America has some of the best scientists and doctors and researchers

[katchthis]

An interesting front cover page I saw today. The day Kobe died, USA Today also had a big front page article on COVID. Seems like some of the powers to be were working on things like vaccines pretty quickly.....

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coronavirus-cure-bryant/

 

[SUPERTODD]

i am personally struggling on why politics plays any role at this time. It is a time when all Americans should come together. I personally think the true underlying questions are too difficult too answer and that ultimately is, what’s the value of a human life? And, how many cases of Covid-19 are acceptable? I recognize there are many other underlying complications but until you can identify and agree on those we can fight endlessly about masks and ventilators. It is incredibly morbid to think that way. While I’ll get crucified for comparing the two, but we lost over 60,000 fellow Americans during the 2017-18 flu season. The response was much different. The current estimates, from a University of Washington study, indicate that as many as 81,000 people may die under the current social distancing that is in place. And an incredible burden on our healthcare system too. I simply highlight that there is an incongruent response and wonder if the balance is right. I suggest there may be a graduated response.

I don’t know the right response and our politicians are struggling with the same. Data certainly helps and that has been insufficient but increasing. But someone ultimately needs to answer those two questions and in the current climate there will always be someone to disagree as long as the virus presents itself. Injecting politics seems to cheapen the conversation and tends to minimize the argument.

I completely empathize with this post and think that in a perfect world is exactly how everyone should feel and behave, but EVERYTHING in this country gets politicized. I am a libertarian and my deepest desire is to be left alone. To not be told what to do and not to tell anyone else what to do with their life. I owned a small business in central PA for 16 years. It was bad enough to have Harrisburg raping me on taxes and fees at every turn, but in the time of my ownership Washington and Harrisburg mandated that my bathrooms had to comply with federal standards, who I could and could not contract with, how I needed to have my money deposited, how I needed to pay healthcare costs, how many people I could employ because once I got over x number of employees I would need to either A) fire a number of employees or B) give shittier healthcare to all because my employees had fantastic healthcare. They mandated my parking lot spaces, the width of my doors, the amount of food I could sell and be open on a Sunday, whether I could sell things on Sunday, whether or not I could expand my business, the amount I could pay my employees, the amount of money I could donate to charity, how far my business could be from another business of the same type, whether certain items could be set upon the floor or needed to be on pallets, whether I could transport a product without x, y or z license, whether I could take things from one county to another and on and on and on ad infinitum. And every bureaucrat I spoke to had a different opinion or interpretation of the law. The amount of lost hours, revenue, and thus wages I could pay my employees, had to number in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 16 year period. And one day I just said, “**** it”, sold out and now I do whatever I want whenever I want, but I’ll never forget the daily battle to be left alone. And I’ll never forget the people who were looking to steal from me daily and give my, my family and employee’s money to people they felt were more deserving.

So, yes, wouldn’t it be great if we could all get along and sing cumbaya, but “they” won’t let you. And I don’t care if you define THEY as left wing progressives like Sanders and Cortez or right wing progressives like McCain and Romney, but if you are not constantly vigilant they will steal your money and your liberty every day, like a thousand tiny, paper cuts. And whether they use words and phrases like fairness or patriotism or one percent and whether they believe themselves compassionate or progressive or democratic or whatever, at the end of the day it is all the same.

I help people because my religious creed tells me that is what is moral and right to do. I leave people be because that is my political philosophy. Counting on everyone to adopt the same principles is foolish naïveté at best and dangerous at the extreme.

 

[Obliviax]

I read a great article this morning where a mathematician stated that the number of tests given tracks almost exactly the number of new patients. The conclusion is that it is spreading but NOT exponentially. Why? You've got to consider the number of tests to the number of known cases. If true, my prediction: By the end of may, we'll have enough ventilators and masks to cover the rest of the decade. We'll have defined best practices to get the mortality rate under 1% (and most of those being at-risk patients). We'll continue to ban large public gatherings until a vaccine is found and tested because we will still see some of this disease well into 2021. This means no baseball or football until late in the year, if at all.

 

[tgar]

I read a great article this morning where a mathematician stated that the number of tests given tracks almost exactly the number of new patients. The conclusion is that it is spreading but NOT exponentially. Why? You've got to consider the number of tests to the number of known cases. If true, my prediction: By the end of may, we'll have enough ventilators and masks to cover the rest of the decade. We'll have defined best practices to get the mortality rate under 1% (and most of those being at-risk patients). We'll continue to ban large public gatherings until a vaccine is found and tested because we will still see some of this disease well into 2021. This means no baseball or football until late in the year, if at all.

You have been paying attention. Dr. Fauci has said similar and if I could include He said they are learning more and more every day how to treat this virus. He said the other evening about within a month or two they will have identified and be implementing the remedies showing the best results. Also his take on producing while a vaccine is in phase two if showing promise was innovative.

DiBlasio has done a lousy job. So has the president. Some folks like your governor have done a solid job ( or so it seems ) Wolf, not as decisive.


Locally the Mega Bus run from NYC to State College has been terminated. More of that. Hopefully the models we have all seen are wrong.

 

[PSUFBFAN]

I read a great article this morning where a mathematician stated that the number of tests given tracks almost exactly the number of new patients. The conclusion is that it is spreading but NOT exponentially. Why? You've got to consider the number of tests to the number of known cases. If true, my prediction: By the end of may, we'll have enough ventilators and masks to cover the rest of the decade. We'll have defined best practices to get the mortality rate under 1% (and most of those being at-risk patients). We'll continue to ban large public gatherings until a vaccine is found and tested because we will still see some of this disease well into 2021. This means no baseball or football until late in the year, if at all.

Link?

 

[Obliviax]

Link?

sorry, it was on twitter. I hit the link on twitter but it opens in Apple's browser and doesn't save

 

[Rhino80]

My question in all of this, why are hospitals so short on PPE in the first place. Imho, they should have an adequate supply of PPE to at least handle the initial surge for a crisis. Secondly, why do states not have a central collection of PPE and supplies in case of an emergency. The feds at least had some, but state governments are responsible to protect their people.

When I saw the healthcare industry buy into Lean Six Sima, I shook my head. Preparedness under LSS is a waste and loss of money.

 

[rigi11]

Hey Agoodnapbully— when you take care of Covid patients without appropriate PPE and see the fear in cancer patient’s eyes like an oncologist does, don’t lecture me. We are all Penn State proud and can be civil- Class of 82( I worry that I’m bringing virus home every night after working 14 hours)

Hospitals were not prepared.

Ps. Employeess stole supplies

 

[The Spin Meister]

I completely empathize with this post and think that in a perfect world is exactly how everyone should feel and behave, but EVERYTHING in this country gets politicized. I am a libertarian and my deepest desire is to be left alone. To not be told what to do and not to tell anyone else what to do with their life. I owned a small business in central PA for 16 years. It was bad enough to have Harrisburg raping me on taxes and fees at every turn, but in the time of my ownership Washington and Harrisburg mandated that my bathrooms had to comply with federal standards, who I could and could not contract with, how I needed to have my money deposited, how I needed to pay healthcare costs, how many people I could employ because once I got over x number of employees I would need to either A) fire a number of employees or B) give shittier healthcare to all because my employees had fantastic healthcare. They mandated my parking lot spaces, the width of my doors, the amount of food I could sell and be open on a Sunday, whether I could sell things on Sunday, whether or not I could expand my business, the amount I could pay my employees, the amount of money I could donate to charity, how far my business could be from another business of the same type, whether certain items could be set upon the floor or needed to be on pallets, whether I could transport a product without x, y or z license, whether I could take things from one county to another and on and on and on ad infinitum. And every bureaucrat I spoke to had a different opinion or interpretation of the law. The amount of lost hours, revenue, and thus wages I could pay my employees, had to number in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 16 year period. And one day I just said, “**** it”, sold out and now I do whatever I want whenever I want, but I’ll never forget the daily battle to be left alone. And I’ll never forget the people who were looking to steal from me daily and give my, my family and employee’s money to people they felt were more deserving.

So, yes, wouldn’t it be great if we could all get along and sing cumbaya, but “they” won’t let you. And I don’t care if you define THEY as left wing progressives like Sanders and Cortez or right wing progressives like McCain and Romney, but if you are not constantly vigilant they will steal your money and your liberty every day, like a thousand tiny, paper cuts. And whether they use words and phrases like fairness or patriotism or one percent and whether they believe themselves compassionate or progressive or democratic or whatever, at the end of the day it is all the same.

I help people because my religious creed tells me that is what is moral and right to do. I leave people be because that is my political philosophy. Counting on everyone to adopt the same principles is foolish naïveté at best and dangerous at the extreme.

Beautiful post. I have said for years that every person should run their own company for at least three years, preferably five. They would become better employees and better voters.

Unless you have run a company you don't have the slightest clue....

 

[Wesauking Lion]

have you watched Fox News?

I am of average intelligence. Back in January I called my dad who is 70, begged him to start pulling out money from his stocks (slowly) because it was clear, absolutely clear at that time this would happen.

and what did our government do? Nothing? Again, I saw this. It was clear.

meanwhile up until this week, my dad, and avid Fox News and rush Limbaugh listener thought this was a hoax.

Now he is a 70 year old man down in Florida not taking precautions he should. Because he thinks this is all an Illuminati hit on his president

At 70, why would he not have his entire portfolio into shit that is completely safe and could not be affected by market fluctuatons. Im not being a dick asking the question... Why would he have to pull anything out..seems like he would have everything in zero risk stuff...

 

[Wesauking Lion]

Hospitals were not prepared.

Ps. Employeess stole supplies

Hospital do not and would not be prepared for something of this nature. They do not stockpile 15000 respirator... just in case a virus whips up... nor do they stockpile tests, or beds, masks gowns, ICU beds.... it simply DOES NOT HAPPEN. It would be a massive amount of waste money on a day to day...month to month basis. Hospitals know the amount of shit they need based on PILES of data... Inpatients, Outpatients, ER, test, supplies, and manpower...etc.. It is not difficult to predict what basic volumes are needed for normal operations. Now... Covid rolls around.... and you have 50 x your normal need for ICU beds or respirators..... No hospital is prepared or operates based on that type of need... included are gowns respirators, masks...

Normal day.... maybe a hospital uses 3000 masks...... with a stock pile of 10 days.... where they reorder when inventory hits 20000.... Covid.... boom.... 14000 masks in one day...18000 day 2.. day 3 20000.. its made up numbers but that is what happens.... Stockpile inventory based on historical need for every day operation.....

Blaming is really effective...whether its hospitals, facilities..pharma....or the POTUS... just can not account for this type of situation... and operationally or financially why would you....simply not cost effective...

I think there are 85,000 ICU beds in the country and 950,000 hospital beds (I think or close)..... plug in the Covid volumes in NY... you see the issue really come to light..

 

[PSU65]

Luckily some local community have sewn masks for us to be partly safe for 1.5 weeks— but we probably will see surge in Pa next three weeks and need 8 weeks at least to make it through. Where is the federal govt?? We don’t have nearly enough N95 masks for our er or icus— we are carrying a bag around and washing and keeping masks for a week— health care workers will die at 3x rate of regular citizens.

100k Americans have been affected /already and over 1000 have died — we are just getting started!! Our pres is saying mortality is not too bad!! It’s not all
elderly either— the elderly deserve our greatest respect anyways, but many in 50s

Heard Cuomo news conference today. He said the states are being made to compete against each other for things like masks and ventilators, with the bidding driving up the price. He said what we need is for the federal government to be the buyer for these things and distribute them , according to need, to the various states. To me, that sounded like the way to go.

 

[Nittany Ziggy]

I completely empathize with this post and think that in a perfect world is exactly how everyone should feel and behave, but EVERYTHING in this country gets politicized. I am a libertarian and my deepest desire is to be left alone. To not be told what to do and not to tell anyone else what to do with their life. I owned a small business in central PA for 16 years. It was bad enough to have Harrisburg raping me on taxes and fees at every turn, but in the time of my ownership Washington and Harrisburg mandated that my bathrooms had to comply with federal standards, who I could and could not contract with, how I needed to have my money deposited, how I needed to pay healthcare costs, how many people I could employ because once I got over x number of employees I would need to either A) fire a number of employees or B) give shittier healthcare to all because my employees had fantastic healthcare. They mandated my parking lot spaces, the width of my doors, the amount of food I could sell and be open on a Sunday, whether I could sell things on Sunday, whether or not I could expand my business, the amount I could pay my employees, the amount of money I could donate to charity, how far my business could be from another business of the same type, whether certain items could be set upon the floor or needed to be on pallets, whether I could transport a product without x, y or z license, whether I could take things from one county to another and on and on and on ad infinitum. And every bureaucrat I spoke to had a different opinion or interpretation of the law. The amount of lost hours, revenue, and thus wages I could pay my employees, had to number in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 16 year period. And one day I just said, “**** it”, sold out and now I do whatever I want whenever I want, but I’ll never forget the daily battle to be left alone. And I’ll never forget the people who were looking to steal from me daily and give my, my family and employee’s money to people they felt were more deserving.

So, yes, wouldn’t it be great if we could all get along and sing cumbaya, but “they” won’t let you. And I don’t care if you define THEY as left wing progressives like Sanders and Cortez or right wing progressives like McCain and Romney, but if you are not constantly vigilant they will steal your money and your liberty every day, like a thousand tiny, paper cuts. And whether they use words and phrases like fairness or patriotism or one percent and whether they believe themselves compassionate or progressive or democratic or whatever, at the end of the day it is all the same.

I help people because my religious creed tells me that is what is moral and right to do. I leave people be because that is my political philosophy. Counting on everyone to adopt the same principles is foolish naïveté at best and dangerous at the extreme.

Bravo! Great post. The government is a domineering bitch on small businesses.

 

[jwarigaku]

NY yes...New Jersey show me the link because what I see is PA equal to or ahead in testing.

NY and NJ look like problems because we are testing so much more than everywhere else.

 

[rigi11]

Hospital do not and would not be prepared for something of this nature. They do not stockpile 15000 respirator... just in case a virus whips up... nor do they stockpile tests, or beds, masks gowns, ICU beds.... it simply DOES NOT HAPPEN. It would be a massive amount of waste money on a day to day...month to month basis. Hospitals know the amount of shit they need based on PILES of data... Inpatients, Outpatients, ER, test, supplies, and manpower...etc.. It is not difficult to predict what basic volumes are needed for normal operations. Now... Covid rolls around.... and you have 50 x your normal need for ICU beds or respirators..... No hospital is prepared or operates based on that type of need... included are gowns respirators, masks...

Normal day.... maybe a hospital uses 3000 masks...... with a stock pile of 10 days.... where they reorder when inventory hits 20000.... Covid.... boom.... 14000 masks in one day...18000 day 2.. day 3 20000.. its made up numbers but that is what happens.... Stockpile inventory based on historical need for every day operation.....

Blaming is really effective...whether its hospitals, facilities..pharma....or the POTUS... just can not account for this type of situation... and operationally or financially why would you....simply not cost effective...

I think there are 85,000 ICU beds in the country and 950,000 hospital beds (I think or close)..... plug in the Covid volumes in NY... you see the issue really come to light..

Hospital's were out of supplies on day 1.

Blame is a two way street.

 

[Countrylion]

I read a great article this morning where a mathematician stated that the number of tests given tracks almost exactly the number of new patients. The conclusion is that it is spreading but NOT exponentially. Why? You've got to consider the number of tests to the number of known cases. If true, my prediction: By the end of may, we'll have enough ventilators and masks to cover the rest of the decade. We'll have defined best practices to get the mortality rate under 1% (and most of those being at-risk patients). We'll continue to ban large public gatherings until a vaccine is found and tested because we will still see some of this disease well into 2021. This means no baseball or football until late in the year, if at all.

So none of the 100s of medicines to lessen this virus will work until a year goes by and there is a vaccine? 100 percent failure rate? What about the Israelis who say they will have a vaccine on a large scale in 90 days? So none of this is going to work and what we have today we will have until until 2021 plus this virus will not follow a bell shaped curve? I believe the war against this will start showing some victories in April.

 

[Obliviax]

So none of the 100s of medicines to lessen this virus will work until a year goes by and there is a vaccine? 100 percent failure rate? What about the Israelis who say they will have a vaccine on a large scale in 90 days? So none of this is going to work and what we have today we will have until until 2021 plus this virus will not follow a bell shaped curve? I believe the war against this will start showing some victories in April.

There if treating symptoms which will be marginally effective but people will still die. Then there is a serum which fauci says will take months to find, months to test, then months to make/distribute. He said one year, minimum.
So two different issues: treatment and immunization. Fauci said expect three waves