Alert: Covid-19 and our favorite team

I'm not sure announcements like this are helpful. IMO they are premature, at best.

 

So, let’s take it as given that some of the intelligence geeks told Trump that there was a chance of a pandemic. He might well have asked how high a chance? Are we talking 50%? Or more like 2% or 3%? Even they would not have had their undies in a bundle in November. The president is told all kinds of things that may or may not turn out to be important.

Late January when the first case was reported in Seattle, the medical folk in Seattle became alarmed. My wife’s company wanted to know if she had been in the SeaTac airport that week. She said, no, we took the train. (I went to Seattle with her that week.) Her firm said OK.

But even then, there was some level of alarm about it. By mid-February, the government should have started to freak out. So I’m happy to blame Trump for his lame response and very poor management of the ongoing crisis. However, I’m not going to knock him or his administration for not sounding the alarm before mid-February, and certainly not for raising the alarm in November.

There’s lots to be critical of without going back to November when only a few people were stressing about the possibility of a pandemic.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Aw nuts!

Bummer.
No MLS season.
On the upside, Vako, Magnus, and Kashia are probably all out of here at the end of the “season.”

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Regarding the economic impact:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/farmer...ses-restaurants-11586439722?mod=hp_lead_pos10

 

Boris leaving ICU.

 

What's weird is that the stores have been empty of eggs and there was a big rush on dairy products as well. I guess it isn't easy to change where your product is headed. Government should be buying it up and sending it to food banks (if they have they have refrigeration).
(My mom grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, and I believe I still have relatives there dairy farming)

 

Thanks ES. I've said it once and I'll say it again: I have no idea how to post links, pics on this site. I've tried in the past and just got too frustrated. Sorry

 

We have 5 chickens that lay 2-3 eggs per day between them, so, fortunately, access to eggs has not been an issue. We had ordered 10 more chicks a month or so ago through a 4H group that we were to pick up last week at our feed store, but, the pick up day was canceled due to the SIP.

 

The article says they can't convert the packaging to sell to supermarkets. not sure re food banks but I imagine something similar

 

Here is why I am wondering about "no sports until November" proclamations:

"Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS News Thursday that he could envision a return to public gatherings and celebrations this summer “if we do the things that we need to do to prevent the resurgence” of the virus."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dire-e...rus-restrictions-11586459653?mod=hp_lead_pos1

 

This will be interesting. Does having a season of only two games count as a year on their contract. I'm sure MLS will look to not pay their players 100% for only a few games.

 

The key here is “IF we do the things that we NEED to do to prevent the resurgence” of the virus. The problem with that is that we aren’t doing those things now. There are still several states with no SIP laws. There are no domestic travel bans, we’re insanely far behind on testing so we don’t really know how many people have contracted the virus. There’s a whole $hitstorm of bad news just waiting to break. There’s no chance that we’re going to do the things that we Need To Do.”

And because our approach is piecemeal, rather than a coordinated national strategy, we’re going to see continuing ripples of outbreaks in various states, and then people from those states will travel and re-infect other states. This is going to suck for months.

Sorry, but that’s the way it is.

Go Quakesfans!!

- Mark

 

Who knows? I imagine that all of the players are getting paid. They have contracts that specify weekly payments, whether they play or not. I don’t see how MLS can wriggle out of this, and they’d look like real scumbags if they did. But then, this is MLS and they don’t seem to mind looking like real scumbags.

Go Quakesfans!!
Go MLS players!!
& coaches, and equipment people, and everyone else employed by the league!

- Mark

 

My daughter actually bought individually wrapped rolls that were obviously being sold to hotels. Maybe a source to check is restaurant supply companies. They are not selling them right now to businesses.

 

As someone who has regularly read, and sometimes subscribed to, The Atlantic for over four decades, since high school (the magazine started publishing at about the same time people started taking temperature readings), it has declined markedly in quality over the years.

In this case, the headline is more important than the dissembling that follows. The only important point is that the COVID-19 models are inaccurate -- wildly so. Why is that the important takeaway? Because these models (maybe unlike the models you work on) absolutely need to be reasonably accurate because -- get this -- grave public policy decisions are being based on these models.

Not only are we shutting down our economy to such a degree that we have unemployment at rates beyond the Great Depression, with the real world suffering that entails (especially among the poor and minorities), but we are preventing cancer patients from getting treatment (I have anecdotal information that a Quakes fan you happen to know personally has had her treatment delayed) to keep the hospitals clear for coronavirus patients. And, I know this does not bother most of you, but we are also infringing the constitutional rights of 40 million Californians right now and "until further notice" based on these inaccurate models.

And, I repeat, social distancing has not caused the models to be inaccurate, because social distancing was already baked into the cake.

1248255240933179393 is not a valid tweet id

 

What's wrong with the factual assertion Sean Davis is making? Nothing he says has been refuted. Indeed, everyone is conceding the IMHE model is inaccurate (including Phil Bump of the Washington Post in the tweet to which Davis replies). And the fact that it assumes social distancing is stated in the model itself. I previously posted the IMHE link and I referred everyone to the top line of the model, which expressly says it assumes social distancing.

Right-wing or not, Sean Davis is correct in this instance. The scientific models are not. In other words, the "science and data" were shit. And you want to banish the person who has the temerity to say so.

Play the ball, not the player. And act like a moderator, not a partisan.

 

Once again, here's the IHME model itself. At the top if the page, right above the date and time it is most recently updated:

COVID-19 projections assuming full social distancing through May 2020

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

 

So, let's recap. When the IMHE model wildly overestimates the scourge of the virus, you cannot salvage the IMHE model by pointing to steps taken to combat the virus because the model expressly "assum[es] fully social distancing."

Phil Bump's assertion to the contrary is either abjectly stupid or outright dishonest. And Sean Davis is absolutely correct to say so.

 

And then there's the guy with the faulty model in Britain. Hiding his "science and data" because his projections of 2 million dead in the U.S. last month is so far beyond the current estimate of 60,000 (which may still be over-stated).

Your reminder that the man behind the doomsday projections (2MM US fatalities) still refuses to make his code open source. He said on 3/22 he was working w some orgs on letting people access them, will prob be available in 7-10 days.

It's been 14 days🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/feBveC5E0c

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) April 5, 2020

 

I do not expect anyone to nail their first global pandemic.

I do expect people, even & maybe especially "experts," to admit they made some missteps when it came to their predictions . . . given their numbers are the reason we're headed toward a depression.

— Anna James Zeigler (@ajzeigler) April 9, 2020