March 27, 2020

It fits with projections from IHME of peak nationally of deaths, around April 15.

Key phrase: "The projections assume the continuation of strong social distancing measures and other protective measures."

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Projecting US peak deaths around April 15 at about 2300 per day in range of 1200 to 5000 per day.
Projecting 81,000 US deaths in range of 40K to 160K.

IHME = Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, at University of Washington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki%2FInstitute_for_Health_Metrics_and_Evaluation

March 24, 2020

No flood of tweets will cover fact US is failing worst of all countries. Cases doubling faster in US

Cases are doubling about every 2 1/2 days. No country in the world is doing worse.

It's not from a lack of wealth or guns or military might or adulation of football players.

It's from incompetence at the very top.

March 21, 2020

No you're not weird. It's real. It's here. Do what you can, don't worry bout what you can't do

Personally, I'm not struggling with the reality of this.

I accepted it long ago (about 6 weeks ago), and made some preparations a couple of weeks ago before self-isolating to achieve social distancing. I still walk the dog with a friend some days, but we don't face each other as we talk and walk.

I monitor the course of the statistics, perhaps too frequently, multiple times a day, and I'm not surprised.

The most worrying thing is tRump, but I can't do a thing about him, so I don't worry about him, even as I loathe and despise him, avoiding hot hate.

March 17, 2020

Still just a "Democrat{ic} Media hoax"?

First their position was "just 15 cases. In a few days it will be 2 or 3 and then it will magically disappear".

That switched to "We did all we needed to do, banned Chinese flights."

Then it was "just an ordinary flu, 10 dead versus 20,000 flu deaths".

A little later it was "just 10 dead besides all those in the nursing homes in Washington state".

That became a Public Relations exercise to tweet it away and stage photo ops where he could self-congratulate and pretend to be doing something while denying it was a problem.

Then the "It's Democrat{ic} Media hoax panic to crash the markets to get rid of Trump because impeachment failed" ploy.

Then it was named with a racist origin name (by naming after the originating area) or the "foreign flu" as if being from out of the country made it impotent.

Then it was "I know! We can break SSI and Medicare by defunding via a payroll tax holiday."

March 16, 2020

Two things work (US has neither): 1) Early strenuous reaction and 2) Great healthcare system.

USA has great healthcare but a lousy healthcare system because only the upper economic classes can afford that healthcare.

China was late reacting after first killing whistleblower Doctor Li (Li Wenliang, remember his name). When they finally reacted they had to weld apartment doors shut.

South Korea reacted quickly and did not have to resort total totalitarian responses.

March 16, 2020

Single-payer nothing to do with it. SKorea& China have single payer & they've got a lid on Covid-19

Any kind of universal health care, whether single payer or universal insurance, would help a lot because people wouldn't avoid treatment or diagnosis.

March 13, 2020

Voting in elections: With paper ballots you can have drive-by voting, no interrupted election.

Walk-by voting, even.

Who is most at risk from the virus? Old people.
Does the Grumpy Old People party skew to an old demographic?
Oh ..., why aren't they demanding paper ballots?

[font size = +3] Demand paper ballots now to save the November Election. [/font]

We don't care if it gets more GOP voters to the polls. To actually have the election is important, period. If it saves Republican lives, that's okay too. They are human beings and have mothers and daughters and sons too.

March 12, 2020

Trump-Republicons own this crisis

Trump-Republicons own this crisis

Republicons plowed the ground for tRump
Republicons seeded the ground with trumpanzees
Republicons created tRump as a Republ Icon in 2015-16
Republicons elected tRump candidate
Republicons endorsed tRump
Republicons voted for tRump
Republicons enable tRump
Republicons defend tRump
Republicons protect tRump

Trump-Republicons own this.

March 10, 2020

SLOWING the spread saves lives. Sure, not the only thing that saves lives, but it saves lives.

The virus will not be contained without draconian Communist Chinese measures. Measures that are just not going to happen in We're #1 USA WooHoo!!

By slowing the spread it flattens the peak so that the health system won't get quite so overwhelmed at the peak. A little overwhelmed rather than overwhelmed to the point of collapse.

It means that some doctors and nurses who get the virus will have recovered in time to be able to help again.

Manufacturers will be able to keep up with making supplies like masks and disinfectants and IV solutions and hospital beds and ....

It means that electric power companies will not be flattened by having all the staff sick at one time.

There are so many ways that a flattened peak saves lives and I can't write them all out here even if I could think of them all.

March 10, 2020

Canada has public healthcare, a cooperative populace, and a faster response

The first Canadian cases happened around the same time as the American ones.

I get a sense it may be spreading more slowly in this country. Note: Canada has 11 percent of US population, so in comparing statistics it makes sense to multiply Canada by 9 or 10 for comparison.

One death so far, a couple of days ago.

First Canadian cases in the last week of January.
First confirmed US case Jan. 21.

"As of March 7, 2020, more than 1,895 tests have been performed in the United States"
The 623 Canadian tests performed so far would be roughly equivalent to more than 5,600 US tests.