Update: Boris is on oxygen, but not on a ventilator… his condition remains unchanged.
Dominic Raab is now Acting Prime-minister
Breaking news: Michael Gove: the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is now in self isolation, due to a family member displaying symptoms.
An end to self-isolation is very unlikely in the foreseeable months.
14 mins ago - Boris Johnson is “responding to treatment” for coronavirus as he spends his third day in hospital. The prime minister was being kept in St Thomas’ Hospital in London “for close monitoring” and remained clinically stable, Downing Street said. Downing Street said he was not working …
Virapolitical contest:
Joe Biden holds a 4-point lead over Trump in a new national poll, which comes a day after Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign.
According to the Monmouth University poll, Biden attracts the support of 48% of registered voters, while Trump stands at 44%. The result is similar to Biden’s 3-point lead over Trump in a poll released last month.
With Sanders dropping our of the race, such head-to-head polls between Trump and Biden have taken on a heightened level of significance as America looks ahead to the general election in November.
However, national polls do not reflect the state-by-state nature of presidential elections. Hillary Clinton famously won the popular vote in 2016 but lost the electoral college, handing Trump a victory.
From guardian
Was 310, now 1,373
Spain 3,261
Italy 2,375
France 1,804
Germany 1,379
Portugal 1,369
U.K. 895
Canada 548
World 203
Here we go again!
“Trump seeks to reopen much of U.S. next month” WP headline
'Experts fear a possible covid-19 resurgence if Americans return to their normal lives before the virus is truly stamped out. But President Trump wants a strategy for resuming business activity by May 1, if not sooner.
So…
1] will the health experts manage to talk him back as they did with the Easter Sunday gambit?
2] if not, what actual power does he have to bring this reopening about?
3] if he does succeed in bringing it about, what will the consequences be?
Many in Trumpworld will jump on an assessment like this one: washingtonpost.com/opinions … story.html
In other words, that dire predictions are just not being matched by the reality of the pandemic itself.
Yet another rendition of this:
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
Here we go again, continued…
[b]'New federal projections show a spike in infections if shelter in place orders are lifted at 30 days.
Stay-at-home orders, school closures and social distancing greatly reduce infections of the coronavirus, but lifting those restrictions after just 30 days will lead to a dramatic infection spike this summer and death tolls that would rival doing nothing, government projections indicate.
The projections obtained by The New York Times come from the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. The models use three scenarios. The first has policymakers doing nothing to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. The second, labeled “steady state,” assumes schools remain closed until summer, 25 percent of Americans telework from home, and some social distancing continues. The third scenario includes a 30-day shelter in place, on top of those “steady state” restrictions.'[/b] NYT
That’s the gamble that Trumpworld is considering. Which scenario?
And then the “unknowns” embedded in the “wave” theory. What happens if, in the Fall and Winter, the next big wave does hit?
For example, just in time for the November elections.
What to believe? Who to believe?
Then what and who to trust?
For example:
washingtonpost.com/politics … us-deaths/
[b]'To advocate for a quick or immediate return to America as normal, one must figure out how to rationalize the fact that this week alone, tens of thousands of people have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus that emerged in China last year. You can’t simply say, “open up the economy and let the bodies fall where they may.” Instead, we get two different arguments: “open up the economy because the number of deaths is comparable to other causes,” or “open up the economy because the number of deaths isn’t a high as suggested.
‘The second argument has been fairly common recently, advocated by people such as former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and current Fox News personality Brit Hume. Hume in particular has repeatedly suggested that the number of covid-19 deaths being recorded is inflated because people who have preexisting conditions such as cancer are dying and having their deaths attributed to the virus.’[/b]
That’s always the predicament for most of us. Those folks who do not have access to “deep state” data, and who are not privy to the “behind the curtain” politics that play out as those in power and/or with power jockey to game the system to their own advantage.
Instead, we are all embedded in our own particular “set of circumstances”, hoping that when the chips do fall, they don’t fall squarely on us.
This part basically: nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opin … e=Homepage
Update number… I can’t recall.
For the forum hobos and anarchists, the page on the IRS site that you can post your direct deposit to the American IRS to get your check in, if you didn’t make enough to file the last few years.
irs.gov/coronavirus/non-fil … -info-here
I’ve done a search yesterday for Tab, noticed he hasn’t posted in a while.
Current updates regarding the treatment of coronavirus:
Micro Embolisms are a concern in the lungs, when pneumonia is present. Anti Coagulants are often used, but the oxygen reader they clip to your finger only reads the oxygen in your blood, not the ability of your cells to absorb oxygen. They have a separate way of testing for this, but may have to nudge the doctor with over reliance on the finger readings.
The Chinese attempt to end the Corona Virus has failed completely. I’m sure many of you saw the riots in Wuhan, flipping police vehicles. The Communist Party has banned reporting of new infections except in foreigners. It doesn’t matter color of skin now, if you are foreign you are considered a source of infection, but they are especially vicious against Africans. There has been mass buying of food across China, most cities only keep a two week supply of rice and grains on hand, and in many cases it is gone now. People are increasingly found dead on the streets, and many people can’t find their supposedly cured family members. They aren’t online or anything. Just vanished.
I’m seeing the first signs of deflation in the stores here for products not related to food. The midget Zero Sum keeps screaming about inflation but right now the manufacturing base is facing the opposite, a lot of people don’t have a need for large purchases. You see it on commercials too, going out of the way to guarantee risk for up to a year on buying a new car in delaying payments.
Corona Virus continues to get whittled down as predicted in western countries. US and Italy seems to be flattening the curve at about the same time. Expect for the next half year a game of wackamo as Corona Virus flairs up in micro hotspots. I’m expecting eventually meds prior to a vaccine will be given out as a ration by zip code to create a sort of herd immunity in such situations, first via places of employment then along bus routes and other tracing analytics, until finally they call fuck it and just pass it out to 10,000 people at once when they realize they can’t control it in emerging hotspots.
The underlining reason we will have hotspots is less because of internal US spread- that’s largely gonna be hammered away, but rather because of China which lacks a reliable rest for Corona Virus (their test is absolute shit) and they are increasingly traveling around the world again. We will get people from random nations infecting over and over. I recognize that looks precisely like the Chinese propaganda against foreigners, but point out the US has a very aggressive testing program that is much more accurate now, as well as a wider array of medications, and save for forum nitwits here, most trust the US medical system and FEMA to disperse medications. Currently the only way I see controlling the foreign influx is employment testing and area blanketing with antivirals till a vaccine goes mainstream. Way better than Chinese picking on Africans and beating the shit out of them on security footage. Africans tend to take antimalarial drugs so are unlikely to get it, it is usually the chines reporting then who are the more likely ones infected.
Japan is paying businesses to move factories out of China. US considering similar. WHO is likely to be defunded, starting next week. The nations the did best in the plague tended to be countries most critical and least trusting of China- Taiwan for example completely crushed the virus. South Korea moved early. US was later but still early. Outbreaks in San Francisco was quickly crushed, we have a lot of illegal Wuhan tailors working in fashion houses I used to guard, but most Chinese in San Francisco are pro Taiwan and the city locked down hard on everything. New York did not, most Chinese there are later immigrants from PRC era. The fashion industry in Italy is mostly ran by illegal Chinese immigrants from Wuhan. Iran absolutely and completely trusted in China and kept running flights a week after official lockdown to China, and Pakistan has open borders to China and Iran, and when they do test they get high numbers of infected.
Right now I’m guessing the US will have to test people wanting to fly to the US at airports overseas, using our 15 minute tests before international flights are resumed but this won’t stop private flights (I tried convincing Erik last year to fly with me to Mexico on a private jet I was getting a free ride on to go to a Donkey Show but he backed out. He likes Animal Porn, ask him- was gonna abandon him there if he said yes).
So that’s the current state of things. I’ve been doing a lot of hiking. Most of my face mask orders failed during the corona lockdown but one got through from Shenzhen of all places so I’ve had some good masks, wear in combination with safety glasses (it can get into your eyes).
Oh, it is quite common for people to have scar tissue from this virus, reduces air supple with apparently permanent shortness of breath even in athletes.
And work has been increasingly done on tracking down the Chinese expats who bought out all the PPE in the US and Australia back in early January for resale at 10x to 50x costs. It isn’t all tongs, most are black market sellers who focus on avoiding Chinese Taxes- they used to hit San Francisco hard and IRS would scout my store. That was for luxury goods them (over $10,000), but now it is mass buying of emergency supplies and removing them from the shelves of one nation for resale in China. I’m aware France and UK had similar issues but not certain what is being done in those cases.
Expect China to lash out this year militarily, likely against Taiwan (unlikely to succeed) or increased naval actions, it needs more confrontation to take criticism away from Xi. Everyone expects this so it will likely be a few sterile grandstanding hits. I’m not seeing a scenario in the next year where China recovers. It has no way of tracking its corona infected, swears it conquered the disease and hunts foreigners down as scapegoats. That’s not a good sign for foreign investment. It will have warehouses for lease in exchange for foreign capital but I guarantee you it is bleeding wealth like crazy, and corruption is likely to skyrocket in this time of fast decline. It is like Japan prior to WW2 with the oil embargo thinking of hitting Pearl Harbor, but there is no one obvious place to attack to make all its woes go away. Unless of course China plans on attacking Beijing. This is unlikely. Traditionally when China enters a period of political fragmentation that leads to civil war, they go through a prolonged initial period of pretend unity when growing regional autonomy emerges. They rarely have outright violence in the beginning, and don’t think we are close to having the cliques that took control of China 100 years ago re-emerge for a few more years in a warring capacity- but even then they claimed unity. Expect the CCP to be around for quite some time, with a occasional Coup. It won’t be obvious at first which regions will be autonomous for a while. You’ll know it when Beijing insists on taxes already paid, and the US giving regional visas to residents of parts of China and threatening to sanction party leaders of other areas not getting along. That’s when it will first occur to the media something is up. The fighting will only be sporadic and will stop all together for periods of time and you will think it is over. It won’t be. They have a few thousand years of this behavior. It is very predictable.
I would strongly recommend to people viewing this website to avoid most people posting on this site, they don’t research shit and half are convicts with their heads up their ass switching between Communism, Anarchism and Fascist in a game of musical chairs, and their beliefs are mostly fake, delusional and designed to pass the time. The rest are on rather shaky ground for grasping the ideologies the claim to follow. Look at YouTube sites like MedCram. Avoid the dipshits here. They are a step away from alien autopsy stuff.
And we thank you for that, T. G. Turd.
I actually did end up filing for 2019 real quick through one of those free online deals. I was in a hurry and on a smart phone so I didn’t itemize my deductions and shit, which I now regret. I ended up owing about four grand for 2019. I coulda got that down to around two-five if I had the patience.
But that wasn’t the point. What I needed was to get a direct routing number and an account into the IRS’s system so those niggas don’t have to track me down with a paper check. Incidentally to do this, I had to file for 2019.
We thank you nonetheless for this information, but it’s a little late… like everything else the trumpf administration decides to do.
Ohhhhhhhhh
Consider…
[b]'Some organizers and demonstrators had affiliations with the Tea Party and displayed the “Don’t Tread on Me” logo that was an unofficial slogan for the movement. Others waved flags and banners in support of President Trump, who has pushed to reopen the economy.
But the size of the protests in places like Michigan suggested that anger over the no-end-in-sight nature of the lockdowns is not limited to the far right, and that the public’s patience has a limit. As anxiety, uncertainty and joblessness grow, the next few weeks will pose a test for governors and local leaders who are likely to face increased pressure to loosen some of the restrictions.
In Michigan alone, more than 1 million people — roughly a quarter of the state’s work force — have filed for unemployment benefits.'[/b] NYT
Will it come down to a choice between opening the economy back up and just accepting that thousands upon thousands more will die until we reach that crucial “herd immunity” point?
Or create a vaccine? On the other hand, even that is problematic: nytimes.com/interactive/202 … e=Homepage
In other words, a kind of “the old vs. the young world”. A world in which jobs become more important to those who, even if they are infected, are likely to experience mild or no symptoms at all. While the old and already infirm folks bite the dust. They “take a bullet” for the rest of us. The Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick approach to it all.
Yo, Turd, your own insights here please.
"President Trump on Friday began openly fomenting right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states where groups of his conservative supporters have been violating stay-at-home orders, less than a day after announcing guidelines for how governors could decide on an orderly reopening of their communities. NYT
Forget Trump’s typically calculating/lying stance here. His fanatic base would support him even if he did take a gun and start shooting down liberals on Pennsylvania Avenue.
I think basically the 2020 presidential campaign will revolve around 1] Democrats hell bent on reminding voters of Trump’s catastrophic refusal to take the coronavirus seriously early on, and 2] Republicans hell bent on reminding voters that it was the Democrats that cost them their jobs by going too far in shutting down the economy.
Of course the coronavirus itself is still largely in command here. To the extent that Trumpworld is successful in reopening the economy, everything comes down to whether there either is or is not a new resurgence in infections/deaths.
That and the extent to which there either is or is not an even more virulent “second wave” in the fall, no matter what anyone does.
nytimes.com/2020/04/18/opin … e=Homepage
‘What Trump was saying with those tweets was: Everybody just go back to work. From now on, each of us individually, and our society collectively, is going to play Russian roulette. We’re going to bet that we can spin through our daily lives — work, shopping, school, travel — without the coronavirus landing on us. And if it does, we’ll also bet that it won’t kill us.’
Yes, but as with everything else of this sort, there is encompassing it in a “general description intellectual contraption”, and there is reacting to it in terms of what your own individual circumstances are.
Me, I’m one of the “lucky” ones. For two reasons. One, I hardly ever left my apartment before the pandemic struck. So, now, instead of going out into the world and playing Russian Roulette two hours a week, I go out for just one hour every other week. That is simply what my situation is.
Two, I made a good living when I was younger. I have enough moolah stashed away in the coolah to take me all the way to the grave. Here my main concern is what Joker has prophesized: the pandemic leading to a bout of hyperinflation that brings my stash crashing down.
Of course, it not likely that Thomas L. Friedman is desparately waiting for his own $1,200 check to keep him and his loved ones heads above water.
So I can definitely sympathize with those who are fuming that perhaps the economic lockdown has gone way too far.
When you are literally living from paycheck to paycheck and, now, by the tens of millions, you find yourself without one for weeks or months on end what the fuck difference will $1,200 really make?!
I’m especially drawn and quartered on this one. All those talking heads making their big bucks in the media industrial complex yapping about how we are all in this together when they don’t have a fucking clue as to how those in the working class are struggling just to subsist from week to week.
There are definitely two sides [at least] to this tragedy.
washingtonpost.com/nation/2 … ronavirus/
Headline in WP: #FloridaMorons trends after people flock to reopened Florida beaches
[b]'Aerial snapshots of people flocking to a reopened beach in Jacksonville, Fla., made waves on the Internet on Saturday.
Local news aired photos and videos of Florida’s shoreline dotted with people, closer than six feet apart, spurring #FloridaMorons to trend on Twitter after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gave the go-ahead for local beachfront governments to decide whether to reopen their beaches during a news briefing Friday. Duval and St. Johns counties have reopened their beaches, while Miami-Dade County officials said they are considering following suit.'[/b]
If nothing else, this is an excellent opportunity to test to see which side is more rational in their approach to the pandemic.
In other words, someone [healthcare officials in particular] should be on the beach attempting to track the fate of those who ventured out.
Will it prompt a surge in infections down there in this community?
Right now there are 25,492 cases in Florida with 748 deaths.
Today Florida reported 58 deaths from the virus. The highest one day total to date. If the government down there proceeds to loosen restrictions all the more, how will that impact the stats?
nytimes.com/2020/04/18/heal … e=Homepage
And then – inevitably? eventually? maybe? not likely? – this part:
[b]'Imagine an America divided into two classes: those who have recovered from infection with the coronavirus and presumably have some immunity to it; and those who are still vulnerable.
“It will be a frightening schism,” Dr. David Nabarro, a World Health Organization special envoy on Covid-19, predicted. “Those with antibodies will be able to travel and work, and the rest will be discriminated against.”
Already, people with presumed immunity are very much in demand, asked to donate their blood for antibodies and doing risky medical jobs fearlessly.'[/b] NYT
So, get tested.
The new Ubermen!
[b]'Soon the government will have to invent a way to certify who is truly immune. A test for IgG antibodies, which are produced once immunity is established, would make sense, said Dr. Daniel R. Lucey, an expert on pandemics at Georgetown Law School. Many companies are working on them.
Dr. Fauci has said the White House was discussing certificates like those proposed in Germany. China uses cellphone QR codes linked to the owner’s personal details so others cannot borrow them.
The California adult-film industry pioneered a similar idea a decade ago. Actors use a cellphone app to prove they have tested H.I.V. negative in the last 14 days, and producers can verify the information on a password-protected website.'[/b]
Is it weird that I’m kinda thinking that if this thing keeps going that I really want companies like Arcteryx and Patagonia to make some bad ass lightweight high end masks?
One possible “worst case scenario”:
nytimes.com/2020/04/20/worl … e=Homepage
[b]'The spread of the coronavirus in this tidy city-state suggests that it might be difficult for the United States, Europe and the rest of the world to return to the way they were anytime soon, even when viral curves appear to have flattened. Although countries can closely track contacts to try to keep an outbreak at bay as Singapore did, the coronavirus is sickening, killing and spreading with each passing day, leaving scientists and political leaders racing to catch up with its relentless pace and new dangers.
‘If anything, the trials of this intensely urban, hyper-international country hint at a global future in which travel is taboo, borders are shut, quarantines endure and industries like tourism and entertainment are battered. Weddings, funerals and graduation parties will have to wait. Vulnerable populations, such as migrants, cannot be ignored.’[/b]
There may come a far worse coronavirus infection in the next wave:
"Even as states move ahead with plans to reopen their economies, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season.
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said.
Having two simultaneous respiratory outbreaks would put unimaginable strain on the health-care system, he said. The first wave of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has already killed more than 42,000 people across the country. It has overwhelmed hospitals and revealed gaping shortages in test kits, ventilators and protective equipment for health-care workers.
In a wide-ranging interview, Redfield said federal and state officials need to use the coming months to prepare for what lies ahead. As stay-at-home orders are lifted, officials need to stress the continued importance of social distancing, he said. They also need to massively scale up their ability to identify the infected through testing and find everyone they interact with through contact tracing. Doing so prevents new cases from becoming larger outbreaks.
Asked about the appropriateness of protests against stay-at-home orders and calls on states to be “liberated” from restrictions, Redfield said: “It’s not helpful.”
Put out by CDC director Robert Redfield today.
It is noteworthy to comment that the first wave of the 1918 Spanish flu was followed by a second, far worse then the first, and then the third.
The final tally came in at approx. 50 million deaths.
Yet another “worst case scenario” account: washingtonpost.com/business … its-scary/
[b]'There’s growing consensus among economists and epidemiologists that the recovery period from the deadly coronavirus is going to be long — and bumpy.
'Hopes of a quick bounce back for the economy — dubbed a V-shaped recovery — have faded. Even as parts of the nation reopen, many Americans will be afraid to venture out, and it looks increasingly likely that restaurants, stadiums and yoga classes are going to be operating at partial capacity, at best, for a while.
'What isn’t getting as much attention is the possibility of a W-shaped recovery, the scary scenario when the economy starts looking better and then there’s a second downturn later this year or next. The “W” could be triggered by reopening the economy too quickly and seeing a second spike in deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Businesses would have to shutter again, and people would be even more afraid to venture out until a vaccine is found.
'Something else could also cause a “W” pattern: A wave of bankruptcies and defaults later this year. As companies go belly up, a domino effect ensues: Workers aren’t rehired, suppliers aren’t paid, and fear rises about who will be next to fall.
'“Pretending the world will return to normal in three months or six months is just wrong,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “The economy went into an ice age overnight. We’re in a deep freeze. As the economy thaws, we’ll see the damage done as well. Flooding will occur.”
'Early warning signs are here. Major retailers like Macy’s and Neiman Marcus face significant financial duress, and analysts anticipate bankruptcies ahead in the retail sector. Oil prices plunging below $20 a barrel is another blow to America’s fragile energy sector that will reverberate for months. Rystad Energy predicts more than 500 U.S. companies will go bankrupt by the end of 2021.
‘Big law firms like Hogan Lovells are urging their lawyers to brush up on bankruptcy and restructuring law “in anticipation of a wave of bankruptcy filings in the coming months,” and the major banks spent a lot of time on their earnings calls last week predicting a surge in credit card, auto loan and business loan defaults. Both firms and consumers are teetering on the financial edge.’[/b]
Precipitating this:
‘As people lose jobs, they stop paying their rent or mortgage, which can lead to eviction and a bad credit rating that drags them down for years. They lose health insurance and possibly their car. Often, they lose hope. This is the scenario the nation needs to avoid, and policymakers could be doing a much better job trying to prevent this, economists say.’
Imagine the political repercussions of this in a Presidential election year. Fear of the unknown on steroids if this scenario plays out.