THE AGE --- 10 April 2020



ROCKMAN

THE AGE --- 10 April 2020



ROCKMAN

Great Social Distancing Ad.

This is criminal. The feds who didn't order PPE supplies until mid-march are seizing shipments bound for places that did.
They deny it, but the facts show otherwise. Again.


Feds seize coronavirus test kit materials bound for Bellingham hospital and Northwest

"A delivery of test kit materials that would have allowed Bellingham’s St. Joseph hospital and other PeaceHealth medical facilities in the Northwest to run COVID-19 tests quicker were seized and diverted by the federal government to the East Coast, PeaceHealth reports.

The Los Angeles Times first reported about the federal government quietly seizing orders for medical supplies made by hospitals in a story Tuesday, April 7. Those seizures came despite President Trump directing states and hospitals to secure what supplies they could to deal with the coronavirus pandemic."
[www.bellinghamherald.com]

That's terrible.

~"Love is Strong"~

Quote
MisterDDDD
This is criminal. The feds who didn't order PPE supplies until mid-march are seizing shipments bound for places that did.
They deny it, but the facts show otherwise. Again.


Feds seize coronavirus test kit materials bound for Bellingham hospital and Northwest

"A delivery of test kit materials that would have allowed Bellingham’s St. Joseph hospital and other PeaceHealth medical facilities in the Northwest to run COVID-19 tests quicker were seized and diverted by the federal government to the East Coast, PeaceHealth reports.

The Los Angeles Times first reported about the federal government quietly seizing orders for medical supplies made by hospitals in a story Tuesday, April 7. Those seizures came despite President Trump directing states and hospitals to secure what supplies they could to deal with the coronavirus pandemic."
[www.bellinghamherald.com]

It's an article with essentially no feedback from the side of the federal government. Perhaps the supplies are being redirected to the New York area because the pandemic is much worse in New York and the materials redirected will do more good in that area? In other words the federal government is acting in the best interests of the country as a whole. I suppose it's possible.

The poor federal government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Blasted by some people when they take action and at the same time blasted by others and accused of not taking any action.

And I don't mean you specifically MisterDDDD. It's just a generic observation about people in general. Life is so polarized these days and has been for a while!

This should not be occurring in any modern society

Cash-starved hospitals and doctor groups cut staff amid pandemic

"Vice, Vice, Baby! Americans (Ab)Use Porn, Booze, & Chocolate To Cope With Lockdown"

[www.zerohedge.com]

My dear fellow IORRians from across the big pond you really disappoint me!

And there is this to consider
Why the Wealthy Fear Pandemics

In the fall of 1347, rat fleas carrying bubonic plague entered Italy on a few ships from the Black Sea. Over the next four years, a pandemic tore through Europe and the Middle East. Panic spread, as the lymph nodes in victims’ armpits and groins swelled into buboes, black blisters covered their bodies, fevers soared and organs failed. Perhaps a third of Europe’s people perished.

Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Decameron” offers an eyewitness account: “When all the graves were full, huge trenches were excavated in the churchyards, into which new arrivals were placed in their hundreds, stowed tier upon tier like ships’ cargo.” According to Agnolo di Tura of Siena, “so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.”

And yet this was only the beginning. The plague returned a mere decade later and periodic flare-ups continued for a century and a half, thinning out several generations in a row. Because of this “destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish,” the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun wrote, “the entire inhabited world changed.”

The wealthy found some of these changes alarming. In the words of an anonymous English chronicler, “Such a shortage of laborers ensued that the humble turned up their noses at employment, and could scarcely be persuaded to serve the eminent for triple wages.” Influential employers, such as large landowners, lobbied the English crown to pass the Ordinance of Laborers, which informed workers that they were “obliged to accept the employment offered” for the same measly wages as before.

But as successive waves of plague shrunk the work force, hired hands and tenants “took no notice of the king’s command,” as the Augustinian clergyman Henry Knighton complained. “If anyone wanted to hire them he had to submit to their demands, for either his fruit and standing corn would be lost or he had to pander to the arrogance and greed of the workers.”

As a result of this shift in the balance between labor and capital, we now know, thanks to painstaking research by economic historians, that real incomes of unskilled workers doubled across much of Europe within a few decades. According to tax records that have survived in the archives of many Italian towns, wealth inequality in most of these places plummeted. In England, workers ate and drank better than they did before the plague and even wore fancy furs that used to be reserved for their betters. At the same time, higher wages and lower rents squeezed landlords, many of whom failed to hold on to their inherited privilege. Before long, there were fewer lords and knights, endowed with smaller fortunes, than there had been when the plague first struck.

I became curious about the situation with N95 masks...



I found this article:
About mask production

If it is possible to produce on the order of 200 million masks a day, then 40 days would yield 8 billion masks, enough for the whole planet.
If the price was even 10 bucks apiece that's only 80 billion per cycle.

Why not every rich country share that small expense and give them to everyone at no cost.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-04-11 04:03 by curt.

Quote
curt
I became curious about the situation with N95 masks...

I found this article:
About mask production

If it is possible to produce on the order or 200 million masks a day, then 40 days would yield 8 billion masks, enough for the whole planet.
If the price was even 10 bucks apiece that's only 80 billion per cycle.

Why not every rich country share that small expense and give them to everyone at no cost.

People in the western world have no experience of wearing face masks. Every human being touch their faces with their fingers more than 100 times every day. With a mask you would touch your mask and face probably 200 to 300 times every day. People in Japan and China have years and years of training in how to wear a mask, how to take it off, without touching the outside of the mask, packed with virus, and so on.

Just a basic thing like how to bend the little metallic thing on the mask over your nose... They know all about it in Asia. In the western world it's just a metallic thing, people don't know why and how it is supposed to be bent around the nose and face. You can not just implement a tool to the western world without training and motivating. It takes a long time to develop culture and understanding.

Bjornulf

Quote
bv

Quote
curt
I became curious about the situation with N95 masks...

I found this article:
About mask production

If it is possible to produce on the order or 200 million masks a day, then 40 days would yield 8 billion masks, enough for the whole planet.
If the price was even 10 bucks apiece that's only 80 billion per cycle.

Why not every rich country share that small expense and give them to everyone at no cost.

People in the western world have no experience of wearing face masks. Every human being touch their faces with their fingers more than 100 times every day. With a mask you would touch your mask and face probably 200 to 300 times every day. People in Japan and China have years and years of training in how to wear a mask, how to take it off, without touching the outside of the mask, packed with virus, and so on.

Just a basic thing like how to bend the little metallic thing on the mask over your nose... They know all about it in Asia. In the western world it's just a metallic thing, people don't know why and how it is supposed to be bent around the nose and face. You can not just implement a tool to the western world without training and motivating. It takes a long time to develop culture and understanding.

And yet this is a simple task easily learned. How many hours or days could training possibly take?

It does not take trained army personnel very long to properly affix a mask in the event of a gas attack, this is something that I know from experience...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-04-10 15:39 by curt.

I guess making millions of masks, and training the population how to use them, will be higher priority in the weeks to come. But before that, right now, there are more important tasks to handle, and they are absolutely free, no need to ramp up any production:

- Keep a distance of 2 m / 6 ft to other people
- Wash your hands properly and often
- Max 5 people together

The day everybody is doing the above, then we may think about wearing masks.

Bjornulf

Quote
bv
I guess making millions of masks, and training the population how to use them, will be higher priority in the weeks to come. But before that, right now, there are more important tasks to handle, and they are absolutely free, no need to ramp up any production:

- Keep a distance of 2 m / 6 ft to other people
- Wash your hands properly and often
- Max 5 people together

The day everybody is doing the above, then we may think about wearing masks.

What you say is perfectly true, but will it suffice for returning to work?
And production of PPE at higher rates would perhaps help in that context. And even among essential workers masks of various descriptions are now in use, however sparsely.

My thoughts go toward the existing probability of successive waves of occurrence, as well as where many countries stand on their path through this event...

What is next, after we get the curve flat, and then going down?

The unemployment rate is 15% or so in many countries now. That is the price we pay in order to avoid a death rate of 1% - 2% of the entire population. We save many many lives. Also, we do that in order to have a health system capable of handling normal life, not just the virus.

Soon, when there are spare ventilators, when hospitals may start treating "normal" patients, routine work, hip replacement, back injuries, heart surgery, all those "routine" treatments now on hold, then we may start thinking about phase two - opening up.

South Korea and Singapore have just started opening up. They see how easy it is to get the second wave, it just arrives overnight, unless you pay very very close attention. Both have extreme testing capacity.

I live in Norway. We do now see the curve going down, and the government is slowly opening up kindergarten April 20, and children's schools grade 1-4 by April 27. They will not open until there are extreme rules to be followed, of keeping distance, preventing the further spread of the virus. It is a conservative and step by step opening, very, very slow.

Also, in Norway, we will ramp up to a test capacity of 100,000 tests per week by the end of April, to be timed with re-opening kindergarten etc. That is testing 5% of the entire population per week. If USA were to have the same testing policy, they would have to test 7 million people every week, being 66 times our population.

Testing is more important than masks. A lot more important. Just ask WHO, or Singapore, or Taiwan, or South Korea, or China. There is lots and lots of experience from Jan Feb Mar in these areas, they are several months ahead of us in learning. Then of course masks may be handy in very highly populated areas like Manhattan NYC etc, where people pack tight on the metro, in elevators etc.

Bjornulf

Not only are social distancing strategies and testing important steps to easing the stress on the health care system and reopening society, but so is contact tracing. This NPR article clearly explains how it will work:

[www.npr.org]

Quote
bv

People in the western world have no experience of wearing face masks. Every human being touch their faces with their fingers more than 100 times every day. With a mask you would touch your mask and face probably 200 to 300 times every day. People in Japan and China have years and years of training in how to wear a mask, how to take it off, without touching the outside of the mask, packed with virus, and so on.

Just a basic thing like how to bend the little metallic thing on the mask over your nose... They know all about it in Asia. In the western world it's just a metallic thing, people don't know why and how it is supposed to be bent around the nose and face. You can not just implement a tool to the western world without training and motivating. It takes a long time to develop culture and understanding.

When discussing wearing masks for protection though, many, if not most, of us are referring to wearing them when being in spaces where maintaining 6 ft distance from others is difficult if not impossible, ie grocery stores, busses, etc. For me, that is now about once a week for app. 30 minutes.

I wear them only in grocery stores as of now, take great care not touching while wearing, removing and disinfecting them the proper way, in addition to disposable gloves treated the same way. Unless in a packed large city, that is all that is needed for most as when taking walks and most other activities it's easy to maintain distance.

Testing will be key to getting this under control while we wait for a vaccine, but masks will play an important role in reducing outbreaks and getting us there, imo.

Quote
VoodooLounge13

Quote
bv

Quote
VoodooLounge13
For me, personally, I am taking this time to learn about and invest in the stock market here in the US. Something I've been meaning to get back into for several years now, and this downturn has been the key trigger for me.

At one point in time this spring/summer the stock market will be at the very bottom. If you get the right stocks then, you are in for some great winning.

I am hoping so, BV. I really am!!

The best advice I can give you is invest in a subscription to Kiplinger's magazine.
After I lost a bundle after 9/11 I started doing the same thing, reading every type of investing source I could on how to invest better for growth while protecting what I've got, and Kiplinger's seemed to cover what all the others did combined . I sort of starting recognizing some commonalities amongst these magazines and newspapers.

No real surprises for rule #1, diversification. Usually some sectors making money while others aren't. A good blend of domestic/international stocks/bonds. But that's just the start... What stocks, what bonds?

I started investing around 1990 during the dot-com boom, S&P 500 was doing particularly well, dumped 100% of my money in an S&0 500 index mutual fund, which was great for 10 years, but promptly lost 55% of it after 9/11.

The common themes of diversification I recognized were strategies depending how soon you plan on retiring, a slightly more aggressive 80/20 stock bond mix or less aggressive 60/40 mix. Being a couple decades from retirement, I went with 80/20, and was somewhat better prepared for the 2008 financial meltdown, and now hopefully being less than 5 years from retirement last year I went to a 60/40 mix. But mix of what?

Here's the common themes of index mutual funds I started to see:

-80/20: 35% S&P 500 Index, 20% International Stock Index, 15% Small Cap Index, 10% Total Stock Market Index, 16% Total Bond Market Index, and 4% International Bond Market Index.

-60/40: Same funds, but 30% 500, 10% each of small, international, and total stock market indexes, 36% total bonds, 4% international bonds.

Repetitive buying like same amount every paycheck is the way to go, if shares are expensive your buying less, if they're cheap your buying more, and rebalance regularly (at least annually; some do quarterly or monthly) to get back to the %'s above. Trying to time the market is a losers bet, better off playing blackjack.

Hope that helps anyone trying to build or rebuild their savings before the next tour.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-04-10 17:03 by kovach.

Apologies if this is an ignorant question, but in the absence of a face mask is there any point in wearing a scarf (folded over a number of times) or is this useless? Would this be better than nothing at all? I ask because it appears many basic face masks do not contain any sort of filter and so their effectiveness must be in doubt.

Good question. I’m using a bandana. Makes me look like a bankrobber, but it lets others know I’m taking social distancing seriously, and hopefully is providing a barrier against inhaling someone’s airborne viral droplets, or for exhaling any of my own (although I don’t believe I’m infected, I could be asymptomatic and not know, as I haven’t been tested).

Wearing a bandana, scarf etc., or better yet a home-made mask w/filter, is definitely better than nothing.
It will block small trace droplets from getting in, but more importantly if you are carrying the virus and are asymptomatic, it will prevent you from spreading it.

Also makes the people you have to interact with, cashiers etc. more comfortable about their safety as well as sending a clear signal that you are taking this seriously, and people are more apt to give you the required space.

Quote
Manofwealthandtaste
Apologies if this is an ignorant question, but in the absence of a face mask is there any point in wearing a scarf (folded over a number of times) or is this useless? Would this be better than nothing at all? I ask because it appears many basic face masks do not contain any sort of filter and so their effectiveness must be in doubt.

Here's a bunch of links on which materials have what filter effect, how to clean them (or better not), etc. Maybe useful to some.

[smartairfilters.com]
[smartairfilters.com]
[smartairfilters.com]
[smartairfilters.com]

My homemade masks are made of two layers of dish cloth (which in the links is said to be at least as good as a surgical mask) and I have no problem breathing when wearing them. (Note, however, that in the linked stuff nothing is said about the weaving densitiy of the dish cloth they tested.)

Quote
bv
... as clearly stated from WHO ever since their messaging mid January, was TEST TEST TEST. ...

Regarding testing: judging from the news (constantly repeated there), one problem in Europe at least appears to be that (many? all?) states cannot test as much as they would like to because the required reagents are not available on the world market in sufficient quantities, so there is a limit to the number of tests that can be done e.g. in a day.

Quote
doitywoik

Quote
bv
... as clearly stated from WHO ever since their messaging mid January, was TEST TEST TEST. ...

Regarding testing: judging from the news (constantly repeated there), one problem in Europe at least appears to be that (many? all?) states cannot test as much as they would like to because the required reagents are not available on the world market in sufficient quantities, so there is a limit to the number of tests that can be done e.g. in a day.

Well Norway will test 100,000 per week starting late April, and we are a very small country, so I am sure the test capacity should be better for other countries too soon.

May be it is a priority thing. South Korea have been testing a lot since mid January, and they offer test systems for others, but you will of course need people to do the testing. If all health personel are busy with virus cases, like in Italy, Spain, France, UK, USA, then wide scale testing may not be of priority yet. Governments do not want to say they can not test everyone, they just say it is "the current strategy"...

Bjornulf

Quote
Maindefender

Quote
daspyknows

Quote
IGTBA
The US is counting COVID 19 deaths, by counting anyone who tested, or is presumed, positive who dies. So those who are very old and/or have serious other conditions will be counted as COVID 19 deaths, if they tested or were were presumed to be positive for the virus. That will make US deaths look worse on a worldwide scale, but it is indicative of the seriousness of COVID 19.

Does anyone believe the US already has more than three times the deaths from COVID 19 as China??? That's what the numbers show! The WHO numbers! What does that say about the veracity of the WHO's numbers?

US under reporting deaths. Unless they are testing the bodies as positive for Covid many states are not classifying as Covid deaths and there are not enough tests to do it. NYC is seeing lots of cardiac arrest deaths but not counting all as Covid despite the EMT's knowing. Some red states intentionally keeping numbers lower too.

Link to story please, God forbid there's some fake news floating around....

[www.nytimes.com]

I know the NY Times is a purveyor of fake news according to the Fox News and Newsmax crowd but those on the front lines in NY are saying the spike in cardiac arrest deaths are Coronavirus but there are no testing supplies for the living let alone the dead.

Quote
MileHigh

Quote
MisterDDDD
This is criminal. The feds who didn't order PPE supplies until mid-march are seizing shipments bound for places that did.
They deny it, but the facts show otherwise. Again.


Feds seize coronavirus test kit materials bound for Bellingham hospital and Northwest

"A delivery of test kit materials that would have allowed Bellingham’s St. Joseph hospital and other PeaceHealth medical facilities in the Northwest to run COVID-19 tests quicker were seized and diverted by the federal government to the East Coast, PeaceHealth reports.

The Los Angeles Times first reported about the federal government quietly seizing orders for medical supplies made by hospitals in a story Tuesday, April 7. Those seizures came despite President Trump directing states and hospitals to secure what supplies they could to deal with the coronavirus pandemic."
[www.bellinghamherald.com]

It's an article with essentially no feedback from the side of the federal government. Perhaps the supplies are being redirected to the New York area because the pandemic is much worse in New York and the materials redirected will do more good in that area? In other words the federal government is acting in the best interests of the country as a whole. I suppose it's possible.

The poor federal government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Blasted by some people when they take action and at the same time blasted by others and accused of not taking any action.

And I don't mean you specifically MisterDDDD. It's just a generic observation about people in general. Life is so polarized these days and has been for a while!

The federal government f'ed up. Now they are making it worse. They want to open the country May 1. How long til the 2nd spike in cases and deaths.

Quote
bv
What is next, after we get the curve flat, and then going down?

The unemployment rate is 15% or so in many countries now. That is the price we pay in order to avoid a death rate of 1% - 2% of the entire population. We save many many lives. Also, we do that in order to have a health system capable of handling normal life, not just the virus.

Soon, when there are spare ventilators, when hospitals may start treating "normal" patients, routine work, hip replacement, back injuries, heart surgery, all those "routine" treatments now on hold, then we may start thinking about phase two - opening up.

South Korea and Singapore have just started opening up. They see how easy it is to get the second wave, it just arrives overnight, unless you pay very very close attention. Both have extreme testing capacity.

I live in Norway. We do now see the curve going down, and the government is slowly opening up kindergarten April 20, and children's schools grade 1-4 by April 27. They will not open until there are extreme rules to be followed, of keeping distance, preventing the further spread of the virus. It is a conservative and step by step opening, very, very slow.

Also, in Norway, we will ramp up to a test capacity of 100,000 tests per week by the end of April, to be timed with re-opening kindergarten etc. That is testing 5% of the entire population per week. If USA were to have the same testing policy, they would have to test 7 million people every week, being 66 times our population.

Testing is more important than masks. A lot more important. Just ask WHO, or Singapore, or Taiwan, or South Korea, or China. There is lots and lots of experience from Jan Feb Mar in these areas, they are several months ahead of us in learning. Then of course masks may be handy in very highly populated areas like Manhattan NYC etc, where people pack tight on the metro, in elevators etc.

In the US 7 million people have not been tested cumulatively. Trump says we have the best testing but I saw an interview on CNN with an ex NFL player who had corona. He OWNS a testing company but the FDA would not approve his company to do testing (only 2 well connected Republican donor companies approved for private testing) and was only tested once hospitalized. Sorry, but that is wrong and stupid.

Are some European countries moving a bit quick re loosening up on various measures eg by opening up Primary Schools?
I hear that in South Korea 51 people who have previously been treated for contracting the virus have now all got ill for a second time.

Another almost 800 more souls died in NYC in the last 24 hours. Unclaimed bodies are being mass buried on Hart Island. Funeral homes are full until mid-May. Cremations backed up until June. Hello from Sunny Brooklyn, NY!

Apple and Google team up to ‘contact trace’ the coronavirus
"OAKLAND, Calif. — In one of the most far-ranging attempts to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus, Apple and Google said they were building software into smartphones that would tell people if they were recently in contact with someone who was infected with the virus."
[www.seattletimes.com]