caulfield12

Sounds like something Nigel Farage came up with just to block Huawei 5G partial rollout in the UK...especially after Boris Johnson got so sick. The sad point is that this business would likely go to Ericsson or Nokia, as the US is not competitive (Cisco and Oracle get a small chunk). Current # of contact tracers: 2000 Total amount needed in the US: 100-250,000

Pretty soon the argument will be there shouldn’t have ever been a shutdown at all. Of course, Trump’s #1 indicator is the stock market and no deaths/cases/testing. Can’t imagine his reaction if the DJIA was down in the 15-18,000 range. But it’s just incredible to me that these same people arguing that hundreds of thousands if not millions died here in China...that it was unintentionally or purposefully released from the Wuhan virology lab to take the focus off Hong Kong protests and Xinjiang concentration camps or take market share away from the US...yet they still think it’s perfectly okay to completely ignore social distancing. This is after just one full month of social distancing...compared to three full months here. Now reports that 12,000+ Covid tests in Washington state are contaminated... Whatever happened to that Abbott device that President Trump displayed upside down (yet is perhaps the most popular innovation so far)...is Abbott struggling to bring it up to scale, or too many of them are going to private labs for higher profit margins? Whatever happened to hydroxychloroquinine?

Chicago Covid-19 death toll passes city’s 2019 homicide numbers in a span of weeks...286/1290 statewide related to nursing homes. More than 100,000 people defied Bangladesh's lockdown order on Saturday to attend the funeral of a senior leader of the Islamist party in the district of Brahmanbaria, according to the prime minister's special assistant, Shah Ali Farhad, and the Brahmanbaria police spokesperson Imtiaz Ahmed. The funeral for Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, an Islamic teacher, broke the country's ban of no more than five people attending prayers at one time, sparking fears of a new coronavirus outbreak emerging from the event. cnn.com

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-air-force-academy-commencement-politically-correct_n_5e9b7f91c5b664cb6c43d9fd He can’t even get the distancing amount right. CDC recommends six feet. AFA commencement used eight as the guide. Trump claimed it was ten feet. I guess that’s closer than the difference between millions and billions, so progress...

Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn’t guide U.S. policies, critics say https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/17/influential-covid-19-model-uses-flawed-methods-shouldnt-guide-policies-critics-say/ “It’s not a model that most of us in the infectious disease epidemiology field think is well suited” to projecting Covid-19 deaths, epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told reporters this week, referring to projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Others experts, including some colleagues of the model-makers, are even harsher. “That the IHME model keeps changing is evidence of its lack of reliability as a predictive tool,” said epidemiologist Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who has served on a search committee for IHME. “That it is being used for policy decisions and its results interpreted wrongly is a travesty unfolding before our eyes.”

It would take 73 consecutive days testing at 450,000/day to reach the 10% of population level most experts are recommending. Three times the amount we are currently capable of. And that’s not even going to be 10%, because many of those will be positive tests that need to be retested multiple times until it clears...not to mention the potentially reinfected, false positives/inconclusives, etc. The former director of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, is arguing it needs to be 10-20x that. Which would amount to 1.5 - 3 million tests per day. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/19/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html Harvard is arguing 350,000 per day, compared to the present 150,000. Btw, it’s starting to look like the Civil War Era all over again. Florida, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina among the first to make plans to reopen, West Virginia, Arkansas and Georgia next?

They’re going to need a lot more than 450-500,000 tests performed per day (a 3X increase in current levels)...because all of these people now venturing out and about are just going to serve to increase that number of potentially infected or exhibiting symptoms. Amazon might be the only company in the world with the capacity to create an adequate and sustainable testing regimen for their own employees...of course, the irony is that a W-shaped instead of a V or even U insures even more profits for Bezos, the Walton Family, etc. Above and beyond that, you have all these cities like NYC being denied revenue for businesses as well as incoming tax receipts. How can there be a reopening when many of these cities are going to be technically bankrupted by coronavirus and can longer provide essential services? Obviously, they can double or triple taxes upon reopening to make up budget shortfalls, but that will just create more deflationary pressure...which leads to discussions of drawing down from pension funds that have already taken a 15-20% hit...and inevitably to cuts in Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Of course, none of these will be considered until January, 2021. If they don’t help the cities and hospitals when interest rates are so low, they will regret it. Austerity policies are only going to hurt the middle class and poor, small business owners, those on fixed incomes. The Top 10% will be just fine. They will be making loans that lead to further indebtedness, buying up distressed properties and adding to their investment portfolio while others are forced to sell in order just to make ends meet. Tale as old as time.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/politics/cdc-coronavirus-testing-contamination/index.html Starting to get the full picture on early CDC testing failures.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/coronavirus-donald-trump-and-the-wizard-of-oz-presidency.html There’s a concept in economics known as diminishing marginal utility. What seems like a potential advantage (nearly unlimited and free airtime) will not look the same way to the American people six to eight weeks from now if they still have inadequate testing, no job, a return to stay at home policies...unemployment benefits not arriving or facing the spectre of them soon running out. Presidential elections are almost always decided on the economy...with the only exception being not wanting to change presidents during wartime. That said, by ceding all the responsibility and decision-making authority, he’s acting like the opposite of FDR. He wants the same fireside chats, but this time as an open platform to malign and disparage his political enemies instead of attempting to unify and comfort the country. Sooner or later...people in his base will start to wonder why he’s more concerned about ratings than doing something to improve and/or safeguard their lives. Great American presidents have never run in the opposite direction during challenging times. Lincoln never paused before Gettysburg when times looked particularly bleak for the Union and said let’s call this whole thing off, I am not at all responsible for the Civil War, let the individual states decide these issues amongst themselves. Instead of fighting for all the people, the reality is it’s turning out to be none of the people when your primary audience continues to be only 38-46% of Americans. Divided against each other we shall fall.

Looks like Waterloo, IA, will be joining South Dakota with another critical food plant shutdown the way things are trending...I get it, essential services, but you would think by now there would be some type of Federal guideline for when to shut down a plant like this (so as to take it out of the hands of mayors and governors.) You have the usual case of underpaid immigrant workers (some likely undocumented)/African American vs. the Fortune 500 interests and their political contributions, playing out with our nation’s critical food supply as the backdrop. https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/20-officials-call-on-tyson-to-shutter-waterloo-plant-for-coronavirus-outbreak/article_f4fd59a3-36ee-594e-b0cf-11eabdf4a8a9.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1

The most incredible thing this week to me was Trump seriously considering adding a two hour radio call in show in addition to the daily briefings on t.v. Which shows just how interested he is in actually solving problems... all along, it has simply been narcissism, the desire to constantly be the center of attention. His primary concern with adding a radio show was 1) losing to Rush in the ratings, 2) being perceived as threatening to the Excellence in Broadcasting empire, lol. Well, nothing should surprise anyone at this point. Steve Bannon all along had been planning extensively with the Mercers to launch their own Trumpian broadcasting network, as it looked increasingly likely they were going to lose in 2016. Voters, so far, say they are erring on the side of caution, as public health experts have urged. In a Pew survey released this week, roughly two-thirds of respondents said they are worried about their state easing restrictions too quickly — twice the number of those who are concerned it won’t happen fast enough. Just over two-thirds of voters said they expect it to be at least a month before Americans should start returning to work and life as normal, with just 9 percent mentioning the one- or two-week gap Trump has suggested could happen, according to a Harris poll released this week. Among Republicans, 61 percent said it should be at least a month before Americans start returning to work and life as normal. https://www.yahoo.com/news/advisers-warn-trump-economy-push-232900771.html

First instructions for new normal at Chinese schools (seniors returning May 6th for the first time since mid-January.) Staggered lunches. 3 mandatory temperature checks per day. 3 mask changes per day.

How can South Korea and Germany manage the same feat for 1/10th the cost, or roughly $10 per test? Very simple solution. The Federal government (not states, since they can’t magically create money out of thin air like Treasury) subsidize the cost, or the US will suffer billions more in economic damages when no corporations can assume the liability risk of going back too early without adequate testing systems in place to protect the workers. For antibody tests, the cost is even cheaper. The cost for a technician to (non)profitably analyze one test in 15 minutes would be roughly $160/hour or $40 for 15 minutes? So they need to charge the equivalent of roughly $300-325 hour to break even? Antibody blood tests have been used for about two decades in other disease-tracking initiatives, including for HIV in rural Africa, Ho said in a video call sponsored by the group Committee of 100. The kits cost $1 to $6 each, he added, depending on the volume purchased. Some US companies are already selling antibody tests to other countries. The California biotech company Biomerica sells COVID-19 antibody tests for less than $10 in Europe and the Middle East, according to Reuters. Chembio Diagnostics, a medical-device company based in New York, is sending its antibody tests to Brazil and plans to study them in the US, Reuters reported. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-antibody-blood-test-covid-19-2020-3

There’s another issue at play here. I have a friend (chemistry teacher) who used to work at my school in China and now back in California waiting to get his teaching credentials in order and for fall semester hiring to take place. He works temporarily in a grocery store doing stocking/inventory for something like $15/hr. Meanwhile, you have lots of people who are getting $832/week for unemployment, plus they’ll be getting an extra $600 per week on top of that. That works out to something like $6000 per month, $24,000 for four months max....$36/hr or $72,000 for a full year. How can we justify paying those actually at risk half or in many cases 1/3rd as much those essential workers (looking at you Wal Mart and Amazon)? How can we give Ruth’s Chris steakhouses a $20 million small business loan when they are sitting on something like $60 million in reserves? That’s really pushing it to define that as anything resembling a “small business.” I think it’s 500 employees or less...?

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/17/17-in-a-homeless-shelter-test-positive-for-coronavirus-dallas-county-says/ 38 test positive for Covid in Dallas homeless shelter...as many as 200 staffers and shelter residents have been exposed, the county’s health director said. More than 160 have been taken to hotels.

The amazing thing is how just 4-6 weeks of Covid arriving late (r) totally changed this year’s election. Biden if the race was interrupted indefinitely after Nevada never gets his momentum going. The entire race then hinges on health care and economic inequality (just imagining Sanders’ reaction to the aforementioned anecdote about private lab testing not being profitable enough.) Now, the Biden/Trump race hinges on Democratic governors, Trump “mistakes,” a “return to decency/empathy” and restoring normalized diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. Even the economic/unemployment numbers can be blamed on “coastal elites” shutting down the country and trying to take away our unique rights/freedoms, conspiring to prolong the shutdown in order to deny reelection. Those Dem governors and Crazy Joe Biden simply don’t want America to succeed, they instead want to turn America into a socialist nanny state like the EU. The big question here (blaming governors or taking credit for only successes, like the stock market now “only” being down 18% instead of mid 30’s) is whether 30-40% of the country in the middle of the spectrum politically actually buy what is being sold. Normally, it’s impossible during a presidential election year to narrow the blame to just governors or Congress when the economic success or (relative degrees of) failure begins and ends at the top of the ticket.

This risk is particularly acute in places of detention, such as prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers, as well as residential institutions for people with disabilities and nursing facilities for older people, where the virus can spread rapidly, especially if access to health care is already poor. States have an obligation to ensure medical care for those in their custody at least equivalent to that available to the general population, and must not deny detainees, including asylum seekers or undocumented migrants, equal access to preventive, curative or palliative health care. Asylum seekers, refugees living in camps, and people experiencing homelessness may also be at increased risk because of their lack of access to adequate water and hygiene facilities. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/human-rights-dimensions-covid-19-response So you have these rural issues...whereas SF, LA, Seattle...are worrisome for their own set of reasons, especially homeless populations. Vietnam veterans. Nursing homes are obvious. Prisons in Illinois have already been discussed. Heck, just the 30+ million group of those without any health insurance or a preexisting relationship with a local physician. Those without regular checking or savings accounts for direct deposit. When this is all over, investigating statistics in Europe among refugee/displaced groups, human trafficking victims...it’s going to exhibit quite emphatically how particularly vulnerable these poor populations really are in a health crisis. And how dramatically those groups can impact entire communities. But one can guarantee that’s the exact topic that will never be discussed or even raised in a coronavirus briefing “We’ll have to get back to you.”

Right. These are the kind of calculations the insurance industry typically makes. If you’re a school administrator, it’s certainly much easier to take the conservative approach of keeping the school closed (of course, you have economic impacts in states like Iowa where education sector is the leading employer)...and then doing as much proactive outreach as possible with meal delivery services, food banks, churches, charity groups, etc. This in one huge area for a win-win...if you can contract with local restaurants to keep them with enough revenue opportunities to keep them open, while not paying prohibitively high prices that garner negative headlines. There are also numbers of high quality food warehousers/distributors who no longer are able to sell to higher end restaurants, at least not at the previous rates. Most of these are in urban areas, but it’s another area worth looking into if both sides are willing to compromise on pricing.

South Dakota is mostly accounted for by that Smithfield plant...and related infections. That said, each of one those governors being pointed out as now having “solved this thing” (like Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas), are going to end up killing increasing numbers of their state residents out of sheer stubbornness. Maybe they believe their electoral prospects are so secure (or not in an election year), they can get away with almost anything, but that’s certainly not the case with Kim Reynolds in Iowa. Georgia, Texas and Florida will be three of the leading indicators, and, as noted, that won’t start to show up in the statistical noise until the second week of May in all likelihood.

Another obvious element to consider is the need to reopen schools in order to reopen the country...or day care centers, at the very least. Trump seemed to project a belief that some states would be bringing students back in May, and that just doesn't make a lot of sense...when most districts would be theoretically closing in late May or early June. Are they going to push all those kids into mandatory summer school to catch up? It makes sense from a nutritional standpoint, perhaps, in poorer or rural districts. But who do you bring back first? Middle schoolers? High schoolers have the ability to stay at home (theoretically!), but sending KG and primary/elementary carries that risk because of the high level of transmission in that age group...passing it quickly to others and then families/relatives. Some are considering staggered...where you have JR/SR and then FR/SO on alternate days. What are the social distancing rules? How easy to maintain six feet? What about PE and recess? Cafeteria? There are so many considerations here...pushing kids back into school for just 2-3 weeks of “benefit” (their parents both being able to go back to work) doesn’t seem worthwhile. Granted, a lot of white collar jobs are flexible and allow for the majority of workers to function reasonably well through teleconferencing and stay ay home or only the most essential workers (let’s say 30%) returning to work, and you can even stagger or rotate that until you’re relatively confident in the efficaciousness of such a strategy.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-administration-writing-death-sentence-220200223.html Unless you love particularly chain restaurants, and consider Ruth’s Chris a small business despite their deep pockets, or typically dine on foie gras with fellow 1%ers...most of our beloved local favorite eating options are going to eventually be wiped out.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/antibody-research-indicates-coronavirus-may-far-more-widespread-155200568.html Santa Clara (CA) antibody test results suggest real rate of infection is 50-80X higher than officially published numbers. Fwiw...

Just curious. Have there been any protests yet in Indiana, Massachusetts and Ohio? Those are three states (so far) with GOP governors aligning with the “out to destroy America because they hate success/liberal cabal Dem governors” on the two coasts and now Heartland/Rust Belt. What about protests against governors in Texas, Georgia and Florida for being too aggressive in reopening? There’s definitely shaping up to be a battle in SD with Kristi Noem, who ironically came to power over a “fake estate/death tax” backstory that was wholly inaccurate (her father made a simple mistake in financial planning that would have wiped out any tax liability for the family farm.)

And they would have quickly saved thousands and thousands of HIV (and Ebola) patients around the world with generic-pricing of drugs at the beginning of those international crises. Ooops. Apparently the threat of Bernie Sanders taking over the world, of encroaching socialism...forced Sen. Kelly Loeffler to make all of her insider stock trades, mimicking a bad Ayn Rand novel subplot. You would think that Joe Biden was a member of SDS out of the 1960’s throwing Molotov cocktails and organizing violent protests when actually he’s about the most conservative Democrat nominated in recent memory. "This was a political attack designed to take away from the issue at hand. And to use this outbreak to play politics. We have addressed this and taken extraordinary measures to make sure that we can't be attacked for our success. This gets at the very heart of why I came to Washington, to defend free enterprise, to defend capitalism. This is a socialist attack. We have taken extraordinary measures, and I am focused solely on working for Georgians. I have been doing that seven days a week, around the clock. And it's my honor to be here and serve, and that's why I stepped out of the private sector.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/politics/kelly-loeffler-stock-coronavirus/index.html

Who pays the price when they turn out to be wrong? Definitely not the President, Trump children or Fox News headliners like Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham. I don’t want an authoritative response like here in China, but they at least have the technological means through cell phone app tracking and contract tracing to be able to pinpoint who was/is responsible for putting themselves, their families and others at risk. Even if all the GOP governors were to issue back to work orders, roughly 60-65% would be unwilling to go back voluntarily. Good luck firing them or taking away their unemployment benefits. Let’s not forget a situation was created to reward a significant percentage of employees more money for staying at home to prevent exactly these types of my health and that of my family vs. economic survival decisions. This policy was agreed to by both the Senate and the President. https://www.biospace.com/article/gilead-shutters-covid-19-trial-in-china-stocks-drop-3-percent-/ Abrahams interprets all this to suggest limited efficacy of the drug, writing, “We continue to believe that while remdesivir showed a promising signal of activity in the recent open label compassionate use published data, the fact that no data has been revealed from the truncated severe study in China—the only randomized study thus far—despite today’s update also indicated it had enrolled a reasonably robust number of patients (n=237), suggests any benefits observed were likely inconclusive and maintains our view that the likelihood of remdesivir demonstrating substantial activity remains at best 50/50.” The limited data on the 53 patients receiving the drug on compassionate use basis had no controls and, as a result, made it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions. The study of the 53 patients in the U.S., Europe and Canada who required respiratory support showed that about two-thirds benefited from the drug.