

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

And remember when TV new journalist and author, Tom Brokow, bestowed upon our brave military the title of "The Greatest Generation" way back in '19 ought 98?'

Ah, yes, I remember it well.

[Darren]

With the exception of a few states everything that was locked down has restarted or is restarting either in phases or completely.

Friday, May 1st —
NM Gov. Michelle Grisham closed all roads leading in and out of the city of Gallup
to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gallup- ... -19-2020-5
That sure sounds like things are opening up, all right.
 

That means it will either be a disaster or it will be nothing.

Translation:  Let's throw this bucket of shit at the fan.  Maybe it WON'T splatter.

I never thought I'd post this about anybody here, but perhaps what you need is a slightly more-than-moderate case of COVID yourself.  That might give you a different tune to blow as you keep whistling past the graveyard.

-"BB"-

Didn't I already post that I was exposed to the virus earlier this year?

I ran into a friend that was sick but recovering months ago. We talked for an extended period. That was before the mediademic.

About a week ago during a phone conversation he mentioned he had tested positive for antibodies. He had a friend he had to force to go to the hospital otherwise the guy would have probably died at home. His friend had an active case.

As a "benefit" my friend was tested and they found antibodies. My case was sort of antisymptomatic because I had an unusual dry cough for over a month to the point my VA doc sent me some medicine.

As the antibody tests become more available the numbers of previously exposed people will jump. Herd immunity already exists.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I've heard of people being deliberately obtuse to try to make a point, Meade, but you're abusing the privilege

You chose the analogy.

the specific reference to the Airborne divisions was intended to show that tremendous casualties among certain elements of the invasion force were expected, considered, and accepted

And that analogy (as far as facts go) could equally indicate that despite the human cost, the operation should rightly go ahead. See, that's what Eisenhower did - go ahead regardless of the cost. In Trump's alleged mind (and in others) D-Day could justify going ahead with reopening the economy regardless of possible casualties. It seems to me an uncontroversial point. (ETA: I mean that it's not controversial that the same facts could be used in both directions. It's very controversial to espouse opening public facilities regardless of lives lost)

I appreciate the point you were making and do not doubt for a minute that you intend criticism of politicians trying to get things moving in the USA by reversing course too soon and/or inappropriately. It wouldn't hurt for you to acknowledge that there is another way of looking at the same facts, depending on what one wants to make out of them. And it doesn't bother me if you don't either.

I leave aside the Gettysburg controversy as having been satisfactorily understood by most historians in favor of Meade and the Army of the Potomac