caulfield12

New conspiracy theory of the day: Italian authorities are counting EVERY death that's happening in the country as COVID-19 because that will put it in a better position to receive sympathy/international aid/assistance...as well as protecting the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) economies from economic devastation (insurance settlements?) and also position the southern European economies to have a better negotiating position vis a vis Germany/Austria/Netherlands over the issuing of Corona bonds backed by those three economically-sound countries of the EU.

Why not just have the Blue Jays start on the road for two weeks (or the first 7-10)...but that would require lots of changes in the scheduling, undoubtedly. Would have to look at the actual schedule for June to check the feasibility, their might be a natural flow in the schedule to jump on if they can relax the rules for 3 months from now by a week or so. Getting baseball back would be huge for the national psyche. When you look at football, that depends on so much close physical contact and derives more revenue from a limited number of packed home games, MLB is easier to get going without the fans IMO.

Well, I’m making a conscious effort to discuss it more ‘tactics-wise’ as opposed to entrenched policy standpoints or positions that are highly unlikely to change, but even C-Span gets bombarded with calls saying one side or the other is receiving more time or not getting cut off by moderators, etc. I guess if everyone accuses you of unfairness...you must be doing something right. But it is surreal when Cuomo is at 87% approval, that’s GW Bush after 9/11 numbers...or his father after the first Gulf War. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries This is the fastest way to track by countries...we’ve passed China and France for third, but running a much lower mortality rate (so far, knock on wood) compared to Italy and Spain who are off the charts or simply overwhelmed/under-testing at this point. https://kvia.com/health/2020/03/31/umc-reinstates-doctor-who-had-job-threatened-for-wearing-mask-in-hospital-hallways/ I can pretty much guarantee most of the rest of the world is not FIRING doctors and nurses for wearing masks WALKING down the HALLWAYS of a HOSPITAL in order to protect themselves/patients/family at home.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/insane-many-scientists-lament-trump-s-embrace-risky-malaria-drugs-coronavirus And many are critical of the small French clinical study of just 42 patients that seems to have touched off most of the excitement. ..... Others are less diplomatic. Darren Dahly, a co-author of one of several critiques of the initial study and a principal statistician at the University College Cork School of Public Health, said it would be “egregious” to recommend treatments for millions of people based on such a small trial, regardless of its quality. “This is insane!” tweeted Gaetan Burgio, an Australian National University expert on drug resistance, noting what he sees as lapses in the 6-day trial, including inconsistent testing of virus levels in the patients. ..... In that trial, the Mediterranean Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU) treated 26 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine alone, or combined with the antibiotic azithromycin. The authors reported “clearance”—no virus present in samples taken by nasopharyngeal swabs—in most of them, but continued infection in most of a 16-person control group of COVID-19 patients. ... “Efforts to widely distribute unproven treatments are misguided at best and dangerous at worst.” https://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-plaquenil.html Would love to see if any members of Congress or the administration purchased stock in any of these companies before the public hyping announcements started....

Such as not wanting to take any responsibility for cruise ships...as, well, “bad numbers.” If we are the greatest country in the world, we should have additional capacity to deal with this, compared to developing countries all around the world.

Relitigating Wounded Knee or Japanese displacement camps or drone strikes and endless wars across the Middle East doesn’t solve the problem TODAY. Nor does worrying about or blaming China, at the moment. Plenty of time for the entire world to assess this a year from now. Argue about it in September or October, before the election. Right now, saving the most lives, red and blue and purple...are all that matters.

Anticipating 4.25-4.75 million additional UNE claims. That means in two weeks we’re jumping to something like a 8.5-9.25% unemployment rate. 1.5 million claims roughly equivalent to a 1% point shift upwards. Goldman most recently projected peak at 15%, but high teens or low twenties still feels quite possible depending on hiw the next month plays out. The labor force available for employment is going to be cut some due to deaths/attrition/people dropping out...but those are still massive numbers. Seems the president is convinced we can just keep borrowing at 0% interest and get another $2-3 million for infrastructure projects. We shall see if his own party in Congress will go along with that one. https://www.businessinsider.com/ken-griffin-real-estate-nyc-apartment-record-chicago-london-miami-2019-1 Maybe we can convince Ken Griffin to buy the White Sox...does he like sports at all?

Some would argue that without the one child policy, the population of China would be 2-2.4 billion, on the conservative side. Which means higher scarcity of resources, more pollution, more world starvation, etc. The reality is that having six boys for every five girls creates an entirely new set of problems. Even lifting the restrictions a few years ago, the birth rate is barely moving up due to the skyrocketing costs of raising a child, health care, education, etc. 25-30 years from now, China will look exactly like Japan demographically...heck, the economic peaks of late 80’s/early 90’s (Japan) compared to 2006-2014 might look quite similar years from now. Japan, South Korea and now China are all looking at birth rates of 0.8-1.2 per family, where the population is dying off faster than children are born to replace them. Not to mention all three countries tend to be insular and not immigration-friendly, with an influx of talent from other regions of the world the only obvious solution to inexorable shifts in demographic trendlines.

A reporter quickly picked up on this because they seemed afraid to say it aloud. The chart actually said 200-240,000 on the high end, with a potential or anticipated 10-15 more NY/NJ situations popping up in major metropolitan areas, moving from east to west. Interestingly, VA and DC were 45 days out for peak. CA around May 1st. Even at the epicenter in NYC, the expert projections (five total) range from 7-21 days with 14 being the average for hitting the peak right around Easter Sunday or the first couple of days afterward.

Sure, but just trying to put some scope or scale to the overall numbers. Invariably, someone will then bring up the common flu, automobile accidents, etc. The biggest point that differentiates this is we’re potentially talking about 100,000+ lives a matter of 2-3 months, versus the course of a full year, with overwhelmed health care system and no vaccine or cure. That’s the reality.

They would use coordinated cyberwarfare to confuse coordination efforts, sabotaging the food and/or water supply with the virus and attempting to sabotage the power grid/internet and cell connectivity. Of course, were they to get caught red-handed...they’d end up in pariah state status, lose trade agreements, military partnerships and undo all the money/loans spent over the past 5-6 years on the various Belt & Road Initiatives. Why risk all that when many strategists inside China believe America is heading in the direction of eventually falling apart on its own? We still can’t figure out whether to conserve masks or not. In the case of Asians, many feel safer...regardless of the optics, it provides a sense of reassurance. My wife was on the Wuhan subway the last two days...someone sneezed a couple of times and everyone emptied the car in both directions attempting to get away. We just bumped up the definition of “success” with Covid-19 to up to 200-240,000 deaths (on the upper end) even with active mitigation/suppression. NY and NJ are definitely the outliers, so far, but showing all the data aggregated like this isn’t capturing how many are a week away from exploding into new clusters. Like New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, etc. ”No magic vaccines or therapies.” Dr. Birx

Here comes another task force meeting/campaign rally/expressions of appreciation from everyone who gets to speak other than Dr. Fauci. We’ve passed 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the Titanic. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/politics/red-states-blue-cities-coronavirus/index.html Just not sure how the mayors and governors and Federal government can possibly find a way to resolve these simmering disputes unless the push comes from the President to overrule 5 GOP governors (five already going against admin and making their own decisions.) https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/us/coronavirus-vaccine-timetable-concerns-experts-invs/index.html Scientific community starts pushing back on 12-18 month timeframe for vaccine.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo has the virus. His brother’s doing so well with this now, he might be traveling westward across the country as it moves, bringing experts and an army of medical volunteers and ventilators with him. I think if I was with the Biden campaign I’d think long and hard about tying into these efforts, because he’s becoming more and more irrelevant by the day. Of course, he can just wait this out for 2-3 months and suddenly reappear on the scene, but he’s got to prove his mettle here somehow. Just criticizing Trump decisions or unpreparedness doesn’t do it anymore. They need to be presenting solutions from the top of their campaign, like Ron Klain. It’s a delicate balance because of his age, but his endurance/stamina and mental acuity have come under assault, and remaining in a Delaware bunker for months isn’t going to cut it.

Follow the science. Whether the Spanish Flu or MERS or Ebola/Marburg or Swine Flu, there’s a logical reason. The Chinese government tried to kill their own people to create plausible deniability, then successfully forecasted Trump would somehow botch it up? That’s quite the crystal ball. There was one Chinese woman on the island of Palau five years ago making a Youtube video about bat soup, and somehow 1.5 billion are now bat soup connoisseurs. I guess if it helps you to sleep at night, we can all believe whatever provides us comfort and reassurance.

She has been doing that for years and years. This is not news. Anymore so than going to caves near Lake Victoria, southern Sudan and the Congo will inform us about Ebola and Marburg TODAY. What do you suggest, killing all bats in the world...and closing caves? What about all the insects they eat, and the resulting imbalance in nature that will create? China has more than it’s fair share of blame, no matter how much PPE they donate/loan/sell to Europe. There’s been a 96% genetic sequencing match, but still not 100%. Until this day they don’t know the secondary transmitter, although it’s still suspected to be pangolins by most scientific experts. It has nothing to do with virology labs, mysterious government bacterial warfare programs, etc. Even C-SPAN listeners were getting into the act, asserting it was deliberated released in China to eventually penetrate the US and wipe out older Republican Trump voters, clearing the way for a return of globalization/neoliberalism under Biden, with open borders, free trade agreements and all guns confiscated from the populace. Sigh.

The Outsider is solid...just finished about three weeks ago. Never been a huge Ben Mendelsohn fan before this one, but Cynthia Erivo really brings a supernatural edge to the proceedings.

Krakauer books are a worthwhile read, as well. Kingdom of God, but the one on Everest (Into Thin Air) and Into the Wild continues to be a classic. Three Cups of Deceit if you are interested in non-profit. All the Michael Lewis books are pretty great too, although some might feel a bit dated today. Bad Blood if interested in business, or the new Picketty on Economics.

Have you read In the Garden of Beasts? All the Shaara books on the Civil War, or McPherson? New Doris Kearns Goodwin on George Washington?

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trump-blames-hospitals-for-coronavirus-mask-shortages.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/us/maine-coronavirus-forced-quarantine-trnd/index.html CNN)A Maine man said armed neighbors descended on his home and chopped down a tree to block his road and prevent him from leaving because they believed he may have coronavirus. The Vinalhaven resident said he went outside Friday to check why his cable service wasn't working and found a tree blocking the end of his road, according to the Knox County Sheriff's Office. "While investigating the downed tree, a neighbor started yelling at him and a group of people showed up and began to gather around. Believing the group may be there to harm him, (he) fled to his residence and told his roommates what he had found," the sheriff's office said on Facebook.

Well, we’ve now gone from reopening on Easter Sunday to the end of April. Today, finally, the recognition of 1.6-2.2 million death projection models at the high end, to the point where “just” 100-200,000 deaths is seemingly going to be considered a victory. CNN has taken the additional step of fact-checking now in real time...never imagined it would come to this. That said...sheer numbers of tests versus number of tests per capita are two quite distinct numbers. But to look at those heat maps of the country and jump to the conclusion 60-70% of the counties innthe middle of the country are basically safe when no extensive testing has really been done there yet doesn’t make much sense of a reasonable conclusion, either.

This is the same justification for Paris Hilton, the reality t.v. explosion and the Kardashians/Jenners all being billionaires or close to it. Or Instagram influencers. Kids earning $100 million for their parents opening toys on YouTube before the ripe ‘ol age of ten. Afaiac, “Tiger King/Joe Exotic” ran for President and OK governor and he’s ALMOST interchangeable with Trump.

I don’t doubt Biden has a 3-5 point lead, nationally. But it still comes down to those same 8-10 battleground states. GOP, at least for now...has a significant enthusiasm advantage on their side. Dems have demographics. I am not sure how many, though...are 100% confident he’s up to the job, or not more concerned about the VP choice. They believe or hope he will partially restore America’s position internationally, stabilize markets, not rock the boat and bring in experts to surround himself with. That said, with depressed turnout possible due to coronavirus concerns lingering, enthusiasm does matter. Don’t underestimate Trump in the debates, either. Biden stumbles when under heavy duress or ad libbing. When Trump does that, it’s refreshing candor and sticking it to the man or any party you project a particular grievance upon.

My bar is set pretty low these days. Can speak authoritatively without a teleprompter and at least project empathy and a sense of unity? Probably the same reason that aspects of Buttigieg appealed to me, being able to openly discuss faith and religion...because there are millions that seek comfort and reassurance there.

https://story.californiasunday.com/katie-porter-congress Maybe one positive is that more “everyday” people will run, such as this single mother of three, who won election in Orange County. Of course, she did attend two of the most elite academic institutions in the US. And you might be right, the enthusiasm gap (highly motivated to support) is roughly 30 points between Trump and Biden...similar to 2016. That’s a bit misleading. Because there are three plus years of track record now AND nobody will be as unpopular as HRC in 2015-16. Fwiw, Andrew Cuomo’s overall approval numbers in NYC are similar to Trump’s on a national basis, yet he might have won the Democratic primary had it started today instead of 18 months ago. And would likely be leading Trump by larger margins, whereas Biden is essentially tied one month into this crisis that has now made him almost irrelevant.

Day 67 of full lockdown in Wuhan. The last one, actually (unfortunately, I have to wait at least until April 8th as a foreigner whose school is still closed). Days since going outside, 70. Limited opening of major shopping malls, but only from 10-5 p.m. Metro/subway reopened on Saturday, but only if you have three permissions on your phone (from local government and your employer/HR Dept.) Still temperature checks and masks for everyone. Airport fully reopening on April 8th (next WED). Most employers bringing back workers this morning. Schools out since the middle of January (semester exams) still looking at late April or early May restarts, so essentially out 3 1/2 and likely closer to four months for kindergarten and primary/elementary. Still no public taxis. Limited bus routes. Happiest thing to look forward to tonight is first pizzas from Pizza Hut (I know, not close to the best pies!) since January...if she can succeed in bringing them back (open for business, but no carryout, just delivery) on the subway. Keep in mind, this is TOTAL lockdown/martial law, not social distancing. Also, not sure how we can trust the numbers coming out of Russia, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, either. The latter three have/had an agenda or ulterior motive to protect tourism dollars as long as possible. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/politics/coronavirus-deaths-cases-anthony-fauci-cnntv/index.html Don’t think the President is going to be too happy with Dr. Fauci throwing out any six figure mortality projections, even in a worst-case scenario. Maybe in a morbid sense, these two polar opposites of blissful ignorance and Dr. Doom are also contributing to the “ratings.” That and the facts that sports and new movies have been pretty much wiped out. One positive might be more people turning (back to) reading, including younger people? Or are they just doing more gaming?