Scraps

I tend to believe that if there was indeed fraud and these lawyers did indeed believe they were fighting for free and fair elections unblemished by fraud, the very core of democracy, they would not have backed out. Indeed, they would have been duty bound to continue. However, given the scarcity of evidence of fraud, they were in fact working to undermine the election, the core of democracy, all for some money. It simply wasn't worth it to be on the wrong side and assist in a coup.

Logic tells you that masks don't reduce the distance droplets travel if you cough or sneeze?

Florida has more infections on a daily basis than Europe does. Your guidance sucks. It is totally reactionary after disaster has happened.

So local leader should be able to set their own requirements including mask requirements or quarantines of people traveling from hot spots and the police should enforce those rules? Brian Kemp should not be suing the mayor and city council of Atlanta? Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump should not be mandating fully open schools across the state of Florida or the country?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/php/CDC-Activities-Initiatives-for-COVID-19-Response.pdf I don't think a single state met the criteria. If there were any, I bet you could count them on one hand. I'd accept it if we could keep the reproduction number to below 1. That hasn't happened. From where I sit, it is you who doesn't care.

He's doing such a good job. Congratulations on the victory.

Yet every other industrialized country has done a better job than the US. Many while using data provided by the US.

I think the point being made is that if you have more testing and get a lower positive rate, you are testing a wide enough percentage of the population to know areas where the virus is increasing and needs closer attention, contact tracing and possibly control measures. South Korea has tested a far greater percentage of its population than we have. I left a link to the transcript. You seem to automatically dismiss that which does not conform with your POV as politically motivated and thus should be dismissed. Go read the transcript or watch the show and tell me what makes you think that. You seem to be dead set on just opening things up and letting it rip. I'm rather skeptical that there will be much of an economy as long as the virus is and issue. Studies of the 1918 pandemic indicate that those cities that started control measures early and kept them in place longer had lower mortality and more robust economic growth in the end. quote

From long experience I've learned not to bother answering your questions if you won't answer a single one of mine. You will simply ask more questions and ignore all of mine. Things had backed off to the point of having an actual discussion with people of differing views this evening. Not so much with you.

I'm not sure but here is an interesting counterpoint to Birx from Danielle Allen from Harvard "I think the most important question is, how much testing, tracing and supported isolation do we need to avoid having to use repeated applications of stay at home order when a second or third wave hits. Our view is that we need to get to 5 million tests a day by June in order to achieve that. " and later " the important number there is how much do you have to test So, for example, in South Korea they tested at such a level only 3 percent of the tests come back positive. So, we still are at a rate where we're testing with 20 percent coming back positive. That means we're not testing enough. You need to tests so much that really will weigh (ph) the percentage of which positives actually showing up. That’s when you know you're catching everything. The numbers that Dr. Birx shared today was that our target at 10 percent positive rate, the percentage that we are finding within every range of testing. We need to lower that. We should be at the same level as South Korea. I do not understand why this country is setting its ambitions lower than the successful countries. That is the part I do not get. We're can-do America. There’s no reason we cannot give up to a level of 5 million tests a day, which would get us to that place where we are catching so many cases then we would not have a resurgence of a disease, we would not have to go back to sort of adaptive response and using collective stay at home orders repeatedly over a period of time." That was from This Week with George Stephanopoulos last week. There seems to be an attitude from the Feds that testing will be hard, so lets not do it and hope for the best.

I'm skeptical. I know my state isn't there. I don't believe any of the neighboring states are there either. States are moving forward regardless of the guidelines. If the 1918 Pandemic is a guide, this is a bad choice.

Even without knowing how long antibodies are protective that test would be useful. One would think that most people would be immune for months or a few years. It would be useful to know if the population was approaching herd immunity. Perhaps that could be approached during the summer months. I would expect a uptick in the Fall.

Testing isn't a panacea but it is a prerequisite to opening up in a safe manner. Otherwise, we are flying blind like we were for weeks in Jan and Feb when we had a faulty test.

No they didn't. However, what is your take on what Cuomo says about the supply chain issue? He isn't the only governor to raise the issue.

I don't like Cuomo, particularly how he is handling the nursing home situation. That said, he has Trump and Pence beat. Not a very high bar I admit.

So how many tests per day do you think these states need in order to know where the virus might be breaking out so they can do aggressive contact tracing to keep the virus in check? Do you know if they have the testing capacity in both machines and materials to perform those tests? I don't necessarily like these governors. I don't necessarily take their word at face value but when governor after governor regardless of party says the same thing, I don't flat out dismiss what they say. Couple that with what Buffalo_Gal said Don't you notice the cop out? What states are eligible? What states have met the phase 1 criteria? Alaska maybe?

I'm not confused. I simply don't blindly take Trump or Pence's word as fact. NY, Maryland and Michigan were a few.

What does that have to do with the supply chain problem they talk about?

Well that is an interesting way of phrasing it. What states are eligible? All the Governors I've heard have complained that there aren't enough supplies in terms of swabs or reagents to perform the testing at an appropriate scale.

Got a link to prove it?

His point was that this travel ban that Trump repeatedly boasts about wasn't a total travel ban. Trump has repeatedly said people went to Italy because Italy did not have a travel ban and people couldn't come to the US, so they went to Italy. In fact, Italy did institute a travel ban, it was effective days before ours and it supposedly didn't have the loopholes Trump's did. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-confusing-claim-on-italy-and-travel-restrictions/

Who said that?

Now here's a news organization that absolutely nailed it! "Throwing bottles of bleach, ammonia, and Drano into a cart at his local grocery store, area man Troy Mitchell was reportedly stocking up on one of every cleaning product he could find Wednesday in case President Donald Trump announces it is a coronavirus cure."

Wakefield park in Annandale VA was closed. Might depend where you are in the state. Northern VA has more cases than much of the rest of the state.

Mortality rate is not the lone variant that should be considered. Hospitalization rates, intubation rates, availability of ventilators and all the expertise to run them, availability of adequate quantities of PPE so the system doesn't get overwhelmed are also factors that must be considered. From what I've read about Sweden, it is very different from the US. They have a higher number of single person households, which makes social distancing normal. A larger percentage of the workforce has jobs that can be performed by telework. The government has asked to people to socially distance and not travel which resulted in a 95% reduction in travel to some of their most popular vacation destinations. Even the way they deal with their elderly is different. From what I've heard, it isn't exactly life as normal. The argument being made is one of utilitarianism. It would be interesting to look at the crew of the USS Roosevelt and compare it to the NBA players and other studies cited in the link you provided.