caulfield12

It’s a bit premature to worry about cancelling an election...Japan still has until late July to decide on the Olympics. In reality, everything has changed in a heartbeat and will continue to do so. Just three short weeks ago, Trump would have beaten Sanders fairly handily. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, but it’s on BOTH sides to come up with inspiring/realistic/game-changing proposals on health care. Like most elections, the economy at that time will be one of the deciding factors.

Italy 45.5 vs. 38.1 for median age, life expectancy Italy 83.4 vs. 78.9 (USA). But there are also 130 million Americans with underlying/undetected health issues and especially obesity...which leads to myriad health issues as we know. Severely Overweight=US is in the top ten at 36%, Italy near the bottom at under 20%.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/people-just-panicking-midwesterners-unmoved-090052636.html Laissez faire attitude will end up costing lives....

It was instructive that the president initially argued against testing because he was not coming from another country. This xenophobic mindset of foreign “invaders” is seemingly impossible to escape once it has taken hold. It just came to me that one huge advantage South Korea has had is geographic concentration...but, more specifically, that cult-like organization where they sit on floors within a few feet of each other like sardines in a can. It would be like 50% of the Amish in America having the virus...they don’t interact so frequently with the rest of the population, so the cases are more likely to be contained simply by social circles kept. Whereas European and American lifestyles are almost the exact opposite...seeking contact and connection through an immense variety of socializing activities, and the propensity to travel far and wide with unfettered freedoms. Cnn.com About 80% of all coronavirus cases in South Korea are associated with cluster transmissions, according to the country’s Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The country has reported 8,162 cases and 75 deaths. Several clusters have been found around the country. The Shincheonji religious group, based in the southern city of Daegu, is the biggest cluster; 74% of all cases nationwide are from the city. Nationally, 60% of all cases are linked to the group, said the KCDC release. Officials identified another cluster at a call center in Seoul this week, which has led to 124 cases so far. Another cluster is within the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, where 29 people have tested positive.

President tests negative for coronavirus...that said, he should be rechecked again in 7-10 days.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/donald-trump-declaring-a-national-emergency-due-to-coronavirus-may-prevent-mlb-players-from-getting-paid-155823331.html Nick Madrigal gets a shout out on service time issue, could have been Kopech as well.

Embarrassing. Creates the idea that only “elites” have easy/quick access to exams. https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test

75% blame the wet market, wild animal trade...the rest blame the US or another country. A few, the virology lab located here, but they logically point out that sabotaging their own country instead of dropping it into Des Moines or Chicago makes no sense. Scientists would be able to track the genetic sequencing and have 99%+ certainty if it was man made or originated from bats with a secondary carrier like pangolins, snakes or civet cats. There are a lot recently asking me why the US wasn’t better prepared or didn't seem to be taking it seriously. Former students marooned on college campuses seem to be getting cared for because they can’t easily return to Hubei, and might experience an even more difficult or uncertain path return to US again.

Working online teaching...going into Week 6. Two week quarantine. At best, I’d get partial pay. Since we are now 2-3 weeks from returning to school...and 40% of staff will face same quarantine coming back into China from UK, US, Thailand and Vietnam (maybe not for VTNM), it would be pretty foolhardy to leave now. The airport isn’t reopened, not even sure I could get a train out to Shanghai or Guangzhou even if I wanted to in order to use those airports.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/17-700-bottles-hand-sanitizer-155735689.html

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-news-live-uk-ban-083924455.html Seems like UK is deliberately trying to follow in the footsteps of Italy...counting on this mysterious “herd immunity” to develop is a huge gamble. People here have been getting sick a second time. In theory, the second or third wave could be even worse, but it doesn’t matter if you’ve already overwhelmed your public health system.

This will be blamed on Bolton, guaranteed. If we had Dr. Stiever (malaria specialist) and Tom Bossert back on the job, it would be like having two more Tony Fauci’s. People don’t realize that Dr. Fauci is 78, he can’t sustain this level of effort indefinitely without some more expert support. It’s definitely not coming from Redfield, Azar or Seema Verma.

I just don’t see that as feasible without being able to track EVERYONE through mobile phones (no burners, everyone here has to be tied by law to their national ID #). There are only three service providers, all government controlled. There’s also not a common communication app like WeChat here. How many in the US even have a DL or passport? Most importantly, we don’t have the surge capacity...the ratio of hospital beds to population in the US is much larger than South Korea, despite much higher spending overall on tech/diagnostic equipment. We also don’t have the logistics and food delivery (scooters/mopeds) system that are ubiquitous in every Chinese city. The cost here is normally $0.75-$1.50 per delivery, with no tipping. We don’t have neighborhood associations to distribute fruits, vegetables, rice, noodles, basic staples to seniors and poor children who receive free or reduced cost breakfast/lunch.

The decisions about quarantining people (and which ones, and when to let them return home) were not nearly so seamless as he’s making it out. I totally disagreed with the concept of closing all pharmacies, tracking those going to get medicine (especially older people) and basically rounding them up and putting them into quarantine, paying reward money to report others who were sick. Many people got red flagged by mobile phone QR codes...erroneously. While everything was done in the name of caution and being overly careful, the Korean system is preferable, by far. Even now, without a Chinese national ID card, I won’t be able to get the green pass code for my phone...since we have no consulate left, we have no idea what will happen if we take our passports to ride the subway.

More than Senator Cotton?

Sorry this should be to Soxblanco’s MEDIUM article... The approach of aggregating the data like this isn’t particularly instructive. If you look at South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and HK...there’s an obvious flattening of the curve, and much more quickly than in China, where it was allowed to temporarily spin out of control for six weeks before draconian mitigation techniques were imposed. If you look at Italy, Germany, Spain and France...you’ll see the opposite. (The UK, so far, has been somewhat more protected due to it being isolated from the rest of Europe.) We are in the middle (between Europe and Asia) because of our isolated location and flight bans...but the severe lack of testing and stubbornness to change behaviors is just wiping out any advantages we had in terms of planning/preparation time.

It would be correct if we had actually tested and quarantined everyone who was sick in the very beginning...especially in Washington state, California and NYC. Now it’s too late, the horse is already out of the barn.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3075164/south-koreas-coronavirus-response-opposite-china-and If we would have simply followed the Korean plan...we wouldn’t be in the crisis situation we are now. And it would have cost a fraction to provide free tests for every American compared to the trillions of dollars of stock market and job losses. If you want to blame anyone, it’s four presidents over the span of 27 years and both parties in Congress that have failed to create the type of health care system that can handle a global pandemic. The buck stops here/there, as Harry Truman famously said. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tim-ziemer-global-health-security-leaves_n_5af37dfbe4b0859d11d02290 And just watch how much more quickly the KBO ramps back up...

I don’t, at least not like here, much more like Italy, where groceries and pharmacies were kept open. For two reasons, people living in individual houses vs. gated apartment communities, and the impossible logistics in a country as expansive as the US enforcing lockdown as well as delivering food to everyone, especially the most vulnerable groups. Just our existing military and National Guards would come up woefully short compared to the size of the military here. Here, they closed pharmacies deliberately to force people into hospitals or quarantine, prior to that, they were targeting people who were looking for medicine there, assuming they were hiding sickness. Also, they started giving financial rewards for community members to turn into authorities (or identify) them...not here in Wuhan, but smaller countryside cities where more people know each other. I don’t think it will get that bad. Finally, the ego of the executive branch won’t allow a “surrender” or failure like this in an election year...it’s not in his DNA. That might change when/if he or his daughter become ill and it finally becomes real for him.

They aren’t giving people who are sick, test positive and knowingly go to work (or just try to leave the area/enter a healthy zone) punishments ranging from 20-30 years in prison to the death penalty (deliberately spitting or coughing on someone while infected) for the common flu here in China. Service industries will be hard hit. One of my best friends is an orthodontist...my mom is almost 91 and living in an assisted living center like the Kirkland Life Care Center in the Seattle area. I don’t know how much the emergency $500 billion or proposed legislation between the House and Treasury Secretary will help you individually...but it’s being done so every normally successful business (airlines, Boeing, cruise lines, oil/energy companies, amusement park, theatres) doesn’t have to file for Chapter 11. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/americas/coronavirus-us-italy-south-korea-lessons-intl/index.html

We’re now at the 52nd day of lockdown in China. Assuming the US situation will be somewhere between Italy and China, 60-75 days from now would be my guess or estimate. That means ramping up in late May/early June and resuming season around June 10-15th with expanded rosters.

But that’s nothing compared to the flu!!! I strongly believe the only way some people in this country will ever take it seriously is when the President OR someone close to them (family/friends/loved ones) gets sick and can’t get help because of the myriad deficiencies in our current health care system. David Gergen was just talking about a case in Massachusetts where the ONLY way to get tested for coronavirus is AFTER being admitted to an ICU. How does that make any sense? I guess playing videos 24 hours per day from inside overwhelmed Italian hospitals that are doing WWII battlefield triage or the crematoriums here that were putting enough smoke from burning bodies into the atmosphere over Hubei that it was actually registering on satellite imagery might do the trick? In addition, coming into contact with Matt Gaetz, the press secretary for the Brazilian president, the Miami mayor (42 years old), all of them testing positive...then still not taking the test and continuing to shake hand after hand in the Rose Garden, not to mention sharing the microphone, it’s basically just another version of what Rudy Gobert did. This is 50% of the reason Italy is facing a catastrophic crisis now...not taking things seriously until it was too late. It’s not like we can’t see examples from other countries right in front of our eyes...all we have to do is track along with Italy, Spain, Germany and France and know we’re experiencing the same outbreaks whether there’s adequate testing or not. Finally, there’s still a patient in Omaha from the Diamond Princess who’s testing positive for the virus 28 days later!!! That’s arguably the best treatment center for infectious diseases in the entire country. And he’s not the only one, either.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/ncaa-tournaments-championships-college-athletes-seniors-eligibility-year-petition-092848893.html Should NCAA seniors get another year of eligibility?

That’s undoubtedly one factor. During the third phase, lung damage continues to build—which can result in respiratory failure. Even if death doesn’t occur, some patients survive with permanent lung damage. According to the WHO, SARS punched holes in the lungs, giving them “a honeycomb-like appearance”—and these lesions are present in those afflicted by novel coronavirus, too. Some people who recovered from severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) which swept the world in 2002 to 2003 had long-term respiratory problems as their lungs were permanently damaged. Covid-19 is similar to Sars in some respects, although is much less lethal, so those who have recovered from more serious symptoms may also suffer some long-term effects. From Telegraph/UK

Masters gone...wow. Boston Marathon pushed back to Sept. Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, has announced that the 2020 Masters tournament has been postponed. Ridley said in a statement: "Ultimately, the health and well-being of everyone associated with these events and the citizens of the Augusta community led us to this decision. We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host the Masters Tournament and our amateur events at some later date."