Prickly City by Scott Stantis for April 20, 2020

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    Cheapskate0  over 4 years ago

    The “death rate” of this disease is unknown because we don’t know how many people have or have had the disease. And while there was a dubious claim that deaths were being falsely attributed to C19, more credible is that many deaths caused by C19 were never counted.

    All of this due to the lack of tests.

    I tried to explain this to my wife the other night.

    Death rate is a fraction: #Deaths over #Infections. Assuming #Deaths is reasonably well known, all we need to know is #Infections and perform simple division. Times one hundred if you want it as a percentage.

    We are at, what is it, 40k deaths? Let’s go with that.

    40k divided by what?

    100k infections would produce a whopping 40% – pretty doggone deadly.

    200k infections would produce 20% – still enough to knock your socks off.

    For the death rate to be less than 2%, we’d need over 1M infections.

    But the bottom line is: The only people being tested are those who are already sick enough to be hospitalized. If you aren’t hospitalized, then you don’t count – at least toward the death rate.

    And goodness knows how many of us may have had it, gotten over it, or perhaps never had symptoms at all. Even more frightening is that it’s still not known whether having had the disease – or having been asymptotic all along – does that mean we’re immune? Or Typhoid Mary s?

    Last article I read said, our best hope is that this disease did achieve at least a 40% – or more – infection rate. That way, we’d finally know whether this was really more deadly than the “common” flu.

    What a contradiction in terms: The 1918 flu was anything but “common.” But I digress.

    Regardless of how we look at it, we’re at 40k deaths – and counting.

    We really have no idea either how infectious it is or how deadly it is. At this point, it is clearly at least one or the other.

    We just don’t know whether it’s both!

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    Darsan54 Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Carmen, listen to your doctor’s instructions, follow them, get a routine that includes bathing regularly and clean clothes. Eat healthy and yeah, put down the phone and don’t watch Trump’s pressers……NO FOX spews at all !!

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    braindead Premium Member over 4 years ago

    “Anyone who wants a test can get a test.”

    “No one could have seen this coming.”

    “I knew it was a pandemic before anyone else.”“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

    “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

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    Sanspareil  over 4 years ago

    Testing and tracing are everything, tRump’s bluster and lies will continue to kill.

    What amazes me is the maga’s who have lost lives of their families and friends and yet support the orange cretin who caused those losses.

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    jbmlaw01  over 4 years ago

    Funny essay today in WSJ talks about all the democrats contributed to constraint of Wuhan Flu:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-2020-coronavirus-hindsight-11587317439?mod=MorningEditorialReport&mod=djemMER_h

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    Silly Season   over 4 years ago

    A secretive Trump administration project that enlists private companies to bring masks and other medical equipment to the U.S. to fight the coronavirus outbreak has provided tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the nation’s largest medical-supply companies with little public accounting.

    Over the last three weeks, taxpayers have paid to fly the companies’ supplies to the U.S. from Asia on government-chartered cargo flights, while the firms have been free to sell the material to hospitals, clinics and others at prices they choose.

    That has saved the companies more than $25 million in shipping costs, savings they are not required to pass on to the medical systems, state governments and others who buy their products. The supply companies’ profits topped $2 billion last year, financial statements show.

    The administration has refused to disclose crucial details of the operation, known as Project Air Bridge, including its financial arrangements with the companies involved. These include multibillion-dollar firms such as McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., FedEx and UPS.

    Five of the six medical distributors involved in Project Air Bridge — including the biggest companies — also wouldn’t answer questions about their participation.

    Smaller competitors say the administration has effectively excluded them from the government-subsidized program.

    “Without more transparency on Project Air Bridge, it appears as if the administration is more concerned with helping a handful of companies turn a profit than being up front with the American people,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano), who with 56 House colleagues sent a letter last week to FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor.

    (You know, “The Government picking winners and losers….”)

    https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-16/trump-plan-coronavirus-supplies-big-payoffs

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    William Robbins Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Good luck re-branding #TrumpVirus…

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    Silly Season   over 4 years ago

    Several governors criticized President Trump on Sunday for tweets encouraging protests against states’ coronavirus lockdown measures.

    “I don’t think it’s helpful to encourage demonstrations and encourage people to go against the president’s own policy,” said Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland.

    Hogan’s comments came in response to a question from CNN host Jake Tapper about Trump’s decision on Friday to blast out a series of all-caps “LIBERATE” tweets about three states that have enacted stringent lockdowns: Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

    The three states, considered swing states in the November election, have Democratic governors.

    “I understand the frustration among the people that want to get things open right away,” said Hogan, who issued a stay-at-home order for his state in March. “I’m frustrated also. I mean, I wish I had someone to protest to. But, look, we’re doing everything we possibly can to reopen in a safe manner.”

    He continued: “For example, I mentioned earlier, the president’s policy says you can’t start to reopen under his plan until you have declining numbers for 14 days, which those states and my state do not have.

    So, then to encourage people to go protest the plan that you just made recommendations on, on Thursday, it just doesn’t make any sense.

    We’re sending completely conflicting messages out to the governors and to the people, as if we should ignore federal policy and federal recommendations.”

    https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-larry-hogan-trump-liberate-tweets-not-helpful-163614298.html

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    RobinHood  over 4 years ago

    When you walk through a storm

    Hold your head up high

    And don’t be afraid of the dark

    At the end of a storm

    There’s a golden sky

    And the sweet silver song of a lark

    Walk on through the wind

    Walk on through the rain

    Though your dreams be tossed and blown

    Walk on, walk on

    With hope in your heart

    And you’ll never walk alone

    Rodgers/ Hammerstein
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    RobinHood  over 4 years ago

    https://apnews.com/7c9a33ae52420e0ddbfb5275898a7e79Who’ll be the first here to blame this on our president, our conservatives, or our constitution?

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    Kip W  over 4 years ago

    How long’s it been in comic strip time? A week?

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