700,000 jobs were lost in March according to the US Government. The unemployment rate is at 4.6% percent for March. That would be bad enough but the computation was made early in the month when the full effect of the forced shut down of economic activity was yet to be felt. In behind the scenes conversations government officials say that they think the real unemployment rate today is more like 10%. Nearly all social and economically productive activity has either stopped or is decelerating toward ZERO; manufacturing, banking, office work of all kinds, restos, etc. I was happy the other day to find a pet store that was open.
This plague will pass, perhaps to return in waves until a stable "herd immunity" is attained. Work toward a cure and eventually a vaccine will contribute to that level of health for the long term.
Sadly, the herd will by then be living in poverty and social isolation in a vastly different world in which shortages of goods and services and a wildly inflated currency are the "new normal." In that world the people will be living in a "country" much weakened by the failure of long range transportation.
The US government's herculean efforts at relief of people and business are admirable but are really only temporary measures the effect of which will expire leaving the country with a need for further inflationary projects.
In this situation, the Democratic Party seems to see a great chance to "kneecap" Trump and blackmail its opponents into measures for the advance of "progress" that may well lead to violence.
The economy must be relieved of our self-inflicted wounds. We must "grasp the nettle" and accept the fact that while we can care for the ill, and seek to protect the old and infirm, their welfare must, to some extent, be sacrificed for the good of the herd of the young and fit.
LET the economy stand up! pl
Yes!
I suggest give the left more of what it wants good and hard:
1. Use the Emergency Broadcasting System to order every network and cable provider to carry the Presidential Covid Task Force Daily briefing – in its entirety – daily or revoke their broadcast licenses and stop trading their stock. Let the press howl. If that isn’t suffient invoke the Defense Production Act to order the same thing.
2. Cancel H1B visa renewals across the board, with 10,000,000 Americans out of work due to government mandate nobody can say there isn’t talent available.
3. Publicly tell everyone that we are getting back to work long before there are “zero infections and zero deaths” and yes there might be some risk; have Fauci stand right beside you while you do it, make him publicly states he understands, then tell him if he says we can’t get back to work until there are zero infections/deaths again in public his services will no longer be required by the US government. In 36 years of honorable service I’m sure he’s trained hundreds of experts who could step into the role in the event he won the lottery and retired.
4. Order Barr to start charging the corrupt DOJ employees and FBI agents behind the Russia collusion fruad. Start with the DOJ lawyer who falsified documents submitted to the FISA court.
Fear is the little mind killer…
And most of the populous is dead inside because of it.
When the public finally wakes up to the true extent of the irreversible economic devastation the shutdown has inflicted there will be an epic round of finger pointing.
The only real question in my mind is which leader is first to stand up and say “this has to stop, the cure is worse than the disease”.
When I read commentaries such as this or Larry Johnson’s, I very well understand the utter destruction that is taking place in the real economy. Those that can least afford it are taking the largest economic hit and also the most infections. Even if restrictions are lifted now, there will be significant damage.
But I always get back to the fact that the CCP basically shut down China’s economy for many weeks. And even now, the routine restrictions are often far in excess of those in place in any US state.
The CCP controls the media narrative; there is no MSDNC or Faux News. It is not subject to partisan whims of the demopublicans or republicrats (some of us view them as 2 sides of the same coin). The have a party organization of 80 million, not a herd of cats like the US. They can issue directives down the chain of command and by and large they are followed.
So the question is if China STILL views COVID as an existential risk, how can the US believe it is somehow exceptional and resume business as more-or-less usual? I think the science says we cannot.
upstate
The US is not China.
I am a regular reader, very occasionally moved to comment. Colonel, that is a true and measured situational analysis that must, as it does here, come from the elite of the generation at risk. May your remarks find ears. Deep respect. KR
keninparis
Thank you.
Build the Wall – the symbolism is now as critical as the physical barrier. Ellis Island was symbolic as well as actual.
A full border wall along our very leaky southern border stands for what we believe in too – strong barrier control is the sign of a strong nation. It is an honor and privilege to enter America. You earn it; you don’t abuse it.
I’m thinking that this is all a Soros et al scheme to ruin America and bring about what glorious utopia he and his ilk image will result.
We are all non-essential workers now. Everyone can sit at home, log on and do what ever from where ever. Geographic location is meaningless. One World. Like the Matrix.
I am amazed at what a bunch of pussies Americans have turned out to be.
Eric Newhill
We are not the men our fathers were.
Sir,
Some of us are.
Enough of us? How do we organize to fight is the question I can’t answer.
I’m taking a day off and drinking my best bourbon, before noon even. Please accept my apology for the lower case ‘a’.
True: The US is not China. However, the virus doesn’t care what your nationality is where you live or how rich you are. It only cares how close you are to itself and how accessible you are to its spread…it is an equal opportunity disease. So…to that extent, “we are all Chinese” and we had better learn to deal with that reality. CA is shut down. I HATE it. Our curve is starting to flatten and our skies are clear–it ain’t all bad!
Support your friends and family and be sure to live/shop/eat as locally as possible.
Eric Newhill,
I’ve said it before. If I were our enemies I’d be dancing in the shower everyday, planning my next move with the knowledge that we won’t do s#&t about it. As a society, we are ripe for the taking.
I asked a question the other day to a few people I know who have mindlessly accepted this madness as a measure for the “common good” – If, for every person that dies of this virus, two people or even 1.5 people commit suicide as a result of the social and economic disintegration of our society, will the measures for the “common good” have been worth it? Given the already appalling suicide statistics in this country over the past decade, I think my projected numbers are charitable at best, and probably a dramatic underestimate in all likelihood. The people to whom I posed this scenario had no intelligible reply.
In the meantime, social distancing is the newest and most cherished form of virtue signalling. After the “plague” subsides, we will see a movement among the Woke Brigades to eliminate handshakes, hugs, kisses and any other form of common social bonding and affection that keeps us from each other’s throats. Along with the claimed “right to not be offended”, you will soon see claims of a “right to my social distance”, in effect a claim of absolute sovereignty over whatever space lies within a six-foot radius of one’s own physical person. We are being conditioned to permanently suspect our neighbors as belonging to “the infected” and to shun each and every other as unclean and to be mistrusted, including our loved ones. I ran across this little gem the other day:
“Loss of roots and lack of tradition neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria. Collective hysteria calls for collective therapy, which consists in abolition of liberty and terrorization. Where rational materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons that into lunatic asylums.” – C.G. Jung, Aion, 1959
This future will soon be upon us. We have shown ourselves to be more than ready.
As for Dr. Fauci, yesterday I heard him call 10 million livelihoods lost “an inconvenience” but that we have to continue with this nonsense until a vaccine is developed a year or eighteen months from now. I’ve suspected from the beginning and now I’m quite sure that this wee man is very much enjoying his time in the spotlight and his self-perceived control over the lives of 330 million Americans. I’m not buying his laudanum anymore. Trump needs to put him in his place forthwith.
Col. Lang, with great respect,, I think you are wrong. Right now is the BEST time to start a new business. President Trump is correct. America will come out of this better than ever and faster than you can believe. Yes, the damage is considerable but it will free up resources to allow creative people to do new things. I speak from experience of eighteen months of unemployment twenty years ago.
Do you really want to protect an economy full of dog grooming salons and personal trainers? Do you notice that we are already past peak feminism, inclusion, diversity and LBGTQ BS? Do you really want to protect lying lawyers and gimmick marketers? Sure restaurants close, they will reopen. What comes after is going to be good.
If we try and brazen our way through this, ignoring the sickness and treating old or infirm people as expendable bits of “collateral damage” in order to protect the fucking banks we will be sending a terrible message to our people – that they are just cogs in the machine who must die for the greater good – the utilitarian argument. The result of that will truly be every man for himself with corresponding disorder, violence and breakdown. People need hope AND a plan, which is what Trump is giving them because we are altogether in uncharted territory.
As for the Democrats, they are toast if they still play identity politics with this. All that is gone. People will again ”identify “ as Americans, period. They will laugh at Pelosi and her ilk. Provided President Trump doesn’t falter he will lead the country, and the world out of this trial.
I don’t know how many of us will survive, but I’d like to think us old farts aren’t going to be abandoned. We are not soldiers. Leaving us wounded on the battlefield while the rest press on with the attack is not going to be a winning strategy because the citizens are a militia, not an army. We want to look after our own. I also think that Fauci and company are displaying great moral courage in doing this and advising the President. They have not taken the easy way out by saying “who could have known” and blaming China.
The old economy is dead. We must let it go. As an acquaintance wrote yesterday: “ Last month I was a B787 pilot, today I’m mixing cement.”.
I hope I haven’t offended you. I pray we may yet live through this and be able to discuss this matter for many years to come.
As an aside, I note Dr. Schadenfreuds post about America on “Moon of Alabama” and will not revisit that trashy website.
Your thesis is right Colonel. But few politicians have the guts to stand before the public and say the very politically incorrect thing you are suggesting – that as a society we have to balance between the damage from the disease and the damage because of the suggested cure.
It seems that the virus is killing, for the most part (99.2% of deaths in Italy), people who have had major preexisting health issues, with most of them being of advanced age. We can’t let the poor starve and the economy destroyed beyond a point in order to prevent that from happening!
We need to develop a test kit to measure if people have the Wuhan Virus antibodies in our system, that would be a good indicator that people already had the virus.
Certified people could return to work immediately.
I’m tired of getting paid to do nothing while SWMBO is working 12 hours days six days per week.
The “Rug Rats” insurrection continues:(
The Technocrats have us by the balls right now. They own and make their money from the internet. Their interests are in alignment with global leftist governments who would like nothing better than not having to be elected to rule (EU CCP).
They might be hoovering up tons of data now in order to understand how people react to panic. When the deplorables fully comprehend what is being done to them, they will begin to organize online in order to fight back. I would think then that much of the internet will be curtailed to just controlled news,commerce sites like Amazon, banking, and stock market, nothing controversial nor the ability to voice an opinion. The large pool of accumulated knowledge will be denied to us, social media gone as well.
I would go much further than Fred, shut down all TV and all internet right now. Broadcast only the President’s briefings which hopefully would be encouraging citizens to get back to work, to reopen businesses and encouraging new people to open a Mom&Pop business, back to socializing in person, and doing business in person while being cautious with wearing masks for the time being. Think local, not global.
The Technocrats will be crushed, their hopes for digital currency, a social credit type of citizenship, Amazon type commerce curtailed with new rules giving an edge to small business. They will be defeated.
Eventually, hopefully soon, turn everything back on with some new rules though, too many for me to articulate.
Your slavishness regard for Chairman Doh should put me off you, Jock. But you won more than bone-spurs over in Vietnam. And I believe you are right on this. No straw death, let’s all go like Marcus Curtius!
https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=resources&s=char-dir&f=curtius
walrus
A controlled, centrally planned economy is not worth living in.
james
“with the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us …” You are a heathen. I do not expect you or the Spanish child heathen to understand.
AK,
Dr Fauci is a globalist ass. What? they aren’t accepting that global warming is going to kill us all in 12 years? Bring out the virus! They’ve seen the movie. They’re primed!
Depending on which studies you think are best done, medical errors/malpractice kills between 150K and 330K Americans every year.I lean toward the higher figure being correct, but everyone in the biz accepts something in that range. So going to the doctor/hospital is more dangerous than the virus.
walrus
If it goes all the way down in the US it will take a generation to recover, Your caterer would have to specialize in rotisseried dingo to start a business. Perhaps the thin population in Australia make a difference.
I have heard that if we allowed the virus to circulate unabated without taking even the smallest cautionary measures, a few million people might die. Certainly a disaster, but in terms of math, it might be a better outcome than the consequences of instigating another Great Depression. Think we can’t have starvation here? That’s what depressions are for. Moreover, the worldwide Great Depression in the 30s led directly to the Holocaust and WWII, which killed plenty of people, too.
It would make a lot more sense to enact measures to protect the old and vulnerable while still allowing the young to continue working. After all, a lot of the people most vulnerable to the disease depend on financial support from the same people who are being prohibited from supporting them.
I couldn’t agree more. Destroying the economy is not the answer. 50 and below have a very small risk of dying. We have to plow ahead and accept the losses.
Protect the elderly and at risk population to the best of our ability.
Taking the hit while it warms up is the best timing we are going to get. If we stay lock down this virus will ravage us this coming Fall/Winter when our natural defenses are less.
Go back to work. And get this damn herd immunity over with. People will die. And the press will run the stories on every young person dying. But at this rate we are going to collapse society.
Timothy, we are not living in 1918. Very little was known about virii. Today we have all manner of tools and experience so that we do not have to repeat 1918 or the great depression. My WAG is that if Trump can bury the hatchet with Putin and Xi, remove sanctions and bring the troops home, we could start a world wide recovery very quickly.
Don’t give in to despair. It’s a sin.
Venus has run amok for the last heck knows how many years..might be time for Mars to re-exert himself..just alittle bit.
I’ll volunteer a prediction:
It has been said that 40% of the US households after paying their bills can’t cut a $400.00 check.
One month, 6 weeks tops, and the howling will be so general and loud it will compel the ending of this. Whether or not that’s enough time for effective therapeutics to be found the nettles will be grasped.
Colonel, yes the US is not China.
We can all agree China is playing a long game, as is Russia. Those countries have made a conscious decision to accept the economic pain of a lengthy shutdown and gradual restart with restrictions. They have made a cost/benefit analysis based on winning a long game. They are not influenced by media hysteria and petty partisan bickering.
My contention is getting back to approximate business as usual quickly is evidence of the dominant short term thinking (rot) of US capitalism; the only thing that matters to executives are their stock options and the hedgies and private equity types that advise the president is the next quarter’s numbers.
Unfortunately!
Reminder; France shuts down its country every August. And starts itself back up a month later. Been doing this for decades. Surely, we can do as well as France getting back to work after this “short break”.
A good breather from time to time clears out accumulated dross. Most importantly, is to remind everyone the critical importance of saving during the fat years for the inevitable lean years. That seems to have gone out of style.
More than anything we need a break from this media ginned up Zombie Apocalypse drum beat 24/7. Turn it off, tune it out and drop out for a few more weeks.
Then we roar back and never forget ever again to wash our hands, not stick our own fingers into our nose, mouth and eyes and cover all coughs and sneezes. Never should have forgotten that in the first place.
Even if you are good to go.the top nut.4 degrees from Harvard or whatever the new reality will be less stuff all round.makes no difference who you are.There are too many people and not enough resources.
Capitalism is finished.Austere socialism is on the cards and will be for some time until the population numbers have fallen to acceptable levels.
It will happen.
Walrus,
“Sure restaurants close, they will reopen.” They are going to go bankrupt because cash flow is 10% at best, for those forced to close it is zero. In the US that is thousands of family owned busineses and franchises.
“The old economy is dead. We must let it go.”
Sounds like a comment from an OK Boomer who got his way all his life. The economy is dead due to 1) Communist Chinese virus, possibly escaped out of their own research/biowar lab, 2) Communist Chinese lies to everyone which were reinforced by WHO and numerous propaganda outlets 3) Our own governments’ ordering ‘shelter in place’ thus destroying our own ecomony at the behest of ‘experts’.
To paraphrase the most interesting man in the world, the tree of liberty has stayed thirsty too long. Sure explains why there’s a run on gun stores in the gun-free-zone supporting Blue States that are pulling cops off the streets, cancelling judicial hearings and emptying jails. What could possibly go wrong. Not to worry, Oligarch Bodyguard is an ‘essential job’ in the US. And if you are a foreign national who has succeeded in saving $1million in a secret bank account we’re going to invite you into the country with a special visa program where you can buy up the assets of a company we forced into banckruptcy and hire the now unemployed citizens. And wouldn’t you know look at that supply – demand ratio, looks like wages are going down. Don’t worry Aussies/Americans at least you will be working. Boy, the future sure looks bright for the children of rich foreign nationals who are going to prove “immigration is our strenghth”. Thanks Boomers!
Col. Lang,
I couldn’t agree more with you.
Do we really want another Great Depression? This time by government order. The millions of shuttered small businesses may never recover when its all said and done. They represent the vast majority of employment in the US.
I wonder if we’ll ever examine the consequences of financialization of our economy and the resultant dismantling of our manufacturing base. We are now finding out that the bulk of our pharmaceuticals that we with our substantially higher prices support the research of are now produced in communist China. Will we consider decoupling with the Chinese Communist Party?
Will we examine our preparedness or lack thereof in not allowing our vast biotech industry and medical diagnostic industry to respond quickly with mass testing to isolate those infected.
I seriously doubt it. We no longer have the ability to critically examine failures as our politics is all about personal gain for the elites.
Are we going to continue this shutdown until there are no longer any new infections or deaths attributed to this virus? The economic data we have reviewed and the calls with the managements of many businesses that our firm has done this past week is very sobering. The scale is staggering and unprecedented. The service industry globally is being crushed!
In the alternate universe of Candanavia an evil genius Snidley Whiplash has created a potent biological viral weapon and released it. Why you might ask? Simply because he is evil.
Dudley do Right has come up with a plan he reverse engineers the virus, attenuates it and wants to widely spread the less harmful virus throughout his population first (thereby vaccinating them) but how does Dudley buy the time he needs?
Is it a case of “Practice makes perfect” or “Time to say goodbye”
“In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million. Today, it is infinitely easier to to kill a million people than to control a million.”
— Zbigniew Brzezinski
America keeps starting wars, or perhaps I should say “wars,” without any idea of what constitutes victory. We started a “war on drugs” which is still ongoing because we cannot define what the end point is. We went into Afghanistan with no defined goal and cannot get out because we don’t know why we’re there.
And now we are “sheltering in place” with no definition of what the goal is for doing so. What does “flattening the curve” really mean? Has anyone really claimed it means fewer deaths, or is it the same number of deaths over a longer period?
Are we trying to keep people from catching the virus? If so, then from whence comes the immunity that makes it safe for us to crawl out of our foxholes?
We don’t know why we’re doing it. We don’t know how long we’re doing it. We don’t know what has to happen to allow us to stop doing it. We’ll just keep doing it until someone tells us to stop, and when they do we won’t know why they did. But we’ll stop.
The colonel is right. We are not the men our fathers were.
Sir,
This going to be an example of the “cure” being worse than the threat.
Take a look at the chart in the link below of initial unemployment claims with a historical perspective. We’re only 3 weeks into the shutdown.
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1245787069076602880?s=21
Take a look at what’s happening to the service sector in Europe’s backbone economy, Germany.
https://twitter.com/schuldensuehner/status/1245984944637259777?s=21
The collapse in the service sector in Europe is across the board. Vertical drops in activity in every major economy.
https://twitter.com/schuldensuehner/status/1245987499740184576?s=21
This is what awaits our economy as our service sector which is our largest employer has been forcibly shutdown by our various state governments.
Another point I’d like to make. To all the petrodollar conspiracists. And to the many who don’t get fx and offshore Eurodollars. Check this chart out. USD is king.
https://twitter.com/icecapglobal/status/1245705814867881986?s=21
As I have noted on several threads our reaction to the threat of Wuhan virus is emotional. We have not stepped up antibody testing and isolation of those infected. We are letting people make projections based on incomplete information to drive political decisions to force millions into unemployment. The most vulnerable segment of our population – the working poor.
This is really insane in my opinion to shutdown the world economy when we don’t have the kind definitive information on the lethality and the spread. How many hospitals are under stress? How many ICU beds do we have available currently? How many Wuhan virus patients do we have in our ICUs? Why is it no one is reporting this information? Why are we only hearing all these model projections that keep varying every day?
I was born in the last Depression. I don’t want to bookend my life with another Depression. This one entirely caused by government edict. I hope when we get past this “emergency” that we’ll rethink our relationship with the communist party in China. The whole world needs to re-evaluate the basing of our industrial production in essentially a nation run by a hostile totalitarian regime.
The same quarantines were put in place in the US during the 1918-19 flu epidemic. Los Angeles shut down for seven weeks. School lessons were printed in the Los Angeles Times.
My point is that this is nothing new. The economy bounced back in 1918-19 and it should again today. There was no depression when we did the same thing in 1918-19. I expect little different today.
Sacrificing hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Americans by failing to initiate social distancing and other measures would lead to a true disaster. The prime duty of a government is to protect the health and safety of its citizens. A government that fails at that task will not exist for very long. Trump would lose his reelection if he didn’t try to save as many Americans as he could. Putting commerce over American lives is a poisoned cup.
The world economy is dying but the people in charge of it won’t get the blame. Handy that.
There is actually a controlled experiment being run this very moment, in that Brazilian President Bolsonaro has, in essence, declared exactly the same sentiment: Brazil needs to get back to work, and damn the virus.
If they follow his advice and the Brazilian economy rebounds then Pat Lang is correct.
If the Brazilian economy collapses under a flood of covid-induced deaths then…. not so correct.
From Phil Giraldi:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/05/who-made-coronavirus-was-it-us-israel-or-china-itself/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/02/another-expensive-war-another-intelligence-failure/
I’m very surprised that here in the committee of correspondence, nobody has mentioned a word about Phil Giraldi’s analyis. I agreed with what Mr Giraldi:
“Trump responded to the warnings in his characteristic fashion by praising his own efforts and dismissing the “fake news.” On January 22nd, he claimed that “We have it [the virus] totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” The perception on Trump’s part that coronavirus did not pose a real threat unfortunately shaped the government response as senior officials scrambled to line up their positions on the virus with that of the president. The initial decision to reject the advice being given by the government’s health care officials came from Trump alone and it was backed up by the threat that anyone who did not toe the line might well be fired. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has recently been particularly targeted because he has several times contradicted the erroneous information being promoted by the president.”
Colonel – may I enter a dissenting opinion? It comes from a man living in the UK, not the US, and perhaps circumstances are slightly different here.
According to Richard North, a writer I’ve been following on Brexit but who turns out to have considerable experience in this area of public health, this pandemic scenario was considered in the UK in the past. The realistic approach to such a scenario was thought to be not to go all out to reduce casualties. The damage to the economy resulting from implementing draconian control measures was thought to be unacceptable.
Dr North also unearthed another plan that was to run concurrently. Excess mortality resulting from that more limited approach was reckoned to be three quarters of a million. That other plan was a detailed plan on how to dispose of the bodies.
There are strong arguments for such a limited response to the virus. The damage to the economy in the UK from the different and more interventionist approach we’ve now adopted is colossal. And we don’t have the two great advantages the US has. Ours is not the world reserve currency and the UK is not able to feed itself.
But may I suggest that those arguments are not applicable for either country and give two reasons for suggesting that.
1. Any plan that accepted as inevitable such a large number of casualties would be electoral suicide for any political party adopting it.
2. Most of the elderly, seeing that their government was regarding them as necessarily expendable for the sake of the economy, would take their own measures to protect themselves. They would “self-isolate” in any case.
In the US there are at the minimum twenty million in the vulnerable category, many of them wealthy pensioners. The drop in consumer demand resulting would ripple out across the economy. The economic damage resulting from that is inevitable in any scenario.
And that’s what’s happened generally, in Europe and in the US. Consumer demand is down, our UK economy at least is on the ropes, and the government has been forced to adopt a more interventionist strategy in any case.
Not a good position to be in. Our health service is not in good shape administratively to meet the challenge, all normal life has been disrupted, our economy is severely damaged and civil disorder in the inner cities is possible though not, one hopes, inevitable.
And, though it’s almost trivial to mention it in this context, a sort of communal hysteria is manifesting itself in places, encouraged by the politicians, that reminds me of the mawkish sentimentality that swept the country at the time of Princess Diana’s death. We are not, it seems, the men our fathers were, as you remark above.
But I respectfully suggest, Colonel Lang, that the position we are in is unavoidable. It was unavoidable as soon as the virus reached our shores. The politicians could not in the end react other than they are reacting now and the elderly consumers likewise.
And since we cannot avoid the unavoidable, for me the questions are how to get out of this position without the politicians using it as excuse to restrict our civil liberties permanently, and how to repair our shattered economy. Remembering that our economy was scarcely viable before all this hit us anyway.
Deap,
“France shuts down its country every August.”
I’ve seen that lie on lots of other blogs. Some people in France take month long vacation in August, the peak of the tourist seaons, is NOT the government ORDERING businesses closed. Try again.
A couple of disturbing videos:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1245834140747993090
https://youtu.be/C95ECjxgcJE
Rumors I’ve seen on the internet:
Ground Zero hospital in Queens, Elmhurst: Citizen journalists report that when the MSM is there to film/report there are long lines, when they leave, it’s back to all quiet
All deaths are being reported as “died with coronavirus” no matter the cause of death “with” instead of “of”
Facts: CBS News shows video of overwhelmed ER at Elmhurst, video was actually from video done at hard hit ER in Italy
Hospital ships deployed to NY and LA: very little
activity and few admissions
The readiness is all, said Shakespeare through the voice of Hamlet. Older folk do come to some acceptance of the inevitable, but perhaps one should not extrapolate from that sentiment. Dems, partisanship and all that aside, just how do you rate the performance of The Commander in Chief, on leadership, on vision, on planning, strategy, tactics, supply chain management, execution?
I know some younger guys that are up and comers, business owners and a marketing genius. The genius guy’s plan was to give everyone over 65 100K to just stay at home, they would bring us our food, Rx’s or anything else we needed. We would spend all that extra money on the new services being provided and they would reap the benefit with the new businesses they would be starting. They don’t want the government to give the masses $1200 in TrumpBux, they want their age group back to work and not waiting on “handouts”. I agree with them except that even us oldsters need some socializing. After 8 years of Obama, Trump was a God-send to them and now they feel they have been literally f-overed again. Can’t say that I blame them.
I always like it when someone reminds us of the lyrics of the “Battle Hymn of Republic.” My favorite line is this: “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” I am living in a town where there are three Catholic churches, but too many Protestant churches to count.
I was raised in a Protestant Church. Our denomination provided us ministers who could speak German for the sake of our older people who fled the Bolsheviks who were coming to grab hold of the farms they had built up over a century and to turn them into their failed experiments in factory farming and communal farming. Those experiments in communism ended in the Holdomor Famine.
There are many other Protestant churches across this country. We believe in the Holy Trinity. Some emphasize the Son, others the Spirit (holy Ghost) and others the Father. But most also try to really understand the meaning of the Trinity.
By writing that, I am saying that they will listen to our elected leaders and government “experts” and will “render unto Caesar:” but they will above all follow their determination to ask first: “What would Jesus Do?”
Do not ever discount the flyover people, the ones who would never want to live in the DC Beltway or the lunacy of the Californian Liberals (as, for instance Nancy Pelosi).
We WILL follow the rules that we can see might stem the spread of this communist virus (using a double meaning here). We will follow the rules with a smile behind our facial coverings We will make whatever financial sacrifices we must make, knowing that when the virus has been defeated, we will build back the “land of the Free” to its previous economic level and may finally find the strength to rid the country of the socialist ideologies that have overtaken the supposed “Democratic” Party and our public educational institutions.
I sense some Catholic prejudice against us Protestants perhaps in this post. Remember that some of the first settlers here were protesting what they felt was the tyranny of the Book of Common Prayer. I believe there are more Protestants than Anglicans or Catholics in this country. We are allowed to think for ourselves, and we are the ones who are constantly reading and studying the scriptures on our own.
I have total faith in the “common man” in this country. I live far outside the beltway of the swamp.
Yes, we follow the guidelines given us. We do our “social distancing,” and we wear coverings over our mouths and noses if we must venture out into the world. And we will be the first to put our Protestant “work ethic” into fourth (or fifth) gear when we see it is time to go back to work.
I would hate to live on one of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts–too much “group think” going on in those places.
Colonel with great respect:
You wrote –
A controlled, centrally planned economy is not worth living in
I do believe your reference was for China, unfortunately we in the western Hemisphere [and satraps thereof] are similarly ruled, not by Communist Party but by corrupt politicians whose major job is to protect the financial elites at the expense of the 90-99% of population [USA, Canada, et al.]
In 2008 no banker, bond rating agent, fraudulent mortgage provider was sent to jail, rather they were rewarded by the largess of the state to rebalance their losses [Socialism for the banker class at the expense of the rubble]
2020 is a reenactment of 2008.
Aside from that above rant I agree with you that the manufacturing economy must be rebuilt[not sure about some aspects of the service economy – e.g. financialization of everything]. I believe that I am your junior by les then 2 years so the negative aspect of your prognosis re the aged might be not welcome by my family.
BillWade,
Didn’t you hear? Fake News is an essential industry. Never let a crisis go to waste works both ways. See Trump’s letter on the ICIG.
Walrus,
re The old economy is dead. We must let it go. As an acquaintance wrote yesterday: “ Last month I was a B787 pilot, today I’m mixing cement.”.
In a sence it is. There are changes coming. I know two former colleagues who decided they needed a change before they’d be overtaken by realitiy.
One was a team leader who had studied law. He chose to quit and now prefers now to lead his own cab (taxi) corporation with 16 cars. Hard at times but independent.
The other colleague, formerly also a team leader responsible for publishing online journals, chose another job, with better payment and reliable and predictable working times – he is now working as a train driver. Another advantage of that – no more home office.
I for my part went to another department rather than being sold off (likely with EU subsidies), like folks with 20+ years of job experience (in the corporation), to a romanian service provider. Gratitude for a quarter century service and competent work? Zero.
IMO of the folks in corporation I met likely the middle managers, be they business academics or or Kaufmanns, cause the most damage.
The worst one I so far met showed around an excel with a remarkably unconvincing calculation like 20.000 – 20.000 = 12.345 or something, with the formula used hidden on another page, that page hidden and password protected. He didn’t even have the self respect to lie more discretely.
This link contains information very useful for understanding this SARS-CoVID-2 in context with other major plagues and pandemics, including a very well-executed visualization to supplement gross estimates of fatalities in purely numerical terms. The only “weakness” is that the fatality counts are not juxtaposed against estimated populations of the affected regions at that time in history (a rough R0).
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/
I agree with Col. Lang’s sense of urgency.
Sorry to be brutal and rude but some of you are in denial about how serious this is. A flatling economy is the least of our problems. It’s not about “a few million deaths.”. and then we all go back to work.
On a societal level, some of you think the cost of “business as usual” is a few million old folk. with co morbidity. That is wrong. The cost is your entire health system collapsing, followed by the destruction of every major metropolis in the country and. if you are lucky, martial law for the survivors. There will be no economy left to resuscitate.
If the general population is not protected, the “spike” in cases is going to be in the order of many tens, if not hundreds of millions, of cases in a matter of weeks. The health system cannot stand that strain. It will collapse. Then you are in disaster movie territory. – And that is even assuming the virus doesn’t mutate like the 1918 flu virus did.
Look at New York now. What do you think it would be like next week if it was still “business as usual”?
As for your Ad Hominem Fred, I’m sorry for you and in any case you are wrong. You can gladly have all my money and property in exchange for giving me ten years of your pain free healthy active life. So what if the economy flatlines? You millennials have Forty years to recover from it. Us boomers don’t.
I raised the Coronavirus issue on March 6. The economy can adapt and rebuild quickly. A busted society can’t.
walrus
IMO the survival rates on CODIV-19 are high enough to live with (irony) but the economy is headed for the Middle Ages if “mediation” is not changed to ensure treatment of the sick and protection of old people like us while re-opening the economy which is life itself for our civilization. I find it amusing that the lefty muchacha thinks the economy is about “shares.”
DRFRANK
High.
Norbert Salomon
They think you are immortal?
Two filings have been filed against the Chinese Government and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for their development and unleashing of their COVID Bio-weapon upon humanity and the world.
India jurists have filed against China before the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-372096.pdf
And in Texas Federal Court, a $20 Trillion Dollar Lawsuit has been filed against the Chinese Government and the Chinese PLA for their COVID Bio-Weapon.
https://www.freedomwatchusa.org/pdf/200317-CoronavirusFILEDComplaint177113137478.pdf
Walrus,
Tell your friend whose comment I called “OK Boomer” I’m sorry I hurt his feelings. You did not respond to my comments on public policy decisions being made in cities in the US, which are making things worse.
“You millennials have Forty years to recover from it. Us boomers don’t.” If you want another ten healthy years I recommend you get some “Trump pills” (hydroxychloroquine and a zpack) and stay on your ranch. You won’t experience the meltdown of society and I’ll tell you where to send the money next year when we’re still exchanging ideas. Maybe you can do a write up on that yatch/motor sailer that came up on an open thread a few years back. A nice live aboard would be a good thing to own right now.
A couple of posts ago you were saying we should end tariffs against China so we can get PPE output from factories there becuase of the crisis. Let me point out it is while they are dumping defective material and fraudulent data on the rest of the world. They are the last people we should trust and we need to destroy their communist state while we still can.
Fred, I thought I had explained that in my opinion, the economy will adapt and look after itself. Yes, a lot of people will be financially destroyed but others are going to make fortunes, and not the elite 1% either.
I was unemployed myself for 18 months during the 1990 recession and I know the desperation and pain. I also remember friends starting businesses in garages with borrowed bits of gear, friends working for free in the hope of some pay or equity. I watched a friend buy sophisticated manufacturing machines coming from a bankrupt company from dumb bankers for pennies in the dollar. and start a new manufacturing business on the cheap. I saw so many turn disaster into opportunity!
I know it will make people howl, but this is the time to get started on a new business. Right now! In a post accidentally deleted, I mentioned a friend who has her own catering business -weddings, parties, etc. all gone. She now has developed a range of gourmet, ready to eat meals that are selling like wildfire through the local supermarket. There is no point in lookin backwards. The old economy is gone for good.
As for China, I said on March 6 and I still believe, that China is playing fair, this is no bio weapon, there is no conspiracy with WHO. The guys who gave the briefing were hands on with the virus and in daily communication with China and WHO. They probably still are since we now grow the virus and are testing British and American vaccines as I write. As for Chinese fake equipment, based statistics, so what? They are entrepreneurs and economical with the truth, always have been, you factor that in when you deal with them, it’s nothing new.
I am concerned by the attempted demonization of Fauci and President Trump. Sure, wth 20/20 hindsight we could have maybe reacted earlier by a few days, but when you consider the politics of the situation I think CDC, NIH and President Trump have moved quickly and done the right thing, operating, as they must, with incomplete and potentially changeable information. Fauci will probably be discarded by Trump as soon as his usefulness is over, the knives would already be out because people are envious of his access and public profile.
I got out of the city and bought this little place on the river six years ago to live out my declining years and also with an eye to providing a place of safety and repose for our extended family. We now get to see if it will do its job. I’m working in the garden today, plating winter vegetables, and thanking our creator that I am not cooped up in an apartment. I hope the pandemic is kind to all SST folk.
walrus
You are right, it could scarcely be more serious. You are also right about the business as usual option. A collapsed healthcare system is exactly what would result in this scenario. This would be swiftly followed by abject fear and panic and that followed by civil disorder on a scale never seen. In an armed society that equates to anarchy pretty fast. That is the sure route to the Middle Ages. It is not an option.
Given this as the alternative, a severely damaged economy but with civil order maintained is the best we can hope for right now. The lockdowns allow breathing space to gear up the healthcare system as fast as possible and as early as is feasible they must be lifted.
I am actually optimistic that the domestic crisis is just about manageable. Some aspects of temporary wartime command economy may be required. My greater fear is the fragility of the modern international monetary and financial system, which has never experienced a shock like this. International cooperation on an unprecedented scale will be needed. The dollar’s rise (caused by a scarcity of dollars in the Eurodollar markets) is creating havoc and the IMF has already been hit by a tsunami of requests for emergency aid from some 80 countries. Our interlinked global financial system is systemically at risk.
On a positive note, I do not believe there is a danger of the US becoming China when this is all over. This too shall pass and though we mere mortals may not be immune to the virus, the US Constitution sure as hell is.
To those who still insist in calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus”, the jury is still out on where it actually came from. President Trump, who does not want more eggs on his face, had stopped using that epithet.
From M. K. BHADRAKUMAR:
https://indianpunchline.com/russia-quizzes-us-on-coronavirus-parentage/
“What it adds up to is that Russia is signalling that it knows something about coronavirus’ parentage that is explosive in its impact on world politics and international security. Russia has highly privileged intelligence sharing arrangements with China. Kremlin is the only interlocutor with which President Xi Jinping’s office maintains an institutionalised system of sharing vital information and coordination.”
US Surgeon General in a short video shows one how to make their own face mask with an old tee shirt and two rubber bands – no sewing. Just cutting.
Pretty ingenious. Good for him. Best way to stop self-noculating one’s own nose and mouth with one’s own dirty fingers, and help “stop the spread”. https://www.facebook.com/CDC/videos/1260776464113699/
This will work for colds and flu too.
Walrus,
“As for Chinese fake equipment, based statistics, so what? They are entrepreneurs and economical with the truth, always have been, you factor that in when you deal with them, it’s nothing new.”.
Then the US needs to expell every Chinese national now. We can ‘extreme vet’ them later. With 10,000,000 unemployed by government mandate we need zero of them now.
” I saw so many turn disaster into opportunity!” I’ve seen the same. I have never seen our country order people into bankruptcy as they are doing now. Is your catering friend’s business going to survive when people can go back to restaurants or are they part of the “The old economy is gone for good.”?
“I am concerned by the attempted demonization of Fauci and President Trump.”
Fauci is a “we have always done it that way” scientist who would gladly have us waiting for perfection. He should be removed. He’s had 36 years to train people, didn’t he do that? FDA regulations, not all of his making, have hindered progress significantly whether on vintilators, masks or even hand sanitizer. Why on earth is the FDA regulation hand sanitizer? There are plenty of other examples of regulatory barriers to entry that drive up cost, delay or prevent innovation and do little to improve health and safety. (The old AT&T monopoly comes to mind as an analogy). Fauci is an example of the type that creates those barriers in an effort to get perfection. Demonizing Trump? That has been going on since before he was elected. Imagine how many of us would be dying right now if that other narcissistic New Yorker were in office right now. Add that to the deaths incurred in extended military actions in Syria, Ukraine and Libya she was going to make happen.
Barbara Ann
IMO the medical system would adapt to the fact that only the severely symptomatic need the level of treatment now being provided for too many.
All
Please take the time to watch this interview of Dr. Jay Battacharya at Stanford who wrote an oped in the WSJ last week.
https://youtu.be/-UO3Wd5urg0
I agree with his contention that the models that are being used to project the fatalities and consequently the response of nationwide quarantine is flawed because we don’t know the denominator. We have not done antibody tests of representative samples of the population to get the denominator. If things go right within the next 2-4 weeks we will get the denominator for Santa Clara and Los Angeles.
Only then will we know if a nationwide quarantine and a possible economic depression is justified to fight the Wuhan virus. My speculation is the denominator will show that the lethality of the Wuhan virus is much less and we can take a much more targeted approach as Col. Lang has suggested in his post.
Walrus,
Ok, so you don’t think the lockdown can be lifted now? Fair enough. When then? What are the criteria for lifting the lockdown? If those criteria are not satisfied then do you just carry on with the lockdown? For how long? 6 months? 1 year? Until a vaccine is found and what if it isn’t?
Maybe some of us are underestimating the virus but I think you are overestimating the willingness of populations to live under virtual house-arrest. Sure, most people seem to be abiding by the restrictions for now (at least in the UK) but that will not last forever. Eventually and probably sooner than people think people are just going to say “to hell with it, I’d rather take my chances with the virus than live like this”. Once that begins to happen, good luck with trying to enforce the lockdown and keep a lid on it. You would have civil unrest and the disaster movie scenario you fear would take place anyway.
Back around the end of February, a friend well connected with some quite credible researchers (deeply engaged in COVID testing/mitigation development) provided the following potential US impact assessment:
~100 million will be infected
~15 million will be hospitalized
~2-2.5 million will need intensive care
~500K – 1 million will die
This was based on the following assumptions (guess based on early date from Korea, japan, etc.):
15-45% of population will be infected
12% will nee hospitalization
3% will require intensive care
0.5 – 1% fatality rate
Mr. Lang,
I applaud both the logic and rhetoric of your approach. The Economy must demand our concerns because we must render unto Caesar as we have been taught by Jesus of Nazareth, Himself. In furtherance of this, please allow me to expand on your thesis with some additional suggestions…
The Unites States should undertake a constitutional amendment to reduce the vote of The Old Ones in proportion to their age and susceptibility to disease, or perhaps just employ a blanket adjustment such as declaring them “three-fifths of a person” as they would otherwise act on Election Day in their own self-interest, thereby endangering the prospects of The Young Ones. Should anyone attach the hated term Death Panel to these sorts of proceedings, one can simply declare it “Fake News!” and perhaps add additional exclamation points to emphasize their wrong thinking.
The proportion of the Social Security trust funds that these unfortunate Old Ones have provided in the course of their honest work can be diverted to Young Ones to subsidize future Spring Break excursions that will be necessary to support the State of Florida, whose Economy will be severely be impacted by the altruistic deaths of its Old Ones. Let the Gulf of Mexico be the bathtub that we drown that particular example of government overreach into their lives.
It is certainly arguable to think that The Old Ones represent a significant driving force to the vibrancy of The Economy because the capital that they have created or acquired in the aforementioned years of honest work cannot, in aggregate, balance the burden that they place on The Young Ones or The Economy to protect their well being. As they lay down their lives in service to The Economy, their estates should be appropriated to provide support to the efforts of The Young Ones to chart a new American Century. Even if they lack the accumulated wisdom of The Old Ones, they can stand on the shoulders of these giants through the existence of archival wisdom such as Soylent Green and the works of Herbert Spencer.
Indeed, as has been noted by luminaries such as Jared Kushner, the role of government stockpiles and similar quasi-socialist measures to ensure the Common Good are not, in fact, truly meant to ensure the Common Good but instead are there solely to support a centralized government to ensure that someone is there to note the inexorable progression of corrective measures on society such as COVID-19.
Yours in Swiftian Isolation,
mongo
“I am amazed at what a bunch of pussies Americans have turned out to be”
I’m not.
It has become a country of feminized babies who want their mommies.
I’m 75 years old and can still intimidate millennials.
As for the economy, it’s right on the precipice of a Great Depression.
If that does happen, will the populace react as passively as they did in 1929?
Chicot
I don’t know when the lockdown can be lifted. The smart answer would be “when we can do it without destroying the health care system “. If the healthcare system collapsed, then there won’t be an economy because we will be in disaster movie territory. The key to keeping the health system running is having enough workers, and they are under huge stress at the moment. There are also reports here of HCW being abused and assaulted when they have been in public wearing uniform. The State Government has just organised a luxury hotel for HCW so they don’t have to worry about infecting their families or commuting.
Maybe, just maybe, this chloroquine stuff can be used not only as a treatment but also as a preventative. If that were the case and we could get enough of it for the population and distribute it, we could open up real quick. Everyone pops their daily pill for a week or two and voila! If not, then it’s back to the drawing board and hopes of a vaccine fast track.
I think President Trump is of a similar mind to Col. Lang. You could hear his frustration in yesterday’s briefing. I think at some point he is likely to clash with Fauci and Birx, because they are too cautious for him. They will be replaced. It’s anyone’s guess what happens then.
Anyway, this is just my WAG. The Australian states have closed their borders to each other. I expect more movement restrictions today to try to prevent city dwellers from migrating to their holiday houses over Easter.
How did Taiwan manage Wuhan virus without shutting down their whole country and with only 5 deaths when over a million people travel between China and Taiwan annually?
https://youtu.be/sae9AIx1wp0
This is the country we should partner with not the totalitarian communist regime in China.
IMO, the entire management team at CDC, FDA, NIH, HHS should be fired for incompetence. Sadly this will not happen, as in contemporary America one only fails upward if you’re in the top ranks of big business and big government.
I have a link here to a paper on Australia’s pandemic modeling. FWIW, it reckons 13 weeks of 90% compliance will suppress the disease, BUT you had better have plan B available by then or the disease will come back worse than ever for reasons I don’t understand. I believe this is what happened lately in China.
I don’t pretend to understand the computer modeling and yours is likely much more complex but you can see the complexities involved here:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.10218v2.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3tbNXdYX5tcjGWC9Ew9iBEWRSJwAWVPpU9KgfB736ev8D5-zeATNC5e7c
walrus
Why has Australia started treating people with hydrochloroquine and ZPac? https://www.businessinsider.com/malaria-pill-chloroquine-tested-as-coronavirus-treatment-2020-3
There are numerous articles.
Col. Lang,
I believe some patients here are being prescribed some form of chloroquine. I’m not sure what with.
Fauci is right about a double blind trial being the gold standard of proof. Without that, the placebo effect ensures that doctors and patients will think chloroquine works. We could end up then with spending billions and more importantly wasting valuable time and lives chasing a cure that doesn’t work any better at all.
I just wish he was more tactful in saying all that because at some stage Trump may lose patience and fire him. Then, god help us, we might get a “yes man” medical flunky and Trump dictating medical science – shades of Stalin.
Jack,
“How did Taiwan manage Wuhan virus without shutting down their whole country and with only 5 deaths when over a million people travel between China and Taiwan annually?”
Very good question. Unfortunately, in order to follow the Taiwan model we would have had to start long ago, not just in January, but years ago. They prepared in earnest after the last SARS pandemic hit them hard. This article describes what they did in detail. Whether we could have duplicated the Taiwanese way is an open question. The author does compare Taiwan with Australia as far as being island nations with strong economic ties with China, similar sized populations and universal healthcare systems. The article includes a link to a detailed, chronological list of actions taken by the Taiwanese government in the first five weeks of their response.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/asia/taiwan-coronavirus-response-who-intl-hnk/index.html
Although our economy has been clobbered and it is getting worse, critical sectors of the economy are working. The health care system is still working, even if it is teetering in areas. Our food production and distribution systems are still going strong. The lights are on. The water is still running. The phones work. Broadcast TV works. The internet is handling a nation of online schooling and teleworking. The mail still gets in the box every day. Hell, I still get my morning paper. We’ll get through this. My worry is what happens if or when this hits the lesser developed regions of the world hard. Will we let the rest of the world burn because we got ours? If we do that, we are a nation of spoiled, selfish assholes.
Walrus,
Which prison are the people who were arrested for spitting upon or otherwise harrasing those nurses in? Were the cops to busy with social distance policing or just pulled off the street?
“I think at some point he is likely to clash with Fauci and Birx…” You have that wrong, they are clashing with him. He’s in charge, not them. They advise, he decides. Fauci’s advice hasn’t been that great:
Fauci, January 26, 2020: “[The Corona] virus isn’t something the American people need to worry or be afraid about.” That was less than ten days before Trump’s SOTU where he raised concerns about the Covid19 virus.
Fauci, February 17,2020: [in] “the United States there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask”
Fauci, April 3, 2020: “Americans should wear a face mask as a way to help stifle the spread of Covid19”.
That’s reason enough to fire the distinguished 36 years in the same job SOB. Perhaps he didn’t get your message: “They are entrepreneurs and economical with the truth, always have been, you factor that in when you deal with them, it’s nothing new.”.” A little late now.
“I don’t know when the lockdown can be lifted. The smart answer would be “when we can do it without destroying the health care system “. If the healthcare system collapsed, then there won’t be an economy because we will be in disaster movie territory.”
There will be no ‘health care system’ if the economy collapses. We need to get back to work yesterday and stop panicing over a global IO campaign that is utilizing the virus and its spread to create panic, dissention and damage western nations and civlization itself. The ‘health care system’ isn’t stressed in multiple states nor in many areas within individual states.
“…we will be in disaster movie territory” no, but in areas led by corrupt and incompetent leftists like NYC and New Orleans you may see a replay of the LA Rodney King riots or post Katrina looting. Then civilization reimposes itself, restores order, and lives by the civilization’s rules. We need, must, get back to work and not let communist chinese (and globalist open borders types) pressure force us into destroying our nation.
China lied, Americans died. China delenda est.
@mongo
Your modest proposal is an interesting idea. Another piece of archival wisdom provides a similar blueprint, with the demarcation between Young and Old set at age 21. In this scheme, the Young are so keen to maintain a healthy society that they (mostly) voluntarily present themselves for termination before becoming “Old”.
I’m sure the altruists in Congress would without hesitation vote for such an amendment (and themselves into extinction) if it can be shown that this will relieve the burden on the economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run
Col. Lang,
As far as I know, there are two trials of the drug here and I believe it’s now legal for Doctors to prescribe it for the virus. I know of one case where it was tried (unsuccessfully) for a patient in the late stage of lung failure. I’m not sure if it’s in regular use yet.
TTG,
Yes, I did read that article and did post the link to that article on SST some days ago.
Precisely, this is more in the lessons learned category. Taiwan had a competent CDC who made it happen without much fanfare. Our CDC was out to lunch, even though they have a gigantic budget. OTOH, as you note our infrastructural systems are holding up remarkably well. Our internet and communications infrastructure has not failed. Our food transportation and distribution system have proven to be resilient. The question is will we learn any lessons and take corrective action including relieving those managers who failed the test? And our hysterical media have proven to be the jackasses they truly are.
As I have noted over the past couple weeks we really don’t know what the lethality of the Wuhan virus is and the projections are based on incomplete information and consequently could be flawed. There are more anecdotal examples that I am reading that with the exception of a few urban areas like NYC, Detroit and New Orleans there is limited stress on our hospital system. In fact due to the postponement of all elective procedures in many parts of the country the hospital systems are now severely under loaded causing furloughs of medical staff.
In the next few weeks researchers at Stanford and other places will conduct antibody tests on representative samples of the population. Then we’ll get better models and projections as we will have a better handle on the denominator. I remain hopeful that what they’ll find out is that the Wuhan virus is less lethal and that the percentage of the population with the antibody and consequently immunity is larger than perceived today.
A point that needs to be stressed is that we have a huge cutting-edge biotech industry and a highly capable medical diagnostic industry. They were not enlisted early to join in this fight. It has taken the FDA until last week to approve antibody tests as an example. This is all classic bureaucratic snafus, red tape and turf battles. Take for example the Paycheck Protection scheme. Due to the turf battles between Treasury and the SBA, many of the larger banks who are to front the lending can’t process the swarm of applications.
walrus
I am interested in the life and death of civilizations and individuals, not the egos of people like Fauci and Birx.
Fred,
Guys who act up get a $1600 fine, assault an emergency service or HCW and it’s six months mandatory jail.
Fauci’ s claim was wrong but he may not have known it. Initially Coronavirus was thought to be transmitted animal to human. Human to human transmission was, I think, announced on 20 january. By 31 Jan, Trump had limited Chinese travel. We are talking very tight timelines and limited information.
We are in “five days in May 1940” territory in discussing this. Exactly what the timelines look like will be argued in books for years.
As for the Chinese, everyone knows that they are economical with truth and we always compensate for it. This should be no surprise.
As for Fauci, Birx, Trump, etc. they will be blamed, vilified, defended and canonized depending on people’s point of view. I think, from what I’ve heard on briefings and news, that they are focused on saving lives, period. Unless their is some Guru waiting in the wings, Fauci is going to keep advising trump. He is old enough not to care what happens to him and I hope, like Alanbrooke with Churchill, he gives full and frank advice knowing that Trump doesn’t want to hear it.
I think a lot of commenters here are unfair to Dr Fauci. He has been trying to not to clash with President Trump. He has not much of an ego, in my opinion.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/i-m-going-keep-pushing-anthony-fauci-tries-make-white-house-listen-facts-pandemic
An exerpt of a few Qs and As.
“Q: How are you managing to not get fired?
A: Well, that’s pretty interesting because to [Trump’s] credit, even though we disagree on some things, he listens. He goes his own way. He has his own style. But on substantive issues, he does listen to what I say.”
“Q: You’ve been in press conferences where things are happening that you disagree with, is that fair to say?
A: Well, I don’t disagree in the substance. It is expressed in a way that I would not express it, because it could lead to some misunderstanding about what the facts are about a given subject.”
“Q: Most everyone thinks that you’re doing a remarkable job, but you’re standing there as the representative of truth and facts, and things are being said that aren’t true and aren’t factual.
A: The way it happened is that after he made that statement [suggesting China could have revealed the discovery of a new coronavirus 3 to 4 months earlier], I told the appropriate people, it doesn’t comport, because 2 or 3 months earlier would have been September. The next time they sit down with him and talk about what he’s going to say, they will say, “By the way, Mr. President, be careful about this and don’t say that.” But I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.”
Walrus,
“Guys who act up get a $1600 fine, assault an emergency service or HCW and it’s six months mandatory jail.” So apparently no actual arrests since I didn’t find any on google and there’s no link to any.
“Initially Coronavirus was thought to be transmitted animal to human. ” That looks more and more like it is just the Chinese cover story for this leaking out of their viral research lab.
“Unless their is some Guru waiting in the wings, Fauci is…..” As indespensible and as reliable as Comey, McCabe, Vindman, etc.
“We are in “five days in May 1940” …” When we are done we need “55 Days in Peking”.
I do hope we follow your PM’s example and tell the temporary visa holders it is time to leave. Stay safe.
China delenda est.
“…their welfare must, to some extent, be sacrificed for the good of the herd of the young and fit.”
The whole reason for the stay-at-home is to keep the hospital system from collapsing.
A relative of mine recounted YESTERDAY, the euthanasia she was told to perform, and did perform, on a 52-year-old-man, as they needed the respirator for someone else!!!
She says it is bad, getting worse fast, and that they do not have enough equipment. The country needs to protect their care-givers.
The State of Oregon, where I live, many businesses are changing their production, from beer – to hand sanitizer, from equipment to mask, and shields.
The country just needs a month or so, to manufacture what is needed, THEN, we can go back to work.
Just like Taiwan contained COVID-19 with millions of Face Masks. We can do the same.
Chao…
kim sky
Touching but simpleminded.
Kim Sky
I live in Oregon also. Where is this hospital that doesn’t have enough ventilators? Kate Brown, our governor, just sent NY 140 Oregon ventilators. If there aren’t enough ventilators where your relative works, they need to notify the state health d3epartment to get more. Our numbers for infected and deaths are pretty low so there should be plenty of equipment.
This website is both a past and future projection of pertinent data concerning the virus, over all and by state.
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections
> The US government’s herculean efforts at relief of people and business are admirable but are really only temporary measures the effect of which will expire leaving the country with a need for further inflationary projects.
You mean huge ass corporations that should go into bankruptcy for their bad business decisions? (For example, the airlines that spend their profits on stock buybacks)
In reality, the small businesses that really need the money aren’t getting it. There is plenty of videos of owners of such businesses being more than just pissed off about it.
This is starting to look like the 2008 bailout. In reality, nothing will change because the big corporations know they will get bailed out if something like this happens. All the while the little guys will suffer keeping their employees.
there has been a few articles on pray.these things happen.
I myself also prayed for 3 very bright meteors to flash through the sky in the hope that the light will kill the virus.so far only one has over england and the English channel and parts of southern Europe.2 more soon will be good.
my wife thinks I am nuts and puts her faith in science.
I told her the rocks alter the UV and destroy the virus at cellular level.
she said I have got rocks in my head.cannot argue with a woman.its a losing game.
The nurse I was referring to is on the East Coast. As no one is allowed to report what is going on within the hospitals… the rest of the country is kept in ignorantance as to the horror that health care workers are facing.
1 or 2 million dead — sounds great, hey i’d love it if a few billion died, then the planet would be a better place. but the actuality of this process is beyond imaginable.
AND, they do not have enough ventilators, much less N-95 masks. Another friend, we sent an aid package to.
How and why the US-gov can conjure up billions for Boing, the fracking industry, etc. And the smallest portion to go the people who are working is amoral, congress spends their time deciding who gets money, not HOW TO EFFICIENTLY DEAL WITH THE COVID-PANDEMIC — unimaginable.
Catastrophe in hospitals, means catastrophe for police, fire departments, army etc.
Thanx for your site, I understand you don’t want to post what I say.
Thanx again, you’ve helped me many a time to understand military situations around the world.
Chao, Kim
P.S. National Security as far as I understand it means having the capacity to be self-sufficient. Able to feed your population, not send computer jobs to India, not send almost all manufacture of drugs to China.
About China . . .
Here is an article about how the official ChinaGov mass mind molders are working to mainstream their anti-americanitic Blood Libel about how America ” invented the virus and sent it to China”.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/n7jmpx/china-is-now-blaming-a-lone-us-cyclist-for-coronavirus
It should be clear that the “nazicommunist” ChinaGov Regime poses some level of threat to America’s ( and Americans’) future existence.
While this episode will leave a lot of economic damage behind, it will also give us an economic opportunity if we will take it. And that is . . . the opportunity to decouple from China. To me, ” decouple” means restore in America the industries and supply chains which our internal economic traitors sent into exile in China. As we restore and re-shore these things, we can restrict economic and other contact between America and China more and more and more. The end goal would be zero economic contact of any kind whatsoever between America and China.
We are told that we should expect and factor in the likelihood that Chinese “entrepreneurs” will lie and cheat one way or another, and that is our own fault for not being prepared. I reject this line of thinking. We don’t expect that sort of behavior from the German Mittelstand companies ( I guess we do expect it from the German Megastand companies like Volkswagen nowadays). German old-family multi-generational middle-level bussinesses still uphold the very highest standards of personal craftmanship. If we must buy from abroad, they are the type of people it is safe to buy from.
Whereas the Chinese companies downhold the very lowest standards of personal schlockmanship whenever they can get away with it. ” The lead pain goes in before the name goes on”.
On a lighter note, here is a funny reply to the ChinaGov Blood Libel about how ” America diddit”.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1245769995608621056
Fred
Are you still trying to sell that lab escape conspiracy theory? It could be true but so could the other one that the US created it and released it in China. Did you hear the one about NASA filming the moon landings in Hollywood sound stage or that Elvis is alive and well and does a nightly show in Ouagadougou. All true honest guv.
Fauci is exactly who you should be listening to. I will be amazed if it turns out that Fauci was behind any of the cock-ups that have been made. I suspect it is because his advice was ignored, we might find out one day if all deliberations are not classified to protect the guilty.
Kim Sky,
You make a really bad propagandist. “As no one is allowed to report what is going on within the hospitals….” Somebody forgot to tell the head of numerous hospitals, their staffs, and people who can drive right on by on the way to work and – local media. “East Coast” is a lot of states and 100s of hospitals. Lots have zero or single digit patients.
JJackson,
Unlike the moon landing people I’m absolutely certain zero people sat in a meeting with Xi and said the way to destory the West was to release a virus upon their own people, since they already had a cure, they could use the panic as cover to crush the protests in Hong Kong and arrest other disidents and otherwise let havoc rain, then get rich selling the cure to the West. That’s the plot line from V for Vendetta, not reality.
Thanks for letting us know yet again that expert opinion concludes that this came from the wet market down the road, just like the last epidemic. Which brings me to ask why the Chinese government has allowed them to re-open, just like last time.
“Fauci is exactly who you should be listening to.”:
Fauci, January 26, 2020: “[The Corona] virus isn’t something the American people need to worry or be afraid about.” That was less than ten days before Trump’s SOTU where he raised concerns about the Covid19 virus.
Fauci, February 17,2020: [in] “the United States there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask”
Fauci, April 3, 2020: “Americans should wear a face mask as a way to help stifle the spread of Covid19”.
Looks like his advice was wrong, wrong and late.
Fauci is also the one responsible for advising that all deaths be recorded as caused by Covid19 if the virus is present in the body at time of death. What does that do to cause of death statistics that are used in all that modeling that our expert government modelers are using to advise the president on what to do? We are back to looking at a highly contagious virus that is oftern fatal to older people with underlying risk. That’s not a reason to destroy the Republic. Fauci wants an economic closure of society until there is zero risk, otherwise he gets blamed for somebody’s great grandmother dying if we start go back to working. He is also the one discounting any other course of treatment until standard FDA protocals are carreid out. He is not a god, he is a falable human being.