COVID-19 (2): Turns out it's going to be pretty bad actually

I agree is wasn’t explicitly political, hence my mention of the 2019 date. However, given that it only involved $40k and wasn’t explicitly for funding, they likely could have let her off with a stern warning. Is it worth destroying the 30 year career of an important public health scientist because she lied and forged a signature or a routine grant application? Will we go after every corp and small business who lies on their recovery loan applications? What about every member of the Trump administration?

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The MAGA dipshits take their cues in part from what he says, and their compliance with state level restrictions will be affected by the tone he sets.

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Yup as long as he’s around the outbreak will never end in the US as red states shuffle it around and around

That sort of grant fraud seems hard to detect and probably a lot of people get away with it. That makes high profile, punitive prosecutions more attractive as a deterrent. Same thing with stuff like recovery loan applications. Sucks when you get caught, but there’s a simple way to avoid that: don’t do the fraud on your grant applications. Don’t do the fraud on your recovery loan applications. You’ll probably get away with it but I have zero problem punishing the people who get caught.

Anyway, the prosecutor wants eight months home confinement. Which, seems fair. And it isn’t even the government that’s keeping her from working, it’s Georgia Tech. Which, again, you get caught doing grant fraud there’s going to be consequences. It’s a fireable offense.

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I think you have what is likely to happen about right. Wave 2 will probably make wave 1 looking like a joke as a result.

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The decision to relax to early is based on the same political considerations of issuing stay at home orders to late. People just won’t take you seriously until the bodies start to pile up. Add to that a political oppasition will use what ever prudent desision to gain political points.

It’s happing in Europe as well. Denmark, Austria and Spain, yes Spain, are already taking about slowely easing restrictsions even though it’s the wrong course of action. Dealing with a pandemic in a democracy with a viable opposition party is going to be difficult.

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Latest from Cuomo:

Recent daily deaths
April 2: 562
April 3: 630
April 4: 594
April 5: 599
April 6: 731
April 7: 779
April 8: 799
April 9: 777
April 10: 783
April 11: 758

Will post some pics of trends in hospitalizations and intubations

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My Dad has been big into the Zinc lozenges for colds. I’ve tried but just can’t stand them.

I certainly wouldn’t discourage use. Falls in the can’t hurt category (within reason of course).

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Death rate is def starting to slow down, so that’s good.

Untitled

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Can’t find it now but lots of stories of long term lung and other organ damage. Saw heart and liver specifically. They think it’s possible there will be a big second price to pay for this thing. I don’t think flu has the same profile.

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Yup. We have 500k active cases. Conservatively Toss on another 200k plus of people that are infectious but don’t know it.

We aren’t going to be down to a low number (10,000? For awhile). Two weeks of uncontrolled growth is going to be 2^4 so even getting down to 10,000 would be back to 160,000 about where we were two weeks ago. We would go right back to 2,000 dead per day.

Opening back up with over 100,000 is suicide. Basically a guarantee to 5,000 or even 10,000 per day.

We haven’t even started to see numbers really go down. I’m highly suspicious of New York’s hospitalization numbers due to all the home deaths. There is some reason why so many folks are not going to the hospital- no insurance? Being told to stay home at first and then developing serious symptoms too fast? Fear of the hospital not wanting to die alone?

I think as a country there is very good chance we are still not closed enough to get R below 1.

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There also seems to be something going on with Florida nursing homes that they are trying to keep under wraps. Which likely explains why the Florida deaths are not exploding as we expected.

It’s all the same mythology that endless growth will set us free. Social ills are the result of a lack of economic growth. This narrative serves the power structure in many ways.

The veil is also pulled off of the post-industrial service economy, of restaurants and experiences and handmade craft crap that isn’t really necessary at all. Yet if you can’t participate and profit in this arena, poverty will beset you. Provide unnecessary crap for the well-to-do, or else you’ll suffer from a lack of necessities like housing, food, and healthcare.

This really speaks to the necessity of UBI and M4A as imperatives for a just post-industrial economy.

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Does it matter? My math was US fatalities divided by measured infection fatality rate. Perhaps the small town is unrepresentative in terms of age or risk factors, but seems like a reasonable estimate.

Cooped up at home on our ass all day? No thanks.

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Whatabouting doesn’t change the fact that it was very obvious fraud.

That article doesn’t make the Georgia Tech sponsored programs office look good either. Would like to know more about this: “During phase one of the program, which covered six years, Georgia Tech’s Office of Sponsored Programs, which assists faculty with research grant proposals, helped Lee prepare the annual NSF membership certificates. But the office stopped assisting Lee during phase two, beginning in 2014, according to a sentencing memo filed in court on her behalf.”

But still, fraudulent grant applications and then lying about it is an instant firing. Not doing that could jeopardize future grants from that university.

Canadian care home investigated after 31 deaths

Police in the Canadian province of Quebec have opened an investigation into a private care facility in Montreal where 31 people have died in the last month.

At least five of the 31 deaths were confirmed to be due to Covid-19.

Quebec Premier François Legault told reporters on Saturday there might have been “gross negligence” by management at the Residence Herron home.

When health officials inspected the facility at the end of March, they found the majority of staff had left and residents living in terrible conditions, without food and water, some lying in soiled beds. Those who were infected with the coronavirus had not been isolated properly.

“It’s not acceptable, the way we treat our elderly in Quebec," Legault said, according to the Globe and Mail.

"We’ve known nursing homes are understaffed, that people are underpaid, particularly in private homes… I’m not proud to see what’s happening.”

Did you trust the CDC when they were advising you not to wear masks? I did–kind of miffed about it TBH. Blindly trusting the CDC is better than blindly distrusting the CDC, especially given the dire quality of other sources of authority, but they don’t really deserve it.

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In addition to lying about the masks,at the top all government agencies are reporting to Trump. He can, at a minimum, dissuade them from full candor if not force them to lie. For example, the NOAA should be one of the most easily trustable parts of the government but I am afraid to completely trust them after the fallout from Sharpie incident. Who knows what will happen next time they have information that would be politically inconvenient for Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/climate/noaa-trump-hurricane-dorian.html