Posted on 05/12/2020 5:35:05 PM PDT by RaceBannon
new thread
Corona Virus Daily Thread #52 COVID-19 5/12/2020
The media give them donors fair value. About half of an elected official’s vote.
SS is way lower for most blue-collars. The most any person can receive a month at age 66 for 35 years of continuous employment is 3K. The average is around $12-1500. ($14-18K) Before the unpaid part of medicare is deducted. That average is at or below the national poverty line. Women most affected since they usually take time out of the workforce for marriage, kids and taking care of elder family and so have less ability to build that nestegg to supplement SS. Although I don’t know yet if the disabled getting $1200/mo gets that in addition to SS when he reaches 66, or if he’s just going to get less regardless. If he gets less it seems kind of lopsided seeing how their days may be numbered, but I haven’t got that far yet :)
From AARP:
“The most an individual who files a claim for Social Security retirement benefits in 2020 can receive per month is:
$3,790 for someone who files at age 70.
$3,011 for someone who files at full retirement age (currently 66).
$2,265 for someone who files at 62.
(For context, the estimated average Social Security retirement benefit in 2020 is $1,503 a month. The average disability benefit is $1,258.)
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-answers/maximum-ss-benefit/
What are the thoughts here about the “Warp Speed” vaccine initiative?
Anti-vaccers need not reply - I already know what you’ll say.
Of course, there is always the possibility that a vaccine will confer only limited immunity, the virus may mutate around it, etc.
I do know this: Lacking an effective vaccine, in a great many business & especially small business environments, even modest mitigation efforts / precautions are a killer just from the standpoint of time and / or business resources involved per customer or worker. Even in “normal life” (sort of) activities, my ability to “get stuff done” is significantly impaired — and I don’t take precautions to quite the level some here do. In business particularly, automation can help with some of this, but at a cost. In some areas, well... welcome to your robot dentist?
ok, back to the topic. New Bat Virus 1% closer match but still not a direct ancestor: RmYN02, 97.2% similar to CCPVirus. Found May-Oct 2019 in Yunnan province bats. I disagree with study lead Shi’s claim it’s proof there was no lab escape. Seeing how it was found May-Oct 2019, and so it and similar samples had to be transported to a lab somewhere.
Study:
A Novel Bat Coronavirus Closely Related to SARS-CoV-2 Contains Natural Insertions at the S1/S2 Cleavage Site of the Spike Protein
“RmYN02 shares 93.3% nucleotide identity with SARS-CoV-2 at the scale of the complete virus genome and 97.2% identity in the 1ab gene, in which it is the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 reported to date. In contrast, RmYN02 showed low sequence identity (61.3%) to SARS-CoV-2 in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and might not bind to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Critically, and in a similar manner to SARS-CoV-2, RmYN02 was characterized by the insertion of multiple amino acids at the junction site of the S1 and S2 subunits of the spike (S) protein. This provides strong evidence that such insertion events can occur naturally in animal betacoronaviruses.”
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30662-X
“Weifeng Shi, the lead author of the recent study, said ...the discovery of RmYN02 provides “strong evidence against SARS-CoV-2 being a laboratory escape.”
CURE??
Coronavirus Breakthrough? Possible Antibody Cocktail May Lead To COVID-19 Cure, Doctor Says
Sorrento CEO Dr. Henry Ji says its antibody, STI-1499, has provided 100% inhibition of the SARS-COV-2 virus in pre-clinical tests. Dr. Ji went so far as to call it a cure.
In order to broaden the potential effectiveness of this type of treatment, Sorrento has proposed a cocktail of three antibodies against COVID-19, attacking the virus at different weak points. To further that approach, Sorrento is partnering with Mount Sinai in New York...
CBS NEWS NEW YORK:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/coronavirus-breakthrough-possible-antibody-cocktail-may-lead-to-covid-19-cure-doctor-says/ar-BB149n3F?ocid=msedgntp
HAWAII
HONOLULU (AP) — A tourist from New York was arrested for allegedly violating Hawaii’s traveler quarantine after he posted on Instagram photos of himself sunbathing and carrying a surfboard, state officials said....
...Tarique Peters, 23, of the Bronx, arrived in Honolulu on Monday, said a news release from the Hawaii COVID-19 Joint Information Center.
“He allegedly left his hotel room the day he arrived and traveled many places using public transportation,” the release said. “Authorities became aware of his social media posts from citizens who saw posts of him — on the beach with a surfboard, sunbathing, and walking around Waikiki at night.”
I’d get the vaccine. My arm has been a pincushion for vaccines since I was a small child. You name it, I’ve been stuck for it. One more can’t hurt. So yeah, bring it on :)
There’s going to be 20% or so that will refuse. Which brings several philosophical questions:
Are dissenters criminally liable should they infect someone?
Are dissenters who become infected considered self-directed DNR’s and given only hospice care instead of intensive medical intervention?
Will certain job and social positions or methods of travel be restricted from the unvaccinated such as we see now with quarantines and travel restrictions (stay in your own county for instance)?
Only the overlords know for sure. But if the behavior of certain governors lately is any indication, they are questions that will be considered, especially under any ‘democratic’ admin. (and all the more reason to reelect Trump)
and just to add to my point about what dem overlords are thinking already, is this little article:
“This unholy, unscientific alliance of right-wingers, COVID-19 truthers and anti-vaxxers became very clear recently...”
CALIFORNIA - Remdesivir
California tells hospitals to consider having a lottery for sought-after Covid-19 drug
All 50 states should have received shipments of the Covid-19 drug remdesivir earlier this week, according to audio obtained by CNN of a call between federal officials and governors.
But there’s not nearly enough to go around, and on Monday, one state health department directed hospitals to consider holding a lottery for scarce medications.
BREAKTHROUGHS
A specially formulated antimicrobial coating can keep surfaces clear of a human coronavirus for up to 90 days with just one application, a preliminary study said Friday, suggesting a new line of defense against COVID-19.
The paper by researchers at the University of Arizona (UA), which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the amount of virus on coated surfaces reduced by 90 percent in 10 minutes and by 99.9 percent in two hours.
(no link to the study in the article, sorry)
HELP WANTED:
INDIA
No beds, packed morgues: Mumbai hospitals near collapse
Packed morgues, bodies in wards, patients forced to share beds and medical workers run ragged: Mumbai’s war against coronavirus has pushed the Indian city’s hospitals to breaking point.
MedCram Lecture
May 15, 2020
Dr. Roger Seheult
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 71: New Data on Adding Zinc to Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin
A new pre-print study from NYU Grossman School of Medicine shows that the addition of zinc to a hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin COVID-19 treatment regimen may result in a statistically significant reduction in mortality. Dr. Seheult discusses the interesting results and possible confounders of this retrospective observational study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZq-K1wpur8
linked pre-print study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1.full.pdf
Previous lecture on HCQ and Zinc, March 10:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M
The exact number of average payout for workers already on Social Security was $1,412 per month last year:
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/10/16/heres-the-average-social-security-benefit-for-2019.aspx
I agree with your comments that we are talking about poverty here unless the recipients have other sources of income.
Those retirees will get in worse and worse shape since the Social Security cost of living adjustment is weighted so that costs that most affect seniors (particularly out of pocket health care costs) are under-counted in calculating the cost of living figure.
This is discussed in this article:
The big news here in CT is that the beaches will be open May 22 (with restrictions):
It will be interesting to see how this plays out—I am somewhat concerned because of the second order effects.
Lots of folks have cottages on the beach—and if they get in the partying mood (likely, especially with teenagers in the household) then CV will find fertile ground.
2020 is going to be a long year...
“The Limits of Anthony Fauci’s Expertise - The government disease doctor acknowledges he isn’t studying shutdown trade-offs.”
-see https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-limits-of-anthony-faucis-expertise-11589392347
In the entire Rio Grand Valley of Texas, only one hospital received the new anti viral drug. And they only received enough for 3 patients.
Thank you for the new thread Can you add me to your ping list? Por favor? TIA.
Remember How Everybody Was Going to Die Because Georgia Ended Lockdowns? - https://theothermccain.com/2020/05/16/remember-how-everybody-was-going-to-die-because-georgia-ended-lockdowns/
So much for India’s vaunted secret immunity.
PEGGY NOONAN, The Lockdown Class War.
There is a class divide between those who are hard-line on lockdowns and those who are pushing back. We see the professionals on one side—those James Burnham called the managerial elite, and Michael Lind, in “The New Class War,” calls “the overclass”—and regular people on the other. The overclass are highly educated and exert outsize influence as managers and leaders of important institutions—hospitals, companies, statehouses. The normal people aren’t connected through professional or social lines to power structures, and they have regular jobs—service worker, small-business owner.
Since the pandemic began, the overclass has been in charge—scientists, doctors, political figures, consultants—calling the shots for the average people. But personally they have less skin in the game. The National Institutes of Health scientist won’t lose his livelihood over what’s happened. Neither will the midday anchor.
I’ve called this divide the protected versus the unprotected. There is an aspect of it that is not much discussed but bears on current arguments. How you have experienced life has a lot to do with how you experience the pandemic and its strictures. I think it’s fair to say citizens of red states have been pushing back harder than those of blue states.
It’s not that those in red states don’t think there’s a pandemic. They’ve heard all about it! They realize it will continue, they know they may get sick themselves. But they also figure this way: Hundreds of thousands could die and the American economy taken down, which would mean millions of other casualties, economic ones. Or, hundreds of thousands could die and the American economy is damaged but still stands, in which case there will be fewer economic casualties—fewer bankruptcies and foreclosures, fewer unemployed and ruined.
They’ll take the latter. It’s a loss either way but one loss is worse than the other. They know the politicians and scientists can’t really weigh all this on a scale with any precision because life is a messy thing that doesn’t want to be quantified.
Here’s a generalization based on a lifetime of experience and observation. The working-class people who are pushing back have had harder lives than those now determining their fate. They haven’t had familial or economic ease. No one sent them to Yale. They often come from considerable family dysfunction. This has left them tougher or harder, you choose the word.
They’re more fatalistic about life because life has taught them to be fatalistic. And they look at these scientists and reporters making their warnings about how tough it’s going to be if we lift shutdowns and they don’t think, “Oh what informed, caring observers.” They think, “You have no idea what tough is. You don’t know what painful is.” And if you don’t know, why should you have so much say?
The overclass says, “Wait three months before we’re safe.” They reply, “There’s no such thing as safe.”
Something else is true about those pushing back. They live life closer to the ground and pick up other damage. Everyone knows the societal costs in the abstract—“domestic violence,” “child abuse.” . . . .
Meanwhile some governors are playing into every stereotype of “the overclass.” On Tuesday Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf said in a press briefing that those pushing against the shutdown are cowards. Local officials who “cave in to this coronavirus” will pay a price in state funding. “These folks are choosing to desert in the face of the enemy. In the middle of a war.” He said he’ll pull state certificates such as liquor licenses for any businesses that open. He must have thought he sounded uncompromising, like Gen. George Patton. He seemed more like Patton slapping the soldier. No sympathy, no respect, only judgment.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called anti-lockdown demonstrations “racist and misogynistic.” She called the entire movement “political.” It was, in part—there have been plenty of Trump signs, and she’s a possible Democratic vice presidential nominee. But the clamor in her state is real, and serious. People are in economic distress and worry that the foundations of their lives are being swept away. How does name-calling help? She might as well have called them “deplorables.” She said the protests may only make the lockdowns last longer, which sounded less like irony than a threat.
When you are reasonable with people and show them respect, they will want to respond in kind. But when they feel those calling the shots are being disrespectful, they will push back hard and rebel even in ways that hurt them.
And if your words and behavior cause such a reaction, you’re doing “public health” wrong.
Related: Protests show two Americas — those who lost their jobs and those still getting paid.
Also: A bitter class war is raging between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ of lockdown.
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