Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

[RunningMn9]

Ugh, this sucks. Two of my friends at work, their fathers had been in the ICU with complications due to the virus. One of them passed away today. And one of my son’s friends, her family and her boyfriend’s family likely have it. All have symptoms and one of the mom’s has officially tested positive.

Another work friend, his wife has been in an ICU for like 10 days now.

[geezer]

Ugh, this sucks. Two of my friends at work, their fathers had been in the ICU with complications due to the virus. One of them passed away today. And one of my son’s friends, her family and her boyfriend’s family likely have it. All have symptoms and one of the mom’s has officially tested positive.

Another work friend, his wife has been in an ICU for like 10 days now.

I'm really sorry to hear that. I talked earlier in this thread about one of my best friends that had been hospitalized with COVID complications. We lost him Sunday.

[wonderpug]

Damn, I’m so sorry to hear that. So far I’ve been two degrees of separation away from infected, and three degrees from COVID deaths, and even that has been sobering enough.

[RunningMn9]

I'm really sorry to hear that. I talked earlier in this thread about one of my best friends that had been hospitalized with COVID complications. We lost him Sunday.

I hadn’t seen that, that’s terrible. I have a terrible feeling that it won’t be long before everyone has stories like yours.

[geezer]

I'm really sorry to hear that. I talked earlier in this thread about one of my best friends that had been hospitalized with COVID complications. We lost him Sunday.

I hadn’t seen that, that’s terrible. I have a terrible feeling that it won’t be long before everyone has stories like yours.

I greatly fear the same.

[Kraken]

I'm really sorry to hear that. I talked earlier in this thread about one of my best friends that had been hospitalized with COVID complications. We lost him Sunday.

I hadn’t seen that, that’s terrible. I have a terrible feeling that it won’t be long before everyone has stories like yours.

I greatly fear the same.

May we all live to tell them.

[Jag]

Ugh, this sucks. Two of my friends at work, their fathers had been in the ICU with complications due to the virus. One of them passed away today. And one of my son’s friends, her family and her boyfriend’s family likely have it. All have symptoms and one of the mom’s has officially tested positive.

Another work friend, his wife has been in an ICU for like 10 days now.

I'm really sorry to hear that. I talked earlier in this thread about one of my best friends that had been hospitalized with COVID complications. We lost him Sunday.

So sorry to hear it.

[Smoove_B]

First of all, WTF is Jared Kushner giving us the coronavirus briefing tonight? Was the meeting over how to ironically attack Hunter Biden rescheduled? More importantly:

https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1245836096656867328

One takeaway from Jared Kushner briefing: we did not start active response phase of dealing with this crisis until 13 days ago.

13 days!

They knew about this January and only started actively responding on ~3/20. There are no words.

As others have stated, I feel genuine stress and sadness over anyone suffering over what might have been preventable. I fear for the days ahead.

[IceBear]

I honestly don't think I'm going to live to make it to my 50th birthday in November. I've pretty much sheltered in place since the beginning of March but feel like it's only a matter of time before my wife gets it on her weekly shopping trip and then my diabetic ass is dead

[malchior]

Here are the best (read: infuriating) moments of the Kushner briefing! Also apparently you have to be a complete fucking moron to roll with this clan. He fits right in.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1245853869113917440

[Smoove_B]

JARED KUSHNER: "The notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be states stockpiles that they then use."

Did anyone ask Deputy Numbnuts what the federal government is supposed to do with "their" stockpile? I understand why Trump likes him so much. Between the two of them, they have half a brain.

I honestly don't think I'm going to live to make it to my 50th birthday in November. I've pretty much sheltered in place since the beginning of March but feel like it's only a matter of time before my wife gets it on her weekly shopping trip and then my diabetic ass is dead

Going 1x a week (during low-volume times) is ideal. Does your local grocery chain offer the ability to order online and do curbside pickup or delivery? I've switched over to ordering most of my dry goods online and then using curbside pickup for fresh foods ~10 days or so. I know that's a luxury but I've found diversifying my sources for food has been helpful.

[Holman]

Is Pence being sidelined in favor of Jared?

[Smoove_B]

Seriously. Is Jared trying to win some type of award for irony? I don't understand.

https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1245855323966980096

Jared Kushner says some governors don't know how many ventilators they have & coronavirus outbreak is revealing manager skills.

"What a lot of the voters are seeing now is that when you elect somebody...think about who will be a competent manager during the time of crisis."

[malchior]

I suppose it is a real surprise that the American people aren't following these super clear and well communicated guidelines. Especially in places where their governors are not reinforcing the message. Let's be real, this is the continuance of not taking responsibility for their inept response. Fuck these people.

https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1245851322408108034

Doctor Birx, with a very serious warning from the Coronavirus briefing, says she can see in the data that Americans are not following social distancing guidelines closely enough: "I can tell by the curve as it is today that not every American is following" the guidelines.

[malchior]

Seriously. Is Jared trying to win some type of award for irony? I don't understand.

I can't believe that people didn't straight up just laugh at him.

[Skinypupy]

https://mobile.twitter.com/warmh20pengu ... 2528410624

[malchior]

Anyone find the flaw with their onboarding process for new patients? I didn't know that they had similar problems in Puerto Rico under different conditions. How odd this never came up. It really feels like all Trump wanted was a photo op. I'm so furious with this administration's inability to do *ANYTHING* right. Anything at all.

Capt. Patrick Amersbach, the commanding officer of the medical personnel aboard the Comfort, said at a news conference that, for now, his orders were to accept only patients who had tested negative for the virus. If ordered to accept coronavirus patients, he said, the ship could be reconfigured to make that happen.

“If our mission shifts, we do what we can to meet that mission,” he said.

From the outset, readying the hospital ship for use in a pandemic proved a challenge. The Comfort was built to operate in battlefield conditions, and its physicians accustomed to treating young, otherwise healthy soldiers suffering from injuries related to gunshots and bomb blasts. Most people who are hospitalized with Covid-19 are older and infected with a novel pathogen that even the world’s top medical researchers do not fully understand.

Any outbreak on board could quickly spread and disable the ship’s operations. As a precaution, the ship’s crew isolated for two weeks before embarking on their mission to New York. They must remain onboard for the duration of their mission in New York.

The ship has struggled to fulfill civilian missions in the past. After Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico in 2017, the Comfort was sent to relieve overextended hospitals, but ended up treating only a handful of patients each day.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1245873693470973953

[Yojimbo]

Now everyone needs a shitload more PPE all at the same time. You cannot manage this at the local or even state level. Not without massive shortfalls based on things like price or local logistics.

If you can't manage it at the state level (if this would be impossible), why could you manage well it at the federal level? The state of NY's GDP was over 1.5 trillion last year. That is more than 50% more that the federal GDP in 1970. CA is even bigger. Plus, there are 50 states who know intimately the situations on the ground in their locales.

Because you get 50 states who are in direct competition with each other for a scarce resource. As we have seen, this results in bidding wars that allocate resources by budget rather than necessity. This is exactly where the Fed gov should be involved. And being a global pandemic, you have states competing, and having to deal with, foreign countries. Again, a job for the Fed gov.

That does look a lot like what is going on right now. And flyover states like mine are going to be last in line, I fear.

[Yojimbo]

No one is arguing that a competent federal response would have led to a perfect world with no shortages and minimal virus. What people are arguing is that it would be worlds better. Anyone looking at this through anything but a partisan or ideological lens should be able to agree on this.

The bottom line here is that even a devout libertarian should be able to recognize that this is precisely the type of scenario we have a federal government for. To go back to where this all started (the tweet from the doctor lamenting the lack of PPE and your response wondering why she wasn't blaming her own administration or more local authorities), it's because people should be able to rely on their federal government to coordinate an appropriate response to a national/global pandemic. If this were a local or regional epidemic, you'd have a much better argument.

I can concede better, but worlds better is speculative at best. Its too far for me to agree but I will give you better all day.

I'm not a kid any more and every few years something comes along that is Precisely the type of scenario that we need a bigger government for. Hurricanes, Sloppy Boeing Supermax code, flood along the Mississippi, droughts, wildfires and on... I feel like its a one-way ratchet pawl with no reverse - we can make our government bigger and fatter, but we can't ever seem to trim it down again. (maybe I am in touch with Senator Coburn's ghost this week)

[Zarathud]

If you want government to run leaner, you have to elect leaders who care about managing government. They’re the ones who are interested in burning the fat to pay for muscle. But they were all purged as RINOs.

Any asshole can kill your company by firing the people indiscriminately. A manager who wants the system to work has a chance to find the few who aren’t working but freeloading.

[Yojimbo]

I just don't think that office would be a panacea for everything that is wrong today and I remain skeptical about move government always being the answer.

Then what's the answer?

Stronger and more capable states is part of the answer. But this IS the kind of thing a federal government needs ride oversight on. 50 CDCs (reductio ad absurdum my logic) would be a nightmare of egos and conflicting plans - even I can see that.

[ImLawBoy]

I'm not a kid any more and every few years something comes along that is Precisely the type of scenario that we need a bigger government for. Hurricanes, Sloppy Boeing Supermax code, flood along the Mississippi, droughts, wildfires and on... I feel like its a one-way ratchet pawl with no reverse - we can make our government bigger and fatter, but we can't ever seem to trim it down again. (maybe I am in touch with Senator Coburn's ghost this week)

These things aren't expanding the government - they're already there (or should be in the case of federal management of a pandemic). In fact, one could argue that, contrary to your statement, we did trim the federal government (i.e., the pandemic response capabilities) and now we're paying the price for it.

[Defiant]

Projections of how states will do in flattening the curve under different conditions (no action, poor or strict compliance of 3 months of stay at home, and 3 month lockdowns):

https://covidactnow.org/

[RunningMn9]

Projections of how states will do in flattening the curve under different conditions (no action, poor or strict compliance of 3 months of stay at home, and 3 month lockdowns):

https://covidactnow.org/

[Defiant]

The US Army warned 2 months ago that the coronavirus could kill as many as 150,000 Americans

The US Army assessed in early February that the coronavirus could kill as many as 150,000 Americans, the Daily Beast reported Thursday, citing an unclassified briefing document.

The document put together on Feb. 3 by US Army North had a "black swan" assessment that 80 million Americans could be infected, 15 to 25 million could require care, 300,000 to 500,000 could require hospitalization, and 80,000 to 150,000 could die.

While the Army briefing document was reportedly seen by the heads of US Northern Command and US Army North and sent to senior Army leadership, it is unclear if the document was passed further up the chain, the Daily Beast reported.

[Alefroth]

Is Pence being sidelined in favor of Jared?

Wasn't Pence already sidelined? I read that he is heading up the government effort and Kushner is tearing through the red tape to line his own pockets coordinate the private effort.

[LawBeefaroni]

https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/ ... 6619198465

No good deed...

The Navy announced it has relieved the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt

.

[GungHo]

https://twitter.com/DavidLarter/status/ ... 6619198465

No good deed...

The Navy announced it has relieved the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt

.

I'm of two minds on this one ;
On the one hand, yeah way to suppress whistle blowing or hell, just trying to get some sailors some freaking help. Don't want captains looking out for the well-being of their crews...
OTOH, he is the captain. Not his fault but it is his responsibility. Hard to see how you get to keep your job if a disaster hits your ship.

Kinda like being president...

RE: the James Wood tweets. Yeah we've known for a decade or two what a complete a-hole that guy is and maybe the reason we aren't seeing cell phone video from inside a hospital is 1)ppl are too damn busy to video and 2) ppl are losing their jobs for allegedly stealing PPE or talking to the media/social media postings. I wonder what old James thinks would happen to someone caught taking a video. Other than bankruptcy inducing lawsuits for the hospital, criminal charges for invasion of privacy for the individual, and loss of their license and their job. Might be a smidge of social media shaming as well. All so they can post a video that the right wing nutjobs will call fake news?

It takes about 2 minutes and the brain power of a slug to put Titanic-esque holes in the arguments and positions of the trumpkins and yet, they persist. Really is amazing

[Formix]

Turns out it's the Dunning-Kruger administration.

[LawBeefaroni]

So the worldwide cumulative cases are around 1M and the US is at 250K. We make up 1/4 of the known worldwide cases? Between just the US, Italy and Spain we make up 45-50% of all cases?

A country like India has 2,543 cases? I'm thinking that we're missing a lot of data/tests and things could get (or are) very very bad in a lot of these other countries. That or they have some built-in immunity, which seems unlikely.

[Holman]

First of all, WTF is Jared Kushner giving us the coronavirus briefing tonight?

https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/stat ... 09089?s=20

[raydude]

So the worldwide cumulative cases are around 1M and the US is at 250K. We make up 1/4 of the known worldwide cases? Between just the US, Italy and Spain we make up 45-50% of all cases?

A country like India has 2,543 cases? I'm thinking that we're missing a lot of data/tests and things could get (or are) very very bad in a lot of these other countries. That or they have some built-in immunity, which seems unlikely.

For India it looks like nationwide lockdown and aggressive contact tracing, including cell phone tracking. It also looks like their cases have only recently begun to spike. India, for example, was only at 9 deaths on March 25 and now they're at 56.

If only some country could take the lead and help organize a global response instead of retreating into its isolationist shell?

[LawBeefaroni]

So the worldwide cumulative cases are around 1M and the US is at 250K. We make up 1/4 of the known worldwide cases? Between just the US, Italy and Spain we make up 45-50% of all cases?

A country like India has 2,543 cases? I'm thinking that we're missing a lot of data/tests and things could get (or are) very very bad in a lot of these other countries. That or they have some built-in immunity, which seems unlikely.

For India it looks like nationwide lockdown and aggressive contact tracing, including cell phone tracking. It also looks like their cases have only recently begun to spike. India, for example, was only at 9 deaths on March 25 and now they're at 56.

It just seems to me that a lockdown in India is basically clumping millions of people together. Their population density is insane.

[RunningMn9]

Yeah, I’m guessing India is getting, or will get, hoses. They just won’t put any numbers out to show it.

[Jeff V]

I honestly don't think I'm going to live to make it to my 50th birthday in November. I've pretty much sheltered in place since the beginning of March but feel like it's only a matter of time before my wife gets it on her weekly shopping trip and then my diabetic ass is dead

Same here (except birthday is next month and closer to 60). but although my wife has a high-risk job as a nurse, I'm the more promiscuous one doing all of the shopping and working in a plant with ~600 people. She just got me a mask and gloves to use when shopping.

Still no word on when 5 minute tests are going to make it to the front lines. They said on the news this morning that the current test takes 6 hours -- then why is my wife's coworker waiting 8 days now for her result?

[Unagi]

Yeah, I’m guessing India is getting, or will get, hoses. They just won’t put any numbers out to show it.

This is also my assumption.

[raydude]

I honestly don't think I'm going to live to make it to my 50th birthday in November. I've pretty much sheltered in place since the beginning of March but feel like it's only a matter of time before my wife gets it on her weekly shopping trip and then my diabetic ass is dead

Same here (except birthday is next month and closer to 60). but although my wife has a high-risk job as a nurse, I'm the more promiscuous one doing all of the shopping and working in a plant with ~600 people. She just got me a mask and gloves to use when shopping.

Still no word on when 5 minute tests are going to make it to the front lines. They said on the news this morning that the current test takes 6 hours -- then why is my wife's coworker waiting 8 days now for her result?

My wife and I developed a food shopping system for when she has to get groceries. She gets up early in the morning once a week and has a change of clothes in the bathroom just inside the garage. She goes shopping for food, brings the bags home, then immediately gets in the bathroom to shower and change her clothes. Meanwhile, I remove the food from the shopping bags, wipe down what I can (canned goods, non-perishables) and put the food away. When I'm done I wash my hands.

Maybe it's overkill but that's our system.

[Yojimbo]

So the USN ship, there is something going on with boats that may be important here.

The cruise ships, now this Navy vessel. I stumbled across the following at 4am (I've been up for the European markets all week - yuck):
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... dutch-city

If we can easily measure the virus in sewage,

That led to this - Toilet cloud plume? (this from a non-pressured system no less):
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/ ... bce41b8b6c

And normal toilets make a messy plume?

And this - various details and rules about treating and dumping (or not dumping):
https://www.maritime-executive.com/edit ... ealities-1

And shipboard heads (WCs) may be under varying degrees of pressure.

I know only a little about the sewage systems on large ships. Many of these systems use varying degrees of pressure in the system to force sewage into different kinds of treatment regimens (bio reactors, UV, etc). Any system under pressure needs a seal (stay with me, here). Any seal in such a system has a high and low pressure side. Since humans do our business on the low side, there will always be prospect of a rush of "gas and atomized sewage" slipping around the seals.

I am wondering if this virus and ships are not uniquely suited to make environments where virus laden aerosol spray works its way into our living spaces?

Anyone serve on a ship or cruise enough to know about those systems?

[IceBear]

I honestly don't think I'm going to live to make it to my 50th birthday in November. I've pretty much sheltered in place since the beginning of March but feel like it's only a matter of time before my wife gets it on her weekly shopping trip and then my diabetic ass is dead

Same here (except birthday is next month and closer to 60). but although my wife has a high-risk job as a nurse, I'm the more promiscuous one doing all of the shopping and working in a plant with ~600 people. She just got me a mask and gloves to use when shopping.

Still no word on when 5 minute tests are going to make it to the front lines. They said on the news this morning that the current test takes 6 hours -- then why is my wife's coworker waiting 8 days now for her result?

My wife and I developed a food shopping system for when she has to get groceries. She gets up early in the morning once a week and has a change of clothes in the bathroom just inside the garage. She goes shopping for food, brings the bags home, then immediately gets in the bathroom to shower and change her clothes. Meanwhile, I remove the food from the shopping bags, wipe down what I can (canned goods, non-perishables) and put the food away. When I'm done I wash my hands.

Maybe it's overkill but that's our system.

Pretty much ours too except the bathroom is just inside our front door.

[Smoove_B]

Anyone serve on a ship or cruise enough to know about those systems?

No, but residential toilets have been implicated in spreading SARS, back in 2003. This new coronavirus has been identified in stool but I don't believe there's been confirmation transmission can occur this way (yet). I do think ships (and their waste management systems) might be able to help us figure out if it's happening, but I doubt we'll get confirmation until after we're out of this nightmare and can actually start conducting hardcore research.