The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread

[Giordano]

Even if the "Virus came from the Lab" theory is correct, at this point it is still a distraction, and will remain so.

Precisely! That is exactly what it is meant to be, a distraction!

Yet another example of how Trump is actively making the situation worse for petty political reasons. The origins of the virus, lab vs market, have little to do with how to contain it now. China is one of the best examples so far of how to contain the virus after it gets loose. Stupid to cut them out of the discussion or to alienate them if only for this reason alone. They have useful insights and experience. Even more stupid in terms of the effect on the world economy.

Latter a calm analysis of the location of the appearance of the first virus leap to people will be useful. And if the Chinese government did anything reprehensible in their initial reactions to it. But it is counterproductive at this point.

 

[Horatius]

Scientists at the University of Arizona are devloping a Covid-19 model for the state. The state government is trying to shut it down in case it tells them things they don't want to hear. The Republican war on science continues.

Weren't these the guys who want to sue China for not telling us everything they knew about the virus?

And that story doesn't make clear - by what authority can they tell a university research team to stop working?

Talk about "Government overreach". Every academic I've ever met would blow there top if a politician told them not to study something.

 

[Trebuchet]

Weren't these the guys who want to sue China for not telling us everything they knew about the virus?

And that story doesn't make clear - by what authority can they tell a university research team to stop working?

Talk about "Government overreach". Every academic I've ever met would blow there top if a politician told them not to study something.

It's a state-run university, but I'd expect the authority of the health department to restrict them is quite limited. What the health department can and apparently is doing is to limit their access to data.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Even if the "Virus came from the Lab" theory is correct, at this point it is still a distraction, and will remain so.

Well of course it is.
But in the long term it is important. The lab was founded in wake of SARS, to study and ideally prevent outbreak like that. So if it did actually cause this outbreak, it's a major fail.

 

[Andy_Ross]

WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany: If we tested every American right now, we would have to retest them again an hour later.

 

[Kestrel]

Scientists at the University of Arizona are devloping a Covid-19 model for the state. The state government is trying to shut it down in case it tells them things they don't want to hear. The Republican war on science continues.

Colorado developed a model and used it to determine what social distancing rules were needed to keep the disease from overwhelming our health care resources. Our governor went into some detail about what the model told us during his press conference about opening up the state.

 

[p0lka]

Sounds like an oxymoron to me but then again it is Daily Mail headline

I suspect it's made up, whether by the daily mail or the poster is an open question, I would go with satire meself.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do you have a citation for that?

For which part?

He has publicly said he wasn't disbanding the task force after all. He might change people on the task force to focus on reopening the country.

Trump: "I had no idea how popular the task force was."

 

[EHocking]

For which part?

He has publicly said he wasn't disbanding the task force after all. He might change people on the task force to focus on reopening the country.

This Grauniad article seems to indicate that he has gone back on the disbanding statement.

Supposedly saying, “I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the taskforce is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down. It is appreciated by the public.”

 

[The Atheist]

I wouldn't say the travel restrictions accomplished nothing.

We're pretty big fans of them down here.

We've had 1500 cases and 22 deaths. NZ has 1/60th the population of USA, so without a closed border and extremely strict shutdown we'd have had 20,000 cases and over 1000 dead.

With the latest forecast that there will be 135,000 deaths in the US...

I will be amazed if you haven't had over 135,000 deaths by the end of June.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This Grauniad article seems to indicate that he has gone back on the disbanding statement.

Supposedly saying, “I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the taskforce is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down. It is appreciated by the public.”

I don't read that as 'disbanding'. I read it as not disbanding after all.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

From the medicine thread:

Ahh. I see now. Still, that's not actually relevant to what I had said and nor does it actually support your claim that -

To be clear, of course, it's probably best to regard those astroturf protestors and the people they duped to join them as doing the usual thing they do. Throwing a lot of crap out and hoping that they get lucky enough to find something good to use in the crap. That very frequently includes abuse and misuse of valid concepts, arguments, and concerns.

NYT (open access): How Abortion, Guns and Church Closings Made Coronavirus a Culture War
Flattening the curve is now one of the most contentious issues in politics.

The new patchwork of state and local policies designed to flatten the spread of the coronavirus is inflaming old passions over some of the most contentious issues in politics. Guns, abortion, voting rights and religious expression — concerns that would seem to have little to do with a virus that has likely infected more than a million Americans and killed more than 37,000 — have emerged as fault lines in the debate over how government is responding to the crisis....

But some conservatives who support the president’s re-election campaign said they believed that many Americans are growing frustrated with the orders that keep them from socializing, working and worshiping normally. The White House is closely tracking those concerns, and has made Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence available on several conference calls with faith leaders to assure them the administration is listening.

Do you think these people care about more than flattening the curve?

 

[newyorkguy]

Safety concerns at the Wuhan lab were widely reported on about two weeks ago. This is from Business Insider:

Amid questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus outbreak, diplomatic cables obtained by the Washington Post showed that US officials had sounded the alarm about possible safety breaches at a lab in Wuhan, China. The diplomats and scientists were worried about the safety of the lab's research on coronaviruses in animals like bats as early as January 2018. The Post said they warned that sloppy safety protocols for handling contagious viruses in the lab "represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic." While there is no evidence to suggest that the virus was created in a lab as a bioweapon, the diplomatic cables shine more light on a theory that the virus leaked out of the lab by accident.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology had previously published research locating the cluster of bats believed to have transmitted SARS to humans. While such research is important to fully understand animal-to-human transmission of coronaviruses, the cable raised concerns that the highly dangerous research could cause more harm than good without immediate intervention to improve the lab's safety protocols. The lab, which holds a level-four biosafety research certification, the highest possible rating, was conducting research on coronaviruses in bats. According to the Post a cable dated January 19, 2018, said that "during interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory." Link

Sounds possible that mishandling of infectious material 'may' have led to the outbreak and I stress the word may. At some point some scientific board or panel will have to look into this. I don't think right now is a good time, though. I agree. It's not only a distraction it's divisive.

 

[Trebuchet]

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has released a statistical analysis of Coronavirus. Aside from it looking as if it was edited with a Sharpie, do we have anyone here with actual math or statistics expertise who'd care to comment?
The dotted pink line, not labeled, appears to be the CEA's projection.

Like a miracle, it'll go away is what they appear to be saying.

ETA: Nate Silver is on the case.
Also note the further extrapolation in the comments which shows thousands of people daily coming back to life in a couple of weeks.

 

[slyjoe]

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has released a statistical analysis of Coronavirus. Aside from it looking as if it was edited with a Sharpie, do we have anyone here with actual math or statistics expertise who'd care to comment?
The dotted pink line, not labeled, appears to be the CEA's projection.

Like a miracle, it'll go away is what they appear to be saying.

Was this the "model" done by Kevin Hasset (sp?)? Here is Paul Krugman's quote:

"Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, tweeted that Hassett's modeling was "beyond stupid" and will "kill thousands."

It was a cubic model - a built in function used by this bozo to do a trendline in Excel. Calling it a "model" insults models everywhere. This is the same guy that said there was no housing bubble right before the 2008 crash.

He claims he just wanted to visualize the data differently. Well, if the visualization is misleading, it's a poor job. These guys really are stupid.

Predictions are hard. Especially when they involve the future.

 

[Horatius]

WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany: If we tested every American right now, we would have to retest them again an hour later.

Okay, check me on this, I'm finally too tired to figure it out myself....Is she actually riffing on that tired "Chinese Food" joke here?

 

[newyorkguy]

Kayleigh McEnany wasn't joking. She was defending the trump administration's record on testing for Covid-19. This is from a Fox News site so it's an official White House communication:

Let’s dismiss a myth about tests right now,” McEnany said. “If we tested every single American in this country at this moment, we’d have to retest them an hour later and an hour after that because at any moment you could theoretically contract this virus. The notion that everyone needs to be tested is just simply nonsensical,” McEnany added, saying that testing should be targeted at vulnerable populations, including those at nursing homes or meat processing plants. Link

Asked about states reopening with out meeting the WH guideline to have tested at least 2% of the population, she answered:

“We encourage governors to follow the guidelines.”

 

[EHocking]

I don't read that as 'disbanding'. I read it as not disbanding after all.

Yes. Exactly what was asked for, a cite of Trump walking back from his disbanding statement, and that was it, e.g.,

Trump reverses course and says White House coronavirus taskforce will stay

 

[PhantomWolf]

I will be amazed if you haven't had over 135,000 deaths by the end of June.

June? At the current rate the US will hit that by the end of May!

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

For which part?

He has publicly said he wasn't disbanding the task force after all. He might change people on the task force to focus on reopening the country.

Trump: "I had no idea how popular the task force was."

Yes, that's the part.

This Grauniad article seems to indicate that he has gone back on the disbanding statement.

Supposedly saying, “I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the taskforce is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down. It is appreciated by the public.”

Thank you.