[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

Paleocon wrote:

Some of my less critical friends are posting all manner of idiocy about coronavirus being linked to 5G wireless transmissions.

Ugh.

The stupid.

It burns.

Yesterday:
Train derails in San Pedro, causing leak but no injuries reported

Daily Breeze wrote:

A train derailed and struck a fence in San Pedro, causing no injuries but crews were cleaning up a moderate gas leak from the Tuesday afternoon incident, fire officials said.

At around 12:30 p.m., one rail car derailed near Harbor Boulevard and Swinford Street, but the locomotive remained upright and no other structures or vehicles were hit, Los Angeles City Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.

The incident caused a moderate diesel fuel leak, which a private company was continuing to clean up at around 2 p.m., she said.

Today:
Train Operator at Port of Los Angeles Charged with Derailing Locomotive Near U.S. Navy’s Hospital Ship Mercy

US Attorneys Office Central District of California wrote:

A train engineer at the Port of Los Angeles was arrested this morning on federal charges for allegedly running a locomotive at full speed off the end of rail tracks near the USNS Mercy.

Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro, was charged today in a criminal complaint with one count of train wrecking as a result of an incident Tuesday afternoon.

According to the criminal complaint filed in United States District Court, Moreno admitted in two separate interviews with law enforcement authorities that he intentionally derailed and crashed the train near the Mercy.

Moreno ran the train off the end of tracks, and crashed through a series of barriers before coming to rest more than 250 yards from the Mercy. No one was injured in the incident, and the Mercy was not harmed or damaged in any way. The incident did result in the train leaking a substantial amount of fuel oil, which required clean up by fire and other hazardous materials personnel.

The train crash was witnessed by a California Highway Patrol officer, who took Moreno into custody as he fled the scene. The Los Angeles Port Police then took custody of Moreno, conducted an interview and obtained permission to search his residence. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Port of Los Angeles Police are now leading the investigation.

The CHP officer who witnessed the crash reported seeing “the train smash into a concrete barrier at the end of the track, smash into a steel barrier, smash into a chain-link fence, slide through a parking lot, slide across another lot filled with gravel, and smash into a second chain-link fence,” according to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint. When the CHP officer contacted Moreno, he made a series of spontaneous statements, including, “You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don’t know what’s going on here. Now they will.”

In his first interview with the Los Angeles Port Police, Moreno acknowledged that he “did it,” saying that he was suspicious of the Mercy and believing it had an alternate purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover, the affidavit states. Moreno stated that he acted alone and had not pre-planned the attempted attack. While admitting to intentionally derailing and crashing the train, he said he knew it would bring media attention and “people could see for themselves,” referring to the Mercy, according to the affidavit.

In a second interview with FBI agents, Moreno stated that “he did it out of the desire to ‘wake people up,’” according to the affidavit. “Moreno stated that he thought that the U.S.N.S. Mercy was suspicious and did not believe ‘the ship is what they say it’s for.’”

The Port of Los Angeles is in San Pedro. This is the same incident.

I Spent A Day In The Coronavirus-Driven Feeding Frenzy Of N95 Mask Sellers And Buyers And This Is What I Learned

And I watched that happen repeatedly throughout the day. Buyers from state procurement departments and hospital systems expressed desperate need for masks, but the deals bogged down when it came to providing proof that they could commit and follow through. In the meantime, another buyer provided proof of funds and the masks were gone, sometimes within the hour.
Remington received text updates from his network about ever-changing quantities of masks in Houston, New Jersey, Miami, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, along with cities in Canada and the UK. I was astounded by the numbers of masks at these locations. At one point he received an update that 43 million masks were available in New Jersey, in the same time-frame that federal and state leaders were saying in press conferences that they were “scouring the globe” for masks. But the masks in New Jersey, along with many million more, didn’t go to any domestic buyer. Instead, according to the broker, they were all purchased by foreign buyers.

Sounds to me like all the masks are being bought up by foreign speculators, who intend to resell for a profit, or by other governments who are acting more aggressively to provide for their own medical system.

I'm absolutely livid for the healthcare workers here who are going without right now. It's a shame we don't have a competent, proactive federal government stepping in to oversee procurement and distribution of these masks.

gewy wrote:

I'm absolutely livid for the healthcare workers here who are going without right now. It's a shame we don't have a competent, proactive federal government stepping in to oversee procurement and distribution of these masks.

“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work, and they are doing a lot of this work,” Trump said. “The Federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

It's free market, really.

We had two Chinese land development companies shipping about 90+ tons of equipment (masks etc) back to China from Australia, one of them having profited by a margin of 300%. But it wasn't illegal for them to do it - it was certainly profitable though.

If the government was more agile and forward thinking they would have made the necessary orders to commandeer manufacturing and supplies (SK and Japan have both done this, so too has China "nationalised" the medical equipment sector).

Unfortunately western democratic countries lack either jurisdiction, funds, or the will to nationalise this aspect of disaster management.

The invisible hand has decided to slap down healthcare workers I guess. Not to mention their families and people they treat.

The US has the jurisdiction (Defense Production Act), the funds (if Congress can give $500B to big corps who don't need it, they can fund PPE production), and the will of the (non-conspiracy-loony) people.

Unfortunately one man and his cult are standing in the way of saving lives.

It's not the invisible hand. The hand is visible. Tiny, but definitely visible.

Spoilered for length, but I like how this chart quickly conveys the trend in rate of increases over time.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/cd5cCntY/Screenshot-20200401-193514-NYTimes.jpg)

Surely I can't be the only one in the states who is sick and tired of all the American Exceptionalism talk? Yes, we have exceptional people doing amazing things and putting themselves at extreme risk. But that is the exceptionalism of humanity, and those people are all over the world doing those things. There is nothing inherently "American" about any of it. And given the sheer incompetence of our national leadership (and the blind reverence a portion of the population hold for that incompetence), our government isn't doing anything exceptional at all. Some governors are being exceptional, medical staff are beyond-description exceptional, but again, that's not American-unique.

There's going to be so much praise from a certain subset of the country for "keeping the deaths under 200,000" when the whole reason we'll be in 6-digit territory of deaths in the first place was because of our own hubris and stupidity (as a whole, not in specific).

The sooner the US can decide to be part of the world rather than pretending to hover judgingly above it, the better off we will all be.

/rant

To be honest, I have not seen anything trending that indicated this kind of thing at all. Lots of love to our healthcare and food industry workers, but I have yet to see anything that suggested our folks are any better or worse than other countries.

And I want the love for those people that are carrying a massive load by continuing to make sure we get healthcare and food, and all the essential folks that we depend on, to continue to be broadcast as much as possible. Without them, we descend into chaos.

Now, you may see some stuff about America caring and that kind of stuff. But that's because it is designed to motivate us to be inclusive and to help. But again, I've seen nothing that signaled American citizens are doing anything better or worse than other nations' citizens.

Maybe a link, if this is a bigger problem than I realize?

And related to the discussion on tallying the death count, Spain has some of the same issues.

Hidden Mortality In Spain

Now TPM Reader ND passed along to me this article from the Spanish daily El Pais, which reports a similar study in Spain. The numbers show a discrepancy very similar to those from northern Italy.

As in Italy, the study suggests that official COVID fatalities in particular regions account for only a fraction of the excess mortality compared to earlier years. The unexplained excess mortality numbers run to two or three times the number of deaths captured in the COVID tallies.

For instance, in the autonomous community of Castile and Leon historical averages would predict 500 deaths between March 17th and March 24th. But there were 385 more deaths than would be expected. Official COVID fatalities, however, were only 112. So the number of unexplained anomalous deaths, which are presumably tied to the COVID pandemic, are more than twice the number of those showing up on the official COVID tallies. The authors note that some of these deaths are listed with more generic causes like pneumonia. Others were cases where doctors suspected COVID-19 but there was no test confirming the diagnosis.

These historical baselines are of course averages. We can’t say that precisely 385 deaths were attributable either directly to COVID-19 or the broader crisis. Subsequent studies will provide a fuller picture. But as with the Italian studies these differentials are far too great to be statistical anomalies. They point to a death toll dramatically higher than what we are seeing in the grim daily tallies.

I also do not think of this as a scandal, but rather an important way of understanding how the data we are looking at is accumulated, and we should interpret it. It also lets us know that our stats might be skewed in the same ways.

And it's worth knowing, as it indicates we might already be at 20K deaths. But, how does that square with predictions? Are they using the faulty numbers, so we should increase them, or are they already accounting for this. I have no idea.

But it would help if the press made this known, if for no other reason than to get most of the jackholes that think this is no big deal to shut up and take this seriously. Right now it just seems to be a niche topic.

Maybe it’s more the area I live that stretched my limit on American exceptionalism. What pushed me over tonight was Biden’s interview on Fallon

We should be able to come out of this in a way like we always do as Americans. We are the only country I’m aware of that goes into things of overwhelming difficulty, we overcome them, and we come out stronger... Look at what the American people are doing, Jimmy. They’re incredible [proceeds to story-tell-ramble].

I get patriotism to motivate, and I’m all for America cares themes, and none of this is to at all minimize the sheer heroism of medical staff and rightfully-added food-workers. I’m just sick of the only country and best nation rhetoric. We’re failing by so many measures, we’ve been failing so many of our own citizens for so long.

I get Biden’s campaigning, and again maybe this is more an issue of being in a staunchly nationalistic and conservative state, but I’m just so done with it.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Spoilered for length, but I like how this chart quickly conveys the trend in rate of increases over time.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/cd5cCntY/Screenshot-20200401-193514-NYTimes.jpg)

I have a really hard time believing the reduced rate of cases shown in that chart is real. Without data on per capita testing, the raw numbers are meaningless. It’s easy to have no new cases... just don’t test anyone. Or, realistically, make testing prerequisites so stringent, due to shortage of test materials and lab time, that the number of new cases plummets.

I would love to be optimistic, but that’s only going to happen when I see thorough data from reliable sources vetted by multiple reliable apolitical scientific organizations (note that rules out the CDC, because they are currently being muzzled by the White House). Far too much hand waving and ass covering is still going on. Still. Over two months since the first cases appeared in the US. The magnitude of incompetence would be hilarious if people weren’t dying every day because of it.

So many people are suffering needlessly. The bereaved, the sick and their caretakers most of all. It makes me furious, and I have no outlet for that rage.

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.

The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.

The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.

I think most have assumed this for a while but it would be nice to know the scale of the coverup. 5 times? 10 times? More?

One of my neighbors is a Trump supporting hospital administrator who two weeks ago told me it was a hoax. Last week, she told me that it was senseless to test anyone except the clearly symptomatic. Yesterday, she said that 240k deaths is "not bad".

We're f*cked.

Anger as Japanese Prime Minister offers two cloth masks per family while refusing to declare coronavirus emergency

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is facing a public backlash after he said the government would distribute two reusable cloth face masks per household amid growing concern over medical shortages as the country faces a worsening coronavirus outbreak.

The number of confirmed cases of the virus has spiked in recent weeks, after it appeared that Japan's initial response had got the virus relatively under control. As of Wednesday, there were more than 2,300 cases across Japan, and 57 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
That spike has seen a raft of new restrictions put in place in Tokyo and other major cities, and a run on protective gear, including face masks. On Wednesday, Abe said the provision of cloth masks to the worst hit areas "will be helpful in responding to the rapidly increasing demand."
But Abe's proposal to send two masks to each household attracted outrage and mockery online Wednesday, with the hashtag "Abe's mask" and "screw your two masks" trending on Twitter.

Also, school closures will continue until after Golden Week (May 6) after previously being scheduled for reopening for the new school year on April 7.

Paleocon wrote:

One of my neighbors is a Trump supporting hospital administrator who two weeks ago told me it was a hoax. Last week, she told me that it was senseless to test anyone except the clearly symptomatic. Yesterday, she said that 240k deaths is "not bad".

We're f*cked.

If there's such thing as karmic retribution, she'll be one of the 240K.

You might ask her if she's okay with that.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.

The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.

The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.

I think most have assumed this for a while but it would be nice to know the scale of the coverup. 5 times? 10 times? More?

US Intel also said Saddam had WMDs. Historically not the most trustworthy, especially when the president they work for has an agenda.

If somewhere else reports this I might believe it.

Edit: I'm sure they have the same CDC reporting issues we have. And Italy, Spain, etc. with people dying at home and not tested.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

I think most have assumed this for a while but it would be nice to know the scale of the coverup. 5 times? 10 times? More?

I wonder if historians won't be able to say the same thing about the US. Considering how tiny our testing is, now the administration keeps downplaying the size of the issue, etc.

Paleocon wrote:

One of my neighbors is a Trump supporting hospital administrator who two weeks ago told me it was a hoax. Last week, she told me that it was senseless to test anyone except the clearly symptomatic. Yesterday, she said that 240k deaths is "not bad".

We're f*cked.

Which hospital? asking for my friends who live in Maryland, so they can not go there.

Malor wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

One of my neighbors is a Trump supporting hospital administrator who two weeks ago told me it was a hoax. Last week, she told me that it was senseless to test anyone except the clearly symptomatic. Yesterday, she said that 240k deaths is "not bad".

We're f*cked.

If there's such thing as karmic retribution, she'll be one of the 240K.

You might ask her if she's okay with that.

Good news is there are far more folks in healthcare that are not like this Administrator. We've spent the past 3 weeks planning hard every day for our members nationally.

I don;t know if italy is similar to the US, but i know we have pretty much always had a systematic and pervasive problem with inaccurate and under-reported deaths especially in crisis like these, primarily because in most counties the official who assigns cause of death and issues death certificates is a coroner who is an elected political official with no requirement for (and almost never has) any medical expertise.

thrawn82 wrote:

I don;t know if italy is similar to the US, but i know we have pretty much always had a systematic and pervasive problem with inaccurate and under-reported deaths especially in crisis like these, primarily because in most counties the official who assigns cause of death and issues death certificates is a coroner who is an elected political official with no requirement for (and almost never has) any medical expertise.

cause of death: Hillary

also I really wish there was a taco truck on my corner right now plz thnks

farley3k wrote:
Mr GT Chris wrote:

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

I think most have assumed this for a while but it would be nice to know the scale of the coverup. 5 times? 10 times? More?

I wonder if historians won't be able to say the same thing about the US. Considering how tiny our testing is, now the administration keeps downplaying the size of the issue, etc.

I think it's more a case of poor planning and incompetence in the US versus China's almost absolute control over information and public opinion. Neither is a good thing.

The "leak" of underreported Chinese cases could also be the administration trying to make the US numbers look better. If we think China might have had way more cases, then the fact that we have far fewer citizens and far more cases isn't so bad, right?

6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment last week.

CNN wrote:

The last three weeks have marked one of the most devastating periods in history for the American job market, as first-time claims for unemployment benefits have surged more than 3,000% since early March.
Businesses continue to lay off and furlough workers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
6.6 million US workers filed for their first week of unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28 — a new historic high.

I'm not sure how any of this comes as a surprise, as alluded to in the article.

It is depressing but it can't really be seen as surprising, as you say.

Coronavirus and COVID-19 Questions and Answers: 4-1-2020

farley3k wrote:
Mr GT Chris wrote:

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

I think most have assumed this for a while but it would be nice to know the scale of the coverup. 5 times? 10 times? More?

I wonder if historians won't be able to say the same thing about the US. Considering how tiny our testing is, now the administration keeps downplaying the size of the issue, etc.

I can say worse about the US right now. Which would you rather a country do:

1. Report inaccurate numbers, but work like hell to contain and lock things down and likely have accurate numbers for leadership eyes-only.

2. Do almost nothing to contain it for more than a month. Have no central source of guidance or support for fighting it. Refuse external offers of support and delay in an attempt to allow in-country businesses to profit from the spread. Leave the response up to states and local authorities as a completely uncoordinated effort. Eventually be so far behind the problem that containment is impossible, and you can only accurately assess the scope of the problem when the population has sheltered in place for weeks to months. Then you can extrapolate by the death toll.

1 is China. I wish they were more open, but by this point is it a surprise?
2 is America. We are a danger to everyone.

As far as American exceptionalism goes, I think we'll probably end up topping the chart for our complete failure of the response to the crisis. Other places are bad but lack the sheer scale of our ineptness. Plenty of other places have people who are also going through this...but are doing a way better job both personally and institutionally. (Though keep an eye on places like Brazil: another fringe-right-wing government where some officials may have caught the virus at Mar-A-Lago).

We're now at ten million people unemployed in the US.

Many economists say the real number of people out work is likely even higher, since a lot of newly unemployed Americans haven’t been able to fill out a claim yet.

Remember how last week's unemployment numbers were a sheer vertical line that dwarfed the rest of the chart? This week had approximately twice as many claims filed.

Florida's stay at home order makes an explicit exception for religious gatherings: I've never been more ashamed of being even remotely associated with the death cult that American Evangelicalism is showing itself to be. Georgia's governor claims that he just found out that asymptomatic people can transmit the virus (the CDC is headquartered in Atlanta!). Wisconsin is deploying the National Guard to run it's election. The Trump administration is trying to send tests to rural places instead of hot spots like New York.

Nationally, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The news needs to stop assuming that the record-setting numbers we're seeing are the peak. Individual places will be on the road to recovery at the same time that new hot spots erupt. (Or, rather, get detected, because my assumption is a this point that every state in the nation already has widespread infections that haven't been tested yet. Because we don't have enough tests to even start to get a grasp of the scale of the problem in the US.)

Well, China was doing the "help the businesses" thing, too. The Party profits when businesses profit.