outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

And I'm surprised Trump didn't threaten to quarantine California. We hate him too, and have a high rate of covid.

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Which how did that happen?

Soon enough this will be the case in the US too. National guard is already staging in cities like #Baltimore (2nd time in 5 years) & it's not just to deliver ppl food. #NotDying4WallStreet #MartialLaw https://t.co/7jrbTyuCEu

— Morgan Artyukhina (@LavenderNRed) March 29, 2020

USA
123,351-Total Cases
19,225-New Cases
2,211-Total Deaths
515-Day New Deaths https://t.co/Y0zt3Z19Cw

— illuminate (@myworldmysun) March 29, 2020

Martial law and deployment of National Guard are not the same thing xpost

like there is a huge difference between bringing in the National Guard to assist local government and actually declaring martial law and making the military the local government and temporary suspending civil rights, habeas corpus, court martialing citizens, etc.

it may be a thin line to some, but it's a form of hell many of us haven't experienced and I hope not to.

even right now, our mandatory "lockdown" here in Orange County isn't the type where cops are going to pull you over, ask you while you're out, and cite you (though I know that some places do have stringent measures like this in place).

Drove through DC a couple days ago; the streets around the Tidal Basin / cherry blossoms were blocked by... National Guard personnel, who were generally cheerful and everyone was keeping distances and being polite. I didn't get a Gilead vibe from it at all, but then I am local and have seen quite a bit of this sort of thing. Not on this scale, perhaps, but I came away from the experience with respect for my townspeople, not OMG ORWELLIAN DYSTOPIA.

I posted that reaction, but I was mostly thinking about this as a situation to watch over the next 2/3 months, i.e. if enough ppl are strapped for cash and can't get food and there is no assistance. What is happening in Sicily needs more reporting too.

My sister tells me that in the UK they are making all of their data publicly available and transparent, including predicting likelihood of riots, if I understood her correctly. (Right now the likelihood is apparently low, fwiw.)

This is heartbreaking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/world/asia/coronavirus-india-migrants.html

xxpost there are going to need to be more relief bills, potentially. the last one was a good opportunity to stop and breathe, but it's not going to be enough and will lead to situations like you describe if they don't provide more relief as we near the end of summer.

I posted that reaction, but I was mostly thinking about this as a situation to watch over the next 2/3 months, i.e. if enough ppl are strapped for cash and can't get food and there is no assistance. What is happening in Sicily needs more reporting too.

The virus first struck in the most affluent part of Italy, I remember saying at the time to just wait till it reaches the South.

Time is an illusion right now but if you're keeping track FEMA, the federal *emergency management* agency, has only been coordinating the federal response to a *pandemic* for *eight* days despite knowing about this for over three months.

That's... quite a choice.

— Dr. Samantha Montano (@SamLMontano) March 28, 2020

Tamil Nadu man breaks quarantine, runs naked, bites woman to death

Obvious zombie joke aside, I feel the mental health repercussions of lockdown will be with us for some time. I already feel a little batty, having encountered practically no good news for weeks...

reporting live from an inpatient behavioral health unit, and yes, this is going to be a pretty significant mental health issue

omg. are you alright?

in case you forgot, gbx is a licensed psychiatrist (MD)

actually didn't know! that' a relief lol

gbx is fine it's the rest of us you should be worried about

lol sorry to have caused a scare, totally unintentionally bad wording on my part

a friend of a friend of a friend just died by suicide, grim out there.

I’m very sorry to hear this, not sure what else to say. It’s dark right now.

😷😷😷

20 flights arrived yesterday into London from NY.

▪️There was no social distancing on the plane
▪️No checks when they arrived.
▪️these passengers dispersed, many to the Tube.

Meanwhile police drones threaten sole walkers in the Peak District.

Utter nonsense.

— Bernie'sTweets (@berniespofforth) March 29, 2020

This is excellent:

Portugal is regularizing undocumented migrants to protect them – and the wider population – from the virus. Pay heed. https://t.co/xKwh11vsRP

— manu saadia 🖖 (@trekonomics) March 29, 2020

now that we're hitting the other side of the curve on the first wave, i'm starting to actually think about all of the things i deferred worrying about until we passed the spike

so we have an epidemic which is only being controlled by intensive quarantine. all of the normal functions of civil society have been put on indefinite hold. we're all cooped up here, our chief means of communication being incredibly unhealthy and toxic forms of media. we're all of us going crazy, some of us faster than others, and we're all pretty well aware that we are. staggeringly huge numbers of people have lost their jobs. we haven't come close to feeling the full economic impact of this. nobody has any idea about how we're going to pay for the costs of all this.

nobody has any idea what happens from here. i can think of a lot of possibilities, none of them particularly good. i've chosen not to dwell on those possibilities because we've had more important concerns, but i feel like we're reaching the point where those concerns are becoming more pressing?

ok, not to go big, but how do nation-states get to the other side of this without at some point going through the collapse of market capitalism and a lot of the "democratic institutions" that haven't already collapsed?

can we go with Scarlett O'Hara's "I'll think about that tomorrow" for now?

sorry, I don't have the semblance of an answer.

it's ok, i'm not really expecting an answer

i just needed to ask the question

The President’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America

#1. Listen to and follow the directions of your state and local authorities.

How you know that DJT had zero input on this communique...

I think the answer involves getting some combination of drugs approved that lessen the effects of the virus, and putting mass testing into place. Those are the biggest things we need ASAP if we are to have any hope of this not going on for a very long time.

The general idea, I think, is that lockdown levels of suppression stops community transmission enough so that when you slowly start easing restrictions you can isolate and quarantine the cases that do happen and stop outbreaks in their tracks.

Difficulty with that is that in this case is that Coronavirus is so ridiculously transmissible with its 2-week period where you feel fine but are very infectious that it makes the isolate-and-track stuff incredibly difficult.

So you need to get both hardcore on the tracking (see South Korea and phone tracking) and on the hygiene (masks for everyone and wash your hands).

And if it all fails you are back to lockdown again. Repeat until vaccination arrives.

(Or countries like Sweden prove that you can achieve a good enough reduction of transmission with less draconian lockdowns and everyone switches to that model. This is what the UK was initially going for, until it recognised the NHS couldn’t cope with the increased level of cases this route entails)

this is amazing

New Interview: I spoke with law professor Richard Epstein, whose controversial article on coronavirus circulated in the Trump administration, about why he believes many coronavirus models are wrong, and the dangers of sloppy science during a pandemic. https://t.co/kpurftthzw

— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) March 29, 2020

Yeah his descent into defensiveness and ad hominem blathering is something to behold.

Meanwhile, this is interesting: it may have been around for a long time but only just evolved into bring transmittable from human to human:


https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades

Two of the nation’s largest health insurers, Cigna and Humana, agreed to protect their customers from out-of-pocket costs if they need treatment for Covid-19, a decision that represents a rapid change in how companies are responding to the pandemic.

Describing the insurers’ decision as “a big deal,” President Trump on Sunday said the companies don’t “waive co-pays too easily, but we asked them and they did it.”

While insurers and government officials have taken steps in recent weeks to limit people’s out-of-pocket costs when they get tested, the bills associated with treatment for Covid-19 can run in the tens of thousands of dollars for a single hospital stay.

“Let’s take the economic burden and the economic uncertainty off the table,” said David M. Cordani, the chief executive of Cigna, in an interview before the White House briefing.

Under the new policy, customers “don’t have to worry about the financial burden of the virus while their lives are being turned upside down,” said Bruce Broussard, the chief executive of Humana.

the insurers added, "of course, customers will continue to have to worry about the financial burden of other illnesses and diseases while their lives are being turned upside down"

/borowitz

here in oregon insurance companies are being mandated to pay everything.

so, any guesses as to how exactly health insurance companies are going to remain financially solvent? i give it three months before private insurers point out that every single one of them will go bankrupt if _somebody_ doesn't give them a very large amount of money.

I think the answer involves getting some combination of drugs approved that lessen the effects of the virus, and putting mass testing into place. Those are the biggest things we need ASAP if we are to have any hope of this not going on for a very long time.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles)

right now we don't have an eta on either of these things. do we need to start calculating an eta until enough of us lose our shit that everything descends into mass chaos?

this is literally a race against time and nobody is acknowledging that

It’s definitely getting acknowledged down here an Australia. These restrictions being put in place are being portrayed as something that will be in place for a minimum of 6 months.

Mass testing, even home testing is coming along at a clip but it’s no s fret that drugs and vaccines take a long time, a lot of work and a good sprinkling of luck.

I had hoped I’d be able to travel overseas again by October but I can’t see that happening. Countries that get convos (mostly) under control are going to want to keep it that way. I can’t see being let out of Australia unless immunity is a real thing, I can prove my antibody status either because I got it or I had the vaccine. It’s going to look a lot like the yellow fever regime.

If I'm looking at the worldometer graph correctly, worldwide deaths dropped today for the first time since March 16. I don't know how much hope I'd pin on that, but it's something.

"so, any guesses as to how exactly health insurance companies are going to remain financially solvent?"

Reserves. Laws mandate a bare minimum of reserves any insurance company must have at all times, and the bigger and/or smarter insurers have much more than that.

Difficulty with that is that in this case is that Coronavirus is so ridiculously transmissible with its 2-week period where you feel fine but are very infectious that it makes the isolate-and-track stuff incredibly difficult.

There's also reinsurance, and a pandemic would def trigger clauses in contracts between insurers and reinsurers that shift some of the burden onto the reinsurer.

Let's not forget the billions for corporations Congress just lined up.

cool, looking forward to seeing that get dragged through the courts

how are the reinsurers on reserves? hope they have lots! icus aren't terribly cheap, even if you cancel all "elective" procedures like, i don't know, gcs

Really feel that the US healthcare system, which has been predatory for who've had to interact with it for at least 40 years, is going to have the worst outcomes of all developed nations.

Everyone knows regularly interacting with the system is a swift path to bankruptcy. Many will choose to die without burdening relatives/estate with the bills. I'm on a high deductible ACA plan, and I've been scanning the the reports of those who've gone through the symptoms. I think I won't trouble my PCP until my fingertip O2 sat falls below 88%, right now. Terrible we live in a society where getting to know one's doctor is a worst case scenario.

It’s definitely getting acknowledged down here an Australia. These restrictions being put in place are being portrayed as something that will be in place for a minimum of 6 months.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed)

oh sure it's no big deal for you your government completely collapses every two weeks on average

take it to the 77 despair thread, y'all

I have this one bookmarked for actual news