I don't think Italy tested the young. I think they only tested people with certain degree of symptoms, so it's mostly people 40+ getting tested. And a lot of them are dying because the system is pushed beyond it's limits.

Canada is also preparing to do the same thing, because of limited tests available. ONly thing is that the young hold and spread the virus, so if we're not quarantining them, the situation will continue to escalate.

That's why it will be difficult to slow things down in the US.

You can take all precautions in one state, and the state beside you is just letting things build up and spread. The careful state is just going to get it back.

It's really an all or nothing strategy that's required.

Well, I'm sure we'll have quality leadership at the top to help guide and... ok, I tried. I really tried. Unless there's some scenario where Fauci is declared President by Pelosi after Trump and Pence are magically whisked away.



SI

I also read that Italy has been counting it's Corona deaths to a different standard than some other countries, so their death rate looks higher but is probably more truthful.

In Italy if you have a precondition and Coronavirus and die, you count as a Coronavirus death. In some other countries (Germany was mentioned as the prime example), if you have a precondition and Coronavirus, then it was the precondition that killed you so you're not in the count.

I'm being reassigned to help our state emergency management with mapping for a few days this week. I suspect it's going to last quite a bit longer than that.

Las Vegas is starting to follow (somewhat).

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...a5094321536579

Yeah and at least in the case of st louis there are about 6-7 hundred thousand Illinois residents that will just come over to St. Louis bars and restaurants. It's been happening the opposite way with gambling, strip clubs, legal pot, alcohol hours, and auto purchases for years.

Metro East St. Louis area for the win.

Crap, what are all those strippers going to do for money?

It's interesting to watch Cruz and Tucker Carlson break ranks with the rest of the party on this. I'm curious to see what comes of it because the GOP is currently walking a tightrope on taking this seriously and trying to maintain that this is a democrat hoax.

The airline industry is cracking.



The company is announcing major changes tomorrow. The haven't announced specifics, but the tone is worse than anything we've ever seen. It's more than any other company has announced as well. I don't really know where all this ultimately leads for me. It would take a lot to touch me, but this is that sort of event. The Mrs is quite anxious about it, as is her group of pilot wives that she has in her support group. People are definitely going to lose their jobs. You are going to see companies go out of business. There's not other way and we aren't even anywhere near the bottom of the slide.

It's possible that you may even see one or all of the US airlines end up in bankruptcy. No idea, but who knows where this goes. Considering how profitable it was last year, that would be one helluva swing.

Crazy to me that Congress isn't working already on a multi-trillion economic package.

The company is projecting a drop of revenue of 1.5 billion over last year in March alone. Staggering numbers and just one company.

Just saw CNN say Peace Corp suspending global operations and bringing everyone back.

Oh yeah, those guys. We forgot about them.

I'd read/watch some young-adult fiction about an alternate dimension where all of America's post-wwII military spending went into the Peace Corp and there was a decades long cold war between superpowers, stacking their volunteer programs.

This is one of the concerns I have had all along. I understand wanting to contain things, we don’t want to be Italy. But this response is going to displace far more people and lead to arguably more hardship. If an airline goes bankrupt, or hotels go bankrupt, how many people are now out of a job? How many commit suicide (a stretch, but it does happen)?

After reading some symptoms exhibited and how some of the symptoms manifested themselves, it is probably what I had. My wife is a diabetic, she had a sniffle a couple of days last week. Same with my boys in hindsight. Both have seasonal allergies so it was nothing out of the ordinary this time of year. Meanwhile, I have been sick to some degree for 3 weeks (at least). Not seriously ill for 9 days, but this thing has held on for a good while. I am still not 100%, more like 95%.

This is very much a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but I am not sure if the reaction is not going to wind up doing more damage than the virus.

what about greenpeace. whales are people too

Gov. Whitmer had a pretty good, straightforward press conference today, except for the question about if she was considering closing bars & restaurants. On that one, it was my least favorite type of politician response; the rambling non-answer. She did promise we'd hear more about it from the state level 'in the very near future'.

The feeling at work, where things are starting to feel a small slice of the sort of socially-conscious, everything-is-weird vibe that there was after 9-11, is that it's only a matter of time until we are shut down. I don't see Whitmer wanting to be the holdout that waits two weeks after the rest of the Midwest goes there and then do it too late after we get thousands of positives.

It was a slow Sunday, but not dramatically so. We are operating on a 'if you aren't comfortable working/don't feel safe, then you don't have to' basis and have halved seating capacity for reasons of social distancing - and also to cover for the people who don't want to be there. As for me, I'm preparing to go on unemployment for the first time in my life if the hammer does indeed fall. Before it's always been 'oh, lost your job. Good, go get another one' but this time I'd be a middle-aged guy in a small city who has lots of experience in a field that's been banned from operation. Unless one of the local places wants to pick me up for a delivery gig which I'll check into, unemployment it is.


In general you're not wrong. The nice thing about the industry is that it's fairly recession-proof, so most downturns you can always 'fall back' on it. The old joke about how if push comes to shove, you can always get a couple jobs flipping burgers for 60 or however-many hours a week until you find something better. Well … not in this case. I'm going to be following what all the political types do on this closely as more things shut down.

Also it appears not-China has taken the lead over China now in confirmed cases.

Not exactly. That was put out there by the italian right wing party in the EU parliament purely based on "wait, why is there such a difference ?".
There might well be people not getting retroactively tested (when they died without seeming to have/havin been diagnosed with Corona) but everybody tested for/diagnosed with Covid19 counts in that stat regardless of what other ailments weakened them beforehand. Patients deaths even get publicised with either having a pre-existing condition or not from the beginning. And i doubt that right now Italy has the ressources doing the former (testing every death regardless of prior diagnosis) either.

And there is not enough preconditioned people currently dying (while being somewhat reasonably exposed to the virus) to come close to explaining that gap. Italy simply is not able to properly 'treat'/care for patients due to the disparity between capacity and sick people. Let us pray they stay the exception and others heed that Warning because otherwise this will get ugly everywhere.


There is definitely a spike in deaths around the corner in Germany purely due to the nature of the virus (everything reported is 7-10 days behind due to the Incubation period and progression), but i doubt it will be nearly as bad as long as a system manages to stay under a threshold of still being able to operate ...

What should not be forgotten is that so far this has mostly hit 'good' countries as far as the health care capacity is concerned. Brasil might well be the first true tragedy and i am not quite sure i want to think about what might happen in parts of Africa ... One can only hope 'we' have it under controll in time to assist

Was talking with my brother, who's relatively clued in on all of this. I told him at the rate we were going, I thought we were going to see "shelter in place" orders before not much longer. For folks like me, that's really the status already (I will HOPEFULLY drive to the grocery store, but stay in my car and they'll put the order in the car for me tomorrow). He was thinking that it all depends on how much the existing orders get enforced (for example, the recent decisions in MA to close all dine-in resturaunts and bars)

What if a bar or restaurant refuses to follow the order?

They can pull their health license and shut them down, with a fine to pay to reopen I imagine.

The number of Chinese officials/associates offering help to the US government is a... I am not sure how to describe it. It definitely stands out when I see it though.

Here's a link on the MA order:

Gov. Baker closes all Mass. schools, restaurants take-out only, bans gatherings over 25 people – ABC6

Well my job is staying open until the orders stop, supplies stop, or the government shuts us down.

And Walmart just cancelled my pickup order, because the local store is not able to fulfill online orders right now. Plan B is WHole Foods through Amazon. Plan C is family.

I don't have a plan D :(

Are you still in the Boston area?

In my Sat report, there was still plenty of canned food at Krogers but selection was definitely reduced. It may be better to go in yourself or send someone to select what is left for you.

Another option is Costco,Sam's & like (Costco has delivered to me)

Asia markets got hit pretty bad. Europe looks even worse right now. Dow futures is off about 1000.

As Mr. T said, "My prediction? ... pain".

They're out in dingy's all the time so they should be okay.

Something or nothing?

Bird flu detected in Nueva Ecija quail farm, can affect humans

I think it is nothing. Especially with everyone already sheltering, I think the spread of it, even if it gets out will be highly curtailed.

Because of the immuno-compromised status, going in probably isn't an option for me. But yeah, Plan C is family.

Trying to be a bit on the positive side, so here's a wrestling reference for you. " You talk about 3:16, John 3:16, Austin 3:16. Well Coronavirus 3/16 says "STAY THE FUCK HOME AND WASH YOUR HANDS!"

About 45 minutes south, Woonsocket RI

Dow is down 2,200 points or 9.7%. FWIW the 1987 Black Monday dropped 508 points or 22.6%.

The post mortem on the Fed actions will be interesting when this plays out. I'm giving them the benefit of doubt and not say they were influenced by Trump but they actually saw something serious enough that made them to drop rates to 0% and new QE over the weekend.

I don't think it really matters right now. That bullet is spent, and it was a small one. There's not much more that they can do now, and it's exactly what we've been saying all along.

Dude. Just stop. Of course Trump forced their hand. The same way he did his little parade on Friday right before the markets closed to get an artificial bump going into the weekend.

If you need it, people will help if you reach out.

I'm seeing multiple neighborhood Facebook help groups popping up - people just looking to help anyone else out who needs it.

I'm trying to figure out the best way I can help around here. I'm Plan B for dog care for several people in the rescue organization I work with. Otherwise just trying to keep an eye out and leaving tips on restaurant takeout orders.

Edit: On the other hand, people from Boise and Western Montana are raiding rural Idaho stores for supplies. Somebody showed up Salmon, Idaho with Uhaul and filled it with food. Obviously, these communities are much less able to withstand panic buying. All while our Boise grocery stores are picked over a bit, but have everything - nothing at all "gone" except toilet paper. At my local Fred Meyer the first thing you see when you walk in is all the colors of the well-stocked fresh produce section - which nobody wants anything to do with.

There really are three kinds of people in a crisis - the exploiters, the passive survivors, and the helpers. You just see people gravitate to one of those three things. Like probably most people, I'm wired to be in the middle, but I am trying hard to be as much of a helper as I can.

Thought about doing a Guesstimates/Wisdom of Crowds for when normalcy will return. Things like when MLB opens their season, when NBA resumes, etcetera. I see the latest "best-case scenario" for the NBA to return is mid-June.

I think there were a large number of older people in Italy who either smoked or used to smoke. If you look at Italy's population, 22% are smokers and another 12% are former smokers - with many of those being over 50. The US has a much lower smoking rate (~13%) and that could help our numbers. I do think the use of more individual cars than trains/buses like in Europe could also help. It sucks for traffic and pollution, but it may help for not spreading a virus.

My buddy just had a pretty depressing comment. He said what if all these measures do virtually nothing to stop the normal progression of the virus. So we still end up with large numbers of cases over the next 3-4 weeks and completely destroy our economy (esp the travel, restaurant/bar, financial and entertainment industries).

At some point you have to wonder if the "cost" of a 2-4 week+ social distancing effort does more damage to the collective us than the virus.

A good friend who knows a nurse said her hospital is already close to being overrun. They aren't reporting the cases. Went from 3 on Saturday to 20.

Little Marco is reassuring us that we are not going to slip into Eminem law.

Please stop spreading stupid rumors about marshall law.

COMPLETELY FALSE

We will continue to see closings & restrictions on hours of non-essential businesses in certain cities & states. But that is NOT marshall law.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 16, 2020

Our power has gone out twice for about 10 minutes each time.

I am trying to remain rational, but it is an amazing coincidence that this happens the first day we are all home from school.

We had a power outage last night but may well have been due to the rain in LA.

With regards to sports leagues coming back I actually think the NHL (and the NBA would be stupid to not do it as well) are pricing themselves for a quicker return than we might think behind closed doors as they were telling their players to self- quarantine last week well before it became a wider thing. Which ever league manages to get back on TV first is going to have record numbers of viewers due to a completely captive audience.

Also, Marco should learn how to fucking spell MARTIAL LAW.

Not marshall. God damn.

950 cases in NY. 17% of those are hospitalized.

Best quote I have seen that sums it all up.

“In the end, it will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be QUITE apparent if we under reacted or did too little.”