Yes, as long as one's own country is included in that analysis.
If I were to say X country is horrible for their handling or the situation whilst my country does similar, then yes. But if I am just talking about that country's handling, then no.
It might be polite to add the comparison, but it is not strictly necessary.
So saying America's handling of the corona virus was slow, uneven and sub-optimal is not a nationalistic attack in itself. Context is needed to drive down that path.
Honestly, nearly every country has been sub-optimal in their handling of this situation, do we have to list all of them before criticising one of them?
For example, in the USA, there have been many heroes at many levels already. They do not deserve their President.
That is an assertion supported by a good deal of evidence in the public domain.
There will be people in every country that will be heroes, but saying America, (or Britain or China or whoever) is handling the situation poorly is not an inherent attack on them. It is correctly saying that the country as a whole is not handling the situation properly.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
So much wrong with the statistical modeling for this thing, that only begins with testing availability, accuracy and methodology and spreads outward from there.
Stats are virtually meaningless at this point IMO.
We're on our own with the Bug. Stay well, friends.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
So much wrong with the statistical modeling for this thing, that only begins with testing availability, accuracy and methodology and spreads outward from there.
Stats are virtually meaningless at this point IMO.
Here's a long-form comic explaining the uncertainties inherent in existing models. They're not meaningless, but they're not exact replicas of reality either. They're useful for gaming out which actions are effective and which are just pissing around at the margins.
All models are wrong, it's striving to make them less wrong and useful in the moment.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
i could point to other problems exacerbated by that diffusion of power. Slavery being a big one. It is a mixed thing, not one of good that only occasionally is bad. IMO.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
i could point to other problems exacerbated by that diffusion of power. Slavery being a big one. It is a mixed thing, not one of good that only occasionally is bad. IMO.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
The various Fugitive Slave Acts were just the enforcement mechanism of the Fugitive Slave clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, §2, cl. 3). Like everywhere else in the original Constitution they really tied themselves in linguistic knots to avoid using the words "slave" or "slavery". In this particular case they came up with "person held to service or labour".
As for escaping slaves leading to the collapse of slavery, this is a pipe dream. Unless a slave was in a state bordering a free state or next to a large river or sea port escaping slavery was virtually impossible. A lot of people don't realize the extent to which antebellum slave states were also police states, with frequent slave patrols and a thriving business in private sector slave catchers. So yeah, the federal government was an enabler of slavery to a certain degree, but on-the-ground enforcement was largely a state matter and the states were very effective at this.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
The various Fugitive Slave Acts were just the enforcement mechanism of the Fugitive Slave clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, §2, cl. 3). Like everywhere else in the original Constitution they really tied themselves in linguistic knots to avoid using the words "slave" or "slavery". In this particular case they came up with "person held to service or labour".
As for escaping slaves leading to the collapse of slavery, this is a pipe dream. Unless a slave was in a state bordering a free state or next to a large river or sea port escaping slavery was virtually impossible. A lot of people don't realize the extent to which antebellum slave states were also police states, with frequent slave patrols and a thriving business in private sector slave catchers. So yeah, the federal government was an enabler of slavery to a certain degree, but on-the-ground enforcement was largely a state matter and the states were very effective at this.
You may be right about the counterfactual. My point is that the power of the federal government wasn't deployed against slavery until the slavers rebelled in the 1860s.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
The various Fugitive Slave Acts were just the enforcement mechanism of the Fugitive Slave clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, §2, cl. 3). Like everywhere else in the original Constitution they really tied themselves in linguistic knots to avoid using the words "slave" or "slavery". In this particular case they came up with "person held to service or labour".
As for escaping slaves leading to the collapse of slavery, this is a pipe dream. Unless a slave was in a state bordering a free state or next to a large river or sea port escaping slavery was virtually impossible. A lot of people don't realize the extent to which antebellum slave states were also police states, with frequent slave patrols and a thriving business in private sector slave catchers. So yeah, the federal government was an enabler of slavery to a certain degree, but on-the-ground enforcement was largely a state matter and the states were very effective at this.
You may be right about the counterfactual. My point is that the power of the federal government wasn't deployed against slavery until the slavers rebelled in the 1860s.
If the US had power only at the State level, slavery could have ended sooner. Having a mix at the State and state likely prolonged it. Equal rights, integration, pick your topic where states held up progress.
However, my main point is that distributed power is not a general good, but that it is a mixed issue.
Pretty much. We don't seem to think residents of care homes matter.
My Greek SiL tells me that one of the arguments in Greece is how to test for C-19 in refugee camps, another is whether deaths of refugees/migrants should be included in figures of "Greek" deaths. I don't think the dead mind either way but from the point of tracking/counting infection its pretty important.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
i could point to other problems exacerbated by that diffusion of power. Slavery being a big one. It is a mixed thing, not one of good that only occasionally is bad. IMO.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
Slavery is built directly into the 1787 Constitution. It's not a state thing.
I think saying the President has made and is making serious leadership mistakes in his handling of this crisis is fair comment. It is not a blanket condemnation of the USA. It is not intended to be.
But the problems in the US are more than that fool. Governors, county government and city government have been problematic as well. The fractured nature of the American governmental system is part of the problem. And, in many cases, has enabled regional government to take positive steps that the feds lagged on. It is a mixed thing, but not solely on the shoulders of the idiot in chief.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
i could point to other problems exacerbated by that diffusion of power. Slavery being a big one. It is a mixed thing, not one of good that only occasionally is bad. IMO.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
Slavery is built directly into the 1787 Constitution. It's not a state thing.
What is the topic of this thread?
I responded to a statement where someone said they thought the American federal system is part of the problem with the fight against Coronavirus. I agreed, but I did say it helped to diffuse the government in other areas which is good---and then we zoom off on a discussion about slavery? Sorry, that issue was settled 155 years ago.
Just think if we had a unitary government, such as Britain, and an incompetent president such as you know who try to contain this disease on his own authority. We would be in even worse shape than now! I am very thankful that individual governors asserted their powers in shutting their own states down. In this case, the federal system has worked for most states.
Time and time again, we are reminded not to get a pond war. Don't bring up a dead horse to kick it again.
Let's stay on topic here.
And to that point 45 just blinked. He said he will let the governors open up their states when they are ready.
I do have a question. Sounds like Oxford University is working on a vaccine that will be available when?
Some optimistic noises, Gramps, about the work on a vaccine, but my reading is it's far too early to name a time when a vaccine will be available.
Yes, Trump blinked, but hid the blink by surrounding it with other stuff (WHO incompetence). He's clever at creating distracting noise. Not clever at much else.
His optimism over economy restart is in pretty stark contrast to the continuing rise in new cases and deaths. The daily death total in the US was well over 2,000, spread over many states. New cases were up 27,000.
He's playing politics, creating stories, and leaving the management to others. It's just the Trump playbook and the concern is that it continues to work well with a ( to me) surprisingly high percentage of the US population.
Re vaccine availability, just heard a US researcher say that 'if all went well' they might have a vaccine available for emergency medical staff in the Fall and more generally available for the public from Spring 2021 onwards. That really is a best case scenario.
I responded to a statement where someone said they thought the American federal system is part of the problem with the fight against Coronavirus. I agreed, but I did say it helped to diffuse the government in other areas which is good---and then we zoom off on a discussion about slavery? Sorry, that issue was settled 155 years ago.
You can't be serious. That issue is far from settled. Ever heard of for-profit prisons? War on drugs? Prisoner firefighters? The nifty loophole in the 14th amendment has perpetuated slavery into our own day. And there are other forms of near-slavery that are close enough to the slave as to be indistinguishable.
This is laughable. That issue has not been settled.
List of countries with at least 5,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 614,211 (549,327 / 38,820 / 26,064)
Spain - 174,060 (88,301 / 67,504 / 18,255)
Italy - 162,488 (104,291 / 37,130 / 21,067)
France - 143,303 (98,769 / 28,805 / 15,729)
Germany - 132,210 (60,515 / 68,200 / 3,495)
United Kingdom - 93,873 (81,422 / 344 / 12,107)
China - 82,295 (1,137 / 77,816 / 3,342) 4.1%
Iran - 74,877 (22,065 / 48,129 / 4,683) 8.9%
Turkey - 65,111 (58,909 / 4,799 / 1,403)
Belgium - 31,119 (20,094 / 6,868 / 4,157)
Netherlands - 27,419 (24,224 / 250 / 2,945)
Canada - 27,063 (17,925 / 8,235 / 903)
Switzerland - 25,936 (11,062 / 13,700 / 1,174)
Brazil - 25,684 (10,106 / 14,026 / 1,552)
Russia - 21,102 (19,238 / 1,694 / 170)
Portugal - 17,448 (16,534 / 347 / 567)
Austria - 14,234 (6,217 / 7,633 / 384)
Israel - 12,046 (9,728 / 2,195 / 123)
India - 11,487 (9,735 / 1,359 / 393)
Ireland - 11,479 (11,048 / 25 / 406)
Sweden - 11,445 (10,031 / 381 / 1,033)
South Korea - 10,591 (2,750 / 7,616 / 225) 2.9%
Peru - 10,303 (7,204 / 2,869 / 230)
Japan - 8,100 (7,101 / 853 / 146)
Chile - 7,917 (5,179 / 2,646 / 92)
Ecuador - 7,603 (6,538 / 696 / 369)
Poland - 7,202 (6,321 / 618 / 263)
Romania - 6,879 (5,477 / 1,051 / 351)
Norway - 6,623 (6,452 / 32 / 139)
Denmark - 6,511 (3,697 / 2,515 / 299)
Australia - 6,440 (2,779 / 3,598 / 63)
Czechia - 6,111 (5,308 / 642 / 161)
Pakistan - 5,983 (4,498 / 1,378 / 107)
Mexico - 5,399 (2,868 / 2,125 / 406)
Saudi Arabia - 5,369 (4,407 / 889 / 73)
Philippines - 5,223 (4,593 / 295 / 335)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Iran and Turkey.
Saudi Arabia and the Philippines have been added to the list since the last compilation.
Scotland's non-hospital deaths (i.e. nursing homes etc) for the week of 5-12 April are due out today. Hospital deaths are reported daily, but non-hospital deaths are collated weekly by the Register General.
This will include anyone whose death certificate includes "probable COVID-19" in addition to those who had a positive test.
I've used it a lot for current information. It provides links to the information sources it uses. It's as accurate as its sources. And it provides good graphs and explanatory notes.
You'll note that the global reported caseload has just passed two million and the death toll 125,000. The graphs give pictures of the rapid growth and lethality of this epidemic.
The more hopeful news about a vaccine is that GSK and Sanofi have decided to work together to try to develop a vaccine more quickly.
Generally I'm no fan of big pharma but in this case they need to be involved and they seem to be doing the right thing. If and when they come up with a workable vaccine, they are pretty much the only ones in a position to manufacture it in the kind of volumes that are going to be needed. They claim they're going to make it available at cost.
On Monday the New Zealand Prime Minister will announce whether or not the country will relax some of the current lockdown conditions, and if so how this will be done. I know progress is being very carefully monitored and I would rather stay at the current level for longer if that is what is necessary.
I’ve noticed that the coverage in Britain seems to be starting to move towards “how much longer is this lockdown going to last?” and “what’s the exit plan, guys?”. If that’s indicative of the wider mood of the country then when we get released may end up being a political decision rather than a medical one.
From @Huia's post above, it sounds as though New Zealand is taking a sensible, and cautious, approach.
I rather think the UK will NOT be quite so sensible, and that political expediency will indeed take precedence over common sense, and medical advice. But we shall see - way to go, yet...
I doubt if Boris Johnson has (yet) been upgraded, courtesy of Covid-19, to the higher standard of leadership shown by Jacinda Ardern, but, again, time will tell.
(BTW, and quite apropos of nothing in particular, I hadn't realised quite how young JA is!)
I’ve noticed that the coverage in Britain seems to be starting to move towards “how much longer is this lockdown going to last?” and “what’s the exit plan, guys?”. If that’s indicative of the wider mood of the country then when we get released may end up being a political decision rather than a medical one.
Well, there's only so many times that you can repeat that same "stay at home" story, next to the "here are some idiots not staying home" story and the "there's still no toilet roll" story. Once people are settled into a lockdown routine, "what comes next" is indeed the next thing to think about, and we should be thinking about it now whether lockdown ends next week or next year.
I’ve noticed that the coverage in Britain seems to be starting to move towards “how much longer is this lockdown going to last?” and “what’s the exit plan, guys?”. If that’s indicative of the wider mood of the country then when we get released may end up being a political decision rather than a medical one.
I see that the Governor of California has identified 6 criteria for navigating out of lockdown, which look pretty good to me. Here they are.
The ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating, and supporting those who are positive or exposed
The ability to prevent infection in people who are at risk for more severe COVID-19
The ability of the hospital and health systems to handle surges
The ability to develop therapeutics to meet demand
The ability for businesses, schools, and child care facilities to support physical distancing
The ability to determine when to reinstitute certain measures, such as the stay-at-home orders, if necessary.
These can be introduced when the numbers of new cases, the numbers requiring hospitalisation, and the numbers requiring intensive care have all declined significantly.
Such criteria give targets to work towards. The driver should not be impatience; hasty moves simply lead us back to where we are now.
I’ve noticed that the coverage in Britain seems to be starting to move towards “how much longer is this lockdown going to last?” and “what’s the exit plan, guys?”. If that’s indicative of the wider mood of the country then when we get released may end up being a political decision rather than a medical one.
Of course it will be a political decision, if for no other reason than it will be made by politicians. And one of the biggest considerations will be whether deaths from Covid-19 will be more unpopular than making the enormous recession even larger.
I think there's a right wing push to lift the lockdown, judging from snippets in the Telegraph et al. I don't know how they might engineer it, but I suppose the media may start to push for it, and play down deaths.
Arguments in favour of lifting the lockdown are not purely party political.
Since Monday we've had a target date here in France for starting to lift the lockdown, May 11. On the one hand, the prospect of four more weeks is dispiriting and has clearly had a negative impact on some people. On the other hand, having even a notional deadline has made it easier to have a focus and plan for next steps.
I think there's a right wing push to lift the lockdown, judging from snippets in the Telegraph et al. I don't know how they might engineer it, but I suppose the media may start to push for it, and play down deaths.
I think it's partly this and partly what Learning Cnit says above; in terms of reporters feeling bored/needing a 'new angle' and then following the pack when that breaks.
Which is partly why I feel the stress needs to continue be on management of the crisis if for no other reason that that's where we are.
Yup, I saw something similar in the Economist. But I think Douglas Adams, as usual, got there first:
More prosaically, many countries in Europe have a Great Depression style drop in output once a year, but they call it August and collectively decide it isn't a problem.
I saw a graph that was new diagnoses over time, shaped like a sharp, tall bell curve with a long, low tail to the right. An arrow pointed to a spot to the right of the peak, less than 1/4 of the way down from the top, and said "This is not the time to open things back up." Another pointed to a spot on the right tail, much lower down the Y axis, and said "This is."
Re lifting of lockdown restrictions. We had just 1 case diagnosed yesterday in my province (Saskatchewan, Canada, population 1.1 million), and 4 the day before, numbers going just beyond 10 some days and single digits otherwise. 300 total cases since the start, and more recovered than are ill, with I think 7 in hospital.
In this small population, large land mass jurisdiction (about twice the size of all the British Isles combined with 120th of the ), the discussion is that lockdown cannot be relaxed until we can test everyone. The discussion as I understand it is: cannot be cleared for work without testing, health checks daily at work. But grave concern about carriers without symptoms who could be "super spreaders" of infection. Barriers between workers and public. Masks. It is work that they are focussed on. Schools will not return before the fall at the earliest. The argument now is about being outside in cities (60% of the population lives in cities) and how to keep distant. It is still winter, so it isn't yet a problem (-7°C this morning) , but it will be, as spring sometimes comes all of a sudden and then we're at 20°.
Discussion appears to be that testing for some may be the new fast tests with results in a few hours and possibly up to daily. I've felt fairly confident that they're doing it correctly.
I saw a graph that was new diagnoses over time, shaped like a sharp, tall bell curve with a long, low tail to the right. An arrow pointed to a spot to the right of the peak, less than 1/4 of the way down from the top, and said "This is not the time to open things back up." Another pointed to a spot on the right tail, much lower down the Y axis, and said "This is."
The problem is that this thing is stubbornly refusing to follow the news cycle.
I responded to a statement where someone said they thought the American federal system is part of the problem with the fight against Coronavirus. I agreed, but I did say it helped to diffuse the government in other areas which is good---and then we zoom off on a discussion about slavery? Sorry, that issue was settled 155 years ago.
You can't be serious. That issue is far from settled. Ever heard of for-profit prisons? War on drugs? Prisoner firefighters? The nifty loophole in the 14th amendment has perpetuated slavery into our own day. And there are other forms of near-slavery that are close enough to the slave as to be indistinguishable.
This is laughable. That issue has not been settled.
The topic of this thread is not the slavery issue of the past, nor the continued exploitation of prisoners today or other examples of "near slavery" and human trafficking. It is about the Coronavirus. Now if you want to start a separate thread on this issue, feel free to do so.
Yup, I saw something similar in the Economist. But I think Douglas Adams, as usual, got there first:
More prosaically, many countries in Europe have a Great Depression style drop in output once a year, but they call it August and collectively decide it isn't a problem.
Thank you, that's very elegantly put.
I've been wondering a bit about this. My non-economist brain thinks that although there's less money in circulation, there's also less stuff to spend it on, so it's not that bad. Or: I still have a job, so if I was taxed an extra amount equal to the amount I normally spend on childcare, commuting and going out, and this tax was given to the people working in childcare, leisure and transportation, then overall everyone would be financially in the same position they were without Covid. But probably it's not that simple ...
Comments
That is an assertion supported by a good deal of evidence in the public domain.
No. Tough luck. Go find a nursing home yourselves. If you can.
It might be polite to add the comparison, but it is not strictly necessary.
So saying America's handling of the corona virus was slow, uneven and sub-optimal is not a nationalistic attack in itself. Context is needed to drive down that path.
Honestly, nearly every country has been sub-optimal in their handling of this situation, do we have to list all of them before criticising one of them?
Like EVERYONE's at this point.
So much wrong with the statistical modeling for this thing, that only begins with testing availability, accuracy and methodology and spreads outward from there.
Stats are virtually meaningless at this point IMO.
We're on our own with the Bug. Stay well, friends.
AFF
You have no objection from me on this point.
In a way, that was the way it was intended to be. And yes, it has presented more challenges in dealing with this virus, but it helps to diffuse the power of government in other areas.
Here's a long-form comic explaining the uncertainties inherent in existing models. They're not meaningless, but they're not exact replicas of reality either. They're useful for gaming out which actions are effective and which are just pissing around at the margins.
It's not hard to make the case that slavery was perpetuated by federal action in the Fugitive Slave Acts which was imposed by the slave states on the free. Had those act not passed then slaves would have been able to flee across state lines without fear of being returned and slavery might have collapsed.
The various Fugitive Slave Acts were just the enforcement mechanism of the Fugitive Slave clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, §2, cl. 3). Like everywhere else in the original Constitution they really tied themselves in linguistic knots to avoid using the words "slave" or "slavery". In this particular case they came up with "person held to service or labour".
As for escaping slaves leading to the collapse of slavery, this is a pipe dream. Unless a slave was in a state bordering a free state or next to a large river or sea port escaping slavery was virtually impossible. A lot of people don't realize the extent to which antebellum slave states were also police states, with frequent slave patrols and a thriving business in private sector slave catchers. So yeah, the federal government was an enabler of slavery to a certain degree, but on-the-ground enforcement was largely a state matter and the states were very effective at this.
You may be right about the counterfactual. My point is that the power of the federal government wasn't deployed against slavery until the slavers rebelled in the 1860s.
However, my main point is that distributed power is not a general good, but that it is a mixed issue.
Pretty much. We don't seem to think residents of care homes matter.
My Greek SiL tells me that one of the arguments in Greece is how to test for C-19 in refugee camps, another is whether deaths of refugees/migrants should be included in figures of "Greek" deaths. I don't think the dead mind either way but from the point of tracking/counting infection its pretty important.
Slavery is built directly into the 1787 Constitution. It's not a state thing.
What is the topic of this thread?
I responded to a statement where someone said they thought the American federal system is part of the problem with the fight against Coronavirus. I agreed, but I did say it helped to diffuse the government in other areas which is good---and then we zoom off on a discussion about slavery? Sorry, that issue was settled 155 years ago.
Just think if we had a unitary government, such as Britain, and an incompetent president such as you know who try to contain this disease on his own authority. We would be in even worse shape than now! I am very thankful that individual governors asserted their powers in shutting their own states down. In this case, the federal system has worked for most states.
Time and time again, we are reminded not to get a pond war. Don't bring up a dead horse to kick it again.
Let's stay on topic here.
And to that point 45 just blinked. He said he will let the governors open up their states when they are ready.
I do have a question. Sounds like Oxford University is working on a vaccine that will be available when?
Yes, Trump blinked, but hid the blink by surrounding it with other stuff (WHO incompetence). He's clever at creating distracting noise. Not clever at much else.
His optimism over economy restart is in pretty stark contrast to the continuing rise in new cases and deaths. The daily death total in the US was well over 2,000, spread over many states. New cases were up 27,000.
He's playing politics, creating stories, and leaving the management to others. It's just the Trump playbook and the concern is that it continues to work well with a ( to me) surprisingly high percentage of the US population.
You can't be serious. That issue is far from settled. Ever heard of for-profit prisons? War on drugs? Prisoner firefighters? The nifty loophole in the 14th amendment has perpetuated slavery into our own day. And there are other forms of near-slavery that are close enough to the slave as to be indistinguishable.
This is laughable. That issue has not been settled.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Iran and Turkey.
Saudi Arabia and the Philippines have been added to the list since the last compilation.
Here's the Worldometer coronavirus page. The information you're listing is available there in readable formats.
This will include anyone whose death certificate includes "probable COVID-19" in addition to those who had a positive test.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/covid-deaths-report-week-14.pdf
I've used it a lot for current information. It provides links to the information sources it uses. It's as accurate as its sources. And it provides good graphs and explanatory notes.
You'll note that the global reported caseload has just passed two million and the death toll 125,000. The graphs give pictures of the rapid growth and lethality of this epidemic.
Generally I'm no fan of big pharma but in this case they need to be involved and they seem to be doing the right thing. If and when they come up with a workable vaccine, they are pretty much the only ones in a position to manufacture it in the kind of volumes that are going to be needed. They claim they're going to make it available at cost.
I rather think the UK will NOT be quite so sensible, and that political expediency will indeed take precedence over common sense, and medical advice. But we shall see - way to go, yet...
I doubt if Boris Johnson has (yet) been upgraded, courtesy of Covid-19, to the higher standard of leadership shown by Jacinda Ardern, but, again, time will tell.
(BTW, and quite apropos of nothing in particular, I hadn't realised quite how young JA is!)
Well, there's only so many times that you can repeat that same "stay at home" story, next to the "here are some idiots not staying home" story and the "there's still no toilet roll" story. Once people are settled into a lockdown routine, "what comes next" is indeed the next thing to think about, and we should be thinking about it now whether lockdown ends next week or next year.
I see that the Governor of California has identified 6 criteria for navigating out of lockdown, which look pretty good to me. Here they are.
These can be introduced when the numbers of new cases, the numbers requiring hospitalisation, and the numbers requiring intensive care have all declined significantly.
Such criteria give targets to work towards. The driver should not be impatience; hasty moves simply lead us back to where we are now.
Of course it will be a political decision, if for no other reason than it will be made by politicians. And one of the biggest considerations will be whether deaths from Covid-19 will be more unpopular than making the enormous recession even larger.
Since Monday we've had a target date here in France for starting to lift the lockdown, May 11. On the one hand, the prospect of four more weeks is dispiriting and has clearly had a negative impact on some people. On the other hand, having even a notional deadline has made it easier to have a focus and plan for next steps.
I think it's partly this and partly what Learning Cnit says above; in terms of reporters feeling bored/needing a 'new angle' and then following the pack when that breaks.
Which is partly why I feel the stress needs to continue be on management of the crisis if for no other reason that that's where we are.
More prosaically, many countries in Europe have a Great Depression style drop in output once a year, but they call it August and collectively decide it isn't a problem.
In this small population, large land mass jurisdiction (about twice the size of all the British Isles combined with 120th of the ), the discussion is that lockdown cannot be relaxed until we can test everyone. The discussion as I understand it is: cannot be cleared for work without testing, health checks daily at work. But grave concern about carriers without symptoms who could be "super spreaders" of infection. Barriers between workers and public. Masks. It is work that they are focussed on. Schools will not return before the fall at the earliest. The argument now is about being outside in cities (60% of the population lives in cities) and how to keep distant. It is still winter, so it isn't yet a problem (-7°C this morning) , but it will be, as spring sometimes comes all of a sudden and then we're at 20°.
Discussion appears to be that testing for some may be the new fast tests with results in a few hours and possibly up to daily. I've felt fairly confident that they're doing it correctly.
The problem is that this thing is stubbornly refusing to follow the news cycle.
The topic of this thread is not the slavery issue of the past, nor the continued exploitation of prisoners today or other examples of "near slavery" and human trafficking. It is about the Coronavirus. Now if you want to start a separate thread on this issue, feel free to do so.
Thank you, that's very elegantly put.
I've been wondering a bit about this. My non-economist brain thinks that although there's less money in circulation, there's also less stuff to spend it on, so it's not that bad. Or: I still have a job, so if I was taxed an extra amount equal to the amount I normally spend on childcare, commuting and going out, and this tax was given to the people working in childcare, leisure and transportation, then overall everyone would be financially in the same position they were without Covid. But probably it's not that simple ...