Until we can start testing communities we won't know where herd immunity exists. If we can ID those people, we can send them to our front lines of needs. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Perhaps so, but note that there are presently no approved immunity tests for covid-19. They will take time to develop and validate.

In the meantime, the community priority must be to suppress the virus before millions of people die. The window is closing.

I'm giving it three days.
— Andrew M

82 000 has already passed in reality. — ssu

Yes it has.

Perhaps so, but note that there are presently no approved immunity tests for covid-19. — Andrew M

But I am a firm believer in the right to try and that has to be made available to those who want to try a test that might still be in trial. The fact that there is community spread suggests that herd immunity might be measurable.

In the meantime, the community priority must be to suppress the virus before millions of people die. The window is closing. — Andrew M

I realize that the suppression is necessary to flatten the curve but we could be protecting our first responders with antibodies from people who have been infected and have recovered, no?

If I am not mistaken, the rate of infection is twice as high for a male than a female.
If that is the case, I suggest that females might have a higher rate of immunity because there is science out there that fetus blood cells remain in the mother's body for up to 15 yrs. So in the event of an emergency within the mother's body, the youngest cells to respond are as old as her last child, follow me? The second set of cells to respond are the older sibling if they have more than one child and finally mom's own cells arrive to the injury site. This happens even if the fetus is not carried to term.
There is something in that line of thinking that might help us if we can figure out why the increase in male over female.
Thoughts?

Meanwhile in Spain:

Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told the private TV channel Telecinco that the government was "going to be strict and inflexible when dealing with the way older people are treated" in retirement homes.

"The army, during certain visits, found some older people completely abandoned, sometimes even dead in their beds," she said.

The defence ministry said that staff at some care homes had left after the coronavirus was detected.

Coronavirus: Spanish army finds care home residents 'dead and abandoned'

2) The President is worried about the economic recession and wants to loosen the "lock down". — ssu

That is childish thinking. Without an economy, everybody dies. Key economic sectors have to function (just to provide food and basic services), and the industries that can be shut down for a while need to restart at some point.
I was just watching the debate in the German parliament where they are going to pass a comprehensive Corona emergency packet, and even the far out opposition parties (both left and right) agree that the restrictions on movement and the government support that is planned can only be maintained for a limited time. A government is not some sort of god.

Trump is completely correct in saying that the cure must be worse than the disease, In a world without derangement syndrome, that would just be a common sense statement.

That is childish thinking. Without an economy, everybody dies. — Nobeernolife

Which is totally crazy. Economic recession isn't the same as an all out nuclear strike in the US. Recession is a time when wealth changes hands and people are unemployed. And economic growth starts when everybody is all doom and gloom.

I was just watching the debate in the German parliament where they are going to pass a comprehensive Corona emergency packet, and even the far out opposition parties (both left and right) agree that the restrictions on movement and the government support that is planned can only be maintained for a limited time. — Nobeernolife

Yes. That is the general consensus. Here it was for a month, not a year. Some talk of two months. Nobody is talking of a year or two long lockdown.

Trump is completely correct in saying that the cure must be worse than the disease, In a world without derangement syndrome, that would just be a common sense statement. — Nobeernolife

YES YES YES!!!!!

My forecast on another thread was proven right!

It took only 9 hours! :lol:

Agreed. :up:

It’s not wrong. South Korea didn’t need to put their economy on hold and to enact draconian measures.

Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control. “South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea’s success may hold lessons for other countries—and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success

I still think it’s too early to say, but so far they have done the right thing and they didn’t need to suspend civil liberties and tank their economy in order to do so. The recession is because of “supply shock”, due to Chinese lockdowns and the like.

It is too late for that in the US. The CDC and FDA have royalty screwed our chances at early testing.

As far as numbers go, it seems like the those who'd ape the president's just-thinking-aloud about the keeping the US 'open for business' are, in practice, willing to forgo roughly 600,000 lives.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/economic-shutdown-is-estimated-to-save-600-000-american-lives — StreetlightX

:100:

The abstract from the working paper referred to in that article:

We extend the canonical epidemiology model to study the interaction between economic decisions and epidemics. Our model implies that people's decision to cut back on consumption and work reduces the severity of the epidemic, as measured by total deaths. These decisions exacerbate the size of the recession caused by the epidemic. The competitive equilibrium is not socially optimal because infected people do not fully internalize the effect of their economic decisions on the spread of the virus. In our benchmark scenario, the optimal containment policy increases the severity of the recession but saves roughly half a million lives in the U.S. — The Macroeconomics of Epidemics - Eichenbaum, Rebeloz, Trabandt

From the introduction:

As the COVID-19 virus spreads throughout the world, governments are struggling with how
to understand and manage the epidemic. Epidemiology models have been widely used to
predict the course of the epidemic.1 While these models are very useful, they do have an
important shortcoming: they do not allow for the interaction between economic decisions
and rates of infection.

Policy makers certainly appreciate this interaction. For example, in their March 19, 2020
Financial Times op ed Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen write that

"In the near term, public health objectives necessitate people staying home from shopping and work, especially if they are sick or at risk. So production and spending must inevitably decline for a time."

The predicted spike in London is showing now with a rapid increase in confirmed cases and hospital admissions. And yet, the underground (metro) had packed commuter trains this morning. Packed with key workers and critical healthcare workers, presumably spreading it amongst themselves. The hospitals will be overwhelmed within a week.

New York is looking extremely ominous. Remember the photos ten days ago of the 4 hour queues at US airports? There’s going to be queues like that, but now for emergency care, with thousands of people in respiratory distress, and no beds or staff to admit them. It’s said that the attack rate - another bit of Corona virus terminology referring to the percentage of the population infected - is very high in New York, meaning that April is going to be dreadful.

It’s not wrong. South Korea didn’t need to put their economy on hold and to enact draconian measures. — NOS4A2

NOS4A2,

Have you picked up what people have said about the strategy of how to prevent pandemics?

Step 1) Nip them in the bud: Prevent local epidemics of new zoonotic diseases from being a threat by containing them where they emerge. That might be China, Africa or heck, just rural Arizona or Montana. That's the preventing stuff that CDC does in foreign countries, which Republicans hate.

Step 2) Trace the path and quarantine: In this case every new infection can be traced where it was gotten and all individual persons can quarantined. In this level nobody infected cannot simply walk into the hospital and there is no clue where the person got it. If this happens, then step 3.

Step 3) Containment & curbing the peak:: The epidemic/pandemic is here. You cannot anymore try to solve the path of the epidemic and contain individuals. Now it's social distancing and not having huge crowds at first, then lock down. Now the measures are taken only that the health care system doesn't crash and doctors don't have to choose which patient will live or not.

South Korea was quite successful in Step 2. The US wasn't at all. That's it. You have lost the tracing and putting people in quarantine step. Only thing to do is step 3.

Of course, if you want more people to die, then do what the officials in 1918 did: have censorship and prevent people knowing how the disease is spreading and have them notice it only when people they know start dying. Unfortunately that isn't an option anymore.

I have picked up on it. My argument is that I am suspicious of step 3 for the reasons I’ve already stated.

As for comparing it to the Spanish flu, I have been accused of spreading disinformation because I wrote of other viruses and the measures taken to prevent them, so on that I cannot comment.

I realize that the suppression is necessary to flatten the curve but we could be protecting our first responders with antibodies from people who have been infected and have recovered, no? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

that's exactly what a vaccine is. Trials are underway, but it is expected to be 12 months out, at least. Imagine if you started using something and it had side-effects or lead to deaths. Vaccination is having a hard enough time in the US as it is.

Have you picked up what people have said about the strategy of how to prevent pandemics? — ssu

He's just preparing the next pro Trump spin. Bad consequences from the lockdown? Experts gave Trump wrong advice. No strict measures enforced? Trump was emulating South Korea, but impotence down the line stymied him.

Note this last bit in the post:

It is too late for that in the US. The CDC and FDA have royalty screwed our chances at early testing. — NOS4A2

Already showing the seeds for the next blame game.

The predicted spike in London is showing now with a rapid increase in confirmed cases and hospital admissions. And yet, the underground (metro) had packed commuter trains this morning. Packed with key workers and critical healthcare workers, presumably spreading it amongst themselves. The hospitals will be overwhelmed within a week. — Punshhh

Based on the numbers, the UK is about one week behind Germany and France. They seem to be taking the same measures those countries took a week ago.

Italy, France and Germany are seeing a flattening of the curve of new infections, but the total number of patients will still rise for a significant time. So the question is how much capacity the UK has left.

Already showing the seeds for the next blame game.

How the CDC’s Restrictive Testing Guidelines Hid the Coronavirus Epidemic
Testing Blunders Crippled US Response as Coronavirus Spread
How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled: Flawed tests, red tape and resistance to using the millions of tests produced by the WHO

Thank you for the reflection as I might very well be looking to my circle of thinkers for stability. It is a by product of loving people. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Looking to thinkers online for stability is a by-product of loving people? Nevermind. :smile:

But I am a firm believer in the right to try and that has to be made available to those who want to try a test that might still be in trial. The fact that there is community spread suggests that herd immunity might be measurable.
...
I realize that the suppression is necessary to flatten the curve but we could be protecting our first responders with antibodies from people who have been infected and have recovered, no? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Things should and are being tried. But such tests and vaccines require time to develop and try.

So the most important priority is to buy the necessary time by suppressing the virus now. In the US and most other countries, that means extreme social distancing until it is suppressed.

We can't afford to drop the ball on this.

If the object is to flatten the curve to keep total serious cases low enough so that there's adequate medical treatment, and then you spend a trillion dollars propping up the economy, wouldn't it make more sense to just increase the medical capacity with that trillion dollars? That's what I'd do.

Testing Blunders Crippled US Response as Coronavirus Spread — NOS4A2

The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, has begun an internal review to assess its own mistakes. But outside observers and federal health officials have pointed to four primary issues that together hampered the national response — the early decision not to use the test adopted by the World Health Organization, flaws with the more complex test developed by the CDC, government guidelines restricting who could be tested and delays in engaging the private sector to ramp up testing capacity.

Combined with messaging from the White House minimizing the disease, that fueled a lackluster response that missed chances to slow the spread of the virus, they said.

“There were many, many opportunities not to end up where we are,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard, told the AP. “Basically, they took this as business as usual. ... And that’s because the messaging from the White House was ‘this is not a big deal, this is no worse than the flu.’ So that message basically created no sense of urgency within the FDA or the CDC to fix it.”

.....

The CDC published the technical details for its COVID-19 test on Jan. 28, 10 days after the WHO. By then, the virus had already been in the U.S. for at least two weeks.

The 35-year-old man who would become the first American to test positive had arrived in Seattle on Jan. 15, following a trip to Wuhan. After swabs from his nose and throat were flown to the CDC lab, federal officials announced the results Jan. 21.

In an interview on CNBC the following day, the Republican President was asked about the risk to the nation.

“We have it totally under control,” he said. “It’s one person coming in from China. ... It’s going to be just fine.”

With limited capacity at the CDC lab in Atlanta, the agency placed strict criteria on who could be tested: people with fevers, coughing or difficulty breathing who had also visited Wuhan within the preceding two weeks or who had close contact with someone already confirmed or under investigation for having the virus.

On Jan. 30, the day the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency, Trump again assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control.”

Then he departed for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he tweeted a photo of himself playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach.

Yet, still wants to declare the crisis over so everyone can go back to work after Easter.

Germany, meanwhile, is reporting a death rate of < 1%, because its testing and quarantine were carried out with characteristic Teutonic efficiency and at the earliest possible time.

My argument is that I am suspicious of step 3 for the reasons I’ve already stated. — NOS4A2

You totally have the right to your opinion even if I'm not so suspicious as you are about it.

Then I think you should follow how the pandemic will be in 1) Sweden and especially B) Mexico. Swedes are taking social distancing seriously, but they haven't yet gone to lock down mode. Schools are still open. And Mexico? Well, they have been quite free of this pandemic for a long time and still take it lightly. At least the Mexican President doesn't worry so much about it. I think they assume that step 2) measures are enough.

If the object is to flatten the curve to keep total serious cases low enough so that there's adequate medical treatment, and then you spend a trillion dollars propping up the economy, wouldn't it make more sense to just increase the medical capacity with that trillion dollars? That's what I'd do. — Hanover

Great idea, except increasing medical capacity takes time. Not going to happen in weeks, Hanover. In 2021 the situation will be different for sure. But this would be a thing to do before a pandemic, you know.

Luckily my country has been so afraid of Russia that we have had these reserves of the "National Emergency Supply Agency", basically a remnant from the Cold War that for example still has grain reserves for 6 months and hospital equipment and those personal protective equipment stacked for wartime. They have now started sending these equipment for the first time to hospitals around the country.

Great idea, except increasing medical capacity takes time — ssu

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

It's a dangerous lie that it is only corporations panicking about "bottom lines". Many of us are without work, and if this continues much longer, will be unable to pay bills and rent. — NOS4A2

So suspend rent and provide income relief. Hell, establish a UBI ASAP. Better yet, communalize the means of production everywhere, put businesses into the hands of workers, and nationalize every single company that asks for and gets a bailout. Abolish the private health system by yesterday, and ensure that everyone can afford to be treated. Suspend all medical debt. Hell, abolish all medical debt. Time for a debt jubilee. Worried about the economy being passed on to children? Abolish all student debt too. Appropriate the wealth of anyone worth more than a billion dollars; name a dog park after them so that they feel better. So many things that can be done. But you'd much prefer to murder half a million+ of your population.

So many things that can be done. But you'd much prefer to murder half a million+ of your population. — StreetlightX

Of another country's population. NOS isn't an American. Not sure if that makes it worse or not. At least some on the right are being honest about what they want though, including real Americans like the Lt. Governor of Texas:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/coronavirus-texas-patrick-abbott.html

"Mr. Patrick, the Texas chairman of the president’s campaign, appeared on Fox News on Monday and said that he was not only ready for the country and the economy to get moving again amid the coronavirus pandemic, but also that he and other grandparents might be willing to die for that to happen."

Capitalism is a cult.

Yeah, the video where he says that is revolting. These parasites would have people die for their profits, and say that it's a worthy sacrifice.

It is truly amazing how open they are about it: sacrifice millions in order to get the economy functioning again (read, get stocks back up). A death cult indeed. Not only would millions die and millions more become sick, but the consequence of that would also be an economic collapse, and we'd be right back where we started, but with additional millions dead. These are the same people who will pontificate how socialism kills, mind you.

Oh I forgot to mention, house every single homeless person so they do not pose a public health danger. And then keep this up, forever.

Oh I forgot to mention, house every single homeless person so they do not pose a public health danger. And then keep this up, forever. — StreetlightX

Also release prisoners and house them too.

Remember Libertarianism, at least coronavirus killed that one!