Coronavirus Hype

[RiverDog]

I posted this link earlier in the thread. I'd like you to take a look at the graphs that compare the different countries that have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus. Pay particular attention to the 2nd graph, the growth rate in deaths rate of each country once deaths reach 100:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... untry.html

We are the only country that has seen their death rate increase after deaths reached 100. Italy, Spain, France, the UK, even Iran didn't see the delay in response that we've experienced despite the fact that we had more advanced warning than any of the others, inexcusable for a country like ours with the resources we have.

[c_hawkbob]

Yeah It's a good thing Trump fired the Pandemic Response Team a couple years ago.

And refused to use the COVID-19 diagnostic tests already being produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in favor of starting from scratch on our own ... That worked out great huh?

[RiverDog]

I could excuse him from some degree of blame based on the fact that hindsight is 20/20 if he were to admit that we made some mistakes and vow to learn from them. But he still doesn't get it, advocating "full churches" on Easter, saying that there is "no way" he was going to cancel the Republican convention, vowing to restart the economy, etc.

Being the narcissist that he his, Trump lacks the ability to be self critical and learn from his mistakes. A few days ago, I saw a reporter asked him to rate his response on a scale of 1 to 10, and true to form, he gave himself a 10.

[Aseahawkfan]

I posted this link earlier in the thread. I'd like you to take a look at the graphs that compare the different countries that have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus. Pay particular attention to the 2nd graph, the growth rate in deaths rate of each country once deaths reach 100:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... untry.html

We are the only country that has seen their death rate increase after deaths reached 100. Italy, Spain, France, the UK, even Iran didn't see the delay in response that we've experienced despite the fact that we had more advanced warning than any of the others, inexcusable for a country like ours with the resources we have.

I can't see it and I'm not signing up for the New York Times. I have no interest in another membership.

I'm not sure how other nations calculate the death rate. We're a much bigger nation and New York I think we all knew was getting slaughtered. Or if the chart you posted is even a relevant statistic.

And as you continue to blame Trump, then tell me why Cuomo didn't better prepare for this? He runs New York. If you don't know your canned sardine state is in trouble, not sure why you should be running it. If we want to start tossing blame, we can toss it everywhere as far as preparation around the world. I see the usual suspects are focusing on Trump when none of the governors or leaders in America were sounding the alarm loud enough. Not in Congress, not in the states, and not at the top. So this is usual cherry picking by the peanut gallery. I didn't even see people on here freaking out at first.

Even the head of the WHO was rather lax in the beginning.

So you can do your usual Trump blaming, while the evidence is clear the entire world was unprepared for this including the leaders of many nations. So you can keep the pretense up if it further confirms your anti-Trump bias. It isn't true. And it's BS.

[Aseahawkfan]

I could excuse him from some degree of blame based on the fact that hindsight is 20/20 if he were to admit that we made some mistakes and vow to learn from them. But he still doesn't get it, advocating "full churches" on Easter, saying that there is "no way" he was going to cancel the Republican convention, vowing to restart the economy, etc.

Being the narcissist that he his, Trump lacks the ability to be self critical and learn from his mistakes. A few days ago, I saw a reporter asked him to rate his response on a scale of 1 to 10, and true to form, he gave himself a 10.

I saw that interview. What a dumb question and a dumb answer. If I were president asked me that question, I'd probably tell them don't ever ask me that again or I will ask for another reporter from your organization. Your questions need to be quality questions asking for quality information.

And yeah, he's going to realize real quick that Easter Date isn't happening. New York is blowing up. Other states starting to blow up. We're early in this curve. If Italy doesn't get over the hump soon, we're likely in for a bad time.

[RiverDog]

I can't see it and I'm not signing up for the New York Times. I have no interest in another membership.

I'm not sure how other nations calculate the death rate. We're a much bigger nation and New York I think we all knew was getting slaughtered. Or if the chart you posted is even a relevant statistic.

It tracks deaths, which is more accurate than reported cases as it's not dependent on sampling. It's not completely accurate as it doesn't take into account pre-existing conditions or quality of care, but it is as good of a number as we'll find in trying to track the spread.

Basically they started their graph after a country reached 100 deaths attributed to COVID-19, with percent of increase on the vertical axis, the date on the horizontal axis. Every one of the countries that have had over 100 deaths...Italy, China, France, Germany, Iran, et al, show their percent of increase on a significant decline except for the US.

And as you continue to blame Trump, then tell me why Cuomo didn't better prepare for this? He runs New York. If you don't know your canned sardine state is in trouble, not sure why you should be running it. If we want to start tossing blame, we can toss it everywhere as far as preparation around the world. I see the usual suspects are focusing on Trump when none of the governors or leaders in America were sounding the alarm loud enough. Not in Congress, not in the states, and not at the top. So this is usual cherry picking by the peanut gallery. I didn't even see people on here freaking out at first.

Sure, Cuomo has some accountability as there's things that state and city governments could have done, but it's not anywhere near the same degree that rests with Trump. First of all, Cuomo wasn't privy to intelligence briefings like Trump was, and secondly, the federal government has far more resources to deploy in the event of a national emergency than does any state, even a large state like NY. When a hurricane or flood strikes, you don't hear about state governments taking action, you hear about FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, NOAA, etc. About the only agencies that a state can call upon is the National Guard, their DOT's, state and local police.

So you can do your usual Trump blaming, while the evidence is clear the entire world was unprepared for this including the leaders of many nations. So you can keep the pretense up if it further confirms your anti-Trump bias. It isn't true. And it's BS.

Now you know better than that. There have been a number occasions where I've defended Trump. This is RiverDog you're talking to, not Hawktalk.

[Aseahawkfan]

It tracks deaths, which is more accurate than reported cases as it's not dependent on sampling. It's not completely accurate as it doesn't take into account pre-existing conditions or quality of care, but it is as good of a number as we'll find in trying to track the spread.

Basically they started their graph after a country reached 100 deaths attributed to COVID-19, with percent of increase on the vertical axis, the date on the horizontal axis. Every one of the countries that have had over 100 deaths...Italy, China, France, Germany, Iran, et al, show their percent of increase on a significant decline except for the US.

What is the point of the number? Are they making some kind of argument with it? Is it more fear-mongering with cherry picked numbers? What kind of argument was the article making?

Sure, Cuomo has some accountability as there's things that state and city governments could have done, but it's not anywhere near the same degree that rests with Trump. First of all, Cuomo wasn't privy to intelligence briefings like Trump was, and secondly, the federal government has far more resources to deploy in the event of a national emergency than does any state, even a large state like NY. When a hurricane or flood strikes, you don't hear about state governments taking action, you hear about FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, NOAA, etc. About the only agencies that a state can call upon is the National Guard, their DOT's, state and local police.

We have no idea what those intelligence briefings stated. It did not seem like anyone around the world was taking it seriously. I find blaming Trump disingenuous and false. The entire world was unprepared for this as near as I can tell. China was not very forthcoming with their information. Even now I think they under-reported the problem to make themselves look good which may well have caused the rest of the world to under prepare. That argument can be made too. Then what? We spend time blaming China for something they can't control either?

Blame game is a useless thing, though I do believe the Chinese government needs to be called out by many world governments if it is found they under-reported to the true level of the incident.

Now you know better than that. There have been a number occasions where I've defended Trump. This is RiverDog you're talking to, not Hawktalk.

You're not as rabid as Hawktawk, but you don't like him and like to take your shots when you can.

Sorry, the only point I'll maybe join you and the others in criticizing Trump besides his dumb talk if is he tries to push that April 15th date which we are not going to make. May 1st or June is my earliest date of return and we might not make that if this continues to blow up as it is in Italy.

This is appearing more and more as though China was an extremely bad neighbor that severely under-reported this virus's effect.

[RiverDog]

What is the point of the number? Are they making some kind of argument with it? It is more fear-mongering with cherry picked numbers?

They are not making any point, they are simply showing a graphic comparing countries that have reported 100 or more deaths, and they are using percent increase of deaths by day. In other words, if you have 100 deaths on Monday and Tuesday 10 more people died, your rate of increase would be 10%. Italy's rate of increase when they hit 100 deaths was about 37% on about March 2nd, peaked at 40% on about March 6th and has been on a steady decline since, only increasing at a rate of about 15% today. France and the UK showed very steep declines after they hit 100. Spain initially showed an increase but the last few weeks have been on a decline. There is a difference in that we are more populated than those countries so theoretically we'd hit our 100 earlier, but as I said, we had more lead time to prepare. It would be interesting to see it pro rated to take into account the size of the country, but the plots are so dramatic that I doubt that you'd see a huge adjustment in the rates.

We have no idea what those intelligence briefings stated. It did not seem like anyone around the world was taking it seriously. I find blaming Trump disingenuous and false. The entire world was unprepared for this as near as I can tell. China was not very forthcoming with their information. Even now I think they under-reported the problem to make themselves look good which may well have caused the rest of the world to under prepare. That argument can be made too. Then what? We spend time blaming China for something they can't control either?

There are reports that Trump began receiving briefings in January and by the end of that month, nearly every briefing had a warning that it was going to hit us hard. You can choose to discount it if you like, but it sure fits with previous complaints about Trump not even bothering to read his daily intelligence briefings and his constant feuding with the intelligence community. Add that to the fact that he's been downplaying this event even in the face of irrefutable evidence, constantly misrepresenting facts that have to be corrected or amended, ect, and pretty soon, a picture begins to take shape.

Sorry, the only point I'll maybe join you and the others in criticizing Trump besides his dumb talk if is he tries to push that April 15th date which we are not going to make. May 1st or June is my earliest date of return and we might not make that if this continues to blow up as it is in Italy.

The April 15th date isn't the only dumb thing Trump has come up with. They now have this half baked proposal to break down the outbreak by county rather than state and allow businesses in "low risk" counties to restart. There are many areas that have natural lag times, for example, eastern Washington is going to be behind western Washington simply because it takes a number of weeks for enough people to commute across the mountains from the Seattle area and spread the virus. I've seen a number of medical professionals going ballistic over this proposal. Even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has come out and said not to get preoccupied with the economy, that the priority is getting the country back on its feet first.

Trump's motivation is that he wants the economy back up and running because it will help his chances of re-election, not because it's good for the country. You cannot trust him not to put his interests above the country's.

April is going to be a horrendous month. Michigan's deaths are doubling every two days, same rate as we've been seeing in New York. Same with Louisiana and New Jersey. Georgia's death total is doubling every 3 days, as is California. Washington state is actually in pretty good relative shape, doubling every 9 days.

This is appearing more and more as though China was an extremely bad neighbor that severely under-reported this virus's effect.

Yup. But there's going to be a lot of blame to spread around. The fact that you can't get around is that we had the advantage of seeing what was happening in countries in the other hemisphere.

[Aseahawkfan]

They are not making any point, they are simply showing a graphic comparing countries that have reported 100 or more deaths, and they are using percent increase of deaths by day. In other words, if you have 100 deaths on Monday and Tuesday 10 more people died, your rate of increase would be 10%. Italy's rate of increase when they hit 100 deaths was about 37% on about March 2nd, peaked at 40% on about March 6th and has been on a steady decline since, only increasing at a rate of about 15% today. France and the UK showed very steep declines after they hit 100. Spain initially showed an increase but the last few weeks have been on a decline. There is a difference in that we are more populated than those countries so theoretically we'd hit our 100 earlier, but as I said, we had more lead time to prepare. It would be interesting to see it pro rated to take into account the size of the country, but the plots are so dramatic that I doubt that you'd see a huge adjustment in the rates.

I see. That should slow as the numbers get larger same as in Italy.

There are reports that Trump began receiving briefings in January and by the end of that month, nearly every briefing had a warning that it was going to hit us hard. You can choose to discount it if you like, but it sure fits with previous complaints about Trump not even bothering to read his daily intelligence briefings and his constant feuding with the intelligence community. Add that to the fact that he's been downplaying this event even in the face of irrefutable evidence, constant misrepresenting facts that have to be corrected or amended, ect, and a picture begins to take shape.

You believe those unconfirmed reports, not me. I'm slightly supportive of Trump resisting the urgings of his intelligence staff. Intelligence and military staff are very agenda driven. The people Trump had around him are very hawkish and pro-war. I'm glad he is not very hawkish or pro-war. So I am glad he resisted their call outs for a more restrained policy. Imagine how much more terrible this would be if this hit and we were in the middle of a war like Bolton and Mattis wanted.

I never believed any of these intelligence reports that Russia was influencing our elections in any substantial way. Sorry, bunch of horsecrap to create a new boogeyman to fuel the police state, spending, and justify the various intelligence services. No idea why we like to make fun of government organizations that manufacture problems to boost their budgets and don't think the military and intelligence agencies do the same thing given without a bunch of boogey men we don't need them as big and well funded as they are. Russia is small potatoes and not much of a threat to us or our elections. Total rubbish.

If Trump ignored the warnings about how hard we would be hit, seems so did most of the world seeing what is happening. So not seeing how you can fault him for something most of the world did. I still believe the primary reasons this occurred worldwide is because China under-reported and is still under-reporting the case and death tally to protect their economic and trade position.

The April 15th date isn't the only dumb thing Trump has come up with. They now have this half baked proposal to break down the outbreak by county rather than state and allow businesses in "low risk" counties to restart. There are many areas that have natural lag times, for example, eastern Washington is going to be behind western Washington simply because it takes a number of weeks for enough people to commute across the mountains from the Seattle area and spread the virus. I've seen a number of medical professionals going ballistic over this proposal. Even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has come out and said not to get preoccupied with the economy, that the priority is getting the country back on its feet first.

Trump's motivation is that he wants the economy back up and running because it will help his chances of re-election, not because it's good for the country. You cannot trust him not to put his interests above the country's.

April is going to be a horrendous month. Michigan's deaths are doubling every two days, same rate as we've been seeing in New York. Same with Louisiana and New Jersey. Georgia's death total is doubling every 3 days, as is California. Washington state is actually in pretty good relative shape, doubling every 9 days.

We aren't going to make April 12th. We'll be lucky to make May 1st.

At the end of this all, I think people will need to reassess their tolerance for Chinese lying. Not just America,but the entire world. If China lied about the virus, they need to be isolated and hammered until they capitulate around the world. No more lying and keeping information controlled in situations like this. I cannot at all imagine they were telling the truth.

Suffice it to say if we find China lied about this, that is where the blame needs to truly fall hard, real hard. They need to feel it for real this time and change or suffer the consequences of such dangerous dishonesty.

[RiverDog]

You believe those unconfirmed reports, not me. I'm slightly supportive of Trump resisting the urgings of his intelligence staff. Intelligence and military staff are very agenda driven. The people Trump had around him are very hawkish and pro-war. I'm glad he is not very hawkish or pro-war. So I am glad he resisted their call outs for a much softer, more restrained policy.

What I am saying is that based on what we know of both Trump's managerial habits and the statements that he's made since January that the reports of his ignoring or discounting intelligence given to him makes perfect sense. We'll find out for sure in a year or so after Congress investigates...and they will investigate no matter which party is in the majority, just like they did after the Kennedy assassination, like they did after 9/11, after Katrina, after the Challenger accident, and so on. This could tar and feather him more than his impeachment trial.

If Trump ignored the warnings about how hard we would be hit, seems so did most of the world. So not seeing how you can fault him for something most of the world did. I still believe the primary reasons this occurred worldwide is because China under-reported and is still under-reporting the case and death tally to protect their economic and trade position.

The rest of the world didn't have the advantage of seeing how the disease was impacting other countries. There were red flags out there that they couldn't see but that we could.

As far as China goes, I'm with you. I don't believe a thing they say. But that doesn't excuse our response to the virus.

We aren't going to make April 12th. We'll be lucky to make May 1st.

.

Agreed. I have a vacation to Iceland planned for June 8th-20th. I'm hoping it will be safe to travel by then but I'm prepared to postpone it.

At the end of this all, I think people will need to reassess their tolerance for Chinese lying. Not just America,but the entire world. If China lied about the virus, they need to be isolated and hammered until they capitulate around the world. No more lying and keeping information controlled in situations like this. I cannot at all imagine they were telling the truth.

Hopefully there'll be some good to come from this where we all cooperate when it comes to fighting a truly common enemy like this. It's going to be difficult to penetrate closed societies like China and Russia, but they have to realize that it's in everybody's best interest to cooperate, perhaps an enhanced World Health Organization.

[Aseahawkfan]

What I am saying is that based on what we know of both Trump's managerial habits and the statements that he's made since January that the reports of his ignoring or discounting intelligence given to him makes perfect sense. We'll find out for sure in a year or so after Congress investigates...and they will investigate no matter which party is in the majority, just like they did after the Kennedy assassination, like they did after 9/11, after Katrina, after the Challenger accident, and so on. This could tar and feather him more than his impeachment trial.

Only for political pulp. The real scientists won't look to politicize this, just understand it and how to do better.

The rest of the world didn't have the advantage of seeing how the disease was impacting other countries. We did.

Total lie. Not sure why you are pushing a lie. We were already heavily infected. Just because our numbers weren't being listed , make no mistake that we already had the infection spreading here. We have heavy contact with China, heavy. I work at a company with heavy contact with China on a continuous basis. We were infected long before Italy blew up. So stop trying to pretend that we had advance notice. No one had advance notice. This thing is spreading around the world because it was there spreading long before any nation started testing including China.

January 21st first positive COVID case United States.

January 31st first positive COVID case Italy.

Don't pull a Trump on this one. Don't try to spread a lie that is provably false. We did not have time to prepare. We were already in the middle of this when governments around the world got started. We had no real advance notice, just people that don't seem to realize we didn't just suddenly blow up with COVID, it was already occuring. It's March 27th right now. And people been on ventilators for weeks that are dying now, dating back to January and February.

If you want to help spread lies to attack Trump, have at it. I"m not falling for crap.

As far as China goes, I'm with you. I don't believe a thing they say. But that doesn't excuse our response to the virus.

There is nothing to excuse. You're looking to blame like anyone against Trump. And I'm already hearing the pro-Trump crowd casting blame the other way. And both of those sides are lying like usual. I want no part of it. Pandemics like this cannot be predicted. We didn't have advanced notice. This thing was spreading and growing before everyone started freaking out. And any one that wants to make it seem like America had advance notice is lying. We already had severe cases of COVID in ICUs around America. They just started counting later, which gives this false illusion that somehow the pandemic just started.

Agreed. I have a vacation to Iceland planned for June 8th-20th. I'm hoping it will be safe to travel by then but I'm prepared to postpone it.

Get your money back when you can.

Hopefully there'll be some good to come from this where we all cooperate when it comes to fighting a truly common enemy like this. It's going to be difficult to penetrate closed societies like China and Russia, but they have to realize that it's in everybody's best interest to cooperate.

China's control of information like this is a detriment to world safety and can no longer be tolerated. If they can't understand that, they should be isolated.

[Aseahawkfan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1zsE9_85i4

And when you take a break from believing Trump somehow messed up, watch this channel. This guy is knocking it out of the park providing information. Politic free near as I can tell. Pure solid information.

[Aseahawkfan]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/abbott-labs-receives-fda-approval-for-rapid-covid-19-test-2020-03-27

Rapid test approved and getting shipped. Hopefully this works.

[RiverDog]

Don't pull a Trump on this one. Don't try to spread a lie that is provably false. We did not have time to prepare. We were already in the middle of this when governments around the world got started. We had no real advance notice, just people that don't seem to realize we didn't just suddenly blow up with COVID, it was already occuring. It's March 27th right now. And people been on ventilators for weeks that are dying now, dating back to January and February.

If you want to help spread lies to attack Trump, have at it. I"m not falling for crap.

We'll see once they do the post mortem and conduct a full scale investigation of this crisis, but at this point, you don't have anymore of a corner on the truth than I do.

Agreed. I have a vacation to Iceland planned for June 8th-20th. I'm hoping it will be safe to travel by then but I'm prepared to postpone it.

Get your money back when you can.

No, we'll re-schedule our trip. The air fare is non refundable but we can change our itinerary and the tour company has indicated that they'll be very flexible with us. The tour is in a small group, Iceland is a very sparsely populated country, so the biggest risk would be the airline flight. Hopefully they'll have some protocols in place by then.

China's control of information like this is a detriment to world safety and can no longer be tolerated. If they can't understand that, they should be isolated.

I agree, but your solution is impractical. Even if we got every country in the world to cooperate, we couldn't isolate them. The only way to fix this is to reason with them and convince them that they are doing themselves a disservice by their refusal to share or manipulate information.

[RiverDog]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/abbott-labs-receives-fda-approval-for-rapid-covid-19-test-2020-03-27

Rapid test approved and getting shipped. Hopefully this works.

Great news! Thanks for sharing it.

But it's only half the battle. Testing will help monitor and control the spread of the virus but until they come up with a vaccine and/or effective treatment, we won't be able to declare victory.

Chatting with a friend of mine from my former employer last night, our Pasco facility just had an employee test positive for COVID-19, so they did a rapid shutdown and 'insane' clean-up and the facility is shut down until further notice. They have around 600 FTE's at that location.

[RiverDog]

Here's a good graphic showing total deaths, death rate, and resource utilization for both the US and each state. If this is accurate, the curve doesn't start to flatten out until June and July:

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

It predicts that by August 1st, we'll have over 80,000 deaths in the United States.

[Hawktawk]

I've researched numerous articles, not linking but providing bullets. Italy lost over 900 people yesterday as did spain despite being in total lockdown nationwide for weeks . 50 italian doctors have now died. A new case is admitted to the hospital every 17 MINUTES in NY.First responders and police are getting infected. New Orleans has the most rapid rate of infection spread on the planet after the fed and local govts decided Mardi Gras was a good idea with deaths climbing including a 17 year old. Same for Gov Ron Desantis in Florida allowing spring breakers to crash the beach so his hotelier buddies could have a last payday. They have now experienced their first death and are anticipated to rocket into the next national hotspot.The virus itself is extremely persistent, having been detected in staterooms aboard a cruise ship SEVENTEEN DAYS after it disembarked. The virus can hang in the air for at least 3 hours meaning the people walking around in walmart might walk through a cloud of coronavirus someone sneezed out hours before.I have a hard time believing anyone who is going to those stores hasn't come in contact with this.

I see where americans are giving Trump above water marks on his handling of this which is baffling, as asea says Fox is the most watched *news* channel. His overall approval rating is inching up too, nearing 47% in the 538 average. Its worth noting that citizens generally rally around presidents in times of national crisis. By comparison in the days after 911 GW was around 90% and he got a near unanimous vote to attack Iraq months later.Its the height of irony that Trump criticized GW for 911, saying he "didn't keep the country safe" because we got attacked. We had far more specific information about this virus than the shadowy snippets of intelligence that were missed then. We knew what this could do but our president and many in the congress soft pedaled it not wanting to spook the markets or the consumers strapped with debt who carry this economy.With the president being flat out misleading and dishonest to the american people.I fear our overall response has been so slow in coming we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

But as I've said its really not a time for politics. Its time for politicians to do their job for once. Frankly i fear it's too late and we will see a calamity unlike anything since 1918. If Trump gets this stopped in a month, a vaccine is developed or some other wonder cure he will get reelected and I can live with that. I'm afraid the reality is going to be horrible suffering for lots of people and especially health care providers and it will be a horrible legacy for Trump and all the others who were asleep at the switch.

[RiverDog]

Hey, Hawktalk! Nice to see you with your weekly cup of coffee. Stick around for awhile.

That was an excellent post. I had sort of forgotten about Italy and was only looking at their increase in deaths. The good news for them is that their number of new cases has been going down for the past several days while the numbers that have fully recovered has gone up. Their deaths, although still ghastly, is starting to flatten out as the increase from one day to the next is more modest. Since it takes a matter of weeks or months for an infected person to get sick and die, the number of deaths is a lagging indicator. Maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel for them.

I'm not sure how much grief we can give New Orleans for holding their Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday was on Feb. 25th just before the alarm bells were sounded. But for sure Florida officials a few weeks later should have closed their beaches rather than allowing ignorant and/or selfish Millennials to congregate there as that came after the NCAA had canceled March Madness and the NBA had suspended their season.

I'm not sure how valid it is for us to compare the public's response, ie rallying around the POTUS, to this event with that of an act of war like 9/11. The latter is a cold slap in the face that happened with no warning and was over with in a matter of hours while the coronavirus has been a slow realization that a threat existed.

[RiverDog]

Another point: I see where Gov. Cuomo has delayed the NY presidential primary election until sometime in June. Bernie Sanders, in the interest of the health of his campaign workers and supporters, needs to concede NOW and put an end to his charade of a campaign that has zero chance of winning. The remaining primaries should be cancelled and their convention moved back into August.

[Hawktawk]

Another point: I see where Gov. Cuomo has delayed the NY presidential primary election until sometime in June. Bernie Sanders, in the interest of the health of his campaign workers and supporters, needs to concede NOW and put an end to his charade of a campaign that has zero chance of winning. The remaining primaries should be cancelled and their convention moved back into August.

I agree about Sanders. Get out. Why debate and needlessly damage the almost certain nominee? Right now the same polls that give trump his highest marks and a 52% approval show Biden waxing Trump by near 10 points and gaining ground in the swing states as well, up 8.Again even at times americans have approved of something Trump has done there's still no groundswell to give him another 4 years.

Unless trump's predictions are correct about opening it up safely very soon I dont see this helping him at all. Hes said so many stupid things about this, made so many false claims it will be a wall to wall campaign issue if it doesn't go well.A pro Biden Pac is running ads already detailing Trump's statements and missteps on this. Trump has filed a cease and desist order that has been ignored.

As I've said the topic isn't really politics but it is. Ultimately this crisis will define Trumps legacy. If it goes well he's a hero and Biden is totally irrelevant. If it goes to hell and its close now Biden will look like a white knight.

Steve Mnunchin is brilliant but i dont know if he can truly hold up this financial house of cards. If our medical system gets overwhelmed, particularly if they run out of respirators it will be a ghastly few months.We can not have a functioning economy without a functional health care system.
I hope to god its not. I will not root for a breakdown of our system to get Trump out of office. If this goes well and Americas on its feet in a couple months Trump being reelected is a bargain ill make with God. Just want my country back.

[RiverDog]

Holy cow, Hawktalk! A very long post and I agree with almost all of it. Better get tested for the coronavirus!

The reason I feel that Sanders should concede has more to do with people than it does politics. Both him and Biden need to fold their tents and tell their campaign workers to stay home until the convention. I don't want to see any pressure whatsoever on either their supporters or voters that would have to trek to the polls to vote.

This is obviously the watershed event in the Trump presidency. It will determine his re-election and ultimately his legacy. Personally I think he's already screwed the pooch, but I've been wrong before. IMO there's not a snowball's chance in hell that we get the country back to anywhere close to normal before Memorial Day. If Trump would have just shut up and not said or done anything over the past two months, he'd win re-election by Idahawkman proportions. But he just can't help himself. He's one of those people that has to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

It is going to be a ghastly two months, maybe 3, and even then, things might not be back to normal for another year depending on just how resilient this virus is. If you've read ASF's link about a new test becoming available, it could be a valuable tool in the battle and help us more effectively track the spread. I can foresee going out into the public and giving random tests to determine what percent of the public is positive. Once they get comparative numbers, they can use that information to truly lock down a city or county and not let anyone in or out.

The other thing to hang our hopes on is that although it will take 12-18 months for an effective vaccine ready for widespread distribution, it shouldn't take that long to find an effective treatment, speeding recovery and turning over hospital beds more quickly. You have to assume that there are scientists working feverishly on this problem.

[Aseahawkfan]

Until we see Italy and Europe slowdown, we have no timetable for this virus. Italy is about to hit a .002 of population mortality rate. That would be 66000 people here. If they blow by that without slowing down, we're going to hit it more than likely. I would think our culture and society is somewhere between Germany/South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Italy and Spain. So we'll probably fall into a mortality rate somewhere in that region. So until we see Italy and Spain slow down, we're in for a rough ride.

80000 is one of the more believable numbers I've seen. I think we will likely hit that number. This is just starting.

The April 12th date is a pipe dream. Trump had better wake up to the fact this is not the flu, not something that is going to calm down, and it is going to rip us up. If he doesn't manage it as well as possible listening to his experts, then he's going to be out of office soon enough as the death rate continues to climb.

I keep listening to these pro-Trump people making excuse after excuse and trying to reason their way as to why this won't be as bad as Italy or whatever place or what not and the cases and deaths just keep on rising spitting in their faces. Viruses don't give a crap about politics. They don't care about your assumptions. They don't care about dates or families or anything of the like. They are just here to breed and kill until we stop them using our tools or our immune systems finally resist them.

People can cast blame, make excuses, pray to their gods, argue, and do all they like, the virus don't care one bit. Right now if we could talk to this virus, it is laughing at April 12th for a return to work date, rubbing its hands, and foaming at the mouth for more breeding space. "Send all them people back to work and back into the theaters. I need to breed and kill some more."

[RiverDog]

Until we see Italy and Europe slowdown, we have no timetable for this virus. Italy is about to hit a .002 of population mortality rate. That would be 66000 people here. If they blow by that without slowing down, we're going to hit it more than likely. I would think our culture and society is somewhere between Germany/South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Italy and Spain. So we'll probably fall into a mortality rate somewhere in that region. So until we see Italy and Spain slow down, we're in for a rough ride.

80000 is one of the more believable numbers I've seen. I think we will likely hit that number. This is just starting.

I hate to say it, but I'm afraid you're right. I've been hoping that the warmer weather would slow this down, but looking at Louisiana's rate, that doesn't seem likely. I do think we have everybody's attention now. Just judging from my Facebook page, there are fewer posts complaining about Inslee's actions, about it being a big over reaction, etc.

The April 12th date is a pipe dream. Trump had better wake up to the fact this is not the flu, not something that is going to calm down, and it is going to rip us up. If he doesn't manage it as well as possible listening to his experts, then he's going to be out of office soon enough as the death rate continues to climb.

Trump started talking about quarantining New York and New Jersey before he'd even talked to the governors. Cuomo is furious, and although I don't think he should be going public with his complaints as it just heightens the divide, I don't blame him one bit for being upset. They need to talk and agree on a strategy. We can't have Trump saying one thing and Cuomo another.

I keep listening to these pro-Trump people making excuse after excuse and trying to reason their way as to why this won't be as bad as Italy or whatever place or what not and the cases and deaths just keep on rising spitting in their faces. Viruses don't give a crap about politics. They don't care about your assumptions. They don't care about dates or families or anything of the like. They are just here to breed and kill until we stop them using our tools or our immune systems finally resist them.

People can cast blame, make excuses, pray to their gods, argue, and do all they like, the virus don't care one bit. Right now if we could talk to this virus, it is laughing at April 12th for a return to work date, rubbing its hands, and foaming at the mouth for more breeding space. "Send all them people back to work and back into the theaters. I need to breed and kill some more."

The blame game will come in the aftermath. I'm pretty convinced of Trump's guilt but there's going to be a lot of blame to spread around. But that's neither here nor there. Right now, these folks need to start working together or more people will die. They need to figure out which states need the ventilators, which areas need to be locked down, where to send FEMA, etc, and if they don't start working together with a common strategy, we're going to be in for a real blood bath.

[Hawktawk]

More great news Everyone is gonna wind up being exposed to this...

[RiverDog]

And just to personalize this, last night I was chatting with one of my friends from my former employer, now a superintendent, and she said that one of their facilities had an employee test positive for COVID-19 here in the Tri Cities, told me how lucky I was to be retired. They shut the plant down and embarked on a sanitation effort that they think will last 3-7 days. The plant has about 700 FTE's and is one of 7 facilities in eastern Washington and northeast Oregon, employing about 4,000. We are the largest non-Hanford employer in the area.

That's not going to be the last incident. Having worked in those facilities for 40 years, I can very confidently say that there's no way they can operate those plants and maintain social distancing recommendations. They are allowed to operate because they are a food processing company, albeit mostly junk food, but I wonder how other processors are handling this crisis, if the can keep operating.

https://keprtv.com/news/local/lamb-west ... a0nlen3lGE

[RiverDog]

More great news Everyone is gonna wind up being exposed to this...

Not if I can help it, at least not in the next couple months. I'm making two trips a week away from my house.

[Aseahawkfan]

More great news Everyone is gonna wind up being exposed to this...

Many people have already had it unknowingly. If they start the antibody testing,we'll find millions have had it already and recovered.

This is not as bad as the worst case scenario, but it is also isn't the flu or something minor. It also didn't start after we started testing. It was there and we are now proving it is there. It's been there. All those cases aren't new as the media reports, they're cases that were undiagnosed or asymptomatic cases walking around with it.

I don't want people panic because this disease has been circulating since January or December worldwide. Now we're testing for it and attributing deaths to it rather than assuming the flu or pneumonia from something else. Like Cuomo said, the people dying right now have been on ventilators, some for weeks. This didn't happen overnight like it is being assumed by people watching the media. It's been with us a while and is now being tracked. All we're seeing is the growth in testing and tracking it and attributing deaths previously thought to be something else.

People have to understand that 2000 deaths and a 120000 cases is nothing to America. We have more flu cases than that yearly. The unsettling part of this is we don't have the normal means to fight and we're watching it being carefully tracked. If we were to track the flu this carefully every year, we would see similar paranoia.

I'm hoping people both take this seriously, but at the same time understand that this is not as though the virus just started to spread but has been here and we just started testing for it.

[RiverDog]

I don't want people panic because this disease has been circulating since January or December worldwide. Now we're testing for it and attributing deaths to it rather than assuming the flu or pneumonia from something else. Like Cuomo said, the people dying right now have been on ventilators, some for weeks. This didn't happen overnight like it is being assumed by people watching the media. It's been with us a while and is now being tracked. All we're seeing is the growth in testing and tracking it and attributing deaths previously thought to be something else.

Yes, it's a mystery as to how long it's been circulating. I'm certain that sometime after this is all said and done, they'll nail it down pretty good, but it's a moot point now.

I'm hoping people both take this seriously, but at the same time understand that this is not as though the virus just started to spread but has been here and we just started testing for it.

Just from my own random sampling, it seems to me that people are taking this seriously.

[Aseahawkfan]

Yes, it's a mystery as to how long it's been circulating. I'm certain that sometime after this is all said and done, they'll nail it down pretty good, but it's a moot point now.

As well as they can, which is better than not looking at all.

Just from my own random sampling, it seems to me that people are taking this seriously.

My sample is mixed. Some are taking it seriously, some are blowing it off. Some of the pro-Trump crowd is using it to blame China, blame the Democrats, and generally act like this is being over-blown by the media to bring down Trump. Slowly even these people are coming around, but I think we'll have to see that death toll rise to where we think it is going for some of these politicized idiots to realize we've gone beyond politics and need everyone on-board regardless of which party you come from. This is a problem threatening all of America (and the world) and no one has time for petty politics any more. Not sure what death threshold we have to pass for that happen, but hopefully sooner rather than later.

Not that the Democrats aren't making their own hay attacking Trump,but some of these pro-Trump people trying to act like things aren't as bad as they appear to be going need to wake up. This is going to be bad, terrible. And it's just starting, not ending or at it's worst point, but just starting the epi curve climb more than likely. We're probably going to have quite a few days like Italy.

[RiverDog]

My sample is mixed. Some are taking it seriously, some are blowing it off. Some of the pro-Trump crowd is using it to blame China, blame the Democrats, and generally act like this is being over-blown by the media to bring down Trump. Slowly even these people are coming around, but I think we'll have to see that death toll rise to where we think it is going for some of these politicized idiots to realize we've gone beyond politics and need everyone on-board regardless of which party you come from. This is a problem threatening all of America (and the world) and no one has time for petty politics any more. Not sure what death threshold we have to pass for that happen, but hopefully sooner rather than later.

One of the problems is that a good deal of Trump supporters are in rural and less densely populated areas, primarily away from the urban centers and airline hubs where the virus begins. There's not many Trump supporters on either coast. Trump supporters like Idahawkman haven't had a chance to see this close up, have it affect a friend or family member. But eventually, it will work its way into the countryside and if they don't heed the warnings, it will likewise devastate them as well.

Not that the Democrats aren't making their own hay attacking Trump,but some of these pro-Trump people trying to act like things aren't as bad as they appear to be going need to wake up. This is going to be bad, terrible. And it's just starting, not ending or at it's worst point, but just starting the epi curve climb more than likely. We're probably going to have quite a few days like Italy.

Agreed. It will be interesting to see if their attitudes change as this disease progresses.

[Hawktawk]

As I posted elsewhere as of yesterday Quincy washington had 25 confirmed cases after having none a few days earlier. And this is a hispanic orchard, vineyard and ag community. Large close families, high rates of diabetes, older persons often overweight and in poor health and quite possibly a cultural, hygiene and language barrier. Their culture teaches throwing TP in the ttrash for instance due to poor plumbing, something I dealt with regsrding my hispanic employees running golf courses.

Anyone who thinks just opening up these more remote areas such as eastern washington or the midwest is a great idea for the next couple weeks at is delusional. Every state is seeing a rise in cases, deaths etc. WA is actually leveling off a bit in new cases which is encouraging and understandable since Inslee was weeks ahead of trump on the social distancing for which he has become a constant target of Trump during briefings. As for as I know WA and NY are the only states leveling off a bit in new cases at all and deaths in NYC are occuring at a rate of every 9.5 minutes . As Biden said on MTP this AM its a "false choice" to say open now and save the economy because if we completely relaxed restrictions now we might kill 2 million people.

As Dr Fauci said matter of factly this morning it could kill between 100 and 200 k in the current best case scenario although he cautioned it's a fluid situation that could change on a daily basis.Currently one country reports no new cases, China and urn purchases suggest their reporting may be off by 40 or 50 times the actual amount. S Korea has begun to descend the curve ,the other country to do so I believe but they were one of the best in the world at mobilizing mass drive up testing, having tested 12 of every 100 citizens. America is 2 in 100 and really didn't test more than a few hundred people nationwide for weeks as this spread.

This country lost a month in testing and distancing after the height of the threat was known in a nation of 327 million people.Fauci said as much this morning" its was a failure of government' .

Its alot of peoples fault. If we had tests and test criteria to identify hotspots as well as distancing a month earlier we wouldn't be having nearly this type of discussion. Its altered the trajectory of the world and certainly america.
Sucks

[RiverDog]

As Dr Fauci said matter of factly this morning it could kill between 100 and 200 k in the current best case scenario although he cautioned it's a fluid situation that could change on a daily basis.Currently one country reports no new cases, China and urn purchases suggest their reporting may be off by 40 or 50 times the actual amount. S Korea has begun to descend the curve ,the other country to do so I believe but they were one of the best in the world at mobilizing mass drive up testing, having tested 12 of every 100 citizens. America is 2 in 100 and really didn't test more than a few hundred people nationwide for weeks as this spread.

This country lost a month in testing and distancing after the height of the threat was known in a nation of 327 million people.Fauci said as much this morning" its was a failure of government' .

Its alot of peoples fault. If we had tests and test criteria to identify hotspots as well as distancing a month earlier we wouldn't be having nearly this type of discussion. Its altered the trajectory of the world and certainly america.
Sucks

Agreed about it affecting rural areas. They may catch a break as cases in the urban area will peak just as rural areas are starting to increase, they may benefit from increased testing, more effective treatments, more effective containment strategies, and warmer weather. It may not spread as fast, but unless they wake up and smell the roses, they're going to get hit.

It's certainly not all Trump's fault. The CDC decided that the testing that was being done in other parts of the world wasn't good enough, so they wanted their own, and through typical government red tape and screw ups, we lost a good 6 weeks in our ability to test and identify hot spots. They were also late in throwing up their red flags, which had they done so, New Orleans probably would have canceled their Mardi Gras. The Governor of FL failed to close down their beaches even after organizations like the NCAA and NBA shut their operations down.

Getting back to Trump. His poor management style, ie his go-it-alone, I know better than anyone else, macho man narcissist attitude is biting us in the arse. His latest Lone Ranger move was to propose quarantining the states of NY, NJ, an CT without so much as a phone call to the Governors of those states. He's said that he told Pence "not to deal" with the Governors of WA and MI. We need a combined, coordinated effort from all levels of government, and that requires cooperation between the POTUS and the Governors.

Trump isn't being part of the solution, he's part of the problem.

[Aseahawkfan]

My math was bad earlier. I want to correct that. Italy passed the .0001 of total population. That is a much smaller percentage, though still 33000 deaths for us. Italy is about to pass the .0002 of total population. I prefer tracking total population to see if measures to slow it have been effective and how truly dangerous it the disease is on a population level. If Italy hits .0002 of population, that would be 66000 for us. It looks likes Italy deaths slowed a bit. I hope that trend continues.

[RiverDog]

My math was bad earlier. I want to correct that. Italy passed the .0001 of total population. That is a much smaller percentage, though still 33000 deaths for us. Italy is about to pass the .0002 of total population. I prefer tracking total population to see if measures to slow it have been effective and how truly dangerous it the disease is on a population level. If Italy hits .0002 of population, that would be 66000 for us. It looks likes Italy deaths slowed a bit. I hope that trend continues.

Agreed. We have seen a leveling off of the increase in the number of deaths, which is obviously good news. But the UK also saw a sharp decline in their death rate, but now it's popped back up again. I suspect that we'll see the death rate bounce around quite a bit as this spreads across the nation.

[Aseahawkfan]

As I posted elsewhere as of yesterday Quincy washington had 25 confirmed cases after having none a few days earlier. And this is a hispanic orchard, vineyard and ag community. Large close families, high rates of diabetes, older persons often overweight and in poor health and quite possibly a cultural, hygiene and language barrier. Their culture teaches throwing TP in the ttrash for instance due to poor plumbing, something I dealt with regsrding my hispanic employees running golf courses.

Anyone who thinks just opening up these more remote areas such as eastern washington or the midwest is a great idea for the next couple weeks at is delusional. Every state is seeing a rise in cases, deaths etc. WA is actually leveling off a bit in new cases which is encouraging and understandable since Inslee was weeks ahead of trump on the social distancing for which he has become a constant target of Trump during briefings. As for as I know WA and NY are the only states leveling off a bit in new cases at all and deaths in NYC are occuring at a rate of every 9.5 minutes . As Biden said on MTP this AM its a "false choice" to say open now and save the economy because if we completely relaxed restrictions now we might kill 2 million people.

As Dr Fauci said matter of factly this morning it could kill between 100 and 200 k in the current best case scenario although he cautioned it's a fluid situation that could change on a daily basis.Currently one country reports no new cases, China and urn purchases suggest their reporting may be off by 40 or 50 times the actual amount. S Korea has begun to descend the curve ,the other country to do so I believe but they were one of the best in the world at mobilizing mass drive up testing, having tested 12 of every 100 citizens. America is 2 in 100 and really didn't test more than a few hundred people nationwide for weeks as this spread.

This country lost a month in testing and distancing after the height of the threat was known in a nation of 327 million people.Fauci said as much this morning" its was a failure of government' .

Its alot of peoples fault. If we had tests and test criteria to identify hotspots as well as distancing a month earlier we wouldn't be having nearly this type of discussion. Its altered the trajectory of the world and certainly america.
Sucks

We're thoroughly infected. This stuff been spreading since January or December unseen. We don't even know the extent of it and won't until more testing is done. I do wish they would start antibody testing soon. We need to know not only who is infected, but who has already been infected. This could help with decision making and a cure if we have a lot of people with blood with antibodies we can inject in other people. We can start blood donation with antibodies on a large scale. Nice thing about blood donation is it is unlikely to do much harm and has a good possible outcome with low downside risk. We know barring some blood disease that transfusing someone else with blood is mostly harmless.

I wouldn't get caught up in this "we lost a month" stuff. No one knows that for certain at all. Looking at other nation is not a measure of how we handle things. Each nation seems to be handling things differently. Some better than others. I figure we'll fall somewhere between given our size, freedom, and lack of respect for authority in general. And if we lost a month, so did everywhere else save perhaps South Korea. This is one of those once in a century pandemics and so far not even close to 1918 in mortality, which I doubt it will come close to reaching.

I was watching how the South Koreans handle this. Everyone has masks and the South Korean medical staff are highly recommending masks for everyone as their main expert said it helped stop the spread of previous outbreaks in South Korea. He said masks are plentiful in South Korea, but not so much elsewhere. The South Koreans are very organized. They even have an app for tracking people during quarantine they force you to install on your cell phone. If you move to an area not within the phone's range, then they will contact you and tell you to get back in quarantine. Their people follow the guidelines or suffer the consequences. Would Americans tolerate that level of tracking? Hard to say. I'm doubtful.

[RiverDog]

We're thoroughly infected. This stuff been spreading since January or December unseen. We don't even know the extent of it and won't until more testing is done. I do wish they would start antibody testing soon. We need to know not only who is infected, but who has already been infected. This could help with decision making and a cure if we have a lot of people with blood with antibodies we can inject in other people. We can start blood donation with antibodies on a large scale. Nice thing about blood donation is it is unlikely to do much harm and has a good possible outcome with low downside risk. We know barring some blood disease that transfusing someone else with blood is mostly harmless.

I seriously doubt that the virus was here and spreading since December, but we'll find out once they've been able to collect more information on how it spread.

I wouldn't get caught up in this "we lost a month" stuff. No one knows that for certain at all. Looking at other nation is not a measure of how we handle things. Each nation seems to be handling things differently. Some better than others. I figure we'll fall somewhere between given our size, freedom, and lack of respect for authority in general. And if we lost a month, so did everywhere else save perhaps South Korea. This is one of those once in a century pandemics and so far not even close to 1918 in mortality, which I doubt it will come close to reaching.

Even besides the fact that DJT has been and continues to be downplaying the crisis, the government failed miserably. There was a 6 week delay in having tests ready as we didn't want to use what Europe and Asia had, we had to develop our own. Heck, I have the personal experience with my own brother-in-law to validate that fact. I still haven't heard a good explanation why we couldn't have used the test everyone else was using until we had developed our own. They had to have known that the critical element in testing was timeliness. You said it yourself, the one weapon we have is testing. Symptoms are so delayed and easily confused with other common ailments that the only way of having a reasonable assurance if a person is infected is to perform a test.

I was watching how the South Koreans handle this. Everyone has masks and the South Korean medical staff are highly recommending masks for everyone as their main expert said it helped stop the spread of previous outbreaks in South Korea. He said masks are plentiful in South Korea, but not so much elsewhere. The South Koreans are very organized. They even have an app for tracking people during quarantine they force you to install on your cell phone. If you move to an area not within the phone's range, then they will contact you and tell you to get back in quarantine. Their people follow the guidelines or suffer the consequences. Would Americans tolerate that level of tracking? Hard to say. I'm doubtful.

Asians in general are more accepting of authority, a trait that has served them well in this crisis. They respect their elders, do what the boss says, etc. I've worked with Asian immigrants for 40 years and everything else being equal, would take an Asian, particularly an Asian immigrant, over a native born white American every day of the week and twice on Sundays. We in America, and to a lesser extent western Europe, are by nature more skeptical, more likely to ask questions and doubt the experts, have to be reasoned with before being convinced of a strategy.

[Aseahawkfan]

I seriously doubt that the virus was here and spreading since December, but we'll find out once they've been able to collect more information on how it spread.

I think it was. We have huge contact with China in this country. They did not lock down fast enough to stop people from coming here from China. It's been circulating a long time, longer than late January. And the outbreak was bigger in China then they listed. Total lie on their part.

Even besides the fact that DJT has been and continues to be downplaying the crisis, the government failed miserably. There was a 6 week delay in having tests ready as we didn't want to use what Europe and Asia had, we had to develop our own. Heck, I have the personal experience with my own brother-in-law to validate that fact. I still haven't heard a good explanation why we couldn't have used the test everyone else was using until we had developed our own. They had to have known that the critical element in testing was timeliness. You said it yourself, the one weapon we have is testing. Symptoms are so delayed and easily confused with other common ailments that the only way of having a reasonable assurance if a person is infected is to perform a test.

I already gave you the dates. We had a positive case before Italy. Which mean we had a test here back in January. So I'm really not sure where you're getting your information from. It sounds like a bad source. We had testing here in January. All I see in your argument is the propagation of a lie to attack Trump. That's why I don't understand why you don't get this virus was here in December if we had our first positive test in January. It sounds to me like you're reading the liberal press attacking Trump rather than a factual timeline being documented. All I see are articles by sources like the New York Times making your argument, while the real situation is not as they stated. You are reading a lie. I see where you're getting it from too after I did a search on Google. Left wing press is pushing this government failed to test theory hard even though every government in the world failed to start testing soon enough.

Did you ever find out if your brother-in-law was positive?

_______

Here is a list of testing history. We were testing back in January, by the 18th by the CDC. Public labs did not start testing until February 3rd. It did not ramp until later. You're really blaming the president for this? As though he can decide when tests are administered? He doesn't. Medical doctors at the CDC and at public hospitals do that, not the president. If you want to know why they waited, it seems that doctors at public hospitals as well as the CDC were not strongly pushing testing for some reason. It certainly wasn't the president going, "Hey, you guys shouldn't test more widely. This is all just BS." So that is just bunk. I don't even blame our medical people as it seems most of the world made the same mistake. I am very sure doctors at the CDC don't care one bit about Trump telling them not to test if they feel they should test. Trump can only follow the directives of the medical advisers at the CDC as he is not a doctor himself.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html

Once again if we tested our first positive case on January 21st, then you tell me why you don't think this thing was here back to December given how heavily infected we already are? Like the Care Facility in Everett, they don't even know where that came from and some places they have no idea where the vector came from.

There seems to be a disconnect somewhere with some Americans not understanding how long this has been here:

1. Prior to the corona virus blow up, they were attributing deaths and sicknesses similar to what COVID 19 does to the flu.

2. 80 to 85% of corona virus infected have mild or no symptoms. The symptoms are very similar to the flu or a standard cold. The other 15 to 20 percent have more serious symptoms, but seem to survive with regular treatment. The small percentage dying have pneumonia most likely listed as the flu related or some other known sickness because we don't have wide spread corona virus testing in late December and January. People were already dying during flu/cold season per regular yearly rates. Which is likely why our medical people did not look at this as more serious.

3. They started testing in late January, around the 18th. The medical experts still did not consider this separate from the flu season.

4. Now they start heavy testing in March, much like other nations around the world after Italy starts to blow up.

How hard is that for you to understand that the medical teams around the world started testing around the same time? This lost month narrative is literally a story that can run in every nation. Even Italy did not take this seriously until late February. If you want to look to "blame", then start looking at the doctors in charge of infectious disease in nations around the world including the WHO.

The only reason for pushing this narrative is to attack Trump. The evidence indicates that the entire world was not prepared for this and did not handle it well. That China either handled this amazingly well or lied about its extent. That even the medical experts of nearly every nation other than South Korea and Japan who probably have better contacts failed to handle this well. I'm not sure why you're making the extra effort to smear Trump other than playing politics in a situation few political leaders world wide handled well.

Sorry, the evidence doesn't fit your narrative. Though I know you'l hang on to your theory absent evidence like you usually do. I'm going to leave it there and wait for a new topic as I have zero interest in discussing a clear politically motivated lie to continue the anti-Trump rhetoric.

[RiverDog]

Did you ever find out if your brother-in-law was positive?

Yes, he tested negative. It took him 10 days to get the results, part of what was so screwed up about our testing program. At the start, there was only one lab in the nation, in Atlanta I believe, that the CDC had authorized to process the test. UW received approval to process the tests shortly before he was tested and they had a huge backlog in processing the tests, leading to the delay in getting results.

In the meantime, he had to remain in self quarantine and his wife started showing symptoms. Both are healthy now, though. Thanks for asking!

Oh, and here's a timeline of the problems incurred by the CDC that insisted that they create their own test:

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coro ... ine-2020-3

[Aseahawkfan]

Italy is not slowing down. Neither is Spain. Very disheartening.

[Aseahawkfan]

Yes, he tested negative. It took him 10 days to get the results, part of what was so screwed up about our testing program. At the start, there was only one lab in the nation, in Atlanta I believe, that the CDC had authorized to process the test. UW received approval to process the tests shortly before he was tested and they had a huge backlog in processing the tests, leading to the delay in getting results.

In the meantime, he had to remain in self quarantine and his wife started showing symptoms. Both are healthy now, though. Thanks for asking!

Oh, and here's a timeline of the problems incurred by the CDC that insisted that they create their own test:

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coro ... ine-2020-3

Looks like it was a CDC decision, not Trump. That confirms what I thought that he was following the advice of his advisers. Trump likes to talk about a lot of things and listen to other people talk, but at the end of the day he listens to the true experts. They apparently wanted to do things a certain way they were used to doing them. That didn't work out as well as expected. Once again I must point out this same lapse in judgment seems to have occurred worldwide at roughly the same pace. There is no indication we missed a month as most nations missed on this, which is why the outbreak is so widespread worldwide. The only nations doing testing in advance was South Korea and China, South Korea is closer to China and likely had a good idea what was going on since they got hit hard by the last few outbreaks.

Suffice it to say I still don't think our slowness is what caused this. I think it has been circulating since December. I think most of the deaths and problems with it have been attributed to the flu. I think it's been here with us quite and a while and testing has just revealed the full extent. I think that will be borne out in the after action report when this thing is done and once antibody testing starts.