Coronavirus COVID-19

[dbackjon]

Just watched a bit of news, Italy with one of the best healthcare systems in the world, just passed China for number of deaths. No funerals, they don't even know what to do with the bodies. Our social distancing isn't working and they expect total US deaths to be 2.2 Million.

Who is they?

SuperHornet, but that has nothing to do with CV

[HI54UNI]

Who is they?

SuperHornet, but that has nothing to do with CV

[kalm]

Wow.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly ... g?ref=wrap

[HI54UNI]

Wow.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly ... g?ref=wrap

Get out the rope. Burr too.

[BDKJMU]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ium=social

Same press conference where the liberal media selectively quoted Trump.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/03/17 ... ion-898126

Buying direct from the supplier, cutting out the middle man, in a effort to be quicker. What a novel idea. Who would have thunk it?

[Gil Dobie]

Just watched a bit of news, Italy with one of the best healthcare systems in the world, just passed China for number of deaths. No funerals, they don't even know what to do with the bodies. Our social distancing isn't working and they expect total US deaths to be 2.2 Million.

Who is they?

A Dr. on one of the COVID-19 shows on TV today. Don't ask me to remember which one because I have been watching several today.

[kalm]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ium=social

Same press conference where the liberal media selectively quoted Trump.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/03/17 ... ion-898126

Buying direct from the supplier, cutting out the middle man, in a effort to be quicker. What a novel idea. Who would have thunk it?

.

[Pwns]

Who is they?

SuperHornet, but that has nothing to do with CV

Bigoted joke against non-binary people.

[BDKJMU]

PA gov is an idiot. PA has their 1st virus death on Wed, and yesterday evening the PA gov orders the most sweeping business shutdown in the nation- something not even WA, NY, CA, or any other state had done.
https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/20 ... order.html

The haphazard list.
https://www.governor.pa.gov/wp-content/ ... siness.pdf

[CAA Flagship]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ium=social

Same press conference where the liberal media selectively quoted Trump.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/03/17 ... ion-898126

Buying direct from the supplier, cutting out the middle man, in a effort to be quicker. What a novel idea. Who would have thunk it?

I saw a couple of reports regarding Trump and certain States/Governors that made me say WTF?
Then I watched the conference call with all the Govs and heard the actual conversation.
Not even close.
TDS on full display with certain media.

[mainejeff]

MSMDS on display as well.

[GannonFan]

PA gov is an idiot. PA has their 1st virus death on Wed, and yesterday evening the PA gov orders the most sweeping business shutdown in the nation- something not even WA, NY, CA, or any other state had done.
https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/20 ... order.html

The haphazard list.
https://www.governor.pa.gov/wp-content/ ... siness.pdf

And as a manufacturer of plastic products my business is still considered life-essential under Wolf's random list (we do make things that ultimately make their way into ostomy bags so there is some rationale there). Of course, on the random list it also bars basically any contractors or fabricators to be working, which means if we have a piece of equipment go down and we need a novel part fabricated or someone to do some of the more skilled repair or installation then we're SOL.

But all of this brings up a great point - how far do we take this and what is sustainable? Can we realistically, as CA is about to try out, tell everyone to just stay at home for the next 4-8 weeks and not work at all? I know it sounds great, and it supposedly flattens the curve (although we'll never know for certain because we'll never see what the curve was actually going to be since we already started making changes). But what do the people who sit at home, making no money, actually do? How are they to pay their bills? Mortgages and rent are still collected every month. Car payments still need to be paid every month. And to a lesser extent, utilities and food still need to be paid for. How are people supposed to do that? And even then, assuming that all of these people make it through the next 4-8 weeks staying at home and not working, who's to say they'll have anything to go back to when the all-clear is given to go back to work? Some businesses, especially small ones, will never re-open after this. Is there even an option to freeze all payments (mortgages, car payments, etc) while governors and mayors make these sweeping announcements that people are to shelter in place? And would that just kick the can down the road of economic disaster? Most businesses, even the big bad corporations, can't survive more than a month worth of losses. I read that in a normal recession we see about a 5% drop in output over a year - right now, we're looking at a 20% drop annualized over the last quarter. That's Great Depression levels and real, abject, can't buy food poverty on a wide scale. This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the fish are all gathered outside the fishbowl as a fire rages in the bowl, devouring their fish home - the caption is they're glad they made it out alive, but of course now, we're equally screwed.

[GannonFan]

Oh, and just to add on to this, for me, this is make it or break it time for US pharmaceutical companies and academic (i.e. University) health research centers. We as a country have shouldered for years higher drug prices and other economic windfalls for pharma companies based on the idea that we have the vast majority of scientists and labs and R&D in this country and that it's in our national self-interest to foster and cater to this market since we can expect cutting-edge and life-saving research to be coming out of these places. Well, time to deliver. We need to see some crazy-innovation where we can come up with a vaccine, or at a minimum a successful treatment, in extremely rapid time (and not by sometime next year, I mean something in the next few months) or it's time to close shop on all of these companies and start demanding huge discounts on drugs and so on. I'm already on record that we should have a national health care system (ala the NHS in England), warts and all (and we'll have the same setup where the rich can still pay for the good health care while the rest just get the mediocre "national" one), but if our vast array of pharma companies and university research centers can't successfully and quickly respond to this virus, then what's the point of having them anyway?

[kalm]

Oh, and just to add on to this, for me, this is make it or break it time for US pharmaceutical companies and academic (i.e. University) health research centers. We as a country have shouldered for years higher drug prices and other economic windfalls for pharma companies based on the idea that we have the vast majority of scientists and labs and R&D in this country and that it's in our national self-interest to foster and cater to this market since we can expect cutting-edge and life-saving research to be coming out of these places. Well, time to deliver. We need to see some crazy-innovation where we can come up with a vaccine, or at a minimum a successful treatment, in extremely rapid time (and not by sometime next year, I mean something in the next few months) or it's time to close shop on all of these companies and start demanding huge discounts on drugs and so on. I'm already on record that we should have a national health care system (ala the NHS in England), warts and all (and we'll have the same setup where the rich can still pay for the good health care while the rest just get the mediocre "national" one), but if our vast array of pharma companies and university research centers can't successfully and quickly respond to this virus, then what's the point of having them anyway?

From the summary on the Imperial College London Report:

How quickly will a vaccine be here? Last week three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing. That's an extreme measure, but necessary.
Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for 14 months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This part can't be rushed: if you're going to inoculate all humans, you have to make absolutely sure the vaccine itself won't kill them. It probably won't, but you have to be sure.
Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available

[CAA Flagship]

Oh, and just to add on to this, for me, this is make it or break it time for US pharmaceutical companies and academic (i.e. University) health research centers. We as a country have shouldered for years higher drug prices and other economic windfalls for pharma companies based on the idea that we have the vast majority of scientists and labs and R&D in this country and that it's in our national self-interest to foster and cater to this market since we can expect cutting-edge and life-saving research to be coming out of these places. Well, time to deliver. We need to see some crazy-innovation where we can come up with a vaccine, or at a minimum a successful treatment, in extremely rapid time (and not by sometime next year, I mean something in the next few months) or it's time to close shop on all of these companies and start demanding huge discounts on drugs and so on. I'm already on record that we should have a national health care system (ala the NHS in England), warts and all (and we'll have the same setup where the rich can still pay for the good health care while the rest just get the mediocre "national" one), but if our vast array of pharma companies and university research centers can't successfully and quickly respond to this virus, then what's the point of having them anyway?

I don't know where to begin on this.
First, the therapeutics and vaccine for this virus will not likely be born in a vacuum. It will be an extension of knowledge gained from years of research. So, the world's investment to date is at work now.
Second, with regard to drug prices: Yes, there are companies that are taking price advantages on generic drugs that have little competition. I don't know what the solution is but there has to be an easy fix to this. With regard to novel drugs, many are priced based on the current standard of care without the drugs. Meaning that the cost of the rest of the health care system (physicians, equipment, facilities, regulation, administration, etc.) is what is driving the high cost of many novel drugs. Many insurance companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a drug because it is less expensive than the alternative care without the drug. My point here is that drug costs cannot be changed unless the cost of MRI's, Scans, Surgeons, Radiologists, Oncologists, Kalmunists and others are controlled.

[kalm]

Oh, and just to add on to this, for me, this is make it or break it time for US pharmaceutical companies and academic (i.e. University) health research centers. We as a country have shouldered for years higher drug prices and other economic windfalls for pharma companies based on the idea that we have the vast majority of scientists and labs and R&D in this country and that it's in our national self-interest to foster and cater to this market since we can expect cutting-edge and life-saving research to be coming out of these places. Well, time to deliver. We need to see some crazy-innovation where we can come up with a vaccine, or at a minimum a successful treatment, in extremely rapid time (and not by sometime next year, I mean something in the next few months) or it's time to close shop on all of these companies and start demanding huge discounts on drugs and so on. I'm already on record that we should have a national health care system (ala the NHS in England), warts and all (and we'll have the same setup where the rich can still pay for the good health care while the rest just get the mediocre "national" one), but if our vast array of pharma companies and university research centers can't successfully and quickly respond to this virus, then what's the point of having them anyway?

I don't know where to begin on this.
First, the therapeutics and vaccine for this virus will not likely be born in a vacuum. It will be an extension of knowledge gained from years of research. So, the world's investment to date is at work now.
Second, with regard to drug prices: Yes, there are companies that are taking price advantages on generic drugs that have little competition. I don't know what the solution is but there has to be an easy fix to this. With regard to novel drugs, many are priced based on the current standard of care without the drugs. Meaning that the cost of the rest of the health care system (physicians, equipment, facilities, regulation, administration, etc.) is what is driving the high cost of many novel drugs. Many insurance companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a drug because it is less expensive than the alternative care without the drug. My point here is that drug costs cannot be changed unless the cost of MRI's, Scans, Surgeons, Radiologists, Oncologists, Kalmunists and others are controlled.

Yeah! No way we can do what 30 other countries have already done. No way, man!

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

PA gov is an idiot. PA has their 1st virus death on Wed, and yesterday evening the PA gov orders the most sweeping business shutdown in the nation- something not even WA, NY, CA, or any other state had done.
https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/20 ... order.html

The haphazard list.
https://www.governor.pa.gov/wp-content/ ... siness.pdf

And as a manufacturer of plastic products my business is still considered life-essential under Wolf's random list (we do make things that ultimately make their way into ostomy bags so there is some rationale there). Of course, on the random list it also bars basically any contractors or fabricators to be working, which means if we have a piece of equipment go down and we need a novel part fabricated or someone to do some of the more skilled repair or installation then we're SOL.

But all of this brings up a great point - how far do we take this and what is sustainable? Can we realistically, as CA is about to try out, tell everyone to just stay at home for the next 4-8 weeks and not work at all? I know it sounds great, and it supposedly flattens the curve (although we'll never know for certain because we'll never see what the curve was actually going to be since we already started making changes). But what do the people who sit at home, making no money, actually do? How are they to pay their bills? Mortgages and rent are still collected every month. Car payments still need to be paid every month. And to a lesser extent, utilities and food still need to be paid for. How are people supposed to do that? And even then, assuming that all of these people make it through the next 4-8 weeks staying at home and not working, who's to say they'll have anything to go back to when the all-clear is given to go back to work? Some businesses, especially small ones, will never re-open after this. Is there even an option to freeze all payments (mortgages, car payments, etc) while governors and mayors make these sweeping announcements that people are to shelter in place? And would that just kick the can down the road of economic disaster? Most businesses, even the big bad corporations, can't survive more than a month worth of losses. I read that in a normal recession we see about a 5% drop in output over a year - right now, we're looking at a 20% drop annualized over the last quarter. That's Great Depression levels and real, abject, can't buy food poverty on a wide scale. This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the fish are all gathered outside the fishbowl as a fire rages in the bowl, devouring their fish home - the caption is they're glad they made it out alive, but of course now, we're equally screwed.

My business can go on at least 12 months very comfortably, maybe even 18 months if I am frugal.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[GannonFan]

And as a manufacturer of plastic products my business is still considered life-essential under Wolf's random list (we do make things that ultimately make their way into ostomy bags so there is some rationale there). Of course, on the random list it also bars basically any contractors or fabricators to be working, which means if we have a piece of equipment go down and we need a novel part fabricated or someone to do some of the more skilled repair or installation then we're SOL.

But all of this brings up a great point - how far do we take this and what is sustainable? Can we realistically, as CA is about to try out, tell everyone to just stay at home for the next 4-8 weeks and not work at all? I know it sounds great, and it supposedly flattens the curve (although we'll never know for certain because we'll never see what the curve was actually going to be since we already started making changes). But what do the people who sit at home, making no money, actually do? How are they to pay their bills? Mortgages and rent are still collected every month. Car payments still need to be paid every month. And to a lesser extent, utilities and food still need to be paid for. How are people supposed to do that? And even then, assuming that all of these people make it through the next 4-8 weeks staying at home and not working, who's to say they'll have anything to go back to when the all-clear is given to go back to work? Some businesses, especially small ones, will never re-open after this. Is there even an option to freeze all payments (mortgages, car payments, etc) while governors and mayors make these sweeping announcements that people are to shelter in place? And would that just kick the can down the road of economic disaster? Most businesses, even the big bad corporations, can't survive more than a month worth of losses. I read that in a normal recession we see about a 5% drop in output over a year - right now, we're looking at a 20% drop annualized over the last quarter. That's Great Depression levels and real, abject, can't buy food poverty on a wide scale. This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the fish are all gathered outside the fishbowl as a fire rages in the bowl, devouring their fish home - the caption is they're glad they made it out alive, but of course now, we're equally screwed.

My business can go on at least 12 months very comfortably, maybe even 18 months if I am frugal.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Super. You might be the only one left. Most businesses just can't shut down for months on end and then just pop back up again. And like I said, what do the poor slobs who work for these shuttered businesses do in the meantime when all their bills come due every month? We can give out $1000 right now to every adult, but that gets us basically through another month. Do we keep doing that every month until we get a solution to all of this?

[CAA Flagship]

I don't know where to begin on this.
First, the therapeutics and vaccine for this virus will not likely be born in a vacuum. It will be an extension of knowledge gained from years of research. So, the world's investment to date is at work now.
Second, with regard to drug prices: Yes, there are companies that are taking price advantages on generic drugs that have little competition. I don't know what the solution is but there has to be an easy fix to this. With regard to novel drugs, many are priced based on the current standard of care without the drugs. Meaning that the cost of the rest of the health care system (physicians, equipment, facilities, regulation, administration, etc.) is what is driving the high cost of many novel drugs. Many insurance companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a drug because it is less expensive than the alternative care without the drug. My point here is that drug costs cannot be changed unless the cost of MRI's, Scans, Surgeons, Radiologists, Oncologists, Kalmunists and others are controlled.

Yeah! No way we can do what 30 other countries have already done. No way, man!

I didn't say we couldn't. I'm saying you can't fix just one part of it. It's an integrated problem. No point in replacing the bad water pump without replacing the worn belt as well.

[GannonFan]

I don't know where to begin on this.
First, the therapeutics and vaccine for this virus will not likely be born in a vacuum. It will be an extension of knowledge gained from years of research. So, the world's investment to date is at work now.
Second, with regard to drug prices: Yes, there are companies that are taking price advantages on generic drugs that have little competition. I don't know what the solution is but there has to be an easy fix to this. With regard to novel drugs, many are priced based on the current standard of care without the drugs. Meaning that the cost of the rest of the health care system (physicians, equipment, facilities, regulation, administration, etc.) is what is driving the high cost of many novel drugs. Many insurance companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a drug because it is less expensive than the alternative care without the drug. My point here is that drug costs cannot be changed unless the cost of MRI's, Scans, Surgeons, Radiologists, Oncologists, Kalmunists and others are controlled.

Yeah! No way we can do what 30 other countries have already done. No way, man!

I agree - either we quickly see the fruits of this largesse we've been giving to the pharma industry and the academic elite or we just mimic what other countries have been doing and turn the spigot off. We couldn't have a larger concentration of intellectual power on this than we do right now and if they can't quickly come up with a solution to this then it's not worth the investment.

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

My business can go on at least 12 months very comfortably, maybe even 18 months if I am frugal.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Super. You might be the only one left. Most businesses just can't shut down for months on end and then just pop back up again. And like I said, what do the poor slobs who work for these shuttered businesses do in the meantime when all their bills come due every month? We can give out $1000 right now to every adult, but that gets us basically through another month. Do we keep doing that every month until we get a solution to all of this?

I'm stupid and stuff don't ask me how to manage life............. I'm sure Ibanez will comment a couple thousand times on how to do so.


P. S. All business could do this........ They choose not to
Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[kalm]

Super. You might be the only one left. Most businesses just can't shut down for months on end and then just pop back up again. And like I said, what do the poor slobs who work for these shuttered businesses do in the meantime when all their bills come due every month? We can give out $1000 right now to every adult, but that gets us basically through another month. Do we keep doing that every month until we get a solution to all of this?

I'm stupid and stuff don't ask me how to manage life............. I'm sure Ibanez will comment a couple thousand times on how to do so.


P. S. All business could do this........ They choose not to
Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

I do it for four months every year...sometimes five. You ain’t so special!

[mainejeff]

My business can go on at least 12 months very comfortably, maybe even 18 months if I am frugal.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Super. You might be the only one left. Most businesses just can't shut down for months on end and then just pop back up again. And like I said, what do the poor slobs who work for these shuttered businesses do in the meantime when all their bills come due every month? We can give out $1000 right now to every adult, but that gets us basically through another month. Do we keep doing that every month until we get a solution to all of this?

We do until November 3, 2020! Then they will want repayment....with interest.

[mainejeff]

Yeah! No way we can do what 30 other countries have already done. No way, man!

I agree - either we quickly see the fruits of this largesse we've been giving to the pharma industry and the academic elite or we just mimic what other countries have been doing and turn the spigot off. We couldn't have a larger concentration of intellectual power on this than we do right now and if they can't quickly come up with a solution to this then it's not worth the investment.

[Winterborn]

Yeah! No way we can do what 30 other countries have already done. No way, man!

I didn't say we couldn't. I'm saying you can't fix just one part of it. It's an integrated problem. No point in replacing the bad water pump without replacing the worn belt as well.

Throw in the ticking lifters, missing blinker fluid, rattling exhaust and bad AC. Trying to "fix" one small part of the problem without considering the entire picture is what has gotten us deeper into the mess in the first place.