Off topic “coronavirus”

[spdrun]

Who says a shutdown would have been needed in January? The Federal government could have…

(1) figured out how to massively ramp up production of masks and other protective measures

(2) did the same for test kits

(3) required 2 weeks quarantine for anyone coming from China with or without symptoms. break quarantine, banned for life from the airline

issued guidelines for….

(4) temperature checks at all airports via IR cameras. anyone over 25 with temp > 38C would be allowed to rebook two weeks later for free

(5) ditto for all stadiums, concert halls, meeting venues seating more than 250 people

(6) issuing everyone with masks, encouraging mask-wearing in public

(7) required employers to give anyone with a documented influenza-like illness (ILI) two weeks paid leave, no questions asked.

(8) guidelines for 30-50% capacity reduction in venues like theaters and restaurants. Encourage work-from-home.

The goal isn’t to bring r^0 to zero, merely to reduce it below 1.

[ucodegen]

[quote=FlyerInHi]So the South Koreans are able to widely test their population. But we couldn’t use their technology. We had to wait weeks to develop our own, very late in the game, even as we had all the information we needed.[/quote]

Not quite accurate, try;
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-went-wrong-with-coronavirus-testing-in-the-us

The quirk of US law is that you don’t need special clearance to produce a test on a virus until its declared a public-health emergency… then ‘new regulations take effect’… ie; politics gets in the way. The US test was available mid January because of the work the Chinese Doctor did in ‘illegally'(according to CCP’s point of view) publishing the genomic sequencing of the virus.

After the ‘new regulations took effect’;

February 4th, a new regulatory regime took effect. From that point on, any lab that wanted to conduct its own tests for the new coronavirus would first need to secure something called an Emergency Use Authorization from the F.D.A.

Another portion of article;

Jerome said that Greninger had to call and e-mail the F.D.A. multiple times to figure out what they needed to secure an E.U.A. “At one point, he was very frustrated because he’d e-mailed them what we were doing so they could review it,” Jerome said. “But legally you also had to mail a physical copy. Here we are in this SARS-CoV-2 crisis, and you have to send them something through the United States Postal Service. It’s just shocking.” (The F.D.A. has since dropped the requirement to send a CD-ROM or USB drive with a copy of the application.)

That said, there was likely too much of a NIH(Not Invented Here) with regard to using South Korean tests – though it really looks like the FDA and CDC were stumbling over stupid regulations.

another item in the article:

The F.D.A.’s exclusive authorization to the C.D.C. to conduct COVID-19 tests ended up creating “what you’d think of as an agriculture monoculture. If something went wrong, it was going to shut everything down, and that’s what happened.”

[Coronita]

Imho, everyone is eventually going to get infected. Immunity spread and eventually community immunity. Natural selection/God/your favorite belief system will sort us out on who lives. Can’t change fate. If it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. NYC infection rate is accelerating now epicenter shifted from Washington state. As expected city, high population density, cold, lots of community use public transportation.

[spdrun]

NY also ramped up testing earlier than other states … we’ve actually tested about 2250 people per million residents. We’ll be above South Korea’s testing rates in the next week.

[Coronita]

So despite years of bitching about government survellance and privacy encroachment, all the way back to posts about spying on is citizens post 9/11 for security screening, suddenly, you are suggesting the government should have taken a more active role in survellance at the airport to catch this virus earlier 🙂

Can you say Hipaa?

[spdrun]

Where do you make the jump from “available testing on the public dime” or “fever checks via IR camera” to Draconian surveillance measures? I’m not proposing tracking everyone’s movements, just their health (as an emergency measure) when entering public facilities.

I’m also not proposing to make anyone’s name or information public. This is more like “if you can’t reach this bar, you’re too short to take the ride.”

[FlyerInHi]

February 7

Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the author of the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act. He’s the guy who sold his stocks.

Thankfully, the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration.

The work of Congress and the administration has allowed U.S. public health officials to move swiftly and decisively in the last few weeks.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-steps-the-u-s-government-is-taking-to-protect-you-sen-alexander-and-sen-burr

[outtamojo]

Tucker Carlson of all people was actually fair and balanced about this but of the 5 senators who sold stock my always trumper coworker could only name Feinstein!

[outtamojo]

[quote=Coronita]Imho, everyone is eventually going to get infected. Immunity spread and eventually community immunity. Natural selection/God/your favorite belief system will sort us out on who lives. Can’t change fate. If it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. NYC infection rate is accelerating now epicenter shifted from Washington state. As expected city, high population density, cold, lots of community use public transportation.[/quote]

When they roll out a covid19 antibody test it would be interesting to see how many of us were unknowingly infected.

Edit: and also how many false test results were put out there with those rushed pcr kits lol

[svelte]

yes most of us will eventually get infected…the goal now is to flatten and widen the curve.

at this point that’s all we can do…that ensures those who need hospitalization get a fair chance at getting it, instead of having hospital staff pick and choose who they take in.

[FlyerInHi]

Feinstein sold a biotech, lol

Feinstein, one the longest-tenured Senate Democrats, sold at least $500,000 in shares of Allogene Therapeutics, a California biotechnology company, on Jan. 31 and at least $1 million in Allogene stock on Feb. 18, according to Senate records.

Four senators sold stocks before coronavirus threat crashed market

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=svelte]yes most of us will eventually get infected…the goal now is to flatten and widen the curve.

at this point that’s all we can do…that ensures those who need hospitalization get a fair chance at getting it, instead of having hospital staff pick and choose who they take in.[/quote]

I watched the presidential press conferences yesterday and today. Anthony Fauci said “we don’t want to let it rip.” But that’s exactly what we’re doing under lockdown — We don’t have the resources to do anything but social distancing at this time.

[zk]

[quote=outtamojo]Tucker Carlson of all people was actually fair and balanced about this but of the 5 senators who sold stock my always trumper coworker could only name Feinstein![/quote]

Here’s why your always trumper coworker could only name Feinstein. This is the headline on fox:

Dianne Feinstein, 3 Senate colleagues sold off stocks before coronavirus crash: reports

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dianne-feinstein-3-senate-colleagues-sold-off-stocks-before-coronavirus-crash-reports

Now, read this NYT article:

As would any actual news organization, the NYT looked at the circumstances surrounding the sales and found that Feinstein, along with republican senators Johnson and Inhofe, made trades that were not suspicious:

Feinstein has said that she did not attend the Jan. 24 briefing; her stock was in a blind trust, which means she didn’t make the decision to sell; and the transaction lost her money, because the trust was selling shares of a biotechnology stock, the value of which has since risen. Inhofe’s transactions were part of a systematic selling of stocks that he started after he became chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Johnson sold stock in his family’s plastic business, as part of a process that has been occurring for months; his sale also occurred well after stock market began falling.

So the headline on the fox website is highly misleading. Bullshit, really.

This is but one of millions of examples of right-wing propaganda misleading and manipulating their marks into voting against their own interests.

[Coronita]

So this is interesting.

The PC system I put together two weeks ago now costs a few hundred extra. Some of the components are no longer available from the usual places and cost more elsewhere. Furthermore places like Amazon and newegg aren’t delivering components to end of April.

I guess all this work from home put an unusual demand on home computers and laptops and besides inventory, there’s a longer delivery time too from retailers. And you simply can’t go to a store and pick one up. Apple stores for example are all closed for the rest of the month, so its all online orders. And if I remember correctly, most MacBook/min/pro machines are made to order and shipped from directly from China unless you happen to pick a preconfigured system that is still in stock. I guess you could still go to places like Costco to get one.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]yes most of us will eventually get infected…the goal now is to flatten and widen the curve.

at this point that’s all we can do…that ensures those who need hospitalization get a fair chance at getting it, instead of having hospital staff pick and choose who they take in.[/quote]

Yup. Seems like the virus has been on US a lot longer than people thought. Some folks might have already had it and dismissed it earlier as a variation of the flu. Seeing infections come up in states where there’s typically not a lot of people from China and Italy going back and forth says it’s been circulating for some time. At this point it almost is pointless to test and assume most people who are sick have it, and just treat the ones with severe symptoms and the elderly

Nobody expected Italy or Europe for that matter to have a huge issue because of China’s failure to disclose the infection earlier to anyone including the EU. So Europe is as late to the preparation as just like the US, despite supposedly the superior public health system in many of those countries. Germany too needs to mobilize the private industry to build medical supplies and equipment as it too was caught underprepared. Spain is getting hit pretty hard too, also behind in their response.

The interesting part is the majority of the people getting sick and turning up in the ICU aren’t the older seniors. It’s mostly people younger than 60 and overwhelmingly men.

[Author]

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