Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Corona virus pandemic and the US bungled response

This is the biggest contagion of my lifetime. History is unfolding so it's important to pay attention. I have a lot of links below and I don't want to expend the effort to put them into a narrative. The big narrative is countries that handled the situation well versus those that didn't.

Countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have handled the epidemic well, with good public health measures to prevent the wildfire spread. The US had a fairly long warning period, but it didn't have the political leadership to put together a good plan to sharply reduce the effect.

Some countries in Europe are in even rougher shape. Italy has had over 2000 deaths and its hospital system was overwhelmed.Today (3/16/20) it appears Spain is headed that way.

The US might be headed that way too. We were slow to identify carriers, don't have an aggressive testing and followup regime, and we have cases spread widely over the country. Perhaps we started some containment/quarantine efforts early enough to prevent an explosion, but we won't know for a few weeks. On 3/8/20, not many news outlets nor the government were closing down crowded venues to prevent the spread. Just 5 days later, many states had closed schools and banned gathering over 100 people.

The change came about because the situation in Italy exploded starting on 3/8/20. Luckily some people in the US paid attention. However a lot of conservative commenters I saw had reasons or excuses why people shouldn't cut back on their socializing. These included: it's only panic; don't be hysterical; what about the waiters who dependent on tips; this is no worse than the flu; and Obama handled the swine flu (H1N1) much worse. These contrary arguments irk me so much. They are stupid and will hurt or kill people if heeded. And they are based on nothing but partisanship and spiting the other side.

I'm hunkering down, everyone is working from home, we've cancelled our RSVPs to parties, and we're limiting our trips to stores. Luckily I realized the situation with certain supplies, and we have enough toilet paper on hand--bought on 3/8/20 before the hoarding started just one day later.

FINALLY, on Monday 3/16/20, Trump sounds like he gets there is an imminent crisis. The covid task force has a long press conference, and the experts are the people talking the most. Thank God there's an end to the denial. Both the New York Times and New Yorker magazine report that the change is due to a major report out of the UK concerning how high the death toll could be. The New Yorker report is more detailed.

The pandemic will affect so many lives and the entire world economy. Smaller than World War II, but possibly bigger than the 2008 recession or 9-11.

Image: euronews.com


Extras. Trump's misinformation machine. Drezner on Trump's incompetence and predictable consequences. Politico also discusses this with a lot of detail. Some of the failures of the administration. Administration hampered Washington state when they had known cases. Trump makes himself irrelevant. Governors move ahead without him. This might be another reason why Trump changed his tune. The House, Senate and administration can't write a bill. Oh well, they'll get to it eventually. Days later (3/17/20) and still no new bill.

Hong Kong and Singapore handled it much better. South Korea too, which improved after being badly hit by H1N1. The UK had a plan that they dropped. Act now before it's too late.

What China did to slow it down. Readable with plenty of data.

Fast worldwide overview. Hospitals in the west likely to be overwhelmed. Another overview. The dashboard I'm using. It's got daily new cases and new deaths which is info I really want.

Doctors in Italy give accountsFocus on Italy and why it happened there. Summary of the situation in Italy. By March 7, there were approximately 550 people in ICU beds. The projection for March 20 to April 3 ranged from 900 to 14000. Yikes. More from Italy. More.

Scroll down to see graphic on which ages are dying.

Biogen company meeting that spread the virus. Ohio, with a Republican governor, gets honest and makes a painful guess about its situation. A brief overview of their plans.

Trump Jr. knowingly lies about Dems, again. What a weasel.

Update 3/18/20. A bunch of info from an ICU doctor in Seattle. The course of the disease and some of its quirks. What Fox News said then versus now. Fucking hypocrites. Trump's nonchalance. Trump finally starts to get it... after ignoring experts and the evidence but getting an intervention from Tucker Carlson. Oy vey. We're dependent on Fox News anchors doing the right thing. That's not good. Upon further research, I'm not sure Carlson had that big an effect. His meeting with Trump was 3/7/20. The tone started changing 3/13, with the biggest change coming on 3/16. So perhaps it was the projections from Britain.

A small Italian town stops it by doing 100% testing and lockdown. Not applicable to most of the US. For posterity, a typical daily news update. Will this Lancet report be born out? We shall see.

Update 3/23/20. Straight talk and no whitewash from NIH director. Warning signs that were missed, including those from a pandemic exercise. Trump isn't following through on defense authorization to direct industry to make needed equipment; governors are scrounging as best they can. Florida waited too long to shut down social venues. Trump touted a particular drug as a treatment, incorrectly. Turns out it's rather dangerous, not safe as he claimed. Bad details lead to bad outcomes. Trump and Fox News are already tiring of the lockdown and don't understand why it's important. Short attention span isn't good.

My predictions. There should already be a surge in hospital admissions but information is being held  tightly. On or around 3/26/20, we should have a surge in deaths, which will be reported. By 3/30/20, we should be seeing over 400 deaths per day in the US. This level of deaths will probably last at least 8 weeks. Since the level of deaths will be high, the lockdown won't be cancelled after the initial 15-day period.

Update 3/25/20. Two stories from ProPublica: how covid-19 is different from the usual winter pneumonia by an overworked respiratory therapist in New Orleans. Doctors are writing prescriptions and hoarding chloroquine, the medicine that may fight the virus. A slice of life with the pandemic--a nursing home in New Jersey with 94 patients evacuated. New Jersey is beginning a steep rise in deaths. NIH technical description of covid-19.

Update 4/6/20. I stumbled on an explanation for the run on toilet paper. It started on 2/26 in Hawaii with a message to stock up because of the spread of the virus. This might make sense if Hawaii doesn't have paper mills, and it seems (per a Google search) that maybe they don't. From Hawaii the panic buying migrated to Japan and Australia, then Europe and the US.

1 comment:

linda from deerfield said...

Nicely done. You have at least marked this eerie moment, described it, sized it up, and nailed it down for posterity, as much as is possible in the current unsettled state. This could be so very bad for those whose careers already suffered from 2008 fallout.