caulfield12

Germany is still putting the US to shame. We can’t get the Covid rollout right, and now we’re going to introduce the antibody one in another week? Without nearly enough reagents to pull this off...and with every country in the world fighting over the same materials? Science would argue you’d need to have those antibody tests for roughly 900,000 (10% of population) in the NYC area alone, and they don’t have close to those numbers. No way private labs can keep up with this.

Even here, you’re getting a really conservative editorial thrust from WSJ, center left from Economist, center left from WaPo and pretty much down the middle with the Tribune. NY Times has a variety of opinion columnists, but they’re also center left editorially. In general, reading detailed articles from reporters is the best, and the Times is still the gold standard there. To me, the Tribune and LA Times have become virtually indistinguishable (well, there’s an obvious reason there.) I try to catch BBC and Al Jazeera and anything from outside the States that’s not Chinese-centric.

Even if you listen to Washington Journal on C-Span for three hours every morning, you’re simply going to absorb biased opinions from BOTH sides of the spectrum in roughly equal number, but an infinitesimal number of objective or at least nuanced opinions.

For example, “the A team comes in Monday morning, the B team comes in Monday afternoon, and then the C team comes in Tuesday and the D team comes in Tuesday afternoon,” he told Yahoo Finance’s “On the Move.” Gary Cohn says the key is to isolate the teams from each other so “the Monday crowd and Tuesday crowd never cross, because if someone gets sick in the A and B crowd, we don’t want them to contaminate the C and D crowd.” The success of this strategy, however, depends on regular testing for COVID-19. “If we don’t have testing when someone starts feeling ill and we don’t know what group to isolate, we’re going to end up having to isolate everyone again,” Cohn added. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/gary-cohn-restarting-economy-after-coronavirus-not-going-to-be-an-overnight-big-bang-204735941.html This is the strategy they used with essential office workers returning over the last month here in Wuhan. Ongoing staggered rotations. Even VP Pence now realizes there’s not going to be one big grand reopening without mass-scale testing. Otoh, “one prominent voice pushing for a return to normalcy, according to The Washington Post, is the vice president’s chief of staff, who is not a medical professional.” Iceland's 10% figure, confirmed by Stefansson, is not about bragging rights. Among the Nordic nation's findings: about half of its citizenry at any given time who have coronavirus but don't know it, will be asymptomatic – a large percentage many experts studying the virus have suspected, but have had little firm data to corroborate. "That's a bit scary," said Stefansson, who noted that Iceland is testing its citizens at random by selecting names out of the country's main telephone directory, another large-scale testing strategy that has not been adopted elsewhere. "They could be spreading it and not knowing it," he said. https://www.yahoo.com/news/iceland-tested-more-population-coronavirus-081244404.html Which means we would have to test at least 32 million Americans to get to 10%.

16,691 vs. 18,279 We are now poised to pass Italy over the weekend for most deaths related to COVID-19, but certainly not the highest mortality rates.

The race was always going to be close from an electoral college standpoint...as most have been since 2000. National polls having Clinton up 2-4% are perfectly understandable looking at the popular vote. Bill Clinton himself was already worrying the last two weeks that Wisconsin had been totally taken for granted and they tried to save MI and PA in the last week but it was too late to reverse the late changing tide (Comey on server/emails.) It was certainly an upset and a shock to many...and the amazing leveraging of limited ad dollars through social and free media, but it also wasn’t reinventing the wheel. I was more upset that HRC was the best candidate we could come up with, and many certainly feel similarly this cycle. Not sure when this “us vs. them” mentality will be overcome...it’s going to take more than a global pandemic IMO.

Increasing the rate burials by a factor of 7x isn’t necessarily the sign of a genocidal apocalypse, but is certainly alarming and shows the scale of the problem. Just like 42,500 urns here in Wuhan would be 12,500 more (30000 the number of expected natural deaths over that time frame) than would be needed if you stopped all burials/funerals in a city larger than NYC for almost 70 days...and then had them altogether over a 3-5 day period. One is an increase of approximately 33%, the other 700%. Statistics!!!

I’m not even sure that would have happened as quickly as it did without the twin shocks of the NBA and NCAA tourney cancellations that week of conference tourney play, with Rudy Gobert/Jazz being the first domino to fall. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/coronavirus-testing-cdc-fda-red-tape-invs/index.html (CNN) A weeks-long testing delay that effectively blinded public health officials to the spread of the coronavirus in the US might have been avoided had federal agencies fully enacted their own plan to ramp up testing during a national health crisis. The plan, which is spelled out in an April 2018 agreement between the Centers for Disease Control and three of the biggest associations involved in lab testing, called for boosting the capacity of public health labs, bringing big commercial labs into the testing process early, and making sure labs would have whatever they needed to mount a rapid, large-scale response. But over January and February, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services not only failed to make early use of the hundreds of labs across the United States, they enforced regulatory roadblocks that prevented non-government labs from assisting, according to documents obtained by CNN, and interviews with 14 scientists and physicians at individual laboratories and national laboratory associations.

The quintessential beating heart of a Romney Republican, the WSJ, is now LSM? Because if that paper is not center right, I don’t know what is...just Breitbart and the National Review, Washington Times, etc. I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s, a Republican meant something between William F. Buckley and George Will/Bill Kristol. With the current monetary policy of creating seemingly endless amounts of IOU’s, not sure what is still recognizable beyond abortion and gun rights.

How many of you guys will feel comfortable going back to work May 1st? If the number of deaths per day across the US is still over 100 (it will be, at least into late May and early June) and there’s no widespread testing (including surveillance testing) in your area? What will be your own personal rule about this, as it pertains to your family? Here in Day 79, it’s almost impossible to imagine NYC...or even the eastern half of the entire country, opening up, however that’s going to be defined, on May 1st. Especially for those over 50/55 or with preexisting conditions or co-morbidities. Without that testing and relying on “therapeutics”...especially without having any idea what’s going on in these more rural counties, this seems to be ill-conceived at best. Once again, that more optimistic IHME model with 60,000 deaths is based on social distancing through August 4th.

That’s pretty incredible...in and of itself. Nebraska will probably be trending in the same direction with Ricketts. People just didn’t realize their votes in the past two elections could actually cost them their lives. https://qctimes.com/news/local/groups-criticize-reynolds-for-declaring-day-of-prayer/article_4e743bdb-0fa6-5411-81fe-f8a5527e1ccc.html#tracking-source=home-top-story Unsurprisingly, Gov. Reynolds is using the coronavirus situation to sneak in a Day or Prayer that is going to be challenged on the basis of separation of church and state.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/media/pence-office-tv-bookings-coronavirus/index.html Pence blocking Dr. Fauci from appearing on CNN for the last week, including tonight’s weekly Global Town Hall special...because network sometimes cuts coverage of task force briefings New York State now has more reported coronavirus cases than any country except the U.S. as a whole. Kind of difficult to keep reiterating an argument that your two air traffic bans were so successful with this alarming kind of number...

6.61 million claims....not quite the record, because last week’s was later revised upwards. This week’s will likely set the new trcord before all is said and done, as a number of larger states are finally being reflected (TX, FL, GA, VA, NC) for the first time. Net will be roughly 17 million lost jobs over a three week time period.

But the majority of California and Washington cases had to have come from Asia. There are also plenty of flights from Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing into JFK/Newark.

He's not going to pick a man. Taking Warren shows he is willing to fight and stand up to a bully... She scares corporate America, so you'd have to get Bloomberg on board to access his funds, which would likely disqualify her based on her complete evisceration of his campaign (and $425 million of ad spending) in a matter of minutes. Both Obama's will get more involved, as they are probably as much anti Trump as pro Biden and will want to preserve ObamaCare as a legacy achievement. "We've had patients die in hallway beds because the nurse didn't find they didn't have a pulse until it was too late," the physician said. "Each nurse has so many patients that by the time they come to check on their next one, there is a chance that patient may not have a pulse anymore." Cases explode in Michigan but states outside the hotspots can't get supplies Another patient's breathing tube disconnected from the ventilator, and the patient died before staff could respond, two ER workers told CNN. This is the same hospital in NW Detroit (Sinai Grace) where the nurses staged a sit-in out of desperation Sunday night.

If you look at all those picks like Kaine, Biden, Lieberman...so plain vanilla. Warren has her detractors, but I think she would motivate more young voters, progressives and Hispanics than Klobuchar. Trump would probably overplay his hand on the Pocahontas taunts, which would only serve to draw out more suburban soccer moms. Realistically, she played things right in the middle between Sanders and Biden...when she should have stayed to the left lane and not wavered on M4A. Staking out all those centering compromises hurt her. Her strength was always being a policy wonk, which rounds off Biden’s rough edges there. Klobuchar might be the one candidate nobody can remember any of her policy positions. She ran more on her Heartland background and record of winning elections, but she had an art of saying a lot without saying anything. So did Buttigieg, who runs rings around her intellectually and was smart enough to figure out Medicare For Those Who Want It was best position of all to bet on. You get Warren on board, it makes Sanders and AOC fans have to make a decision to get involved. With Klobuchar, they might vote, but they’re definitely not knocking on any doors for that particular ticket.

At some point, the President is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we're opening on May 1. Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer," Fox News opinion host Laura Ingraham tweeted on Wednesday. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/donald-trump-economy-joe-biden-coronavirus/index.html Looks like the experts are calling anywhere from the low 4 millions to 7+ million range in UNE claims this morning, depending on how many can successfully be processed in states like FL, TX, GA, etc. That would be roughly 15 million in three weeks and another 3-4% hike in the overall rate, putting it closer and closer to 15% overall.

On Wednesday, "Diamond & Silk" posted a tweet. "The only way we can become immune to the environment; we must be out in the environment," the duo declared. "Quarantining people inside of their houses for extended periods will make people sick!" Twitter promptly took action against the tweet for violating its rules against coronavirus misinformation. The suggestion from the Fox News personalities is clearly dangerous. People should not be "out in the environment." Twitter required the two to remove the tweet in order to regain access to their account. But while Twitter was the responsible outlet and declined to allow "Diamond & Silk" to spread their hazardous misinformation on its platform, Fox News fell silent. I sent a Fox News spokesperson requests for comment on the duo's Wednesday tweet. I never heard back. Apparently the request was not even worth a reply. That's how far down the rabbit hole we are. Where two fairly prominent Fox News personalities — who have been elevated on numerous occasions by the President and Republican lawmakers — can promote wild conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation and it does not even merit a response from the network's public relations office. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/media/fox-news-diamond-and-silk-reliable-sources/index.html

Im not sure he can announce that without making himself a lame duck...it’s certainly a unique idea, but it’s rare someone has that power and willingly surrenders it like LBJ did. Harris has a lot of baggage that came up during the primary, and she’s closer to the middle of the spectrum than a true progressive in the views of some, which would make her more palatable (she did cross Biden aggressively on busing)...her record as a prosecutor especially. Biden is finally up in FLA polling, and ahead in WI/PA as well. You essentially need a combination of AOC and Paul Wellstone that doesn’t currently exist. Mazie Hirono in HA, Baldwin and Duckworth, just not seeing anyone that carries that stature and experience of Warren. Gillibrand was an early favorite and didnt get any traction at all.

Here’s the answer from Chris Murray/IHME/University of Washington. When there are sixty deaths or less in the entire country from Covid-19. For Wuhan, they went 14 days with just three local infections total...cases, not deaths. That’s too extreme to work fir the entire country, but 60 is the number they set. We just passed Spain, 14,795 to 14,792. Italy at 17,669.

More intimations from Trump about Alzheimer’s/dementia/decreased mental faculties. I would pick Elizabeth Warren, probably. And push hard with Medicare for those who want it, but not force anyone to leave their current insurance plans. The platform would also push for complete portability from job to job, considering how many career dislocations there will be this year and into next. Odds are he goes with someone like Klobuchar because she’s the safer choice for securing Midwestern states and more aligned with him politically. Kamala Harris really doesn’t help that much, IMO. Stacey Abrams was arguably going to be the Sanders choice, but not yet convinced Georgia is even in play...so maybe she helps with North Carolina, but that’s no sure thing, either. Biden’s biggest weaknesses are enthusiasm from the left, young people and Hispanics. Trump will grt his voters come hell or high water. Which means he need to expand the base. Winning Florida would be huge. Warren would help to bridge the divide to the progressive side and motivate young people in ways that Klobuchar will never be able to. That said, an underdog Hispanic leader like Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) or New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham...Veronica Escobar of Texas would be my REALLY out of left field pick. So I would choose Warren or one of those three Hispanic candidates...whichever one I had the most rapport with. Perhaps the one best at public speaking and motivating people oratorically, because that’s another obvious weakness for Biden. We have to assume in September and October that big campaign rallies return, and surrogates will help...but not as much as a younger, more vibrant leader who Americans could actually imagine taking the reigns, which would favor a governor with experience as an executive in Lujan Grisham. There are six states (and one congressional district) in Toss-Up: Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska's 2nd district. Those add up to 102 Electoral votes."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hospitals-feds-seizing-masks-other-210748808.html Here’s the single biggest problem, after the testing. It’s not having a unified plan on PPE and respirators. Who’s actually in charge? Pence? Gaynor with FEMA? HHS with Azar? Jared Kushner? Rear Admiral John Polowczyk from JCS? You’ve got the Cuomo Plan of moving respirators and PPE from east to west as the outbreaks peak. You’ve got states having to bid against each other...exploding prices to 6-7x what they would normally be paying on the open markets. Once they outbid each other, the Federal govnt seizes or takes over the deals and the equipment disappears. Then you have the dance of states trying to appreciate the WH in order to get what they want. Meanwhile, you have all these blue states like NY, Illinois, California, Washington and Oregon collaborating because they see no alternative in order to quickly secure what they need. Part of it is in reaction to the barrage of criticism coming that the states individually should have been better prepared. Now you have Washington, Philly, Baltimore and Houston rising to the fore as the next hot spots. This simply shouldn’t be happening. Not to mention half of the supplies the Federal government is securing are then going out to private entities...where? who? why? We’ve supposedly got hundreds of thousands of COVID tests not being used...but everyone keeps reporting they can’t get tested. The backlogs have been reduced, but the private labs are still overwhelmed trying to get results out. The Abbott tests are not getting out to Indian Health Services as promised, and only available in 22 states. Well, we don’t know have any clue where the problems in the supply chain lie since there’s now officially no oversight of a $2 trillion dollar stimulus package.

Pardoning Tiger King Joe Exotic? WTH? The problem with that IHME model coming down to 61,000 isn’t just social distancing into early June, it’s into August... WHO never said “everything was going to be fine”...but they waited 7-10 days too long to define it as a pandemic, just like they did with calling it a public health emergency of international concern. Perhaps in deference to China. Probably because they didn’t realize how far the penetration was into Europe at that point. Back to voter fraud. This time a million in California. Even though the Kris Kobach commission was disbanded without providing any evidence...the best example was in NC, but that was in aid of the GOP. Obama knows something about “Sleepy Joe” that you don’t know...lol...that’s why he is not coming out for him. Sanders wants to honor the rights of his supporters to continue to support him, and to have leverage for the platform in terms of the convention in August, but there’s a decent chance they go to a virtual convention and little attention will be paid...except to the VP and keynote address.

"Please don't politicize this virus. It exploits the differences you have at the national level. If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland. "If you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. My short message is: Please quarantine politicizing Covid. The unity of your country will be very important to defeat this dangerous virus." https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/who-responds-trump-claims-coronavirus/index.html Uh-oh. Here comes target #1 for today’s briefing. #2 should be the private lab companies like Quest and LabCorp for slow processing, maybe Chuck Schumer (just because), Wisconsin governor, MSM, Dem fix against Bernie Sanders.

IHME Model predicts death total as low as 60,000 Of course, that’s based on maintaining current social distancing through the first week of June. Also, a majority, 60% wouldn’t be comfortable going back to work at end of the month, 37% would...falling along pretty strict partisan lines. Early blip or surge on approval for Federal government response has swung from 43% to 55% disapproval over the last two polls.