Octopus Overlords

malchior wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:43 pm Can we roll out the guillotine yet?

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:39 pm I’m just saying, NY has been at 700+ deaths per day for a while and was near 10K already. I’m not saying that they aren’t adding 3700 deaths to the total, I’m just saying I don’t think they are part of that number yet. They weren’t at 6k before the weekend.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:37 pm Another card-carrying member of the GOP Death Cult offers his observation:

An Indiana congressman said Tuesday that letting more Americans die from the novel coronavirus is the "lesser of two evils" compared with the economy cratering due to social distancing measures.

Speaking with radio station WIBC in Indiana, Republican Rep. Trey Hollingsworth asserted that, while he appreciated the science behind the virus' spread, "it is always the American government's position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter."

As always, you first Representative Hollingsworth. You first. I'm still trying to get my mind around the pivot to this, but then I remember the President is on TV every night showing zero remorse or empathy for those that have already died.

Defiant wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:09 pm I have a question - we've got sites that have been tracking coronavirus cases and others that have been projecting/predicting them (under different scenarios). But is there any website either tracking or projecting our healthcare resources/capabilities (eg, hospital beds, ventilators, PPE's, etc) over time (We have been using this time to increase them, right?)

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:14 pm

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:39 pm I’m just saying, NY has been at 700+ deaths per day for a while and was near 10K already. I’m not saying that they aren’t adding 3700 deaths to the total, I’m just saying I don’t think they are part of that number yet. They weren’t at 6k before the weekend.

According to the tracker on Worldometer, they are aware of the new death numbers for N.Y., but they are NOT included yet. N.Y. is at almost 11000 deaths without those 3700.

Formix wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 7:27 am "you know what, F it if Texas and the Southern Confederated States of Jesus want to secede. let em. I want to live somewhere where facts and science rule the decision-making process"

malchior wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:52 pm More fun today. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, the President just announced the defunding of the WHO at a press conference where everyone was commenting that he appeared to be severely drugged and could barely read. Fucking awesome.

https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status ... 6649496578

One day, I think we’re going to find out that the medical drama behind the scenes in the White House is beyond what any screenwriter could’ve dreamed up.

The Senate’s primary oversight committee will launch a probe into the origins of and response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, according to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Ron Johnson.
...
“We need to know what role WHO might have had in trying to cover this thing up,” he added.

“The president was very unfairly criticized for just [saying] what is indisputably true: ‘We need to make sure the cure isn’t worse than the disease.’ And I am concerned that the cure is worse than the disease,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “If you’re a carpenter, every nail you see, the solution’s a hammer. The same may be true for epidemiologists.”

It’s a message at odds with the public health professionals advising Trump, who have warned against the country dropping its guard. But 16 million people are unemployed, Congress is struggling to respond, and Republicans seem to think the worst is close to over. Reviving the economy is also likely to be critical to GOP fortunes in November.

House Republicans have held weekly conference calls where they've eagerly discussed how and when to restart the economy, according to lawmakers and aides.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), chairman of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, is one of the most vocal GOP lawmakers calling for an aggressive exit strategy. He has expressed those views publicly as well as in numerous texts and phone calls to the White House and GOP leadership.

“It should have happened yesterday,” Biggs said of lifting the lockdowns. “I’m trying to use every bully pulpit I can to make my case.”

Trump today said he will speak to all 50 governors and "authorize" each individual governor to "implement a reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as is most appropriate."

Unlike other countries, it has so far avoided both isolation and economic ruin.
If the COVID-19 pandemic tails off in a few weeks, months before the alarmists claim it will, they will probably pivot immediately and pat themselves on the back for the brilliant social-distancing controls that they imposed on the world. They will claim that their heroic recommendations averted total calamity. Unfortunately, they will be wrong; and Sweden, which has done almost no mandated social distancing, will probably prove them wrong.

Lots of people are rushing to discredit Sweden’s approach, which relies more on calibrated precautions and isolating only the most vulnerable than on imposing a full lockdown. While gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited and high schools and colleges are closed, Sweden has kept its borders open as well as its preschools, grade schools, bars, restaurants, parks, and shops.

President Trump has no use for Sweden’s nuanced approach. Last Wednesday, he smeared it in a spectacular fashion by saying he’d heard that Sweden “gave it a shot, and they saw things that were really frightening, and they went immediately to shutting down the country.” He and the public-health experts who told him this were wrong on both counts and would do better to question their approach. Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former chief epidemiologist and now adviser to the Swedish Health Agency, says that other nations “have taken political, unconsidered actions” that are not justified by the facts.

In all, 1,033 Swedes have died from Covid-19, official figures showed on Tuesday. Though still well below fatality rates in Italy and the U.K., it’s far worse than in any of the Nordic countries with which Sweden usually compares itself. The Swedish mortality rate is almost 10 times higher than in Finland, more than four times higher than in Norway, and twice Denmark’s.

The latest development has prompted 22 academics to entreat the government to alter its course. “The approach must be changed radically and swiftly,” they wrote in an opinion piece published in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

stessier wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:12 am The scary part is this is going to work on some people.

Trump today said he will speak to all 50 governors and "authorize" each individual governor to "implement a reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as is most appropriate."

malchior wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:33 am Early storylines to support the de-fund of WHO have come out of the WH. All of a sudden multiple voices have suddenly started talking about how WHO should have known what to do since this is COVID-*19*. An argument clearly targeted at the know nothings in the base. Holy shit is this blatantly dishonest but totally on brand for the GOP.

Kellyanne Conway: "This is COVID-19, not COVID-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts and figures, would be on top of that."

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:04 am I actually had been assuming that Covid-19 meant that it was the 19th 'strain' or version or what have you of a coronavirus. Now I know that it refers to the year.

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:04 am I actually had been assuming that Covid-19 meant that it was the 19th 'strain' or version or what have you of a coronavirus. Now I know that it refers to the year.

Kraken wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:36 am

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:04 am I actually had been assuming that Covid-19 meant that it was the 19th 'strain' or version or what have you of a coronavirus. Now I know that it refers to the year.

Corona Virus Disease 2019.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:14 pm Wait, wait, wait. Are they really trying to push the idea that we have had 18 previous chances to get this right?

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:14 pm Wait, wait, wait. Are they really trying to push the idea that we have had 18 previous chances to get this right?

Skinypupy wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:15 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:14 pm Wait, wait, wait. Are they really trying to push the idea that we have had 18 previous chances to get this right?

The stupid..it BURNS.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:14 pm Wait, wait, wait. Are they really trying to push the idea that we have had 18 previous chances to get this right?

“It’s a fine plan and hits a lot of the right notes,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development who worked on global disaster response under both the Obama and Trump administrations. “The failure was a leadership and execution failure.”

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:21 pmI'm genuinely at the end of my rope. Between the elected officials outright ignoring public health experts to the journalists and pundits undermining science, I don't feel public health at large has communication infrastructure and/or broad public support to counteract what's happening. We aren't losing against the virus, we're losing against a death cult.

malchior wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:21 pm

BREAKING: NYC publishes, for first time, data on fatalities that includes "probable" cases (those without a confirmed test result).

It has pushed the death toll in NYC up by 57%.

Was 6,589 before this adjustment. Now stands at 10,367. This is a painful but necessary accounting.

NYC Health Dept. has made a dramatic change to how it is tracking coronavirus deaths, now includes those who did not have a confirmed test. This graph shows how significant this increase has become.

malchior wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:21 pm

I think the confusion is that the Times is talking 10K in NYC versus all NY. This was 3700 in NYC alone. It's crazy.

Was 6,589 before this adjustment. Now stands at 10,367. This is a painful but necessary accounting.

Defiant wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:18 pmShe thinks there was a COVID-1 through COVID-18.

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 12:21 pmWe aren't losing against the virus, we're losing against a death cult.

President Trump has all but decided to begin declaring the country ready to get back to business on May 1, two current and two former senior administration officials said, but a scramble is underway inside the White House to determine how to stagger a reopening of the economy amid the novel coronavirus pandemic while also protecting Trump from any political fallout.

Impatient with the economic devastation wrought by social distancing and other mitigation measures — and fearful of the potential damage to his reelection chances — Trump has been adamant in private discussions with advisers about reopening the country next month.

Yet within Trump’s circle, officials say, there is acknowledgment that it will not be possible for the president to simply flip a switch. A return to normal likely would take many months, administration officials said, and should be orchestrated methodically and guided by medical data. For instance, officials are considering beginning with areas deemed to have the lowest risk of a major outbreak.

Trump said Tuesday night that he plans to ask the governors of all 50 states later this week to implement “a very powerful reopening plan” in their states at whatever time they deem appropriate. He said more than 20 states are in “extremely good shape” and are poised to reopen their economies very soon, “maybe even before the date of May 1.”

“Our country has to get open, and it will get open, and it’ll get open safely and hopefully quickly — some areas quicker than other areas,” Trump said at a Rose Garden news conference.

The White House is in the process of modeling testing results, death rates and other data to help guide a decision. Aides stressed that, despite the president’s fixation on May 1 as a reopening date, the timing remains fluid and no final decision has been made.