Maybe, and maybe not.
14 Likes
Ok, fair enough. But given the subject of this discussion thread, what are the political ramifications of this administration being able to plausibly claim (based on the official death count numbers) that the U.S. had better results than other peer countries?
4 Likes
Everything’s Alright
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly said Americans had “nothing to worry about” while he privately warned the White House that the coronavirus pandemic could cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of American lives.
My real concern is that at some future date, when restaurants are open, some people might see Mr. Navarro in one of them and be a bit mean to him. That would be uncivil.
3 Likes
Someone didn’t get the memo that China hasn’t been communist for, what, 3 decades?
4 Likes
Given the profiteering? Still prison time for everyone involved. Either that or fascism.
4 Likes
This is the latest data for a selected set of countries:
It seems to me that while countries like Italy and Spain are reaching a plateau, other countries, including the United States, are still a few weeks from doing so. Factors affecting the higher rates for Italy and Spain could be their higher life expectancy, higher social interaction, and closer and more extended family ties. There is also the issue that this data is just for confirmed COVID-19 deaths; it seems that eventually we would also have to add other deaths that have not yet been confirmed yet as COVID-19 cases.
8 Likes
I can think of a couple of reasons why the US might have an edge. The first is that a pretty large number of Americans are largely self-quarantined all the time. Drive alone from the housing development to the corporate park in your H3, sit in you cubicle, get a McRib at the drive through, back to the cubicle, drive home, go straight into the house and turn on Fox News, fall asleep on the sofa mumbling, “You’re right, Sean, we should kill them a…”, lather, rinse. Twice a month drive to Sam’s Club for food and supplies. Everything else comes via Amazon. This is not perfect shelter in place, but it’s a radically lower exposure lifestyle.
The second is that the coasts were going to be the natural import vectors and they have, imperfectly to be sure, taken the burden of containment, from which the rest of the country benefits.
That’s true, but it’s also true that this undercount appears to be happening in places like Spain and Italy as well.
5 Likes
Yes, but I wonder if Americans without healthcare coverage are more inclined to ride it out at home?
As other people have said, we won’t know the real death totals until after, when researchers carefully look at death rates before and after.
7 Likes
Probable, but the undercount analysis (i.e. this is the average number of deaths for the time period, here are the non-Trumpvirus-confirmed deaths) I’ve read between the US and the European examples is about the same.
In all cases, we have to deal with the fact that there appears to be a strong governmental push to hide infection and fatality numbers, precisely what those same governments are accusing China of.
7 Likes
There’s also the problem that frontline workers are freaking busy, and there’s no incentive for them to take the time to do tests. Another body at home? Bag’em and move on to the next. For the living, if they have serious symptoms, get them a bed. If not serious, send them home to isolate.
5 Likes
There is if they want to get less busy in the future.
1 Like
Landlords around the world exercising their droit:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/d6ad2e6d-2c72-4a35-9281-daaeedf029ee
7 Likes
Humans gonna human, I guess.
If you really wanna test someone, give them power over someone else.
4 Likes
11 Likes
We used to say of these medals in the Army, “if I had that medal and 50 cents, I could buy a 50 cent cup of coffee!”
11 Likes
My personal dream? Stop waiting on Washington to deliver single-payer healthcare. California can lead the way. It is the fifth largest economy, after all! We could call it Blue Care, and once established in-state, it could open its doors to other states. Washington, Oregon, Hawaii would be the second wave. Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, and New England wouldn’t be far behind.
Combined, that would approach 130 million Americans, or about 40% of the entire population of the United States. Instead of letting Wyoming block better health care for all Americans, let California use its market heft to create an alternative, and show the rest of the country how it is done.
If people want to keep voting for their junk insurance plans in Nebraska, so be it. But nothing will move the needle in a Senate heavily tilted in favor of hostile, old, rural conservatives, like having California lead its own healthcare revolution.
Yes, it’s a fantasy. No, I don’t know of any efforts to make it a reality. But why not?
9 Likes
I believe Italy is doing postmortem testing, even for people who die at home. This is unusual, and caused some speculation back in the day (ie, 3 weeks ago):
3 Likes
4 Likes
What is Starmer supposed to do instead? He’s been head, for around a nanosecond, of a political party that is not in power and was weakened beyond measure by his predecessor.
1 Like
Support something, anything, that would actually benefit the people in question, instead of giving them the equivalent of a token for their sacrifice?
4 Likes
