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

[naednek]

...may drive them to prematurely re-open their economies.

The best part is that this isn't something that can be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear - and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until we have a vaccine.

Toss open the doors to your economy and watch as everyone emerges and then heads to the hospitals a week later.

Starts with FOX News trying to get Fauci to say that this will "disappear" like SARS did; he refuses. Dr. Phil says people die all the time (to things like car crashes, tobacco, and swimming pools) and we're not closing the country to stop that. Dr. Oz says we should kill 2% to 3% of the population so we can get the kids back in school. Why are these "doctors" wanting people to die for the economy? Best guess is that the GOP is willing to gamble lives to get the economy back online so Trump looks better come November and it can help him win. In short - people need to die so Trump can be re-elected.

But I see this hurting Trump more, since it's mainly the red states who are not taking this seriously. His advice and tweets are enabling his base to make stupid uninformed decisions which will cost them and unfortunately there will be collateral damage.

[El Guapo]

https://twitter.com/AlecMacGillis/statu ... 1481948162

[Holman]

What's tragic is that there really is no Red or Blue.

We can talk about Red and Blue state governments, but that's a very small number of decision-makers. Even the Reddest states are still one-third or even 45% Blue in population, and they're especially Blue in population centers.

When Texas or Tennessee or Georgia gives up on social distancing and other mitigation strategies, all the citizens will suffer, not just Republicans. It's wrong to say "they're getting what they deserve" because lots of them aren't.

[gilraen]

It's wrong to say "they're getting what they deserve" because lots of them aren't.

True. Especially those who really deserve it in my eyes - the GOP politicians that are so ready to throw their constituents under the bus - are all managing to avoid getting infected (at least as far as we know, no one has gotten a serious enough case of it that it would make the news). Like, what's it going to take for these turds to get at least some of the suffering that they are actively causing? Apparently even the virus has decided that they aren't sufficiently human to bother...

[malchior]

That headline from CBS news is killing me. We aren't surprised. I'd say get the guillotines ready but the only people protesting are the folks hoping to go out and die to make the rich richer.

https://twitter.com/RepDeanPhillips/sta ... 7388829699

Instead, Minnis said, PPP loans appear to be going to the eligible firms most able to retain their workforces, even before receiving assistance. "The irony of the program is that if your businesses was still operating and had a large payroll you got more money," Minnis said. "The worst-hit firms had already laid off some or all of their people by the time the program got started, so they may not have gone for it."

[Smoove_B]

We've reached the point where Nazi flags can be used ironically.

https://twitter.com/existentialfish/sta ... 3107021824

Fox News host attacks Michigan governor for calling out swastikas at yesterday's protest against social distancing, saying that they were being displayed ironically

[Smoove_B]

That headline from CBS news is killing me. We aren't surprised. I'd say get the guillotines ready but the only people protesting are the folks hoping to go out and die to make the rich richer.

I'm assuming you've seen the map?

“I’m hard-pressed not to think that this is political,” said Jackie Speier, a Democratic congresswoman from California, in an April 16 tweet shared more than 10,000 times. “Blue states like California got a pathetic number of loans.” At a press briefing, California Governor Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, said, “We’re trying to understand exactly why.”

[malchior]

I did but it is doesn't do much for me. Meaning sure Nebraska got 80% but it is a small state and the local banks were the conduit. Maybe a smaller population of businesses got in line at community banks and got through the process quicker. Big states like NY, NJ, and CA had lots of applications and perhaps the banks couldn't process them quickly or were funneling money to their wealthier clients or clients whose business made them money. They put the foxes in charge of handing out of the loans after all. That said, I wouldn't discount that it could have been political. I wouldn't be surprised at all but having read how this process went...I think it was more for mechanical reasons. In other words, directed by the usual financial system backslapping than politics.

[Smoove_B]

There was a time (like maybe 3 months ago) when I thought things like this had a logical, plausible explanation. I no longer believe that and just default to active malfeasance.

[malchior]

I usually bend that way but this is the problem when they open the cash spigot like this. Our system is extremely biased to funneling money to the already rich. It isn't completely political. It is more because our society has been structured to work this way over the last 40 years. They didn't means test this thing at all. They allowed LLCs from the same parent to stack applications. That makes no damn sense. It wasn't targeted where economic damage was the worst. Construction companies that are operating at near full capacity were able to muscle to the head of the line. It is malfeasance but it isn't necessarily political in a red/blue state way. Everything that is happening is exposing how our system is twisted and corrupt from top to bottom.

[LawBeefaroni]

Good news though, the next round will have even more relaxed rules so bank directors and shareholders will be allowed to get loans for their non-bank companies. Sure, there were a few cases in rural America where a director also owned the local chicken shack and really needs the money. But dollar-wise their loans will be dwarfed by further conflicts of interest unleashed.

The 99% getting fleeced all over again. It's shearing time!

The Federal Reserve Board on Friday announced a rule change to bolster the effectiveness of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The change will temporarily modify the Board's rules so that certain bank directors and shareholders can apply for PPP loans for their small businesses.

To prevent favoritism, Board rules limit the types and quantity of loans that bank directors, shareholders, officers, and businesses owned by these persons can receive from their related banks. These requirements have prevented some small business owners from accessing PPP loans—especially in rural areas.

[malchior]

BORTLES!

https://twitter.com/KenTremendous/statu ... 2587767809

There’s a reason we made Jason Mendoza be from Jacksonville.

[Smoove_B]

As a reminder, without more tests, America cannot reopen:

COVID-19 testing has been an unmitigated failure in this country. This month, according to the COVID Tracking Project, a data initiative launched by The Atlantic in March, the number of tests performed in the United States has plateaued at about 130,000 to 160,000 a day. Rather than growing rapidly—as all experts think is absolutely necessary—the daily number of tests administered in some jurisdictions has even decreased. In New York, for instance, 10,241 tests were performed on April 6, but supply limits forced a huge drop a few days later to 25 total tests. Quest Diagnostics, one of the two biggest firms that run tests, just furloughed 9 percent of its workforce. In addition, news reports suggest that, as of last week, 90 percent of the 15-minute tests developed by Abbott Laboratories are idle due to a lack of necessary reagents and qualified personnel. Testing bottlenecks such as these are major obstacles to getting Americans out of their homes and back on the job.

More specifically:

How many tests do we need in order to safely relax social-distancing measures, reopen nonessential businesses and schools, and allow large gatherings? According to the Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Harrison and the Harvard professor Ashish Jha, we should be conducting a minimum of 500,000 tests a day. One of the authors of this article, Paul Romer, has called for the capacity to run 20 million to 30 million tests a day. Even this has been criticized as insufficient for the task of identifying enough of the asymptomatic spreaders to keep the pandemic in check.

Current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give priority first to hospitalized patients and symptomatic health-care workers, then to high-risk patients, specifically those over 65 and those suffering from other serious health conditions, with COVID-19 symptoms. Under this system, asymptomatic individuals are not tested, even if they had contact with people who tested positive.

This is an enormous mistake. If we want to control the spread of COVID-19, the United States must adopt a new testing policy that prioritizes people who, although asymptomatic, may have the virus and infect many others.

There's more details after that. Remember, it's not that there aren't people that know what to do, it's just that there's ZERO national leadership making it happen.

[Zaxxon]

Remember, it's not that there aren't people that know what to do, it's just that there's ZERO national leadership making it happen.

Oh, we remember.

[malchior]

We are just along for the ride but this could be a heck of a terrible bet by the GOP. We could see a landslide Democratic victory if there is a massive outbreak and consequent economic collapse.

*This assumes actual election and non-tampering which is dubious at best.

[Kasey Chang]

This is f***ing heartbreaking.

Elderly patient pleaded for help via Echo Show for days before succumbing to COVID-19 in nursing home

Guess there's no skill for Alexa to call 911...

[Kraken]

Here's why the Trumpsters don't want widespread testing: In one of MA's hotspots, nearly 1/3 of 200 semi-random blood samples tested positive.

“I think it’s both good news and bad news,” said Dr. John Iafrate, vice chairman of MGH’s pathology department and the study’s principal investigator. “The bad news is that there’s a raging epidemic in Chelsea, and many people walking on the street don’t know that they’re carrying the virus and that they may be exposing uninfected individuals in their families.”

“On the good-news side, it suggests that Chelsea has made its way through a good part of the epidemic,” he said. “They’re probably further along than other towns.”

Chelsea isn't representative of most American communities: "Chelsea covers only about two square miles, across the Mystic River from Boston. For generations, it has attracted new immigrants, and about 65 percent of its residents are Latino. Many live in three-decker houses, Ambrosino said, where it’s hard for people to isolate themselves. Many work in the hospitality industry and health-related fields, where exposure to the virus is greater. And a lot of them must go to work during the pandemic."

Still, if white people in nice communities could see how prevalent the virus really is, they might be sulking less about the lockdowns.

[malchior]

Here's why the Trumpsters don't want widespread testing: In one of MA's hotspots, nearly 1/3 of 200 semi-random blood samples tested positive.

...

Still, if white people in nice communities could see how prevalent the virus really is, they might be sulking less about the lockdowns.

I've seen the opposite effect. When the death cult sees more prevalence it enables them to roll out the 'See it's less deadly!' 'It's just the flu!' argument. I think it is just way more likely they are just massively incompetent. These people are the bottom of the barrel. They can't organize anything. They can't make plans. They are in-fighting for the attention of a mercurial moron. It has lead to the chaos we see. It makes more sense than some concerted effort to stop testing.

[Z-Corn]

This is f***ing heartbreaking.

Elderly patient pleaded for help via Echo Show for days before succumbing to COVID-19 in nursing home

Guess there's no skill for Alexa to call 911...

My mother-in-law was in that same nursing home for about a month last year.

We visited her for the first time on Mothers Day and I immediately decided that the place was a dirty terribly run facility. My wife and her sister pressured my mother-in-law's husband to get her out of there ASAP. He finally did but resisted because it was just down the street from his house and easy for him to visit.

[Smoove_B]

An excellent overview from Wired:

Also, the White House plan uses testing availability as a “gating factor,” but not necessarily widespread testing. In fact, it doesn’t specify what percentage of the population should be getting tested at all, even though some experts have suggested that the US should be doing anywhere from 500,000 to millions of Covid-19 tests a day. The plan makes contact tracing a gating factor, but by one estimate nationwide contact tracing would require 100,000 people to do the tracing and would cost $3.8 billion (a bargain if it saves thousands of lives, but someone has to set it up). The plan orders states to have enough tests and PPE for health care workers, but it doesn’t explain how to get them, offer funding to pay for them, or propose that the federal government could help—the whole reason three regional alliances of states have come together, absent that kind of aid.

Of significance:

Most tellingly, though, while offering state governors some coverage to make their own determinations about when to reopen, the plan also puts the onus on them for procuring equipment, setting up tests, and creating a contact-tracing system—all preconditions for any easing of nonpharmaceutical interventions. “There is no—zero, zip, zilch—way to upscale testing, PPE production, hospital readiness, the public health workforce … without robust federal leadership,” Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, tweeted. “States don't have the capacity or resources to achieve these things on their own.” That’s what things like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Defense Preparedness Act are for.

[malchior]

The kind of nonsense below isn't born out by the data. Since I'm about a week from getting my Masters in Data Analytics I have been running a model on the outbreak as part of my capstone. It turned out a little different than others you'll see. I'm not forecasting deaths. I've just built a dashboard about current state that gives some insight into what is happening now based on the last few weeks. You can use it to take educated guesses on how mitigation has worked. It was inspired by how I track infections in Cybersecurity Incident Response to enable decision making. As a caveat, my numbers aren't 100% the same as others you'll find because I've pulled them from multiple sources. They will be similar though.

So what is the reason I am rolling my own? Many of the sites had different reporting gaps and collated their data differently and in sometimes bad ways imo. Sometimes they are being forensic and not backdating data, other times it looks like laziness. For example, covidtracking.com had missing data for awhile when not all states were reporting. newsbreak.com actually had solid data but they like many others just dumped NYs revised numbers in on one day. That's fine if you want to just keep a simple tally but it breaks your growth curves. I personally went back to NYs revised data which was by day and fixed mine to reflect the re-statement. Anyway, I won't say its perfect but it is good enough.

According to my numbers (which closely track the best to the newsbreak numbers), new cases didn't peak on the 4th. Instead, the highest count of new cases so far was the 10th of April. There was a slight dip for a few days but that corresponds with the time that labs were saying that they had idle capacity (sometimes 30% capacity unused by some accounts). This has been ascribed by some as tight CDC guidance about who to test which artificially lowered numbers across the board. In any case, the number of new cases on the 16th was within a few hundred of the 10th. Aka a double top. The number of new cases has been moving horizontally for over a week. That has made the count of total cases from the period 4/7 - 4/16 essentially linear. Linear isn't how nature works. So some limit is there. It could be social distancing but that probably isn't going to keep a perfect linear lid on it. I'd suspect hitting a capacity cap on number of tests completed. It's an easy explanation considering what we know.

Here are the 14-day moving windows for new cases:
* period 2/24 - 3/8 - growth of new cases was 18% / day - doubling every 4 days
* period 3/9 - 3/22 - growth of new cases was 29% / day - doubling every 2.5 days
* period 3/16 - 3/29 - growth of new cases around 26% / day - doubling about every 3 days
* period 4/4 - 4/17 - near linear growing at 6% / day - doubling every 12 days <- social distancing? testing cap? suspiciously low imo.


As to the idea that the new death's count is lagging that is true but the rate of new deaths is still growing. If you take 14-day moving windows:
* period 3/9 - 3/22 - growth of total deaths was 22% / day - doubling every 3-4 days.
* period 3/16 - 3/29 - growth accelerated to 26% / day - doubling about every 3 days.
* period 4/4 - 4/17 - near linear growing at 10% / day - doubling every 7 days - supports social distancing

That means recent growth in total deaths is much slower than early in the outbreak but obviously still horrible. It means social distancing worked most likely.

Some conclusions I can make. Cases are likely increasing and testing is missing them. I don't think that is going to prove wrong. The number of new cases moving horizontally doesn't make much sense. It could be real but low confidence it is real. That means the number of deaths will continue to grow. When cases truly peak we'll know about 2 to 3 weeks afterwards. That implies we could have peaked but we have not seen that drop in deaths yet. I personally think it is unlikely we actually got to a peak in new cases. They are just declaring victory to keep the dear leader happy. So sorry for as usual stealing hope but that is only because it is probably the reality of it. Fuck. This is the worst timeline.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 7696101376

[Holman]

I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others. People are dropping off like flies!

I assume the people "dropping off like flies" here refer to Drudge's viewers, but even an only mildly stupid person would see this as a poor choice of phrase in context...

[Unagi]

I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others. People are dropping off like flies!

I assume the people "dropping off like flies" here refer to Drudge's viewers, but even an only mildly stupid person would see this as a poor choice of phrase in context...

He's a very shallow empty person - he head was likely told that phrase over the course of the last couple weeks re:CoViD19, and he just reached back and used a phrase - all proud of himself.

[malchior]

Why are these live? Can anyone explain this any longer?

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1251639799280173056

Trump: "Look if I wasn't elected you would right now be at war with North Korea ... President Obama left us no ammunition. Okay? And he left us virtually no medical. And ventilators."

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1251648565417476097

Trump claims Democratic governors are not using all the tests he created to make him look bad.

[Kraken]

When Obama finally puts on his campaigning shoes, I hope he just completely uncorks.

[Zaxxon]

When Obama finally puts on his campaigning shoes, I hope he just completely uncorks.

Seconded.

Also, cool site: https://rt.live/

[stessier]

South Carolina is going to issue reopening orders this week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if he reopens the schools.

[malchior]

When Obama finally puts on his campaigning shoes, I hope he just completely uncorks.

Seconded.

Also, cool site: https://rt.live/

It's definitely cool. Nice visualization! Some things I noticed. They had to rely on the initially reported Rsub0. The number they are using is based on some of the early Chinese numbers. Appropriate amounts of salt should be considered here.

# Gamma is 1/serial interval
# https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article
# https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
GAMMA = 1/7

Anyway, that aside their Jupyter notebook is a thing of beauty. Well designed and they over explain their methodology and assumptions (in a good way).

[Blackhawk]

When Obama finally puts on his campaigning shoes, I hope he just completely uncorks.

Seconded.

Also, cool site: https://rt.live/

It's interesting how many had a low peak about a week ago and then started increasing back to 1.0+ again.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

South Carolina is going to issue reopening orders this week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if he reopens the schools.

Right now it’s just beaches and some retailers (I’m not clear on which are excluded), which makes me think this is more of a “we need to get the economy going again” sort of deal. Hopefully that means he isn’t dumb enough to reopen the schools, but who knows?

It’ll be interesting to see what happens at my work if he announces that non-essential government employees can stop working from home. All indications are that my bosses are aware that everyone going back to work right now is a terrible idea, but I have no sense how much pushback they’ll get from higher ups.

[Smoove_B]

I'm wondering how much traction this will get:

Hours before our planned departure, we were told to expect only a quarter of our original order. We went anyway, since we desperately needed any supplies we could get. Upon arrival, we were jubilant to see pallets of KN95 respirators and face masks being unloaded. We opened several boxes, examined their contents, and hoped that this random sample would be representative of the entire shipment. Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. I remained nervous and worried on the long drive back, feelings that did not abate until midnight, when I received the call that the PPE shipment was secured at our warehouse.

Written by the chief executive of a hospital in MA.

[malchior]

When Obama finally puts on his campaigning shoes, I hope he just completely uncorks.

Seconded.

Also, cool site: https://rt.live/

It's interesting how many had a low peak about a week ago and then started increasing back to 1.0+ again.

This is where their assumption that absolute testing is not meaningful is sort of suspect. I think it's a neat tool but I think that lack of accurate testing is overcoming even the ability of Bayes Inference to overcome it. I didn't get into it earlier but I took a copy of the notebook and played with their assumption of the Rsub0 and made it worse to see what it might mean if it was more infectious than what they use (since they are relying on early Chinese numbers). The RsubT went *down* so I think there might be an error in the calculation. I sent them an email to see if I just reconfigured it wrong or there was a math error in their likelihood function.

[malchior]

I'm wondering how much traction this will get:

Hours before our planned departure, we were told to expect only a quarter of our original order. We went anyway, since we desperately needed any supplies we could get. Upon arrival, we were jubilant to see pallets of KN95 respirators and face masks being unloaded. We opened several boxes, examined their contents, and hoped that this random sample would be representative of the entire shipment. Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. I remained nervous and worried on the long drive back, feelings that did not abate until midnight, when I received the call that the PPE shipment was secured at our warehouse.

Written by the chief executive of a hospital in MA.

I would have loved to hear what the Congressional Rep had to do to prevent the seizure.

[Smoove_B]

I would have loved to hear what the Congressional Rep had to do to prevent the seizure.

Yeah, it'll be a story some day. However, I think everyone is trying to fly under the radar (literally) and fear if they say anything it will bring more attention to their efforts and likely compromise their ability to get what they need. Better to just ignore Trump and his bully tactics in the public spotlight. Case in point, see Illinois:

llinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker organized secret flights bringing millions of masks and gloves to the state from China on charter jets in an effort to bypass potential Trump administration efforts to seize the products, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Two invoices from the state revealed $888,275 purchases for "aircraft charter flight to Shanghai, China for COVID-19 response," according to the newspaper.

[Blackhawk]

That's one thing that's really gotten under my skin about all of this. Emergency medical supplies are being bought out from under the states or are intercepted en masse and denied to medical facilities, and nobody seems to know who is getting them, why, or what's happening to them. Meanwhile people are dying because of their lack.

Why this isn't a front page story, why Congress isn't demanding answers and pursuing it as a criminal investigation if they can't get any is confounding. Where are they going? Under whose orders? Is there any pattern to who is getting them and who is not? And for those who are not and have actual, documented deaths as a result, what is the response?

If a portion of the government is actively working to undermine the response and harm (as in deadly harm) certain states, we need to know it. And if there is a regime change, I hope to hell that this investigation is front and center in the next year.

[Smoove_B]

My best guess is that it's so brazen and so ridiculous that no one knows how to respond. As I said weeks ago, I've participated in local and county-level tabletop exercises to prepare for large-scale emergency events. To keep things interesting, all kinds of extra factors are tossed in that we needed to address or consider. Not once - not a single time - did anyone ever suggest the Federal government would stop helping -or- actively intercept material aid destined for our area. It's bonkers. I absolutely think state and local officials aren't talking about it because they fear more reprisal and they know they can't possibly go up against someone that can apparently call in teams of federal agents to seize orders. Better to say nothing for now with the hopes that when it's all said and done they can make a unified press against the powers that be regarding what happened. But yeah, I still can't comprehend it.

[malchior]

Why this isn't a front page story, why Congress isn't demanding answers and pursuing it as a criminal investigation if they can't get any is confounding. Where are they going? Under whose orders? Is there any pattern to who is getting them and who is not? And for those who are not and have actual, documented deaths as a result, what is the response?

This is where I'm at. I sent a list of questions to Corey Booker's office about this. Specifically to dig into the reported interception of medical supplies to Somerset County in NJ to keep it focused. I asked things like what agency intercepted them, under what authority, what compensation was provided to Somerset County for those redirected supplies, what was the methodology to decide what supplies to seize, where did the supplies go, what was the methodology to determine who received those supplies, etc. I don't expect an answer any time soon but I'll follow up in a few months.

If a portion of the government is actively working to undermine the response and harm (as in deadly harm) certain states, we need to know it. And if there is a regime change, I hope to hell that this investigation is front and center in the next year.

This is exactly what we need. I don't care how divisive it is. At this point if we aren't a United States anymore let's figure it out. This country is clearly a basket case and no one wanted to face it. The bill for this dysfunction came due and its killing 2000 Americans a day right now.

[malchior]

My best guess is that it's so brazen and so ridiculous that no one knows how to respond. As I said weeks ago, I've participated in local and county-level tabletop exercises to prepare for large-scale emergency events. To keep things interesting, all kinds of extra factors are tossed in that we needed to address or consider. Not once - not a single time - did anyone ever suggest the Federal government would stop helping -or- actively intercept material aid destined for our area. It's bonkers. I absolutely think state and local officials aren't talking about it because they fear more reprisal and they know they can't possibly go up against someone that can apparently call in teams of federal agents to seize orders. Better to say nothing for now with the hopes that when it's all said and done they can make a unified press against the powers that be regarding what happened. But yeah, I still can't comprehend it.

This is my conclusion. If true and even if it'll be hurtful the stories need to come out about this before the election. We need to know what we are buying. Another thing that has been gnawing at me is about the questions I have from above. They don't come up during the Presidential daily briefings. Why? Asking about testing is important but the third-world shit is pretty much not on the radar. The guy is right there ranting. Ask the questions. That aspect is baffling as well.

[Holman]

I wonder if the various regional Coordination Pacts also include state AGs talking to each other about investigating and fighting the administration's behavior here.

[Kraken]

Last night I "zoomed" for an hour and a half with several friends, one of whom is a doctor in MI. He had just come off a 12-hour shift, the first of three in a row, at a hospital full of covid patients. His direct contact with them is limited, and their numbers are declining, but the conditions he described are horrifying. Each person in his unit gets one -- ONE -- n95 mask to last them a week. They get stored in paper lunch bags between shifts. Those who are in direct patient contact wear another mask over that. The protective poncho that he described as a trash bag with holes for your head and arms? The unit shares one. ONE. It hangs on a peg outside the ward door. Before entering, they slip it on, do whatever they need to do in there, then take it off and hang it back on the peg. He is seriously considering making his own from a box of trash bags.

He echoed what Smoove said -- in all their drills and simulations over the years, they always assumed access to a federal stockpile. Nobody imagined that the federal government would be worse than useless -- that it would actively deprive them of PPE and other needed supplies.