Maple Leaf Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 1 hour ago, JFK-1 said: i see no way out of this for them as long as they have a government insisting it doesn't exist. Though at state level even in Republican strongholds they're now beginning to ignore Trump and respond to reality. Facemasks being mandated in more states all the time. Their infection numbers and fatalities are just continuing on this upward curve with new records being broken daily. It's worse than it has ever been while Europe is getting it under control albeit expecting a second wave which they're prepared for. The US on the other hand never got the first wave in check. No leadership from the Trump administration, who are focused only on re-election. Combine that with large numbers of people who are not taking basic precautions like wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing, and the US has a deadly situation. 73,000 new cases yesterday alone. And it will get worse before it gets better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Just now, Maple Leaf said: And it will get worse before it gets better. I have no doubt it's going to get worse, and have no idea how it's ever going to get better given the lack of any co-ordinated effort to make it better. Or even concede that it's spiraling out of control which it clearly is. One other thing that bothers me is this will be what is defined as the end of Trump. Ignoring the fact that even if this hadn't happened he was already a total disaster across the entire spectrum. Though in saying that when he goes down hopefully many will then feel safer to describe his utter incompetence. Though maybe not. Because enablers will be under the spotlight too. You knew he was corrupt and a total idiot and you covered it up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo-Jimbo Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 23 minutes ago, JFK-1 said: I have no doubt it's going to get worse, and have no idea how it's ever going to get better given the lack of any co-ordinated effort to make it better. Or even concede that it's spiraling out of control which it clearly is. One other thing that bothers me is this will be what is defined as the end of Trump. Ignoring the fact that even if this hadn't happened he was already a total disaster across the entire spectrum. Though in saying that when he goes down hopefully many will then feel safer to describe his utter incompetence. Though maybe not. Because enablers will be under the spotlight too. You knew he was corrupt and a total idiot and you covered it up? Oh, I had a very minor role, wasn't part of the inner circle and all the craziness....the President, never met him, only seen him once or twice...from a distance....corruption....no gov, we weren't told what we were working on, national security I think, honest gov, I know nothing, we weren't told anything. Before this is all over, there'll be many a statement like the above, people will downplay their role and some will even deny they had ever met Trump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpruceBringsteen Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 I see the Jade Helm conspiracy more or less came true last night in Oregon. Wasn't Obama though so it doesn't count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 53 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said: Oh, I had a very minor role, wasn't part of the inner circle and all the craziness....the President, never met him, only seen him once or twice...from a distance....corruption....no gov, we weren't told what we were working on, national security I think, honest gov, I know nothing, we weren't told anything. Before this is all over, there'll be many a statement like the above, people will downplay their role and some will even deny they had ever met Trump. The entire party has lost any credibility. They blocked impeachment when it was the rational thing to do since anybody with half a brain knew that it was always just one real crisis away from total meltdown. They must have banked on there being no crisis before the election and hoped they could bluff their way through it again riding ion the racist vote. George Floyd put a huge dent in that then along comes the worst public health and economic crisis in their history. While the orange buffoon still basically sticks to the old fake news card. Meltdown achieved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trotter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Its been a topic of conversation with mates over beer the last few weeks (mostly expats but also Americans), and the general consensus is that regardless of what happens in November, the US is heading for a meltdown of epic proportions. The whole 'Texas should secede' card is coming out again as well.* *note that Texas isn't as red as it once was, or as people still believe. Thanks to migration to the major population centers (Houston/Austin/DFW) its rapidly becoming a purple state Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown user Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 9 minutes ago, trotter said: Its been a topic of conversation with mates over beer the last few weeks (mostly expats but also Americans), and the general consensus is that regardless of what happens in November, the US is heading for a meltdown of epic proportions. The whole 'Texas should secede' card is coming out again as well.* *note that Texas isn't as red as it once was, or as people still believe. Thanks to migration to the major population centers (Houston/Austin/DFW) its rapidly becoming a purple state DFW? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 1 minute ago, Smithee said: DFW? Dallas-Fort Worth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown user Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 3 minutes ago, Justin Z said: Dallas-Fort Worth Is that one place now? Live and learn! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 4 minutes ago, Smithee said: Is that one place now? Live and learn! One metro area. Closest analogy would be "Edinburgh and the Lothians" I suppose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 We're now entering a phase where no one will even know the status of the pandemic. All data updating has disappeared from the CDC website. Now being sent directly to the White House to be 'interpreted' there. Interpreted by who exactly? Trump? Jared? Ivanka? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown user Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 1 minute ago, Justin Z said: One metro area. Closest analogy would be "Edinburgh and the Lothians" I suppose Ah OK, of course. I always wonder about these things, in Holland they reckon the Randstad includes Alkmaar and Zeist, an hour apart through miles of country motorway, I've lived in both. Also included are Amsterdam and Rotterdam, who ****ing hate each other. Years ago I had a boat that said Rotterdam on the back, I don't recommend mooring in Amsterdam for long! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 53 minutes ago, Justin Z said: One metro area. Closest analogy would be "Edinburgh and the Lothians" I suppose Similarly, the city of Toronto has a population of about 3 million. Locally, it's most often referred to as the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) which includes adjoining suburbs and has a population of about 6 million. Sorry for going off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 2 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said: Sorry for going off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 I just read that RBG's cancer has returned. Bad news for her, but also bad news for anyone who likes the idea of the SCOTUS being impartial. We all know what outcome the orange-skinned one will be hoping for, albeit in private. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnrazor Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Just now, Maple Leaf said: I just read that RBG's cancer has returned. Bad news for her, but also bad news for anyone who likes the idea of the SCOTUS being impartial. We all know what outcome the orange-skinned one will be hoping for, albeit in private. Sorry, who? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Just now, Dawnrazor said: Sorry, who? Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She's one of the four progressive judges on the Supreme Court. She's in her late 80's and has health problems recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnrazor Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Just now, Maple Leaf said: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She's one of the four progressive judges on the Supreme Court. She's in her late 80's and has health problems recently. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trotter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 21 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said: Similarly, the city of Toronto has a population of about 3 million. Locally, it's most often referred to as the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) which includes adjoining suburbs and has a population of about 6 million. Sorry for going off topic. Similar to Houston. That actual city itself has around 2.5m people. But when you include the Houston-Woodlands-Katy metropolitan area that rockets up to about 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown user Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 26 minutes ago, trotter said: Similar to Houston. That actual city itself has around 2.5m people. But when you include the Houston-Woodlands-Katy metropolitan area that rockets up to about 6. America's huge, I've never heard of 2 of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norm Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 3 hours ago, SpruceBringsteen said: I see the Jade Helm conspiracy more or less came true last night in Oregon. Wasn't Obama though so it doesn't count. **** me, Jade Helm. I remember Nibbles going on and on about that. I also seem to remember Nibbles saying he was pro-Trump as he was going to "drain the swamp" but, mark his words, he'd hold Trump's feet to the fire of he didn't. Wonder how he feels about that swamp now.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Has anybody ever wondered to themselves how the people of Germany in the 1930s didn't see the concentration camps coming? Well, wonder no longer. Sorry To Interrupt Your Friday, But Homeland Security Is Disappearing American Citizens Off The Street Don’t look now, but the Department of Homeland Security has apparently declared martial law in Portland, Oregon. For several days now, heavily armed federal troops without insignia or identification have been snatching American citizens off the streets and whisking them away in unmarked vans to prevent the dastardly crime of … graffiti. There are various videos at the link if you haven't seen them. Trump is doing this but both parties gave him the power to do this by weakening the power of the legislative and judiciary and strengthening the powers of the executive, over decades—especially since 9/11. Trump's supporters will cheer this, and Democrats will make it partisan. Nothing will change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boof Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 56 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She's one of the four progressive judges on the Supreme Court. She's in her late 80's and has health problems recently. How wrong is it that Supreme Court appointees have (a) lifetime tenure and (b) input from the president in their appointment? Surely that is open to abuse - especially with that current clown in the Oval Office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 52 minutes ago, Boof said: How wrong is it that Supreme Court appointees have (a) lifetime tenure and (b) input from the president in their appointment? Surely that is open to abuse - especially with that current clown in the Oval Office. The idea is that the judicial branch is supposed to be non-political. If you can make decisions from the bench that aren't politically popular but are correct, legally, then justice will be better served. One way to ensure this is by insulating judges from the democratic process entirely. It can be debated, but that's the premise. I will say, states that elect their judges, some of their judges tend to be absolute clowns all the time, not just when the governors of those states are also clowns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 36 minutes ago, Justin Z said: I will say, states that elect their judges, some of their judges tend to be absolute clowns all the time, not just when the governors of those states are also clowns. Bizarre and deeply flawed system producing entirely unqualified and unsuitable judges such as Roy Moore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 9 minutes ago, JFK-1 said: Bizarre and deeply flawed system producing entirely unqualified and unsuitable judges such as Roy Moore. And Clarence Thomas, an ultra-conservative judge who was appointed to the Supreme Court by a Republican president, despite very convincing accusations of sexual abuse of women. Sound familiar? Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for 30 years, voting conservative on almost every issue, and will be on the SP until he dies, or decides to make way for another conservative judge, whichever comes first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovecraft Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) WHAT THE ACTUAL ****? They aren't even trying to pretend anymore. **** Trump **** America Edited July 17, 2020 by Lovecraft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 7 minutes ago, Lovecraft said: WHAT THE ACTUAL ****? They aren't even trying to pretend anymore. **** Trump **** America A washington-based group has now filed an ethics complaint against Ivanka Trump for the photo she tweeted of her holding a goya product: Because executive branch employees cannot use their positions to promote products. The law states that an employee "Shall not use his public office for his own private benefit, for the promotion of any product, service, or enterprise." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovecraft Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 1 minute ago, JFK-1 said: A washington-based group has now filed an ethics complaint against Ivanka Trump for the photo she tweeted of her holding a goya product: Because executive branch employees cannot use their positions to promote products. The law states that an employee "Shall not use his public office for his own private benefit, for the promotion of any product, service, or enterprise." What about daddy Trump? Trump just commuted Stone. Why would he give a **** about stuff like this. These people are very, very different from "normal" people. I hope the US burns. Burns to the ****ing ground. All hail our Chinese overlords that are only interested in making sure the wealth is spread equally via communism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 2 minutes ago, Lovecraft said: What about daddy Trump? Trump just commuted Stone. Why would he give a **** about stuff like this. These people are very, very different from "normal" people. I hope the US burns. Burns to the ****ing ground. All hail our Chinese overlords that are only interested in making sure the wealth is spread equally via communism. China grants 18 trademarks in 2 months to Trump, daughter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovecraft Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 (edited) 6 minutes ago, JFK-1 said: China grants 18 trademarks in 2 months to Trump, daughter Yup. Cash. China will dominate the world down to capitalism disguised as communism. Without their slave labour, China will fail. It is why they are so hard on their population. I honestly hope they both fight each other....... But they won't, as they are only interested in making money. It will be a wild country that starts a fight.... India.... Brazil....... Both China and the US will team up if there is a threat....... Trying not to sound like a cock but.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital Edited July 18, 2020 by Lovecraft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruyff Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 China are the biggest threat to World Peace right now after...... The mad Donald. The weakest President in US history which is quite ironic given his tough man talk and image that he likes to portray. I do wonder if China would have tried to start a fight with the entire planet if America had an actual real life person with more than half a brain cell in the White House. Currently China have managed to allow their honking virus to infect half the world, undermining the entire Western Economy and sending it into recession. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/china-coronavirus-propaganda-weakens-western-democracies/ They have attacked India on the Himalayan border. Then made an 11bn dollar deal with India's enemy Pakistan. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/a-flurry-of-infrastructure-cheques-from-china-put-pakistan-back-in-the-belt-and-road-game/articleshow/76990731.cms Co-ordinated a massive cyber attack on Australia. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/china-cyber-attacks-australia-a9575021.html Moved in on Hong Kongs government introducing Security Laws, breaking an agreement with the UK and destroying democracy there. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52765838 Constantly bullying Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia & Indonesia and any shipping vessels using the South China Sea from their annexed man-made base on the Paracel Islands. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/18/china-india-aggression-asia-alliances/ Trying to undermine Western Security with their Huawei 5G and dodgy Tick Tock app. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-accuses-huawei-of-spying-through-law-enforcement-backdoors-2020-2 They've made a 400 bn dollar arms deal with everyone's enemy, Iran. https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2020/07/17/china-and-iran-approach-massive-400-billion-deal/ They're even trying to pick a fight with the Russians over Vladivostok, claiming it is theirs. This after they ripped off all the patents by making tiny orders of Russian hardware then made their own copies, infuriating the Russians and stealing technology. https://asianews.press/2020/07/04/lac-face-off-china-now-claims-russias-vladivostok-as-its-own-territory/ https://www.theglobalist.com/russia-china-intellectual-property-theft-technology-arms-sales/ They are doing all of this because Donald Trump is weak as a kitten. Thankfully the generals of the Western Allied Nations are still somewhat in control of the situation and have sent entire Battle Groups into the South China Sea. This before the CCP decide the take over the world while the Donald is busy playing Golf and Advertising tins of beans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 @Cruyff Thank you for a great post. At the risk of being flippant, does that mean Trump's MAGA was all just lame-brained, campaign bullshit? That's a rhetorical question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 He's going to be a massive liability the rest of his life. He will have highly sensitive information a corrupt, simple minded buffoon like him can't be trusted with. His entire family are a liability. the Jared one would sell anything for a buck too. All a bean manufacturer had to do was tell him he's so great and he sold the office of the presidency over to endorsing beans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Z Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Rep. John Lewis, RIP. 3½ years ago: Trump rips 'all talk,' 'no action' civil rights icon Lewis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 All journalists should be doing this at this time. Every time they say something crazy go for it and don't let them off the hook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Howard Stern talking about Trump who he had on his show 11 times and says Trump was a great guest. Not because he has any kind of talent but simply because Stern is a 'shock jock' and Trump is such an idiot who will say the most outrageous things with no thought. Stern called him 'unfiltered' The point I have primed the video to begin is after he has said these things when he begins to talk about Trump running for and becoming president. Pretty much what I have always thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DETTY29 Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Worldwide coronavirus deaths pass 600,000 with almost a quarter of all deaths in the US. How can this be lied away as winning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Trump fan boys have claimed and continue to claim that he handled the economy well which is ludicrous. This man doesn't have the first idea of economics or anything else for that matter and as we all know wont listen to 'experts' in any field. He knows more about everything than any expert knows about anything. The reality is that he inherited an economy from Obama already on the rise. Look at it this way. Say you have a football team which has been on a winning run, playing at home, and winning 3-0 at halftime in the current game. The manager becomes ill, doesn't come out for the second half so the assistant takes over on the bench. The opposition change nothing and the assistant carries on with the same strategy and line up to win 6-0. Is the win and the continuation of the winning run going to be put down to the assistant? If Trump were that assistant probably because that's what he was effectively claiming regarding the economy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo-Jimbo Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 34 minutes ago, JFK-1 said: Worldwide coronavirus deaths pass 600,000 with almost a quarter of all deaths in the US. How can this be lied away as winning. His base will believe anything, but his base isn't enough to win the election though. Trump needs the 20% or so of the waivers and I seriously doubt they'll believe all the BS that comes out of his mouth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 48 minutes ago, JFK-1 said: Worldwide coronavirus deaths pass 600,000 with almost a quarter of all deaths in the US. How can this be lied away as winning. A quarter of the deaths with only about 4% of the world's population. But according to the White House press secretary and Mike Pence, Trump is doing a remarkable job. It's widely believed within the Trump cult that the coronavirus is a hoax, created by the Democrats in order to win the election. How does anyone combat that level of ignorance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 4 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said: It's widely believed within the Trump cult that the coronavirus is a hoax, created by the Democrats in order to win the election. How does anyone combat that level of ignorance? If that were true I would vote for the Democrats on that alone. A US political party with the power to engineer a worldwide pandemic to win an election. The power and genius all while hiding their activities from the scientists globally is too impressive to turn down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maple Leaf Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 And despite the human tragedy that is unfolding in the US, largely because of the federal government's inept handling of the pandemic, Trump thinks that it's appropriate and timely for the President to be leering over a few cans of beans in the Oval Office, all because the seller of those beans covered his shoes with saliva a few days earlier. That picture was offensive and a GIRUY to all decent Americans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming in the US There was always a logical explanation for why cases rose through the end of June while deaths did not. ARTICLE FROM JULY 15th Quote There is no mystery in the number of Americans dying from COVID-19. Despite political leaders trivializing the pandemic, deaths are rising again: The seven-day average for deaths per day has now jumped by more than 200 since July 6, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. By our count, states reported 855 deaths today, in line with the recent elevated numbers in mid-July. The deaths are not happening in unpredictable places. Rather, people are dying at higher rates where there are lots of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations: in Florida, Arizona, Texas, and California, as well as a host of smaller southern states that all rushed to open up. The deaths are also not happening in an unpredictable amount of time after the new outbreaks emerged. Simply look at the curves yourself. Cases began to rise on June 16; a week later, hospitalizations began to rise. Two weeks after that—21 days after cases rose—states began to report more deaths. That’s the exact number of days that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated from the onset of symptoms to the reporting of a death. Many people who don’t want COVID-19 to be the terrible crisis that it is have clung to the idea that more cases won’t mean more deaths. Some Americans have been perplexed by a downward trend of national deaths, even as cases exploded in the Sun Belt region. But given the policy choices that state and federal officials have made, the virus has done exactly what public-health experts expected. When states reopened in late April and May with plenty of infected people within their borders, cases began to grow. COVID-19 is highly transmissible, makes a large subset of people who catch it seriously ill, and kills many more people than the flu or any other infectious disease circulating in the country. The likelihood that more cases of COVID-19 would mean that more people would die from the disease has always been very high. Even at the low point for deaths in the U.S., roughly 500 people died each day, on average. Now, with the national death numbers rising once again, there’s simply no argument that America can sustain coronavirus outbreaks while somehow escaping fatalities. America’s deadly summer coronavirus surge is undeniable. And it was predictable this whole time by looking honestly at the data. In the United States, the rising severity of the current moment was obscured for several weeks by the downward drift of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from the spring outbreak in northeastern states. Even though deaths have been rising in the hardest-hit states of the Sun Belt surge, falling deaths in the Northeast disguised the trend. t is true that the proportion of infections in younger people increased in June and July compared with March and April. And young people have a much lower risk of dying than people in their 60s and older. But, at least in Florida, where the best age data are available, early evidence suggests that the virus is already spreading to older people. Additionally, analysis of CDC data by The New York Times has found that younger Black and Latino people have a much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than white people the same age. According to the racial data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project in concert with the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, Latinos in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas are 1.3 to 1.6 times more likely to be infected than their proportion of the population would suggest. It is telling that despite outbreaks all over Texas in recent weeks, the border region has been leading the state in deaths per capita. Even with cases surging, if hospitalizations were not rising, that might suggest that this outbreak might be less deadly than the spring’s. But hospitalization data maintained by the COVID Tracking Project suggested otherwise as early as June 23. On that date, hospitalizations began to tick up across the South and West, and they have not stopped. It’s possible we’ll match the national peak number of hospitalizations from the spring outbreak over the next week. Even if better knowledge of the disease and new treatments have improved outcomes by 25 or even 50 percent, so many people are now in the hospital that some of them will almost certainly die. There was always a logical, simple explanation for why cases and hospitalizations rose through the end of June while deaths did not: It takes a while for people to die of COVID-19 and for those deaths to be reported to authorities. So why has there been so much confusion about the COVID-19 death toll? The second surge is inconvenient for the Trump administration and the Republican governors who followed its lead, as well as for Mike Pence, the head of the coronavirus task force, who declared victory in a spectacularly incorrect Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave.’” (JFK-1 opinion. I would agree with him on that, they're not in a second wave, they'r seeing a resurgence of the first wave which they failed to get under control.) “Cases have stabilized over the past two weeks, with the daily average case rate across the U.S. dropping to 20,000—down from 30,000 in April and 25,000 in May,” Pence wrote. In the month since Pence made this assertion, the seven-day average of cases has tripled. Several individual states have reported more than 10,000 cases in a day, and Florida alone reported 15,000 cases, more than any state had before, on an absolute or per capita basis. But there’s another reason for some of the confusion about the severity of the outbreak right now. And that’s the perceived speed at which the outbreak initially landed on American shores and started killing people. The lack of testing let the virus run free in February and much of March. As my colleague Robinson Meyer and I put it at the time, “Without testing, there was only one way to know the severity of the outbreak: counting the dead.” And that is how we figured out how bad the outbreak was. Thousands began dying in the greater New York City area and a few other cities around the country in early April. The seven-day average for new cases peaked on April 10, followed by the peak of the seven-day average for daily deaths just 11 days later. Everything seemed to happen at once: lots of cases, lots of hospitalizations, lots of deaths. But some of this is also the compression of memory. Most of us remember the deaths in March beginning as quickly as the cases, especially given the testing debacle. That’s not exactly what happened, however. The nation did, in fact, see cases rise weeks before the death toll shot up. There was a time in March when we had detected more than 100 cases for each death we recorded. This is a crucial metric because it gets at the perceived gap between cases and deaths. And it tells us that we did see a lag between rising cases and deaths back in the spring. During the slow-decline phase in May, the case-to-deaths ratio fell to about 20. Then, this summer, the case-to-death ratio began to rise in early June. On July 6, the ratio hit 100 again, just like in the spring. But as in spring, this was not a good sign, but rather the leading indicator that a new round of outbreaks was taking hold in the country. And, indeed, a week ago, this ratio began to fall as deaths ramped up. The U.S. came most of the way down the curve from the dark days of April, and now we’re watching the surge happen again. The testing delays, the emergency-room-nurse stories, the refrigerated morgue trucks—the first time as a tragedy, the second time as an even greater tragedy. One must ask, without really wanting to know the answer, How bad could this round get? By the absolute or per capita numbers, the U.S. stands out as nearly the only country besides Iran that had a large spring outbreak, began to suppress the virus, and then simply let the virus come back. No other country in the world has attempted what the U.S. appears to be stumbling into. Right now, many, many communities have huge numbers of infections. When other countries reached this kind of takeoff point for viral spread, they took drastic measures. Although a few states like California are rolling back reopening, most American states are adamant about opening into the teeth of the outbreak. And this level of outbreak will not stay neatly within a governor’s political boundaries. There’s no way to win this state by state, and yet that’s exactly what we’re attempting. From the look of the map, the South and West—regions with a combined 200 million people—are in trouble. The regional variation of the American outbreak is crucial to understanding both what happened and what’s going to happen next. Nationwide, the U.S. deaths per million tally—a hair under 400—is in the top ten globally. But look just at the Northeast’s 56 million people, and the death rate is more than double the national average: 1,100 deaths per million. By contrast, the South and West—where SARS-CoV-2 is burning through the population—are much more populous than the Northeast. If those areas continue to see cases grow, they could see as many deaths per million as the Northeast did but multiplied by a larger number of people. At 1,100 deaths per million, the South and West would see 180,000 more deaths. Even at half the Northeast’s number, that’s another 69,000 Americans. In truth, the fan of possibilities is probably wider. Looking at individual states, there was tremendous variation from low-death states like New Hampshire (288 deaths per million), to extremely high-death states like New Jersey (1,750 deaths per million), and a bunch in between, like Massachusetts (1,208); Washington, D.C. (805); and Pennsylvania (539). It’s possible that the summer-outbreak states could follow the lower death trajectory traced by Pennsylvania or Washington, D.C. Right now, only Arizona, at 307 deaths per million, has crossed even the lowest line above, New Hampshire; there is a lot of room for things to get worse, even if they do not come close to equaling the horrors of the spring. New York City is and probably will remain the worst-case scenario. New York City has lost 23,353 lives. That’s 0.28 percent of the city’s population. If, as some antibody-prevalence surveys suggest, 20 percent of New Yorkers were infected, that’s an infection-fatality rate of more than 1.3 percent, which exceeds what the CDC or anyone else is planning for. To put it in the same terms discussed here, New York City saw 2,780 deaths per million people. A similar scenario across the South and West would kill over 550,000 more Americans in just a few months, moving the country to 680,000 dead. It is unthinkable, and yet, 130,000 deaths—the current national death toll—was once unthinkable, too. That’s still not the worst-case scenario for a truly uncontained outbreak, in which serious measures are not taken. For months, most public-health officials have argued that the infection-fatality rate—the number of people who die from all infections, detected and undetected, symptomatic and asymptomatic—was somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent. The CDC’s latest estimates in its planning scenarios range from 0.5 to 0.8 percent. Take that lower number and imagine that roughly 40 percent of the country becomes infected. That’s 800,000 lives lost. The point in laying out these scenarios is not that we’ll reach 300,000 or 800,000 American COVID-19 deaths. That still seems unlikely. But anyone who thinks we can just ride out the storm has perhaps not engaged with the reality of the problem. As the former CDC director Tom Frieden has said, “COVID is not going to stop on its own. The virus will continue to spread until we stop it.” (JFK-1: There goes Trumps miracle hypothesis.) he lack of containment by American authorities has resulted in not only lost lives, but also lost businesses, savings accounts, school years, dreams, public trust, friendships. The country cannot get back to normal with a highly transmissible, deadly virus spreading in our communities. There will be no way to just “live with it.” There will only be dying from it for the unlucky, and barely surviving it for the rest of us. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/second-coronavirus-death-surge/614122/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cade Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 Never mind a 2nd wave in the US, it's still baws deep in the first wave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trotter Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 On 17/07/2020 at 15:39, Smithee said: America's huge, I've never heard of 2 of them. Never mind America - Texas itself is ******* massive. I think i'm right in saying that the last big towns of note at both the north-west and southeast corners of it are closer to LA and Miami respectively than they are to each other. Katy is a major suburb to the West of Houston and The Woodlands (where I live) is the same to the North. If you look on a map you'll see that Houston has three major ring-roads going round it. Everything in the loop is classed s Houston. Every couple of years they build another one and say 'this is Houston now', so it keeps getting even bigger. Sorry - off topic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Cade said: Never mind a 2nd wave in the US, it's still baws deep in the first wave. Which I see no way out of for them with no leadership coming from the White House. At best they have a patchwork of states trying to do something similar to that which has been proven to work in other countries. But as 'The Atlantic' article I just posted points out that's simply never going to work without a national plan. Infections will simply continue seeping in from states pretending it isn't happening. Even worse, defying social distancing and mask advice because it 'infringes my rights' I was entirely unaware they had a right to endanger the entire nation over something as non intrusive as putting a little piece of cloth over your mouth for a matter of minutes while shopping. All of this witless defiance and denial that it's even happening stems from Trump. From the very beginning he was setting them up for this disaster. Edited July 19, 2020 by JFK-1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFK-1 Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 4 minutes ago, trotter said: Never mind America - Texas itself is ******* massive. I think i'm right in saying that the last big towns of note at both the north-west and southeast corners of it are closer to LA and Miami respectively than they are to each other. Katy is a major suburb to the West of Houston and The Woodlands (where I live) is the same to the North. If you look on a map you'll see that Houston has three major ring-roads going round it. Everything in the loop is classed s Houston. Every couple of years they build another one and say 'this is Houston now', so it keeps getting even bigger. Sorry - off topic Texas is over 3 times the size of Britain with less than one half the population. Yet they can't get this under control while densely populated Britain can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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