US Politics Thread

[calitennis127]

I didn't really pay attention to this before, but how are we supposed to read this? What does everyone think is "their new hoax"?

Utilizing the coronavirus to create a media tsunami that is destroying the American economy - that's the new hoax. The media want this to happen to take down Trump and so far it is working. They are getting their wish. Parts of the country should be on lockdown (particularly NYC because of their stupid leaders - see the tweets above), but the vast majority of it should not be. The media, however, have so much power over the public discourse that they have basically scared every state into shutting down their economy.

 

[Moxie]

For people saying that Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat (even though he enacted a travel ban at the end of January while the Democrats were consumed by impeachment talk and even though Trump was simply repeating Dr. Fauci's words), take a look at these tweets. This is why New York City is the epicenter of the outbreak. The words of these idiots speak for themselves. Mayor Billy De Blasio and NYC Councilman/Chair of the Council Committee on Health Mark Levine both downplayed the threat to NYC. They emphatically up to the last minute made the case that any concerns about coronavirus were xenophobic toward Chinese-Americans:

OK, Cali, maybe others have evolved as the crisis has, and so has Trump, if that's what you're trying to say. But you're just playing a "gotcha" game. What about what's actually going on and how you feel about it? Number of virus cases growing by the day here in the US, and the stress on the healthcare system is already pretty bad. Any evolution on your part as to this crisis? Concerns? Anything you think the states or the Fed should do differently?

 

[calitennis127]

Somehow I suspect this has something to do with Trump telling people what they "want" to hear, not what they need to hear. I'd be curious how Fauci's numbers are looking, by comparison.

Dr. Fauci is not the only doctor in the world and he isn't some omniscient deity whose every word is infallible truth. Otherwise he would not have downplayed the severity of the coronavirus in early February. As a believer in modern feminism, why don't you place any weight on the words of Dr. Birx instead of Dr. FaucI? Why are you running to flatter the old white guy instead of the woman who had to overcome oppression to get where she is?

But, since you appear to hold Dr. Fauci in such high regard, perhaps you should take a look at these tweets. Don't you read your favorite newspapers anymore? The first tweet is a WaPo reporter (Josh Dawsey) citing a NYT article by Maureen Dowd. That combo should make you feel very, very confident in the reliability of the info. So have fun with these:

 

[calitennis127]

OK, Cali, maybe others have evolved as the crisis has, and so has Trump, if that's what you're trying to say. But you're just playing a "gotcha" game. What about what's actually going on and how you feel about it? Number of virus cases growing by the day here in the US, and the stress on the healthcare system is already pretty bad.

The rise in the number of cases was predictable and inevitable. It is being celebrated by CNN like a score for their preferred side in a tennis match or NFL game because they want as many deaths as possible to use it against Trump. That's why they are cheering the number of cases like the student section at a college football game.

As for my opinion, I do think NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, and LA should be kept on lockdown. However, I think most states and most counties should be allowed to re-open. New York City is not the entire country and people across America should not have to suffer just because New Yorkers are having a very rough time of it. That said, I am all for diverting more resources to New York quickly. I would also like to see De Blasio in particular stop playing political games and just focus on efficiently getting resources to the hospitals.

Any evolution on your part as to this crisis? Concerns? Anything you think the states or the Fed should do differently?

The good news is I don't think the coronavirus is anywhere close to as bad as people are making it out to be. There is a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal that captures where I stand on this. I'll copy and paste it since it requires a subscription.

Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?
Current estimates about the Covid-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude.

By
Eran Bendavid and
Jay Bhattacharya
March 24, 2020 6:21 pm ET

If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.

Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate—2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, two million to four million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases.

The latter rate is misleading because of selection bias in testing. The degree of bias is uncertain because available data are limited. But it could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills two million. If the number of actual infections is much larger than the number of cases—orders of magnitude larger—then the true fatality rate is much lower as well. That’s not only plausible but likely based on what we know so far.

Population samples from China, Italy, Iceland and the U.S. provide relevant evidence. On or around Jan. 31, countries sent planes to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, China. When those planes landed, the passengers were tested for Covid-19 and quarantined. After 14 days, the percentage who tested positive was 0.9%. If this was the prevalence in the greater Wuhan area on Jan. 31, then, with a population of about 20 million, greater Wuhan had 178,000 infections, about 30-fold more than the number of reported cases. The fatality rate, then, would be at least 10-fold lower than estimates based on reported cases.

Next, the northeastern Italian town of Vò, near the provincial capital of Padua. On March 6, all 3,300 people of Vò were tested, and 90 were positive, a prevalence of 2.7%. Applying that prevalence to the whole province (population 955,000), which had 198 reported cases, suggests there were actually 26,000 infections at that time. That’s more than 130-fold the number of actual reported cases. Since Italy’s case fatality rate of 8% is estimated using the confirmed cases, the real fatality rate could in fact be closer to 0.06%.

In Iceland, deCode Genetics is working with the government to perform widespread testing. In a sample of nearly 2,000 entirely asymptomatic people, researchers estimated disease prevalence of just over 1%. Iceland’s first case was reported on Feb. 28, weeks behind the U.S. It’s plausible that the proportion of the U.S. population that has been infected is double, triple or even 10 times as high as the estimates from Iceland. That also implies a dramatically lower fatality rate.

The best (albeit very weak) evidence in the U.S. comes from the National Basketball Association. Between March 11 and 19, a substantial number of NBA players and teams received testing. By March 19, 10 out of 450 rostered players were positive. Since not everyone was tested, that represents a lower bound on the prevalence of 2.2%. The NBA isn’t a representative population, and contact among players might have facilitated transmission. But if we extend that lower-bound assumption to cities with NBA teams (population 45 million), we get at least 990,000 infections in the U.S. The number of cases reported on March 19 in the U.S. was 13,677, more than 72-fold lower. These numbers imply a fatality rate from Covid-19 orders of magnitude smaller than it appears.

How can we reconcile these estimates with the epidemiological models? First, the test used to identify cases doesn’t catch people who were infected and recovered. Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill. Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections. Epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors.

The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.

This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue. The daily reports from Italy and across the U.S. show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems. But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million. Given the enormous consequences of decisions around Covid-19 response, getting clear data to guide decisions now is critical. We don’t know the true infection rate in the U.S. Antibody testing of representative samples to measure disease prevalence (including the recovered) is crucial. Nearly every day a new lab gets approval for antibody testing, so population testing using this technology is now feasible.

If we’re right about the limited scale of the epidemic, then measures focused on older populations and hospitals are sensible. Elective procedures will need to be rescheduled. Hospital resources will need to be reallocated to care for critically ill patients. Triage will need to improve. And policy makers will need to focus on reducing risks for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions.

A universal quarantine may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health. We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns.

Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya are professors of medicine at Stanford. Neeraj Sood contributed to this article.

 

[calitennis127]

Dr. Oxiris Barbot is the NYC health commissioner. The Washington Post is revered. Look at their tweets from a few weeks ago. This is for the low-information posters on this board who run their mouth about the United States while knowing nothing about it (i.e. Tinfoil Federberg and the Lebanese Elmer Fudd):

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Anything you think Fed should do differently?

Yes, Fed should win USO this year after decade.

 

[britbox]

Dr. Oxiris Barbot is the NYC health commissioner. The Washington Post is revered. Look at their tweets from a few weeks ago. This is for the low-information posters on this board who run their mouth about the United States while knowing nothing about it (i.e. Tinfoil Federberg and the Lebanese Elmer Fudd):

Hang on a minute, weren't you telling me last week that this whole thing was pure hysteria whipped up by the Washington Post? Resulting in hundreds of countries to close their borders?

Yet, these Democrats who supposedly hang on every word written in the Post, just completely ignore the hysteria and formed the opinion that there was "nothing to see here".

Which is it?

 

[Federberg]

Dr. Oxiris Barbot is the NYC health commissioner. The Washington Post is revered. Look at their tweets from a few weeks ago. This is for the low-information posters on this board who run their mouth about the United States while knowing nothing about it (i.e. Tinfoil Federberg and the Lebanese Elmer Fudd):

back again 10? From another dalliance with a 10 I assume? Why don't you just socially distance yourself from us for a while

 

[brokenshoelace]

Hang on a minute, weren't you telling me last week that this whole thing was pure hysteria whipped up by the Washington Post? Resulting in hundreds of countries to close their borders?

Yet, these Democrats who supposedly hang on every word written in the Post, just completely ignore the hysteria and formed the opinion that there was "nothing to see here".

Which is it?

You're talking to the same guy who condescendingly berated everyone who said IW should be postponed. Incidentally, say guy who is now saying California should be on total lockdown.

I truly hope he stays safe (no, really, I wouldn't wish that upon anyone), because tap-dancing with the virus will prove very difficult.

 

[calitennis127]

Hang on a minute, weren't you telling me last week that this whole thing was pure hysteria whipped up by the Washington Post? Resulting in hundreds of countries to close their borders?

Yes I did say that, and I stand by it. But your timeline is way off. Originally (i.e. early February) the major media downplayed the coronavirus threat because they wanted to label Trump's prescient travel ban as xenophobic. Vox, The Daily Beast, and the Washington Post (three major left-wing media outlets) in addition to numerous NYC health officials, Joe Biden, and CNN all condemned Trump's travel ban as xenophobic.

They changed their tune later in February once they realized that the virus was a more substantial threat and it could be used against Trump as a political weapon - hence his referring to their behavior as a "hoax."

Yet, these Democrats who supposedly hang on every word written in the Post, just completely ignore the hysteria and formed the opinion that there was "nothing to see here".

The Washington Post did originally say in early February that there was nothing to see with the virus. They changed their tune later in February once they saw it was real and it could be used against Trump. I'm sorry that you and the Lebanese Elmer Fudd on the board don't know much about the American media and don't follow it closely. You Britbox at least have the capacity to admit when you don't know something. Elmer on the other hand does not realize how much of a low-information simpleton he actually is when commenting on the USA. He is easily the most misinformed person on this board having to do with anything political in the United States.

Here was how the Washington Post reacted to Trump's January 31st travel ban, which was prescient:

Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now.
Feb. 1, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EST


And this is how the Washington Post editorialized when they realized that Trump was right about the coronavirus being a threat:

The coronavirus is Trump’s Chernobyl
March 9, 2020 at 12:26 p.m. EDT


Nice try, Britbox, but you have been schooled again.....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/time-for-a-reality-check-america-the-flu-is-a-much-bigger-threat-than-coronavirus-for-now/2020/01/31/46a15166-4444-11ea-b5fc-eefa848cde99_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/09/coronavirus-is-trumps-chernobyl/

 

[calitennis127]

back again 10? From another dalliance with a 10 I assume?

Yes, actually, but I understand why you'd want me to vanish because I make you look like an ass in every debate.

 

[calitennis127]

You're talking to the same guy who condescendingly berated everyone who said IW should be postponed. Incidentally, say guy who is now saying California should be on total lockdown.

I did not say all of California, Elmer. Look at a fucking map, lol. I said San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's not all of California. The reason I said those two cities is that they have massive disease-ridden homeless populations as a result of their incompetent Democratic leadership in addition to dense populations and major demographic ties to China. In case you've never been to the Bay area, they have a huge Chinese population in addition to the most famous Chinatown in the United States. It's very likely there is some presence of people from Wuhan in those areas. In any event, they haven't been hit as hard as New York by a longshot. The main issues with those two places are the population density and homeless populations. The Democrats have allowed large parts of those two cities to become unsanitary and disgusting. So they could use some clean-up before reopening everything.

Indian Wells is in the fucking dessert.....2 hours from L.A. and 7 hours from San Francisco. Cancelling it was unnecessary.

I truly hope he stays safe (no, really, I wouldn't wish that upon anyone), because tap-dancing with the virus will prove very difficult.

Actually, if you listen to Dr. Birx instead of Dr. Fauci and take a look at the Wall Street Journal article I posted, you will see that your alarmism is entirely unfounded. But personally I don't care if your stupid ass gets coronavirus. Your chance of living would be very high in the event that it would happen. It might actually be the best thing for you. It might teach you to be skeptical of your white leftist slavemasters for a minute because you would see that the coronavirus isn't the Black Plague they are telling you it is. That might teach you to question what they tell you. You would be over the virus in 5 days and then you could go back to trying to be a cool American by listening to Notorious B.I.G.

Now go hunt a wabbit, Elmer. Go hunt a wabbit.

 

[calitennis127]

USA total cases: 43,449 (third highest in the world) including 9,883 new cases today (highest in the world).

Trump has done a solid job indeed. He's been on top of this like Cali on top of perfect 10/10 women.

Here you go, Elmer. Read and learn (it is also hilarious that you actually believe the Chinese government's official numbers and place zero blame on the idiotic Democratic leaders in New York who are the main reason for the outbreak there):

US does not have close to the most coronavirus cases when adjusted for population

US does not have close to the most coronavirus cases when adjusted for population

When the United States on Thursday overtook the rest of the world in reported cases of the coronavirus, it immediately drew international headlines. While technically true, this is a misleading metric because when those numbers are adjusted for population, the U.S. does not actually have close to…

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[Moxie]

I did not say all of California, Elmer. Look at a fucking map, lol. I said San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's not all of California. The reason I said those two cities is that they have massive disease-ridden homeless populations as a result of their incompetent Democratic leadership in addition to dense populations and major demographic ties to China. In case you've never been to the Bay area, they have a huge Chinese population in addition to the most famous Chinatown in the United States. It's very likely there is some presence of people from Wuhan in those areas. In any event, they haven't been hit as hard as New York by a longshot. The main issues with those two places are the population density and homeless populations. The Democrats have allowed large parts of those two cities to become unsanitary and disgusting. So they could use some clean-up before reopening everything.

Indian Wells is in the fucking dessert.....2 hours from L.A. and 7 hours from San Francisco. Cancelling it was unnecessary.

Leaving aside your extremely unkind characterization of the homeless, and your clearly narrow understanding of the causes, let's talk about the cancellation of IW. Yes, the tournament takes place in the desert, but as you can imagine, a lot of people who attend come from LA and SF. There was a reported case of the virus in IW, and they cited that as the reason for cancelling, but one can imagine that they also had a mind to not bringing an influx of people to them, at the beginning of an outbreak. That's why SXSW cancelled, which was another of the early and surprising ones. Were these alarmist and before-time? Or were they prescient choices? I suppose IW could have opted to play with no spectators, as the players were all there, but, as has been discussed, there were likely insurance concerns, too.

It seems you have moderated your position on this pandemic somewhat, and wisely. As to the going back to work...we'd all like to. At some point that will be explored on an area-by-area basis, but for now, isolating from each other is what we have to prevent spread. You can see that, right?

 

[britbox]

Yes I did say that, and I stand by it. But your timeline is way off. Originally (i.e. early February) the major media downplayed the coronavirus threat because they wanted to label Trump's prescient travel ban as xenophobic. Vox, The Daily Beast, and the Washington Post (three major left-wing media outlets) in addition to numerous NYC health officials, Joe Biden, and CNN all condemned Trump's travel ban as xenophobic.

They changed their tune later in February once they realized that the virus was a more substantial threat and it could be used against Trump as a political weapon - hence his referring to their behavior as a "hoax."



The Washington Post did originally say in early February that there was nothing to see with the virus. They changed their tune later in February once they saw it was real and it could be used against Trump. I'm sorry that you and the Lebanese Elmer Fudd on the board don't know much about the American media and don't follow it closely. You Britbox at least have the capacity to admit when you don't know something. Elmer on the other hand does not realize how much of a low-information simpleton he actually is when commenting on the USA. He is easily the most misinformed person on this board having to do with anything political in the United States.

Here was how the Washington Post reacted to Trump's January 31st travel ban, which was prescient:

Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now.
Feb. 1, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EST


And this is how the Washington Post editorialized when they realized that Trump was right about the coronavirus being a threat:

The coronavirus is Trump’s Chernobyl
March 9, 2020 at 12:26 p.m. EDT


Nice try, Britbox, but you have been schooled again.....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/time-for-a-reality-check-america-the-flu-is-a-much-bigger-threat-than-coronavirus-for-now/2020/01/31/46a15166-4444-11ea-b5fc-eefa848cde99_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/09/coronavirus-is-trumps-chernobyl/

Ha, ha... good try. Your original play was that the global media was so influenced by the Washington Post they were whipped up into a frenzy about the virus. In fact, you cited the BBC and Guardian as two examples.

The BBC reporting has been fairly robust all along:

Coronavirus: Death toll rises as virus spreads to every Chinese region

The death toll now stands at 170, with more than 7,700 cases confirmed in China.

www.bbc.com

Coronavirus: Whole world 'must take action', warns WHO

The World Health Organization will hold a further emergency meeting on the coronavirus on Thursday.

www.bbc.com

Coronavirus declared global health emergency by WHO

The World Health Organization calls for moves to stop the virus spreading to vulnerable countries.

www.bbc.com

China coronavirus: 'Increased likelihood' of cases in the UK

Fourteen people have now been tested for the virus in the UK, including nine awaiting results.

www.bbc.com

Just plain factual reporting... not politically driven hyperbole. In your little world, the BBC should have been calling this a hoax around then right?

Talking of timelines, you might want to be mindful of your own. Only just over a week ago, you were mocking and scoffing:

As of right now, there are not even 100 DEATHS in the United States from this stupid virus. Not even 100 in a country with a population near 330 million. And almost half of those deceased are people who were in a fucking nursing home in the state of Washington. If you listened to the media and stupid government officials, you would think 100,000 have died. As it is right now, NOT EVEN 100 in the United States have died.

People have been telling you to watch how this is unfolding in Europe with the exponential contagion rates and what happens when health services get overrun. Your head is so stuck so far up Trump's arse you seem unable to process it.

The US has gone from 500 cases to over 100,000 in less than 3 weeks. Your death toll is 16x what it was ten days ago... yet, your suggestion is to send people in states with lower infection rates back out there... Duh, you'll just be speeding up their contagion rates and overload more health services.

Clearly, you're learning nothing about what is going on around the globe. Nothing at all. You're just stuck in a binary party political position.

 

[Moxie]

Utilizing the coronavirus to create a media tsunami that is destroying the American economy - that's the new hoax. The media want this to happen to take down Trump and so far it is working. They are getting their wish. Parts of the country should be on lockdown (particularly NYC because of their stupid leaders - see the tweets above), but the vast majority of it should not be. The media, however, have so much power over the public discourse that they have basically scared every state into shutting down their economy.

Like britbox said, you don't get to have it both ways with NY and Dems. You said there was no reason to over-react, and now you blame NYers/NY officials for still being out and about in February. Either you think that the media and Dems jumped on it early, in order to slag Trump, or you don't. Unlike your own denials and partisan claims, this has been a step-by-step realization of what we were facing, and how to deal. Have we in the US been a bit late on it? Yes. And please stop citing some date in January when Trump mentioned it. That's not the same as actually doing something proactive. It's also not the same thing as minimalizing the risk, "hoping" for things to get better, and denying the science. His own consultants have to correct him in real time on his prognostications, notions of random treatments that might work, and dates, like Easter, when it might all be better and we'll all be gathering in churches around the US. This is a failure of leadership in a crisis.

 

[don_fabio]

His own consultants have to correct him in real time on his prognostications, notions of random treatments that might work, and dates, like Easter, when it might all be better and we'll all be gathering in churches around the US. This is a failure of leadership in a crisis.

They are showing Trump on our national TV news almost every day now and that comment about Eeaster was laughable. This pandemic caught us all surprised beyond belief, but Trump should know better. I am glad our crisis team which gives news to the press a few times per day seem to know what they are doing. At least is nice to see them for a change instead of corrupt politicians.

But it's still hard to control people. Today is nice day outside and you can see many swarming the park immediately. They will probably try to find routes deeper into the woods so police can't catch them.

 

[tented]

Interesting what Denmark is doing.

‘Do More—Fast. Don’t Wait.’
Denmark, which is basically freezing its economy, has a message for America.

 

[don_fabio]

^^ Scandinavian countries always been so generous to their people giving way more than the other countries. Drastic measures in drastic time, but no firing of people. Amazing.

 

[britbox]

I'd be interested to hear from Americans what the actual breakdown is regarding healthcare responsibility in the United States. i.e. Who is responsible for what? Primarily, what is Federal responsible for, and what is an individual state responsible for? Where do national overrides kick in, if at all?

While I think Trump has been all over the place and reckless with his commentary on this virus, I suspect the whole situation is more nuanced than just blaming him for pretty much everything.