Re: Coronavirus data and events as they come in

[rong]

you know how the Branch Covidians are going "the death count is fake, any time somebody dies of anything, they count it as a covid death" ?


Sears is probably gonna go belly-up. But Sears was dying before covid, so clearly this is fake news and the economy is OK. They're just blaming this on covid to be sensational. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/business/j-crew-bankruptcy-jcpenney-sears-neiman-marcus-retailers-coronavirus/index.html

As Below, So Above

[Cramulus]

My company had two of our Economics authors (Stevenson and Wolfers) give a talk about how Covid-19 will impact the global economy. I'll give you the cliff's notes:

• They expect that when businesses reopen, sales aren't gonna be great... demand will be low (it'll take a few months for people to start going back to movie theaters, etc), and income is lower than normal, so it'll take a while for the economy to get back up to speed.

• The preliminary projection is that the economy won't really recover until 2023. But nobody knows for sure, and anybody who says they do is lying.

• Most economists agree that the most important thing right now is to "beat the bug" -- the economy will NOT recover until people feel safe going out in public and doing normal things. No economists think that "re-opening the economy" is possible without an effective health plan. People need confidence that they can shop and return to work safely - that's how the economy recovers.

• A lot of people are freaked out about the new multi-trillion dollar economic debt. Economists apparently aren't really concerned about this - they compared it to having a ton of credit card debt - the total debt isn't as important as whether you can make the monthly payment. They said that this is, essentially, a low-interest loan.

• We are seeing a big increase in savings accounts right now, which is smart. If possible, you should try to save a "rainy day" fund. Interestingly, the lack of spending right now creates a 'deflationary' pressure that will lower prices and counteract the inflation going on right now.

• Recessions accelerate innovation. In terms of the workforce, we can expect an increase in trends like automation and online shopping. Retail will probably not return to the same levels of employment as before Covid-19.

• They used the term "bailout fatigue" to describe politicians reluctance to cut more checks for the public. The economists intuition is that when politicians see the Q2 numbers, they will recognize that more 'bailouts' are necessary for economic recovery.

• Even the most conservative economists agree that the government should be borrowing money to invest in the future of the US. The most conservative economists insist that politicians should keep their pet projects out of these bills. But everybody agrees that gov spending, right now, is the best path to economic recovery.

[LMNO]

Maybe, finally, we'll have the infamous "Infrastructure Week" actually happen.






Who am I trying to kid?   

[Cain]

That all sounds pretty plausible to me.

I would also say that this is the key point:

Most economists agree that the most important thing right now is to "beat the bug" -- the economy will NOT recover until people feel safe going out in public and doing normal things. No economists think that "re-opening the economy" is possible without an effective health plan. People need confidence that they can shop and return to work safely - that's how the economy recovers.

Certain armed protestors whining about their "freedom" aside, most people don't want to kill Grandma, or their immuno-compromised friends. But while that remains a very real possibility, cinemas, restaurants, sporting venues etc simply won't recover.

[Doktor Howl]

Certain armed protestors whining about their "freedom" aside, most people don't want to kill Grandma, or their immuno-compromised friends. But while that remains a very real possibility, cinemas, restaurants, sporting venues etc simply won't recover.

Normal is gone.  The world changed, and pretending it didn't always works out well.

Sort of like then warfare changes, and we keep building battleships for another 20 years.

[Cain]

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a more home-centric lifestyle. But I hate going out anyway.

[Juana]

Aaaaaand it's about to get real fuckin ugly in Wisconsin. their supreme court just struck down the shelter in place orders and didn't even give it the extension that the Republicans who brought the suit asked for to give their legislation time to figure out an alternative. It wasn't mentioned in this article but apparently it was compared to the Japanese internment camps in the majority opinion.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Aaaaaand it's about to get real fuckin ugly in Wisconsin. their supreme court just struck down the shelter in place orders and didn't even give it the extension that the Republicans who brought the suit asked for to give their legislation time to figure out an alternative. It wasn't mentioned in this article but apparently it was compared to the Japanese internment camps in the majority opinion.

yup. Wisconsin is super low on prevention measures too. When I do go out almost nobody is wearing a mask and though as a big guy folks generally don't dare give me the stink eye, my mask gets glances, you know, THOSE glances. The WHOLE Republican propaganda machine in the state is dead set on deliberately getting shit tons of folks killed and crippled for life and there is shit I can do about it. Worse they want Ever's head on a plate quite literally for DARING to use executive authority to try getting people to comply with health recommendations. Stupid fucks don't even know what a virus is or why antibiotics don't work by and large. What's the big deal? I wanna go back to the bar!

[Cramulus]

This recaps info that's been posted here already, but it's a nice reminder -- you are probably not gonna catch the corona virus from passing joggers or bicyclists.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/24/21233226/coronavirus-runners-cyclists-airborne-infectious-dose

[Cain]

So the risk Covid-19 presents to children may be more complex than initially thought

https://www.nytimes.com/article/kawasaki-disease-coronavirus-children.html?fbclid=IwAR0RZgdcKsl9wFyxJu692xTd5ko87ICt80DSJVMQv7M71BXg0RWWaIKgdUo

The coronavirus has largely spared children. Most confirmed to be infected have had only mild symptoms. But doctors in Europe and the United States have recently reported a troubling new phenomenon: Some children are becoming seriously ill with symptoms that can involve inflammation in the skin, eyes, blood vessels and heart.

The condition, which doctors are calling "pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome," is so new that there are still many unanswered questions about how and why it affects children. Here's a summary of what is and isn't known so far.

This is why it's far too soon to be talking about opening up schools and similar.

[The Wizard Joseph]

So the risk Covid-19 presents to children may be more complex than initially thought

https://www.nytimes.com/article/kawasaki-disease-coronavirus-children.html?fbclid=IwAR0RZgdcKsl9wFyxJu692xTd5ko87ICt80DSJVMQv7M71BXg0RWWaIKgdUo

The coronavirus has largely spared children. Most confirmed to be infected have had only mild symptoms. But doctors in Europe and the United States have recently reported a troubling new phenomenon: Some children are becoming seriously ill with symptoms that can involve inflammation in the skin, eyes, blood vessels and heart.

The condition, which doctors are calling "pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome," is so new that there are still many unanswered questions about how and why it affects children. Here's a summary of what is and isn't known so far.

This is why it's far too soon to be talking about opening up schools and similar.

Paywalls gonna paywall, but I heard of this from other sources a while back. At the time I could not confirm. I am in no way surprised to find it confirmed though. We have NO IDEA what this little chimeric RNA fucking bastard is capable of. But hey, let's just let it run through the population. Screaming "herd immunity" loud enough will surely boost our immune systems sufficiently.

.. I may be a bit bitter at this point. 

[Cain]

Here's the full article:

The coronavirus has largely spared children. Most confirmed to be infected have had only mild symptoms. But doctors in Europe and the United States have recently reported a troubling new phenomenon: Some children are becoming seriously ill with symptoms that can involve inflammation in the skin, eyes, blood vessels and heart.

The condition, which doctors are calling "pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome," is so new that there are still many unanswered questions about how and why it affects children. Here's a summary of what is and isn't known so far.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms can include fever, rash, reddish eyes, swollen lymph nodes and sharp abdominal pain. They do not usually include two common hallmarks of Covid-19: cough and shortness of breath.

The syndrome can bear some resemblance to a rare childhood illness called Kawasaki disease, but as doctors learn more, they are emphasizing that the two conditions are not the same.

Both involve a surge of inflammation in the body and can have serious effects on the heart. But Dr. Steven Kernie, chief of pediatric critical care medicine at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, said the new syndrome appears to affect the heart differently. While Kawasaki disease can produce coronary aneurysms when left untreated, the new syndrome seems to mostly involve inflammation of coronary arteries and other blood vessels.

And though shock is a rare complication of Kawasaki disease, the new syndrome has sent many of the children into a kind of toxic shock with very low blood pressure and an inability of the blood to effectively circulate oxygen and nutrients to the body's organs, Dr. Kernie said.

The coronavirus primarily affects adults by entering cells in their lungs and replicating, often causing respiratory failure. But this childhood syndrome "seems to be less a lung-specific disease," Dr. Kernie said.

While most of the hospitalized children with the syndrome need some additional oxygen, and a few have required ventilators, the effect on the lungs seems to be driven by an inflammatory response that affects many other parts of the body as well.

Can it be fatal?

Three children in New York have died from it, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported on Saturday.  Another death, of a 14-year-old boy in England was reported in, a study in the journal Lancet.

How common is it?

There is no good data on how many children have developed the syndrome, but it appears to be a small number so far. On May 8, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said there had been 73 reported cases in New York state and that the health department was investigating several child deaths as other possible cases. A handful of cases have been reported in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and California. There have been at least 50 cases reported in European countries, including Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.

How old are the children who have gotten it?

Hospitals have seen cases in children of all ages, from infants to older teenagers.

What should parents do if their child has symptoms?

Dr. Katie Schafer, a general pediatrician who has a private practice in Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, said that because there were still many unknowns about the condition, parents of children who have symptoms should take them to pediatricians rather than assuming that a rash or fever or abdominal pain is only a sign of a typical childhood illness.

"This is presenting very much like a common childhood illness, which it is not," she said. "This is a novel diagnosis that doesn't exactly have a name, doesn't exactly have a timeline, doesn't exactly have a protocol. We didn't learn about this in medical school."

How do we know it's related to the coronavirus?

Many of the children who have become sick with the syndrome either tested positive for the coronavirus at the time of their symptoms, or had positive antibody tests suggesting they may have been infected weeks earlier. Dr. Schafer said it was possible that "this may be a post-infection condition and not necessarily part of the acute phase of Covid."

What is the treatment?

Treatments have included steroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, high-dose aspirin and antibiotics, as well as supportive oxygen through the nose, a mask or, in the most serious cases, a ventilator. Most children who are intubated can be removed from the ventilators within a few days, doctors said.

Will there be long-term effects?

It's unclear. Children who have had serious effects on their hearts will need to be monitored by cardiologists in case there is residual heart damage. Others will undoubtedly need to be followed by their pediatricians to keep track of any lingering effects.

Why would children get this and not adults?

Children may be at greater risk for this syndrome because their immune systems are not fully developed, Dr. Kernie said. But there are no clues yet as to why some children get sick and not others. Many of the children have been previously healthy. And the syndrome doesn't seem to run in families, but Dr. Kernie's hospital and others are doing genetic testing to see if there is a predisposition or genetic reason one child becomes very sick while siblings seem unscathed.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Thanks Cain.

In other news, On Wisconsin..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/14/wisconsin-bars-reopen-evers/?fbclid=IwAR3u4CXYvhgHj57HbIUJYoDnwj9ge2bPBa_sEfugpp_ZZHemASj1t0SxQ7M

"We're the Wild West," Evers told MSNBC's Ali Velshi on Wednesday night, reacting to the state Supreme Court's ruling and the scenes of people partying in bars all across Wisconsin. "There are no restrictions at all across the state of Wisconsin. ... So at this point in time ... there is nothing that's compelling people to do anything other than having chaos here."

Chaos it was.

[altered]

https://twitter.com/seidtgeist/status/1261328237319327746?s=21

"Hey, Joe and Howl will get a kick out of this. I should post it."

[Cain]