Anyone following what’s happening in the United States?

[Redolent]

A lesson in how not to reopen.

20 states are seeing significant increases. Some like Arizona, Florida, California and Texas are breaking records of positive cases and covid hospitalizations. ICUs almost full in Texas. Indoor-dining restaurants and bars have been open for a month or so in some of these states. This is still the first wave for them ...

Will be interesting to see if they lock down some states again. It seems inevitable for Arizona (26% of those who had a Coronavirus test today were positive, which is insane).

Info from NYT:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

Oops, I didn't know the thread was about judging.

I'm just interested to know what's happening.

worries me is they seem to be pumping steroids into everyone

that's not true. The steroids are for folk already in HDU: already at high risk of losing life. That's a tiny minority of covid patients. And this particular drug is so well-established that it has a very well-understood safety profile. As for immune-suppressing: that's exactly what these patients need. Hyper-immune response (too strong immune system) is what kills a lot of covid patients. And the drug is cheap, less than $1/day in poor countries. It's a great discovery just too bad it can't save more.

? No one is talking about using pre-emptively for all covid patients.

I don't know too much about Bolsonaro, looks like the typical S American right-wing president.

Johnson and Trump both have their eye on other matters and want to get Covid out of the spotlight for a while, Trump is after re-election and is apparently happy to kill off some of his most enthusiastic supporters on the way, and Johnson wants a no-deal Brexit and will happily get his most enthusiastic supporters back into Wetherspoons to spread the disease and accelerate their cirrhosis.

I realise I've made a mistake in my previous post, when I state Johnson I mean his puppeteer, Cummings.

@Langsdestiny

I am astounded at the fact that people think politics affected Brazil and USA but not here. It is not a coincidence that brazil usa and britain have handled this situation badly. The similarity of the leadership of those 3 countries is obvious.

that is utter nonsense. Boris for all his faults is nothing like Bolsaro and Trump. I know people hate Boris (I don't) but really I think it is so disingenuous to compare Trump and Boris , they are nothing like each other, completely different personalities. Anyone that looks at the two fairly without a preconcieved agenda they want to spout, can see this clearly. Boris's main motivation in politics is that he is a people pleaser that wants to be liked. Trump is a sociopath. Theses are opposite personalities.

@okiedokieme

The death rates are very hard to compare because countries are testing at different rates (USA still not testing every hospital admission) and recording deaths differently. Eg in the U.K. if a person tests positive then it's recorded as Covid even if they have end stage cancer and outlived expected survival by 6 months and it was not the cause - other countries only if it was proven to be the cause of death. Belgium is recording c19 without even a test if it's suspected hence higher rates. Excess deaths is a better measure as it includes people who died because their medical treatment was cancelled due to Covid, very important to factor when deciding on lockdowns ditto suicides due to bankruptcy etc

agree. at the end of this, we'll be nowhere near the top of deaths. Nowhere near. We'll be middle of the pack - our result will be - could have done better (bad things - PPE, testing at start, care homes), could have done worse (good things - ppe good now, testing excellent now, clinical trials excellent, vaccine hopefully excellent TBC)

@Langsdestiny

I am astounded at the fact that people think politics affected Brazil and USA but not here. It is not a coincidence that brazil usa and britain have handled this situation badly. The similarity of the leadership of those 3 countries is obvious.

To think that Johnson is anything like Bolsaro is ridiculously naive. For the UK Johnson's cabinet is quite right wing but it is nowhere near Trump and miles and miles away from Bolsaro. The reason for our high death rates is that we had 1500 infections seeded from February half term holidays and brought back from Europe (research shows less than 1 percent of our initial infection points were the Chinese strain). These skiiers and holiday makers were mostly young and fit and were asymptomatic and /or had symptoms that were not cough and high temperature, so they didn't know they should self isolate, couldn't get tests and spread the disease. Coupled with lockdown a week too late because of the scientific advice being wrong. Most other countries had regions that were severely affected and other regions untouched; we have had a hefty dose across virtually the whole country at once because of that half term travel.

It really pisses me off when people do down this country by making false equivalencies with dictatorships. We have a government that has made a number of huge cock ups and many people have died. I hope heads roll over the care homes scandal. They have also tried to provide money to furloughed staff, built field hospitals at short notice, etc. We are not anywhere near as badly off as a country led by a man who flatly denies that covid is a problem and has no socialised health system in a country riddled with gun violence and the highest murder rate in the world. Neither have we been locked into our homes like in Wuhan. And surely people don't believe the death rates claimed by certain countries.

*Bolsonaro

Boris and Trump are alike in some ways and this has led to similarities in how they've handled the virus.

Both want to be liked and shy away from unpleasant realities. Both talked dismissively about the threat and tried to pretend it wasn't happening when other countries were preparing.

Both pretended to be at the top of their game in relation to the virus when they make statements showing an astounding lack of understanding-both charismatic spinners not details men.

Both indecisive when faced with unfolding disaster.

Both listened to the science they liked which isn't far from making it up. Both had scientists having to yell very loudly to get them to take preventative action because they care more about the economy, when all's said and done.

Both, not being details men, have been a bit rubbish at areas like test and trace which require real leadership and competence. That spells out how poorly we'll perform in a second wave.

Both have no real logic or rationality behind their easing of the lockdown because they're ultimately indecisive and want to be liked so they're following the money on that, rather than sticking to the initial conditions for easing lockdown.

Both react to the public relations disaster caused by a catastrophe not the catastrophe itself, or the thought of impending catastrophe.

@Valambtine

Pretty much the same as Germany then? but with two completely different outcomes.
Johnson like Trump believed CV was a mild illness that we could take on the chin.
Both men are populists, compulsive liars and have zero regard for anyone but themselves.

We are coming out of lockdown as if the virus had disappeared, 1000s of new daily infections in the UK.

As for the science, this was debunked recently when a SAGE scientist came out and said that SAGE doesn't think as one, it has different views and influences.
Plenty within SAGE wanted an earlier lockdown but the model followed was the imperial one based on 13 yo data and the more cautious opinions were ignored.
This was talked about on a recent R4 program.

100% agree Vaambtine. We are nothing like the US and Boris is nothing like Trump. Only those hard of looking could say otherwise

I agree with your diagnosis.
I also think we overreacted as we were watching Italy too closely. I think Italy (and their overwhelmed hospitals on the news everynight) is why we cleared the hospitals too quickly of elderly into care homes.
We over reacted NOT under reacted.
I also think lockdown was maybe a week late for LOndon but about right for the rest of the UK.
We almost needed to see what was happening in Italy to get the public to comply as much as they did.

Anyway, like I said good and bad. Some only see the bad but they have agendas. In real life most people can see the whole picture.

[quote jasjas1973]@Valambtine

Pretty much the same as Germany then? but with two completely different outcomes.
Johnson like Trump believed CV was a mild illness that we could take on the chin.
Both men are populists, compulsive liars and have zero regard for anyone but themselves.

We are coming out of lockdown as if the virus had disappeared, 1000s of new daily infections in the UK.

As for the science, this was debunked recently when a SAGE scientist came out and said that SAGE doesn't think as one, it has different views and influences.
Plenty within SAGE wanted an earlier lockdown but the model followed was the imperial one based on 13 yo data and the more cautious opinions were ignored.
This was talked about on a recent R4 program.[/quote]
of course "science " has different viewpoints and is not a settled picture all the time. scientists try and reach consensus or a majority opinion. You could probably dig up scientists that disagreed with gravity if you tried really hard.
Science is an evolving picture particulary where it is a novel virus that did not exist 5 months before.
I am not sure SAGE would ever claim otherwise!

I bet there will be scientists in the fullness of time that say we should not have had lockdown at all and that it was a big mistake to do so - so should they have been the ones politicians listened to?

Look, I can see personal parallels between Trump and Johnson, but Trump is further to the right and less intelligent.
I just think people who genuinely think Johnson - who, let me be clear, is imo a lazy man who is completely out of his depth, expected to pop in, get Brexit done and toddle off a hero to a certain sector - is in the same class as Bolsonaro and his regime....well, frankly, you do not know you are born.

@jasjas1973

I disagree that we’re coming out of the lockdown like it never happenned. We still have barely opened schools, still have a 2m rule in place, and it will still be a few weeks before pubs etc are able to open. We’ve absolutely made mistakes along the way that others didn’t, but many US states opened fully weeks ago - very different, and a lesson for us our Government would be mad not to listen to.

[quote jasjas1973]@Valambtine

Pretty much the same as Germany then? but with two completely different outcomes.
Johnson like Trump believed CV was a mild illness that we could take on the chin.
Both men are populists, compulsive liars and have zero regard for anyone but themselves.

We are coming out of lockdown as if the virus had disappeared, 1000s of new daily infections in the UK.

As for the science, this was debunked recently when a SAGE scientist came out and said that SAGE doesn't think as one, it has different views and influences.
Plenty within SAGE wanted an earlier lockdown but the model followed was the imperial one based on 13 yo data and the more cautious opinions were ignored.
This was talked about on a recent R4 program.[/quote]
@jasjas1973
I don't think we have done a good job. I think we made a number of mistakes. No doubt someone like Rory Stewart would have done this much better; he had a proper handle on the risk far earlier than Johnson who as you say is not a details guy in any way. We planned for hospitals to focus on ventilation, then found ventilation is not as effective as in pneumonia, and oxygen earlier on works much better. In comparing with Germany I think where they were right was in having home visiting teams monitoring the moderately ill and getting them into hospital in a timely fashion, and using oxygen early on.

I am not defending what has happened here entirely. Mistakes have been made for certain. I just find it breathtaking that people genuinely think our political troubles are in any way parallel to Brazil's. Go live there and then come and tell me we aren't so incredibly bloody lucky. And that doesn't also mean that other countries aren't even better. But we are incredibly privileged in terms of the world order to be living here rather than in Sierra Leone or Kazakhstan or Columbia or DRC or any one of a myriad other places.

@Valambtine

Look, I can see personal parallels between Trump and Johnson, but Trump is further to the right and less intelligent. I just think people who genuinely think Johnson - who, let me be clear, is imo a lazy man who is completely out of his depth, expected to pop in, get Brexit done and toddle off a hero to a certain sector - is in the same class as Bolsonaro and his regime....well, frankly, you do not know you are born.

that is a very fair comment. I do not think Boris is lazy but I do think he cherry picks what he likes and what he doesn't and prob finds some things in GOV very boring indeed. Which as a PM you cannot really do - you have to know about everything. However he is not a control freak unlike say May and Brown - he lets his ministers do there thing. Good and bad as I say. I am not sure the May approach would have worked any better in a global pandemic though. She found it hard to make decisions and only had a tiny team of trusted advisers that no one else liked very much. At least Boris trusted say Matt Hancock to get on with things which he did (aside from the PPE issue which to be fair was a global issue). Boris was in ITU fand out of action for most of April so in that respect that style of management was probably a good thing!

I think Blair would probabl have handled this the best but we will never know.

Letting your Ministers get on with things only works if you have competent Ministers. If you chose people based on loyalty rather than ability and then expect them to deal with a crisis you get 60,000 deaths and no clear plan.

It’s just exactly what we’re going to be seeing here in 4-6 weeks. I wouldn’t get too smug.

@Inniu

Letting your Ministers get on with things only works if you have competent Ministers. If you chose people based on loyalty rather than ability and then expect them to deal with a crisis you get 60,000 deaths and no clear plan.

I think Matt Hancock has been ok , done his best etc.

And I work for the NHS in a busy hospital trust with 5 hospitals at the forefront of covid back in March.
I have seen the good and the bad first hand (reorganising everything and I mean everything in less than a week, redeploying hundreds of staff, nightingale hospitals, clinical trials, testing (not good at start , excellent now) , ppe (terrible weekend when we were running out of gowns - now excellent), current large scale antibody testing, vaccine trial (that I am on) ) so I think I am well placed to take a view on Matt Hancock and the NHS response in general.

Most of my colleages agree - not all, but most.

I had impression that Ferguson back in February was clamouring for earlier and stricter measures. It took a long while for his view to prevail. See how upset he looked in every interview dated in February, how pessimistic he was about the situation.

Dislike NF for his sex life (if that matters to you), but definitely don't agree he should be blamed for too-late Lockdown (if you think it was too late).

@ragged

I had impression that Ferguson back in February was clamouring for earlier and stricter measures. It took a long while for his view to prevail. See how upset he looked in every interview dated in February, how pessimistic he was about the situation.

Dislike NF for his sex life (if that matters to you), but definitely don't agree he should be blamed for too-late Lockdown (if you think it was too late).

agreed. It was NF model that panicked the GOV into the lockdown when it did. He was predicted 250,000 deaths

I think he is getting criticsm now as this was an overprediction - using old computer modellling and the GOV should not have listened.
IIRC Oxford was predicting 8,000 deaths at around the same time.
Some even say we should not have lockdown at all

I do not agree with that view at all.

Agree Johnson cannot be compared to Bolsonaro but he is similar in may ways to Trump, the two are firm friends, it was Trump that he rang when he came out of hospital.

Our death rate is quite frankly shocking, one of the worst in the world.

I don't agree we were watching Italy too closely, i have friends there who were telling me in March that the UK was crazy not to lockdown.

We started from a position of fewer beds and staff in the NHS,than Italy, the emptying of beds was a political decision to prevent the public from seeing the NHS overwhelmed, hence care home and community deaths have always exceeded hospital ones.

From the R4 program the complaint seemed to be that certain grps within SAGE had the ear of the Govt and others did not and weren't even considered.

I do know I am born and telling people to go and live in Brazil is not a useful way of debating the issue. There are absolute similarities between Trump and Johnson, removing scientists from press briefings is similar to Trumps behaviour, and the management of the Cummings debacle was again a very similar approach to Trump. There is a debate to be had about the leaders who have been successful in this crisis, and Johnson shares more approaches/characteristics with Trump than he does with Ardern for example. I agree that Johnson is a people pleaser, but one of Trumps dominant characteristics is his obsession with what others think of him.

I also think both men have been deeply disappointed in being the leader of their respective countries as the role has not been what they thought it would be and has not fulfilled their needs in the way they thought. But that may be the case of all leaders.

@jasjas1973

Agree Johnson cannot be compared to Bolsonaro but he is similar in may ways to Trump, the two are firm friends, it was Trump that he rang when he came out of hospital.

Our death rate is quite frankly shocking, one of the worst in the world.

I don't agree we were watching Italy too closely, i have friends there who were telling me in March that the UK was crazy not to lockdown.

We started from a position of fewer beds and staff in the NHS,than Italy, the emptying of beds was a political decision to prevent the public from seeing the NHS overwhelmed, hence care home and community deaths have always exceeded hospital ones.

From the R4 program the complaint seemed to be that certain grps within SAGE had the ear of the Govt and others did not and weren't even considered.

Trump and Boris are not firm friends! They are political allies - but so have every other US/UK president PM duo in history. That tells us nothing. I can't imagine either ringing the other for a chat once they are no longer in their jobs.

Our death will absolutely not be the worst in the world at the end of this. We will be firmly middle of the pack -many countries have done much better, many much worse.
I think we'll be overtaken by India, Russia, a lot of south america and parts of Africa in time, I am not saying this with glee, far from it - just to point out it is naive and idiotic to say we are the worst in the world and only those with agendas say so.

Our NHS was never ever overwhelmed , we copied brilliantly, everyone that needed an ITU bed got one - so from that point of view - which was actually the point of the lock down in the first place it has been a success. We learnt that ventilators were not the be all and end all and we have trialled lots of treatments and have found out that does help - that too is an NHS success, we should be proud.

Care homes an entirely different matter and lots of mistakes made there