Topic: The COVID-19 Virus is Coming For Us All Thread

[BlackNMild2k1]

Is it Friday?
Craig, is that you?

Imagine being fired from your job because you showed up to work while being paid to stay home....
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html
(Assuming Amazon's version of the story is true)
#socialdistancing šŸ˜‚šŸ¤£

[broodwars]

Is it Friday?
Craig, is that you?

Imagine being fired from your job because you showed up to work while being paid to stay home....
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html
(Assuming Amazon's version of the story is true)
#socialdistancing šŸ˜‚šŸ¤£

I'm not seeing the problem here. Assuming Amazon's version of the story is true, he came in contact with someone who tested positive for Coronavirus, and he ignored instructions to stay home so he could cause trouble at work and (unintentionally?) infect his fellow workers. Even if you don't take Amazon's version of the events as truthful, he was organizing a strike during a time when the Country as a whole cannot deal with this ****. I'd have fired him, too.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I'm not disagreeing with Amazon on this, I'm relating it to Craig (Ice Cube) in Friday, getting fired on his day off....

all this guy had to do was not go to work and keep getting full pay w/ benefits....
and he managed to **** that up by showing up to work anyways. LOL

[nickmitch]

Is it Friday?
Craig, is that you?

Imagine being fired from your job because you showed up to work while being paid to stay home....
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html
(Assuming Amazon's version of the story is true)
#socialdistancing šŸ˜‚šŸ¤£

I'm not seeing the problem here. Assuming Amazon's version of the story is true, he came in contact with someone who tested positive for Coronavirus, and he ignored instructions to stay home so he could cause trouble at work and (unintentionally?) infect his fellow workers. Even if you don't take Amazon's version of the events as truthful, he was organizing a strike during a time when the Country as a whole cannot deal with this ****. I'd have fired him, too.

Can't really fire employees for organizing.  There's usually some union laws to protect them from that kind of retaliatory action, at least in some states.

I didn't see it mentioned that the guy was denying what Amazon said.  If Amazon is telling the truth, the guy looks like a hypocrite.  He wants Amazon to do more for their workers, and the company was giving him full paid leave because he might've been exposed.

[stevey]

I don't really have any objective words to say at this point....
but due to lack of response for over 2 months, and even after the tepid response after the first wave hit,

Yeah, China's actions are downright evil regardin-

I guess only 100k-200k American deaths would be considered a victory according to the one who would pat himself on the back over how this has been handled so far.....

*facepalm* He was the first to try and ban travel from China in January at which the press screamed "xenophobia" and said "the flu was worse" that they then later attacked him for repeating. He also was the first to ban travel from Europe (which the press responded that quarantining was unscientific and doesn't work) before Europe restricted their own boarders a few days later. Meanwhile, Cuomo and DeBlasio resisted closing down NY till the last moment, Boris Johnson took forever to respond, Bolsonaro is still downplaying it, Turkey was in denial up until recently that there were any cases there, Sweden actively wants all its people dead, etc. He's doing no worse of a job than any major leader is currently doing. No major nation is getting an A grade for their handling of this except maybe for SK and Taiwan.

Stop making me defend a guy I don't even like. Chill out. There is only one man to blame for this pandemic and it's despot mass murder Xi Jinping. I hate how the media successfully distracted everyone away from China.

I guess only 100k-200k American deaths would be considered a victory

I don't have the most up to date numbers, but just last week we were at what, 86k infected?
Now we're projecting 100k-200k deaths!? and that's at what.... 5% death to infection rate!? holy **** are we in for a ride here....

Actually 100K deaths would be a tenth of the old best case scenario. We're looking at 1.2M deaths with lower end infection rate of 40% and maintaining a low death rate of 1%. At 70% infected and 3% death rate it would be 7M, 10M+ for a 5% death rate.

[broodwars]

For the record, according to Google the US had a population of 327.2 million people as of 2018.

If even 200,000 people die from Coronavirus, that's .06% of the population.

Given that the death rates we were getting out of China & Italy were over 3%, yes...if we ONLY had 200,000 deaths, that would be a victory by any measurable standard. We were seeing projections early on of over a million dead in the US. If we make it out of this with only 100,000 - 200,000 dead (or even less), that would be an amazing outcome, comparatively speaking.

[BlackNMild2k1]

For the record, I'm not forcing anybody to defend anyone, and no one has forgotten about China.
We know China tried to hide it, and then contain it, and then then failed at both.

The problem is we already knew about it since last year, it was down played from the top until it was already too late, wide spread, and it caught the US with its pants down due to that down-playing.

My focus is how the US responded when we had the heads up, but no one had the authority to act.
When all our defenses towards something like this have effectively been dismantled, defunded, and/or ignored over teh last few years. That goes towards the Pandemic Plan, the Subject Matter Experts, and the upgrading of the National Stockpile.

Of course hindsight is 20/20, but when the focus has purely been on pumping federal funds into giving roid shots to the stock market to prop the economy (and boost the bank accounts of the already filthy rich), and trimming on all the other things put in place for reasons that may not seem so apparent until they become a problem again once removed, the problems we are having right now never had to be as bad as they are right now.

If actual action was taken and not retroactively spoken into "existence" as if we didn't all witness this all take place in real time, we would have tons more PPE for "essential" workers, and respirators for anywhere that needed it. Obviously we wouldn't be able to save everyone, but we could've been much better prepared if certain people were more focused on doing the job they were elected for and not simply doing anything to retain power and continue bolstering the egos and net worth of their largest donors and silent power players, we'd all be in a better place today.

[broodwars]

Not to get political, but I'd like to remind you that Washington in general was obsessed with a certain spectacular waste of time and money in December and the 1st half of January. Perhaps if that wasnt going on, the government could have moved on all this sooner. No one, not the media, not the government, and certainly not The People had any interest in China's latest virus until February. The primary entity at fault there was China. They lied and have continued to lie about their infection & death counts to this day, making it near impossible for the countries they infected to form a strategy for dealing with this virus.

Of course, Trump (for his many, many, MANY faults) tried to stop this early on with a China travel ban, and I seem to distinctly remember the Democrats & the media calling him a racist for doing so. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's just the nature of the job, but isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

[that Baby guy]

From what I've been hearing at my job in public safety, the main reason we've had trouble getting supplies up until very recently is the production shutdown/slowdown in China when this began, followed by the high demand for these supplies worldwide. From what I can gather, we've been trying to get these supplies, but kind of like how I said NY ended up getting Florida's supplies last week, and how there are complaints Florida got other states' supplies, essentially the supplies we wanted were going to Europe. I think the biggest problem we've had is focusing so much of our manufacturing in China created this inability to get supplies. I suppose the president could have used/threatened the act he's used to make GM and others produce medical supplies earlier, but like stevey said, given the reaction to closing flights to China, it wouldn't have gone over well. Seizing the means of production is a much more serious act, as well.

I'm pretty much in agreement with stevey here. I haven't seen anyone suggest any idea that would have been viable for us that any US president could have acted on. If you've got a concrete idea that could have been taken to help, that would have been viable based on the information we knew midway through February, share it.

[Adrock]

Of course, Trump (for his many, many, MANY faults) tried to stop this early on with a China travel ban, and I seem to distinctly remember the Democrats & the media calling him a racist for doing so. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's just the nature of the job, but isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

The travel ban wasnā€™t coming from a place of altruism. It wasnā€™t for the sake of public safety. Dude has been calling COVID-19 ā€œthe China virusā€ which is hella racist.

Also, how would the travel ban even work as intended? Were they going to prevent United States citizens traveling abroad from reentering the country? Thereā€™s also the issue of potentially infected people from other countries traveling out of China to their country then to the United States. Removing politics and the media from this entirely, the travel ban strictly targeting China would have been ineffective. All it would have done in addition to referring to Coronavirus as ā€œthe China Virusā€ (which by the way, is grammatically incorrect) is embolden and enable racists to be more publicly racist to people of Asian descent. The government would have to ban ALL travel from every country for it to potentially work as a method of containment. And even then, thatā€™s assuming people who were infected didnā€™t already get into the country before the travel ban was enacted.

[BlackNMild2k1]

The U.S. had the intelligence and resources far beyond what we find out about publicly in the news.
They knew what was going on, and could've taken all sorts of preventative measures.

Not to take any blame whatsoever away from China, but had any attempt at any action against this been communicated by a coherent adult that can really communicate functionally, it might have been communicated to the full body of representatives and the public what and why any action that was taking place was taking place.

Our Government also has the ability to multi-task. Had the President actually stayed focused on his job, instead of spending literally more than half his time golfing, and ALL of his down time watching the news for talking points or reasons to attack people on twitter, or maybe actually listening to the briefings held each and every morning (and this is not excluding his time focusing on whether or not he is going to be impeached, as he chose not to participate in any way, so no reason to not go be productive elsewhere.... or at all on anything)

Had the senate not blocked practically any attempt to do anything forward thinking, helpful, and basically their jobs for the past 3+ years. and had the president not focused on dismantling basically anything the previous administration set in place or attempted to strengthen simply because of "who" the previous admin was.... who knows how we as a country could've been prepared or ready to react or even act once such a pandemic happened.

and yes, he also had the Presidential production act, and his advisors where pleading with him to use it since beginning of March (or earlier) because of everything up above has left us grossly unprepared for what was coming.

So you all can deflect blame solely to China for this problem being worldwide and widespread, and you wouldn't be wrong, because China is to blame for that. But you are still ignoring that none of this had to be as bad as it is right now had our actual representation spent time actually representing us and not focusing on cashing favors or paying back debts with policies that are questionable at best and borderline treason-ish at worse.

Even in the light of such an outcome, they are still focused on the economy and "re-election" instead of doing all they can to save the people that put them in the place they are to help us now.

It's only fitting for an admin that has been nothing but chaos, scandal, and incompetence from the get-go to likely end with probably the largest disaster in US history.

[Adrock]

So you all can deflect blame solely to China for this problem being worldwide and widespread, and you wouldn't be wrong, because China is to blame for that.

I respectfully disagree, mainly the ā€œsolelyā€ part. Globally, we were all grossly unprepared for a pandemic. No one took this seriously until March, and even then, once you go down the rabbit hole of just the United States, you may realize that something like suppressing minimum wage while ignoring inflation as the cost of living increased can have dramatic effects decades later.

It's only fitting for an admin that has been nothing but chaos, scandal, and incompetence from the get-go to likely end with probably the largest disaster in US history.

Iā€™m still definitively going with slavery as the largest disaster in United States history. I know you said ā€œprobablyā€ and Iā€™m just being pedantic.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well, if China had not tried to cover up the infection, and instead got WHO and other world leaders involved early on, we could have all helped mitigating the potential spread early on.

China literally tried to keep the lid on this boiling pot till it started spilling over the sides and whistling through the rattling lid. China is to blame for how this became so widespread worldwide (they literally let 100's of 1000's of people leave China and go to other countries after they knew how contagious this was, but said nothing hoping it would fade away). Had they at least prevented people from leaving until being tested... they could've saved countless lives around the world. The doctor that originally called it out and ultimately died from the virus was silenced. The public was informed too late (Gov Intelligence was already fully aware, just not pre-active)

with everything being all over the place, naturally the narrative changes to how your local gov reacted to it, and that was the focus of my various rants on the matter. But I think we all know who to blame for even giving this virus the opportunity to become the global incident it currently is.

[Adrock]

Thatā€™s fair. I misinterpreted what you meant. I thought you were saying China in general, not specifically its negligent and corrupt government.

[BlackNMild2k1]

It's only fitting for an admin that has been nothing but chaos, scandal, and incompetence from the get-go to likely end with probably the largest disaster in US history.

Iā€™m still definitively going with slavery as the largest disaster in United States history. I know you said ā€œprobablyā€ and Iā€™m just being pedantic.

and I agree with you on this. I was in a rush to leave when typing that out, but I should have said probably "one of" the worst disasters in U.S. History.

[broodwars]

Looks like my state of FL will be going on a 30 Day lockdown starting tomorrow. My office has been put on a list of government-sanctioned essential services, so it's pretty much business as usual for me.

[that Baby guy]

I took a look at what was listed in the executive order. The previous executive orders from prior weeks placed us in almost the same condition, anyway. Restaurant dining rooms were already closed, as wer bars and clubs. This order gives a lax definition of essential, basically saying business is essential, and orders people not out for essential reasons, which include business, food, and necessities, they should be at home.

I'm not a lawyer, though. I just read the order and didn't see how all that much would change. Recreational activities are still allowed, as long as proper social distancing is observed. Church and religious services are still allowed.

I haven't seen anyone out and about here since restaurants dining rooms closed a week and a half ago. I don't know what the beach situation is beyond what's been in the news, but I know our county closed all parks about the same time as the restaurants went carry out only.

I know a lot of people outside of Florida were upset no statewide order had been issued, but I just don't really know what the difference will be. I suppose we'll see starting tomorrow. I'll still be at work, I know that.

I've been watching our numbers in state since the emergency management started fielding daily calls with all the county emergency management directors. We're up to almost 7000 cases now. Between the end of the last week and now, we've had about 700-800 new cases a day.

On 3/25, 502 cases confirmed. 3/26 saw 543. 3/27 had 673. 3/28 had 731. Our biggest increase was 3/29, which saw 898, and 3/29, there were slightly fewer, 873.

For comparison, each one of those days had over 6000 people tested. On the 25th, 29th, and 30th, well over 7000 people were tested each day. The report I'm looking at doesn't have yesterday's numbers, but https://fdoh.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/8d0de33f260d444c852a615dc7837c86 is an interactive map that shows a chart graphing daily numbers. I'm on a phone, so I don't feel like making that a proper link. What I'm seeing is a slowdown in the growth of new cases, which I'm hoping means our methods have been effective, and pretty soon we get a reduction in cases. At the same time, at the state level, they've said a lot more collection kits are becoming available, so we may see an increase in positives combined with a much larger increase in ratio of negative test results to positive tests.

Or, this could be like Italy, in which case we see a small lull, and things rocket back up. Time will tell.

The one thing I'm sure of is that it's shocking how many people who meet pretty tough test criteria are coming back negative. The days I posted above saw 4220 new cases. The state had 42,109 tests completed over this period. Roughly 1/10 people who meet the criteria actually had the virus if testing is accurate. The testing criteria for Florida can be found in this pdf: http://flhealthsource.gov/pdf/03282020-clinical-guidance-chart.pdf

I think we're seeing virtually all of priority 1 & 2 of that list being tested. I don't know about those in priority 3. Up until March 28th, the requirements were slightly more strict.

[BeautifulShy]

I took a look at what was listed in the executive order. The previous executive orders from prior weeks placed us in almost the same condition, anyway. Restaurant dining rooms were already closed, as wer bars and clubs. This order gives a lax definition of essential, basically saying business is essential, and orders people not out for essential reasons, which include business, food, and necessities, they should be at home.

I'm not a lawyer, though. I just read the order and didn't see how all that much would change. Recreational activities are still allowed, as long as proper social distancing is observed. Church and religious services are still allowed.

I haven't seen anyone out and about here since restaurants dining rooms closed a week and a half ago. I don't know what the beach situation is beyond what's been in the news, but I know our county closed all parks about the same time as the restaurants went carry out only.

So it is pretty much the same as it is here in AZ so not any real change from before. 

In other personal news I had to pay my phone bill and go to the bank and it is very eerie seeing limited people on the bus and no one inside restaurants.    It doesn't seem real ya know but it is.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Looks like my state of FL will be going on a 30 Day lockdown starting tomorrow. My office has been put on a list of government-sanctioned essential services, so it's pretty much business as usual for me.

Better late than never... thankfully Spring Break had to end at some point. (I know some of these businesses survive because of the boost of income in certain seasons....)
Hopefully this doesn't lead to many other states now getting an increase in infection and subsequent deaths that may have been avoided if not for Spring Breakers Spring Breaking.

edit:
another minor celeb death
https://variety.com/2020/music/news/adam-schlesinger-coronavirus-dead-dies-1203552130/


edit 2:
according to this video, the global death rate is just barely under 5%
we are so behind on testing, there are people that have passed during this epidemic that were only suspected but never confirmed of having the virus, and I can only assume that would not be counted into the totals.
(also the blatant lies on camera, as if we couldn't literally just pull up video contradicting the lies and show it to them while their lying about it....)

What I wouldn't give to watch a live press conference where they are called out in real time with a large screen monitor playing back themselves saying, acknowledging and/or doing exactly what they just tried to tell us they never said, never did or didn't know anything about.

[BlackNMild2k1]

#truth #facts - When Fox News accidentally lets the truth slip out. LOL
https://twitter.com/i/status/1245529084534366208

[Spak-Spang]

Hey Thanks BnM.  Good to hear my adopted home is doing better than my real home...actually no it is still depressing.  But seriously, South Korea has been crazy good on this this.

1) They decided to go with the first test made available even before it was fully tested a German test...then when better tests arrived and they developed their own tests then they changed and retested those that did the first test.

2) Every sort of test available.  Drive-thru, Walk-Thru, Testing sites away from hospitals. 

3) Daily reports.  When a new case in your area pops up, you get a text message, telling where that case lives, and a list a places they were for the last week so you can know if you were in the same locations as them.  Then if you were in the same locations you can get tested for free. 

4) A promise from the government to take care of you if you are sick and quarantined this includes foreigners and Koreans.

5) Strict rules now are in place.  If you do not self quarantine when you arrive in the country you can be put in jail or deported.

6) South Korea is taking a very aggressive hands on approach...and it is working, and guess what.  Things are not closed.  People are going out to eat and shop.  People are living normal lives and working. But everyone washes their hands and wears face masks, clothes ones are good enough.  Plus, nobody is panicking and buying all the toilet paper here.

[stevey]

#truth #facts - When Fox News accidentally lets the truth slip out. LOL
https://twitter.com/i/status/1245529084534366208

But that's classic deception by cherry picking information.

"We should have been working on it (covid test) for months. We knew about this from the WHO when, Dec 21 2019 ... we knew coronavirus was coming, we knew it was person from person"

Nobody on Dec 21, 2019 could have confidently foreseen that SARS-COV-2 would blow up like it did over it being a localized problem like the original SARS-CoV was back in 2003 (which the Chinese also lied about too). The WHO also said "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China" on January 14 and were constantly sending out mixed signals making the situation worse. It wasn't until mid to late February that most people realized this was probably going to get really bad.

US and SK had their first case on the same day.... Look at the cases they have. Look at their mortality. It because they have a very strong response and we had a very weak response.

And Italy and Spain had their first cases even later. "Look at the cases they have. Look at their mortality. America is amazing!" /sarcasm What SK is doing is good (following up on every case, cellphone tracking to find where they've been, testing and isolating those that could have been exposed) but it can't realistic be done when it spreads too far. A fairer comparison would be the response after the number of cases start growing exponentially.

I'm all for criticism when you see him not responding as well as he could be. And there's been plenty of that already which has resulted in him correcting course many times. But a lot of this stuff lately is just opponents looking to attack him and wanting to attack him with this so they're smearing him with a distorted account of the past. These political games need to stop, there's no place for it in a time of crisis.

[BlackNMild2k1]

@Spak-Spang

That sounds great, wish we had a unified and dignified national response here in the US. Full efforts in some areas are compromised by the half efforts in other areas and no effort in the rest.

I had a nurse come into my work 2+ weeks ago (I think she was temp banned) denying that this pandemic was even a serious thing as she is out in public coughing, sneezing, and wiping her hands on everything (refusing tissue or even sanitizer).
"The chain is only as strong as it's weakest link"

And we have so many weak links in our local, regional and especially national response. It's quite frustrating to watch.

The half measures being taken now, with the half hearted and back handed help from the government to accommodate us just sad and embarrassing.

Forget what happened leading up to now, let's look at what is happening in response to everything so far RIGHT NOW.

If we are going to force a work/business shutdown, and stay at home measures allowing only essential workers to report to work and only essential shopping to be conducted, then take care of the people so they don't feel the need to circumvent the system and compromise every effort made to get back to normalcy as quickly as possible. People are panicked, and the delay of and subpar response so far is inexcusable on all levels and both sides of the aisle.


Edit:
And I almost forgot....
This week's unemployment set a new record 6.6M, doubling last week's new record 3.3M, for a total of 10M new people filed in the last 2 weeks.

PSA:
And if you are counting on a $1200 COVID relief check, please make sure the IRS has your direct deposit info.
Otherwise, it could 3-5 weeks till you get a paper check.
Please help your family and friends that may not be technologically inclined to get setup so they can get their money in a timely fashion.

[nickmitch]

The issue with this pandemic is how rapidly it evolved.  China's downplaying of the initial outbreak certainly didn't help, as the World Health Organization relied on Chinese officials to assess the the situation.  That being said, once the seriousness of the virus was revealed, the situation escalated by the day, and there was a very narrow window in which to react.

I agree that the US President gets a lot of criticism when only a little bit of criticism is warranted (see: covfefe, gorilla channel, any time his tweet has a typo).  That being said, the US government has had a slow reaction, his tone when the global rhetoric around the virus began to get serious was dismissive, and the government was ill prepared when the tide turned.  Additionally, there is plenty more that he could be doing, and more that he could've done.  I get your point, Stevey, that not every dunk on him is fully warranted.

US and SK had their first case on the same day.... Look at the cases they have. Look at their mortality. It because they have a very strong response and we had a very weak response.

And Italy and Spain had their first cases even later. "Look at the cases they have. Look at their mortality. America is amazing!" /sarcasm What SK is doing is good (following up on every case, cellphone tracking to find where they've been, testing and isolating those that could have been exposed) but it can't realistic be done when it spreads too far. A fairer comparison would be the response after the number of cases start growing exponentially.

I disagree with your last point.  It's a virus.  The cases are going to grow exponentially.  But you can't even tell either way if there's nothing in place to do widespread testing.

[BlackNMild2k1]

General public haven't really been paying attention, but the Gov knew much more than we did, need was reporting about it...

Here is USA Today the day Kobe died.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/01/26/kobe-bryant-dies-coronavirus-trump-grammys-weekends-biggest-news/4581124002


and I've just got to amplify this.... this is the kind of :jackiechanwut: that had led us on the back slide we are currently on right now.... smfh
https://twitter.com/i/status/1245852517474295809

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean.

"The federal stockpile is our stock pile.... not the states stock pile." - Jared Kushner

WhoTF does the Federal Represent? Who do you think funded said stockpile in the first place?
you do not get to hand out the stockpile only to those you reward for kissing the ring.
you also do not put unqualified people in charge of things they not only don't have the experience for, but the knowledge to deal with either. it's all just so GD embarrassing.