Magox

Let's be clear, Hogan was considering running against Trump for 2020 and he does reside in a blue state. He's not a fan of Trump and of course the Democratic governors have their own motives. They aren't being reasonable North Buffalo, for the reasons I responded earlier to expect that the Federal Government was going to have this in a manner that they were requesting was completely unrealistic. Let's call this for what it is, they are now making this the big issue and the reason being is that they are using it as a pretext to open up the economy. So the argument and blame game is already being paved, "We can't open up the economy without more testing, and if we do and you don't give us the testing we say we need, then it's your fault".

It's complicated. There are a number of different entities that are conducting these tests. Each entity has their own challenges. Many people like @shoshin get confused and seem to believe that all these locations are facing the same issues. It's a lot more complex than that and some entities are able to meet demand better than other entities for a variety of reasons. It could be due to lack of chemicals, swabs, lack of coordination to direct people to the appropriate locations or in Quest Diagnostics' situation too much demand which created backlogs. It's a huge undertaking and there are a lot of moving parts and the local, state and federal government or for that matter all the medical, hospital and labs never had to deal with something as massive as this and try to have it resolved in such a short time period. But they do seem to be making marked progress on a daily basis. And for me that's encouraging.

So I heard governor Hogan today in an interview and they asked him about how Trump called him out. Of course he pushed back on that, but when asked about not knowing about the other testing locations, he didn't really seem to answer it head on. He essentially said, and I'm paraphrasing "It's good that the Federal Government is making these available to us.". Not sure if he was implying that they weren't available to earlier or if that was his way of saying that he wasn't aware of them being available to him.

There is no doubt that there are labs out there that need more supplies to get more testing done. With that said, the federal testing administered locations seem to be ready to do more immediate testing and from the sounds of it, they weren't being utilized. But to the article I posted, Quest Diagnostics' issues have nothing to do with lack of supplies or any of that other jazz, their previous issues was that they had too much demand which created backlogs slowing down the time that people could get tests done and receive their results, essentially they lacked capacity early on. Now, they have increased their capacity and are continuing to increase it and their problem now is that there aren't enough people who need testing being directed their way. This is something that the states governors will need to coordinate with medical providers, hospitals etc. to get more people using Quest Diagnostics.

Here is a WallStreet Journal article from 2 days ago about the testing challenges. The Journal goes on to cite a few different examples of different entities in describing their issues, and Quest Diagnostics was one of them. This particular labs issues were swabs. So even though they have more potential capacity, the lack of swabs was what was slowing them down. So in this case, demand is outstripping their capacity to provide tests. Here is another Healthcare system's issues. Basically, they have the capacity to do a lot more but they are lacking supplies. AND HERE IS QUEST DIAGNOSTICS ISSUES Surprise surprise, their problem? Too much Demand! Not lack of supplies, not any of the other things that were mentioned. But too much demand. A few weeks ago and up until recently what was slowing Quest Diagnostics down was that they had a backlog and that tests were taking anywhere from 3-5 days for the results. Now they are being done in a day or two. This article was from 2 days ago, the one I posted above is from today and now says there is no backlog, and that they just need more people requesting tests. The states just need to coordinate with the labs/hospitals/testing locations with people who need testing a little better so that Quest Diagnostics is identified as a location for these people to get testing.

Apparently he isn't the only one.

I get that you are trying to desperately make a point about testing, but this isn't what they are saying. You are jamming in your narrative into what they actually said.

That's not what they are saying.

That's not their issue. That may be the issue with other tests but not Quest Diagnostics'. They aren't saying we don't have enough tests to keep up with demand, but rather that the demand cannot keep up with their testing capacity.

Did you read the article? Reread it again.

Quest Diagnostics: COVID-19 test capacity is outpacing demand

It certainly is not a good early result.

By reading his quotes, I think he wasn't necessarily speaking about the stay-at-home orders as much as some of the more onerous and stringent directives that some of the governors are imposing on their citizenry. Most likely some of the ones we are hearing out of Michigan.

I have been one of the people who has tilted on the side of opening up shop provided it was done in an intelligent manner. And I gotta say, on the surface Kemp does not seem to be doing it in the most prudent of ways. He's not even following the Federal guidelines. If his experiment, which I would say is a fair characterization of it does not work, he jeopardizes many other states opening up as well. Not to mention that if Kemp's reopening of the economy in this fashion fails, it will be placed straight on the feet of Trump. I hope the Trump CoronaVirus taskforce is very involved and invested in their success. I certainly hope that my concerns are overblown.

You can still be greedy while investing in it without it dropping precipitously. I don't know where in the oil sector you would plan on investing but there are a considerable amount of them that won't end up surviving. I used to trade a lot of oil for a commodities investment brokerage years back and these sort of drops BBB are unlike anything I have ever seen.

Whoah!

I wouldn't touch oil until it stabilizes. The old adage applies, "Never try to catch a falling knife". With that said, Oil will recover. That is a certainty. The only question is to what level and how long that will take to happen. No one is driving, flying or burning that much fuel. As economies begin to phase back in their workforce, demand will increase and so will the prices.

He did raise that question in the briefer, in regards to one of the antibody studies. And I'm glad that he did, I was wondering why that question hadn't been posed yet. Seems awfully pertinent but truth be told, I'm not all that surprised either. Today Scott Gottlieb said “We’re probably diagnosing 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 infections, and that’s what some of the reliable analyses are now showing,” Even if it's just 1 in 10, then that means we are still talking about a .5% mortality rate. 1 in 20 would indicate .25%. I hope that we begin to see more questions regarding these studies. I know that Dr. Fauci is somewhat dismissive of some of the antibody tests, I'd like to hear their thoughts on the impending ones that I'm sure we will be hearing a lot more about in the coming weeks.

Katy Tur? must be fake news

I don’t think the antibody studies that are suggesting that the mortality rate will be between .1% - .2% will be correct with those figures but I do think they heavily suggest that the mortality rates are much lower than what was previously thought. My guess is somewhere between .3% - .4%. But even if the Studies were correct at .1% or so you still could see 70k deaths in 5 months with social distancing measures. How? Its rate of contagion and that there is no vaccine in place. If the common flu didn’t have a vaccine and it was many multiples more contagious than the common flu, you would see similar outcomes. And Sweden is doing much much better than the doomsday predictions. And there Is growing evidence that they have flattened the curve. “The trend we have seen in recent days, with a more flat curve -- where we have many new cases, but not a daily increase -- is stabilizing,” Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of the microbiology department at Sweden’s Public Health Authority, said on Friday. “We are seeing the same pattern for patients in intensive care.” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective clearly there are dynamics at play that help out the Swedes but there are two large advantages the south has over Sweden. Heat and humidity. Personally I would like to see Georgia follow the federal guidelines but it should be a fascinating test case. Again, the standard Of failure shouldn’t be if they see increases In cases and deaths but rather if their hospital systems can handle their patients. Which was the whole pretext of flattening the curve.

I guess since Sweden is no longer the darling of The NY Times crowd, they must be doing something wrong? Is that the implication?

Atlanta is going to be a fascinating test case. Like our very own Sweden. Atlanta is being more aggressive than Florida in their start up plans. You would think that the cases will go up, it’s only logical and I’m sure the media will be all over them and Trump for that matter if it does. But the standard should not be if cases go up, but if the curve is flattened enough so that their hospital systems can sustain the demand in patients.

Pretty much

I am interested in seeing if the state will give any specific guidelines Or mandates for theatres and restaurants or they will allow them to self-regulate. I’m hoping for guidelines.

Atlanta opening up theatres and restaurants in a few days. I would like to see how they do that. If it is at full capacity then I think they are asking for troubles. Hopefully it’s a modified approach.