Army Corps of Engineers to Build Temporary Hospitals in NY

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-four-sites-identified-army-corps-engineers-initial-list-temporary

by antoncohen • 6 years ago

416 464 6 years ago

governor.ny.gov

jawns2• 6 years ago

I am very curious about the "technical issue" that is preventing NY from receiving aid in the relief bill.

trothamel• 6 years ago

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/03/loophole-in-fed...

Apparently, it prevents states from making changes to Medicaid this year, but NY already did.

WrtCdEvrydy3• 6 years ago

Honestly, if this goes through, New York should just bus people to the closest states that got the coronavirus bill money.

This should ensure that people get the proper care and definitely won't cause large amounts of spreading outside of New Tork.

blackguardx• 6 years ago

Cuomo addressed this in the press conference. I believe it relates to Medicaid. New York modified some Medicaid rules in January and the relief bill won't grant money to states with modified Medicaid rules. He didn't get into specifics, but said that the bill needed to be updated.

danielfoster• 6 years ago

I am as well, but overall I’m very frustrated by the lack of coordination and leadership overall. This combined with de Blasio’s proven inability to lead is making the situation much worse than it needs to be.

ntsplnkv2• 6 years ago

This is a pandemic. Across country and state lines.

Any response that is not federal is going to struggle.

The buck stops solely at the white house and congress for failing to see the warning signs and properly respond.

dmix• 6 years ago

There are so many unfair takes against politicians these days it’s hard to tell who is actually right anymore.

It’s good people are holding them up to a high standard (elections are regularly presented as choosing the lesser of evils) but when all of them seem to be getting killed it makes you wonder if it’s just the nature of the beast. Especially in the west.

The few who have gotten praise (South Korea) were the ones that were more likely to ignore WHO and bypass other typical established political processes, allowing them to react quickly - and are by far the rare exceptions, not the rule.

‘Government’ and ‘moving quickly’ are rarely things you see in the same sentence in normal times, nor would ‘good’ politicians typically be defined as the ones who ignore the recommendations of international organizations, but yet it’s something everyone thinks can immediately be fixed on demand like flipping a switch.

deng• 6 years ago

According to

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

the NY numbers have more than doubled today (from ~10k to ~22k). What is happening? Are some belated test results coming in?

EDIT: Numbers were just corrected, are now at total ~16k with ~5k new cases. Still high growth, but more reasonable.

sesutton• 6 years ago

New York state has been increasing testing pretty rapidly. A few days ago they were at 10,000 a day.

ardit33• 6 years ago

They started testing in mass the last couple of days, so you see the spike...

roskilli• 6 years ago

New York is now testing more daily per-capita than South Korea and China, so naturally due to the higher test rate (which gives ability to find the clusters) New York is going to pull ahead of the rest of the country because it will have the ability to actually show the cases that are active but weren't able to be tested.

laurentlb• 6 years ago

I think there was a typo. Earlier this day, NY had +5k. Then it went to +12,345 (which looked like a suspicious number to me). And now, the number is back to +5,429.

It's still growing fast though.

cm21874• 6 years ago

I think generally the case numbers reflect more how much testing is being made in the country than how many people are infected. I think I got infected, called a relative of mine who is a doctor and followed UK guidelines which is to self isolate. So I appear in no statistics whatsoever. As the vast majority of people with none or mild symptoms. I think you can pretty much ditch the official case numbers as meaningless.

Izkata4• 6 years ago

The numbers seem to update in a weird staggered way; for example right now for New York I see 15801 + 5429, which is right about the +33% the US has been seeing since Mar 1.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

There is a lot of noise in the data but the general trend is more than clear.

tosser0001• 6 years ago

In Massachusetts we were told the numbers would go up quickly because there were a lot of results backlogged at the CDC.

I wish I knew where the official numbers were coming from. For a while we’d hear about “presumptive positive” cases, where a person had tested positive according to a state test, but it wouldn’t be counted until confirmed by the CDC. I don’t know if that’s still the case.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

It's a reflection of improved testing, but it is also an indicator of how bad things really are. The reason for the huge jump is that the virus has been spreading unchecked and undetected for much too long.

systemvoltage9• 6 years ago

I very much admire Gov Cuomo - he is perfectly straight forward in his approach, putting aside partisanship and truly care about his state and the New York City. I encourage everyone to watch his updates to see for yourself. We need more leaders like him. In his presentation, he is telling how to run the Federal goverment and recommendations - which just illustrates the competance of the executive branch of the US Govt. Same thing with Gov Newsom of California.

Latest update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZeKTlpcqU

untog• 6 years ago

This article sums up the feelings of many New Yorkers, myself included:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/media/cuomo-new-...

In normal times he is utterly infuriating and represents some of the worst qualities you see in a politician. In a crisis... well, you need a solid pair of hands and a leader capable of making big decisions effectively. And he is definitely that.

ceejayoz3• 6 years ago

Churchill was the same way. Great wartime leader. Rubbish in peacetime.

Eric_WVGG• 6 years ago

Seconded. I can’t stand the guy, but contrast his leadership to that of our Mayor and he comes out looking like a hero.

Ericson23143• 6 years ago

I am not ready to change my assessment of him. There were ample situations in in "peace time" for him to push harder but he didn't. DeBlasio may be more inept, but Cuomo only pushes things hard after they become very popular. That's still not leadership.

georgeburdell• 6 years ago

Except New York has roughly 50% of all cases in the U.S --- ~15k of the 32k total as of this writing. Newsom at ~1.5k seems to be doing much better if we’re judging by that metric

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

learc83• 6 years ago

NY is doing far more testing than anywhere else. That's why they have more confirmed cases.

CathedralBorrow• 6 years ago

Some places don't even test at all so they have zero known cases. They must be doing something right.

nashashmi2• 6 years ago

My wife likes him but I get quite infuriated at how slowly he moves. The NYC mayor is doing better with the little he can do. And Cuomo keeps overruling NYC mayor.

In comparison to Trump, he is less partisan and more decisive. But overall, his press conference is very little material.

Still in this difficult time he is a beacon of hope.

soared2• 6 years ago

The Army Corps is expected to immediately begin work to construct the [four] temporary hospitals. The Governor is also requesting FEMA designate four field hospitals

NY is creating EIGHT temporary hospitals total. I can't imagine the logistics, staffing, materials, etc. A few days ago I wasn't terribly concerned, but it continues to look worse and worse for the US.

rb8082• 6 years ago

from the article: > The Governor is also requesting FEMA designate four field hospitals with 250 beds each for the state, intended for use in the Javits Center in addition to the temporary hospital to be constructed by the Army Corps.

I think putting 1000 beds in a conference centre sounds a lot less dramatic than 4 new hospitals.

alkonaut2• 6 years ago

I wonder why Wuhan authorities opted for new construction over using available spaces that surely must exist in a 10M city when everything is shut down?

_asummers• 6 years ago

Why are they not using college dorms instead? There's already beds there and there's a modicum of isolation.

MisterTea• 6 years ago

I saw an image of the rate of total diagnosed cases per day of Italy vs the USA and the curves appear to overlap suggesting were going to see a similar swell and they're preparing for it. I've not confirmed any of this but everything else I've read seems to suggest that this may be the case.

I live in NYC with elderly family members as well as at-risk family members. I also have family in CA. My Friends are also in the same boat.

Unfortunately my business is critical so it will remain open though they are taking this very seriously. They have a rigorous cleaning policy as well as split shifting a crazy schedule to minimize people in the building at once yet moving production along. All office people who can work remote (not me, im tech) are home with laptops. Thankfully I have my own microwave and fridge in my pretty isolated office so im hunkering down there by myself. Only bringing food prepared at home which I have a little stock of. They also said I am free to hide all I want unless it's an emergency which is usually once a week when some old machine decides to throw a hissy fit.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

NYC is the epicenter of the epidemic in the United States right now, they essentially doubled overnight in the number of confirmed cases. Pretty grim given the absolute numbers involved.

baybal27• 6 years ago

NY is creating EIGHT temporary hospitals total. I can't imagine the logistics, staffing, materials, etc. A few days ago I wasn't terribly concerned, but it continues to look worse and worse for the US.

I think the logistic complexity of building 4 field hospitals is like nothing compared building 30-40+ FOBs, MOBs, firebases, landing grounds, airfield, and other field logistic elements in the warzone, during an invasion.

Saying that, one need to think how shockingly bad the showing of American state apparatus been in recent years despite such an enormous resource at its disposal, unless the actual army is involved.

malandrew5• 6 years ago

The military is the only governmental organization that genuinely practices and puts into play its planning and training.

The rest of government generally only plans but never stress tests those plans. And the few times they do get practice, we rotate them out of those roles every time a new administration is voted in. Any SRE working at large tech companies like Facebook and Google probably have more experience responding to crises and correcting the shortcomings than many of the people on the civilian side of government.

Balgair4• 6 years ago

The acoup blog just did a piece on chemical weapons and their dis/use in modern times. Part of that analysis was a dive into Modern v. Static armies.

Static armies are what Saddam, Assad, and the Iranians have. Though their weapons are pretty up to date, they still get squished when fighting Modern armies like the US or France. That is because their 'doctrine' is Static, mostly to be coup-proof. In Static Armies, you don't give field commanders a lot of lee-way or control. You send orders, they execute. They don't get to play jazz. This is due to regime issues that don't translate into up to date warfare.

In Modern armies, you have terribly expensive weapons too. But the training is what makes it really work. You have to train field commanders to play jazz and improvise. It's a constant blitzkrieg of movement and mechanized/digitized warfare. There is no sitting around. That takes training people to think for themselves; a big no-no in regimes.

The US is the example of a modern force, complete with fancy gadgets and fancy training.

We should expect that NYNG could get eight field hospitals going in hours. That is the entire basis of our military, to move really fast and get things done. Imperfectly? Oh hell yes. But fast is the entire name of the game.

https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

burneraccount12• 6 years ago

I promise you, there is very little improvisation or "jazz" in the U.S. Army and a lot of micromangement and bureaucracy.

The experience is more akin to being in a massive company with tons of middle managers who are always looking to self-promote and cover their a.

The army has many great men and women in it, despite the bs, but let's not pretend it's some "dynamic" entity.

Don't believe me? Read Bob Gates' memoir, where he recounts how as SecDef he had to fight the Pentagon brass just to get MRAPs that would save lives. And he was in charge of the department!

sizzle3• 6 years ago

What happens when those workers all get Covid-19? This is an invisible enemy that's already on our soil and growing exponentially with the ability to spread by asymptomatic carriers. I hope you are right....

jacques_chester• 6 years ago

Being prepared to defend against and then defeat an intelligent, organised enemy with a strong industrial base requires the maintenance of an incredibly expensive logistical apparatus with massive stockpiles of reserve materiel and operating capacity.

This is one of the few respects in which military wastefulness is useful, since those capabilities are repurposable for zero-sum games played against nature.

op03• 6 years ago

More like for NYC. NY is reporting more than half the cases in the US.

MiguelVieira• 6 years ago

This blog post covers the math of why this is necessary

https://medium.com/@donnellymjd/covid-19-nyc-should-brace-fo...

magwa101• 6 years ago

Wow, ok, finally.

Waterluvian3• 6 years ago

As an onlooker I feel like once America awakens to a crisis it is impressive to watch. I mean this kind of should have happened weeks ago, and the executive branch is a bit of a panicked joke. But I mean... You've got this colossal capacity to deploy field hospitals and hospital ships and such and ramp up capacity.

Terrible hurricane? Show up with a massive floating power plant and water treatment facility plus air logistics.

And I think one of the strongest virtues of the United States is being proven by Trump: the incredible power of leadership at all levels of government. In the absence of a leader at the top you've got senators and congresspersons and governors and mayors and CEOs all getting shit done. This is all an incredible (but regrettable) exercise of numerous fail safes inherent in the American system.

lonelappde3• 6 years ago

Terrible hurricane? Show up with a massive floating power plant and water treatment facility plus air logistics.

The US has a disastrous recent history of failing to respond to multipld hurricanes with adequate support, from Katrina to Maria.

coffeefirst• 6 years ago

True, but as an American, it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced. We had the ability to write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the second it was clear this was a global problem.

So instead of sending excess equipment around the world, we're playing catch up on our own shortage, and the control measures have to be a lot stricter because of it.

toasterlovin23• 6 years ago

the second it was clear this was a global problem

The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of. So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. I mean, most people can't be bothered to not spend everything they make when the last recession was 12 years ago, so what do we expect when there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years...

rightbyte• 6 years ago

If it is any comfort Spain, UK and Italy also failed responding to the crisis, so it is not like the American authorities are obviously worse?

23B1• 6 years ago

To what (honest) standard are you holding the United States to? Curious, given the totally black swan nature of the event and the wildly different geopolitical, cultural, legal, cultural, and even geographical differences between, say, Taiwan and the United States.

handedness2• 6 years ago

We have a long history of bringing our B-game until we realize it's time to bring our A-game, make it happen, and almost entirely without meaning to, reshape the global order: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475

ColanR• 6 years ago

write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the second it was clear this was a global problem

I think part of the problem is that we instead specifically prohibited pricing the masks in accordance with the extra costs associated with ramping up production.

gentleman112• 6 years ago

one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced

Unfortunately, Covid probably will not be in the top 100 nastiest challenges. Our global history has some truly terrible things in it

malandrew5• 6 years ago

it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced

That B game has been years in the making and predate the current administration since we exported our ability to bring our A game. Hopefully after this, these past short-sighted decisions are sharply corrected.

runawaybottle2• 6 years ago

I will say that almost every national or state level decision so far (other than San Francisco) has a very tangible tardiness to it. Washington state started with 6 cases, in 2-3 weeks NY has over 4K. Is Texas on lockdown yet? They sure will be in exactly two weeks (tangibly tardy).

God forbid a state pre-emptively goes on lockdown to shorten the overall downtime vs waiting too long, having to lockdown anyway, and dragging the whole mess out.

solidsnack90003• 6 years ago

The US always does this. Consider the response to World War I and World War II.

NicoJuicy2• 6 years ago

My observation as well, it's China's dream coming true unfortunately

primitivesuave5• 6 years ago

I don’t see why this was downvoted as it is certainly an interesting discussion- will this crisis prompt the wealthiest nation in the world to enact a suitable response to a viral pandemic?

My opinion is a strong no. After hurricanes and floods, we simply rebuild houses where they once stood and forget they ever happened. Our modern hurricane response is nothing to be proud of.

Before WW1, Britain was the wealthiest nation in the world. They controlled the seas of the entire world and despite having one of the smaller populations, could bend huge populations to their will (e.g. India). It took only 4 years for an enormous transfer of wealth to take place from the British Empire, which had itself been sucking up the wealth of the world for centuries, to the United States. The financial hub of the world moved from London to New York. I could certainly see it moving again, and right now the most likely candidate is Beijing.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

They controlled the seas of the entire world

In their heads. But meanwhile, the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish had more than their fair share as well. This whole re-writing of history is what enables 'MAGA' and other idiotic revisionist trends, please don't contribute to them. It only gives more credence to the kind of exceptionalism and nationalism on display.

sbilstein2• 6 years ago

Huh? I lived through hurricane Andrew. Building codes were updated. People were significantly more ready for the string of hurricanes that came through 1999-2005. Miami is still gonna be underwater due to climate change but the response to hurricanes was dramatic. People know how to deal with hurricanes in South Florida.

mlindner• 6 years ago

The wealth shifted because the British Empire lost it's navy and thus it's force projection which made it lose it's way to control it's colonies and it handing it's colonies to the US in lend lease. That was combined with a guarantee of global seas protection from the US navy. CCP has zero force projection even over their local area of the world and are wholly dependent on imports from the rest of the world for its economy. The US could shut down the economy of China and send it in to millions of people dying famine by just putting some blockades up between the middle east and China and China would cease to be a country.

Reason0773• 6 years ago

"right now the most likely candidate is Beijing."

Beijing is not even the financial hub of China. That would be Shanghai.

sgt1012• 6 years ago

The British Empire was the pivot of world power through to 1947. Yup, then it dissolved and Britain was bankrupt, but the transfer of wealth didn't go from London to New York, the continental power of the United States made all the wealth anyone needed. Bismark said it “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

matwood2• 6 years ago

Evacuation orders are given almost a week ahead of hurricanes now. Updated building codes after Andrew have made wind almost a non-issue for houses built in the last 20 years. Expanded flood zones have forced more houses to be built above the 100 year flood line. Local utility lines have mostly been moved underground to avoid wind and falling trees. The last time we received hurricane force winds we didn’t even lose cable.

Clearly we have learned nothing from hurricanes.

pyuser5835• 6 years ago

Americans have a strong scepticism of prognosticators.

Just look at children stories like chicken little and the boy who cried wolf.

That’s great when prognosticators are wrong: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/157/3791/914.2

Unlike America, China didn’t ignore Paul Erlich and his ilk. They responded by implementing the one child policy.

Originally intended to preserve their resources, they kept it because it aided in industrialization.

And so China is now a major polluter, is stripping away its resources at a massive scale, and about to hit a massive demographic cliff.

And in the process violated human rights on a massive scale.

thaumaturgy• 6 years ago

California especially has a lot of really great people in disaster management, from CalOES on down to the various county-level agencies that they coordinate with. That's not to say that things don't sometimes go upside-down; the destruction of the town of Paradise was an event that nobody had trained or planned for and there were a lot of relatively little things that got mishandled in the process, which slowed down some of the bigger things.

But then it was all used as a case study over the next year and became a training drill with new operations manuals for all the agencies involved.

So yeah, I get what you mean. New York seems to be taking the right steps here in the absence of a functioning federal government. I hope we don't get to see California in action, but if we do, I expect it will be a very fast, competent response.

nicoburns2• 6 years ago

They should be responding already surely?

Aloha2• 6 years ago

Thats one of the things about americanism, we have little reverence for tradition or authorities - we culturally value results more than process to achieve them. It has some downsides yes, but in times of crisis ie means that, we all just pick up and do our part - and frankly the best ideas usually float to the top.

Waterluvian3• 6 years ago

It looks sloppy as hell too. Which is partly why there's always so many complaints about how the US responds to any event.

watwut3• 6 years ago

we culturally value results more than process to achieve them

Frankly, that was not my impression from American management or institutions. The most important was rule following, then appearance of effort, results largely unimportant.

nicoburns2• 6 years ago

we culturally value results more than process to achieve them.

You do? Seems to me that there are some areas that this very much doesn't apply too. For example: market processes are preferred over functioning healthcare system. The right to bear arms is preferred over limiting mass shootings.

Capitalism is the ultimate authority in america. It's just so ingrained it's not seen as such.

baybal27• 6 years ago

And I think one of the strongest virtues of the United States is being proven by Trump

Strong military logistic?

I think it is such a strong side of US military, that if you compare the entire logistic capacity of the rest of world's militaries taken together, it will still not surpass the US.

handedness2• 6 years ago

Relevant article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475

CraigJPerry• 6 years ago

Yeah it’s true and when America does wake up to global warming, it’ll be a juggernaut on so many fronts. I genuinely believe that when America decides to act on global warming there will be zero room for negotiation by others.

It’s not in America’s short term interest though so this won’t happen any time soon.

tanilama• 6 years ago

It is certainly more comforting/assuring to see more actions take right now. Once mobilized, US starts to impress more.

But I fear what has been done is not enough, because it only feel necessary, but the virus is an exponential growing crisis, our capacity can not possible catch up with it.

Strict lockdown right now. Take the short term pain, but better for long term.

pyuser5835• 6 years ago

I’ve heard the opposite.

Locking down only works as long as people lock down. Once the lockdown ends, the virus re-emerges. The repeated lockdowns continue until a vaccine is created.

Taking less serious measures - only locking down the elderly - creates heard immunity, albeit with a higher death rate.

The absolute lockdown we are doing now means the crisis will go on longer.

The short term pain solution would be accepting the higher fatality rate for heard immunity.

For the sake of my elderly parents, I’m glad we’re starting with a lockdown.

Animats• 6 years ago

Yes, the wheels of production are starting to turn. Right now, there's a virus test shortage, a toilet paper shortage, a mask shortage, and a hand sanitizer shortage. Production of all those small items has already gone way up, and most of those shortages should be solved in a week or two.

Bigger items like ventilators, ICU suites, and hospitals take longer.

As for levels of government, that's very real. People outside the US often don't realize it, but the states have more power than the Federal government in many areas. I'm in San Mateo County, California, and we're in lockdown because the County Medical Officer and the county supervisors decided it was necessary. They didn't have to ask permission from any higher authority to do that. Action by the state governor came later. Action by the Federal government came even later, and was mostly advisory.

California has wildfires, earthquakes, and floods routinely. So the state's Office of Emergency Services is large and well-funded, and their emergency operations center is usually dealing with something. Most large cities have emergency operations centers.

It won't be enough at first. But this is going to be a months long problem, if not a year or two. The support facilities will catch up.

akiselev4• 6 years ago

People outside the US often don't realize it, but the states have more power than the Federal government in many areas.

Especially when a local or a statewide emergency is declared. At that point, all bets are off and authorities can do pretty much whatever they want until someone gets a judge to issue an injunction, which they're a lot less likely to do in a state of emergency unless its gross abuse of civil liberties. Even then, if it goes on long enough, executive power at all levels of government becomes even harder to curtail.

gentleman112• 6 years ago

There is a retail level toilet paper shortage due to hoarding and swine reselling it at massive markups. The supply continues to flow however

Der_Einzige3• 6 years ago

Show me evidence that the mask shortage and the ventilator shortage will be resolved at any point in this pandemic please.

jupp0r• 6 years ago

Bigger items like ventilators, ICU suites, and hospitals take longer.

Doctors and nurses take even longer.

gwright3• 6 years ago

I mean this kind of should have happened weeks ago, and the executive branch is a bit of a panicked joke.

And I feel like these sorts of virtue-signaling remarks makes it harder to focus on what to do now. It isn't even clear that anyone would have listened to the federal government weeks ago. Look at the criticism that was made when Chinese flights were restricted in January.

scollet• 6 years ago

The CEOs bit got an audible laugh out of me! Wash your hands of all sarcasm too.

adventured2• 6 years ago

The US always lags on a major crisis and then surges over time. It happens in every instance. It's because of the scale and nature of Federal -> State -> Local as a system, mixed with human rights and democracy (no authoritarian switch to throw, so to speak). The US has to put a lot of things in motion to mobilize at all levels and it's extraordinarily expensive, so you don't want to do it unless you must.

As recently as mid January the WHO was still repeating Chinese propaganda about the virus not being transmitted from person to person (China had known at that point for at least 30-45 days that that was a lie, they were trying to keep the world from isolating them and hammering their economy, hoping they could stop it quickly).

Trump's delays cost the US three to four weeks of additional prep time. From the first week of February (closer to when the US should have began to prepare nationally), versus the end of Feb / first week of March. It was also entirely unclear how infectious it was and what the mortality rate was likely to be, until well into February.

malandrew5• 6 years ago

Trump probably burned approximately the amount of time he bought by shutting down flights too and from China before everyone else.

wrs• 6 years ago

“Men and nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.” - Abba Eban

Tade0• 6 years ago

Note though that such things are usually done by some department of the US army - and that's no accident given that it's the most well funded and some of the most well prepared of such organizations in the world.

bamboozled• 6 years ago

Murica!

Taek5• 6 years ago

I really don't think they are doing enough. The virus is still growing at an exponential rate, and when you look at the other countries that managed to get things under control vs. the ones that didn't, the actions that NYC and the rest of America are taking fall squarely into "this looks like the ones that didn't get things under control."

Public transport needs to be disabled. People need to be required to wear a mask when they go out. Police need to enforce people staying inside.

Italy got the growth rate down to 15% per day. That's still enough to hit the whole population by early May.

jmull• 6 years ago

People need to be required to wear a mask when they go out.

Well, you can’t do that here because those masks don’t exist. We don’t have enough for healthcare workers, much less everyone else.

jariel• 6 years ago

I think in this case any piece of cloth will do - we're not talking N95s. Basically, it reduces the likelihood of spittle etc. and so it reduces spread.

That said Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore are all riding the Subways, going to Restaurants, going to work.

They're more aggressive with testing and tracking.

13415• 6 years ago

It's probably not surprising to anyone who knows how industrial production works, but to a layman like me it's really surprising how hard it seems to be to produce more suitable masks in a short time. I didn't expect the supply chain and machines for such simple products to be that complex and hard to set up.

fortran773• 6 years ago

And the response is to tell people "don't worry! Masks don't help. They only work for doctors!"

See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...

bagacrap2• 6 years ago

which masks are we talking about here? cloth masks used throughout the population effectively reduce the transmission rate

lonelappde3• 6 years ago

Who is driving all the essential workers to work without public transport?

dnhz• 6 years ago

How can it still be spreading like that if people are staying indoors away from each other? I read that grocery stores even limit the number of people shopping at one time. Is it spreading though essential-type workers?

umanwizard• 6 years ago

The typical latency between being infected and testing positive is quite long, I’d guess around two weeks. The new cases being reported now are from before the shutdown measures started in earnest.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

There's a period of days between exposure and symptomatic infection. The social distancing started ~a week ago Friday (and ramped up over the next several days).

We are only beginning to see the impact from that, and it will be quite a few more days until we see the full impact (and with some states taking longer to put the measures in place, even longer).

zamfi• 6 years ago

Italy got the growth rate down to 15% per day. That's still enough to hit the whole population by early May.

We won't know the lockdown's effect until all the severe cases from people who got sick pre-lockdown have shown up at the hospital. That will be in the next few days. If the number of new reported cases starts to drop from day to day, we'll know they succeeded.

If not...

Taek5• 6 years ago

It's hard to accept that Italy hasn't even been under water for a full two weeks yet, it feels like months.

But I guess you are right, Italy didn't really crack down until early March.

bagacrap2• 6 years ago

Do you have any data or is this idle fear mongering? We're living through a man made disaster and you say we aren't doing enough?

Look at the (higher quality) data from Germany and SK. Very low mortality. 99% or more do not need medical treatment. Yet the societal devastation is already immense and harming much more than 1%. It's uniquely bad in Italy. Not entirely clear why. But even there the vast majority of affected people are elderly and have other co morbidities. So let's put it in perspective when we're cancelling our children's future.

I agree with masks. That just makes sense. Martial law keeping folks inside? You're living in a fairy tale.

I don't think we should do nothing, even though the worst case scenario of doing nothing is less bad than what's already happening. But what we are doing is totally wrong headed, rather than "not enough". We need to focus on protecting vulnerable groups, not indiscriminately turn everyone into a victim.

malandrew5• 6 years ago

It's uniquely bad in Italy. Not entirely clear why.

Aging population that generally lives in multi-generational housing or at least in close proximity. The US, especially in blue states, is unique in how separated different generations are physically.

LeanderK• 6 years ago

I agree with masks

The problem in germany is that we don't have enough masks to give them to everyone. Right now we have to acquire enough so that our healthcare-system doesn't suffer. It's being discussed, but is seems that there's currently no way to make it work here.

sizzle3• 6 years ago

Why are people forgetting they can get infected through their eyes? We need protective eyewear in addition to N95 face mask + gloves.

narogab• 6 years ago

We have plenty of space (churches, meeting halls, school and university dormitories) to use for temporary hospitals w/o the Army building temporary buildings that will cost a fortune and later be torn down all on the taxpayers' dime. Charitable organizations, universities and institutions should be willing to donate those resources.

I don't want to pay the army for building: I want their doctors doing research on a cure/fix for Covid-19 and I want their soldiers alert and ready. It would be cheaper to hire immigrant Mexicans to build temporary hospitals.

Using the army to build hospitals when better space is already is a waste of time, a waste of money and little more than a boondoggle for the suppliers who are chosen.

And isn't this possibly a violation of the posse comitatus Act?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

crooked-v• 6 years ago

We have plenty of space (churches, meeting halls, school and university dormitories) to use for temporary hospitals

Making these spaces fit the physical needs of these hospitals (massive power requirements for equipment, hallways and elevators with certain amounts of clearance for transporting patients, extremely well-controlled ventilation systems, sanitizable surfaces everywhere, rooms laid out with central access for doctors and nurses) would take so much time and effort that it would be more money- and time-efficient to build new buildings with the expertise of a group practiced in building new, reasonably high-quality buildings as fast as possible... like, say, the Army.

These need to be modern hospitals, not 19th-century sanitariums where patients just get dumped into a bed and left to die or recover on their own.

It would be cheaper to hire immigrant Mexicans to build temporary hospitals.

Right, and I'm sure hiring random people to construct temporary buildings as fast as possible would result in something that won't fall in on peoples' heads immediately.

And isn't this possibly a violation of the posse comitatus Act?

The Posse Comitatus Act applies to the use of the military as law enforcement, so, no.

rtkwe4• 6 years ago

Posse Comitatus doesn't really apply they're not enforcing a law or acting as a policing force which is all that law actually cares about. The Army Corps of Engineers does a lot of projects like this, it's part of the reason they exist at all. Lots of the flood control along the Mississippi for example are COE works and they come in during emergencies to do stuff like this. For example during Katrina they were the ones repairing the dykes that had failed around New Orleans.

chupa-chups• 6 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22657717

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

The United States jumped from position 20 or so on the world ranking for the number of cases to spot number 3 in a manner of days. NYC doubled overnight. There was an article published all of seven hours ago that claimed the US was #4: https://www.newsweek.com/u-s-now-has-third-highest-number-co... it has already been made outdated by developments: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ .

Wonder what degree of revisionism the 'it is just a flu' crowd will engage in where they are on the record.

teddyvangogh3• 6 years ago

Very important:

1. Gov. Cuomo announces trial of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to start in NY

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/coronavirus-ny-gov-cuomo-say...

2. CDC: Healthcare workers OK to use homemade masks (bandana,scarf) as last resort.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2020/03/20/calling-all-...

“Healthcare personnel (HCP) use of homemade masks:

In settings where facemasks are not available, HCP might use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf) for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort. However, homemade masks are not considered PPE, since their capability to protect HCP is unknown. Caution should be exercised when considering this option. Homemade masks should ideally be used in combination with a face shield that covers the entire front (that extends to the chin or below) and sides of the face.”

jjjensen90• 6 years ago

Although NY is probably seeing an explosion in infections, this doubling is probably not a true growth in number of cases overnight, but instead representative of massively increased testing in NY.

vkou• 6 years ago

That's true.

But an actual doubling, measured by the number of people who can't breathe in a hospital currently takes 3-4 days.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

Yes, absolutely. Even so, and even if there is a lot of noise in the data the trend is alarming to put it mildly. With earlier testing and a more transparent picture people may have taken the warnings more serious. Now they are partying like it is 1999 and the results of that will only become visible two weeks from now. By the time tests will be more common across other populous states the USA will likely be the #1 country in the world regarding case count and the delayed response means they'll peak a lot higher than China.

This is far from over.

shishy• 6 years ago

The rate of spreading is still >> rate of testing

amiga_500• 6 years ago

I'm amazed they managed to scale testing.

sbilstein2• 6 years ago

I was wrong. Been in isolation now for 9 days.

senordevnyc• 6 years ago

From what I can tell (even here on HN by a few bad actors), they seem to have pivoted to a “we simply can’t do this to the economy; it’s not an option for a disease that only kills old and sick people”, without the faintest hint of a plan for what they’d actually do given what we know and the resources that we have.

We can all wish for the culture, test availability, and competent government that South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan apparently have, but we don’t have those. So their “plan” is effectively a plan to just let millions of people 60+ or with pre-existing conditions die without much effort to save them. It’s not only unconscionable, it’s incredibly stupid. Do they think we’re just going to go back to work and restaurants and on vacation while millions of our loved ones take their last gasps in a converted convention center somewhere? The economy grinds to a halt either way, and there’s no moral or political path forward for what they want to do. Which is why they don’t have the courage to even spell it out, it’s just some magic handwaving about how we must do something different.

And all this against the backdrop of them and people like them downplaying this from the start and putting us in this position.

baybal27• 6 years ago

We can all wish for the culture, test availability, and competent government that South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan apparently have, but we don’t have those. So their “plan” is effectively a plan to just let millions of people 60+ or with pre-existing conditions die without much effort to save them. It’s not only unconscionable, it’s incredibly stupid.

Why we had to wait until a crisis like this for this to be rendered bare for the wider population?

As I've said countless times before, the West has been on the downward trajectory for a very long time, both as a society, and as state entities.

What I call an "ultrapopulism" has been an ever growing trend in the West since around mid-nineties.

The Western nations are not just weak as societies, and nations, they are diseased (sorry for having to use this word now.)

The reasons for me moving from comfy life in the West to China is not because I so much enjoyed it, but for me having a realisation that this accelerating downward trend will have very real consequences in my lifetime, and that even money alone no longer favours the West.

tmpz22• 6 years ago

Isn’t the South Korean government known for massive amounts of corruption between itself and entities like Samsung? The good does not wash away the bad, nor the bad the good...

avz2• 6 years ago

Another counter-point to the inhumane position you're rebuking - one which speaks to people's self-interest - is that as the healthcare systems become overwhelmed they will eventually stop treating conditions and accidents which afflict everyone including young people.

DoreenMichele14• 6 years ago

Not all Americans are doing that.

I am actively trying to promote work from home options and mostly being ignored.

I am actively trying to talk about home health care options. It's been extremely controversial, so I am reluctant to push too hard.

There's a lot of disinterest or active blow back against any attempt at a grass roots movement in the absence of sufficient leadership from the top.

Given how powerful America is, it's not unreasonable for the world at large to be concerned.

teddyvangogh3• 6 years ago

It seems to be happening everywhere:

Netherlands: TOTAL CORONAVIRUS CASES QUADRUPLE IN A WEEK TO 4,204; DEATH TOLL REACHES 179

https://nltimes.nl/2020/03/22/total-coronavirus-cases-quadru...

forgottenplans• 6 years ago

We can’t build temporary quarantine centers, hermetically sealed units, gas mask or ventilators. We could predict all this and did, but incompetence. We could had made a coronavirus vaccine that could had potentially worked now, years ago. We could have general tests or fast tracked specific tests months ago.

All this seems like a much bigger problem than the virus itself. Our system is incapable of being efficient, effective or proactive.

qqqwerty• 6 years ago

And they are entirely ignoring the impact of this virus on our healthcare workers. Due to high exposure levels to the virus, they are at much higher risk of not just getting infected, but also developing higher severity of the disease.

We need to make "Support our Healthcare Workers" a bigger part of the messaging strategy. They are on the front lines of this battle, and when we fail to implement control measures, we are putting their lives at risk.

systemvoltage9• 6 years ago

US was delayed with the onset compared to Europe and the rest of the world. This is not some competition that lowest number of cases wins. If anything else, you need to account for cases/capita. Furthermore, India, a country of 1 billion+ citizens has less than 1000 cases. Why? Because they haven't got enough testing capacity.

Please stop this ranking nonsense. It is not helping in anyway. If we want to assess how effective each country will fare - look no further than totalitarian and authoritarian states. Also, wait for all of this to be over with and then we can assess who did better and who did worse. Amidst the crisis, I am frankly concerned about comments such as this.

Ranking by cases/capita (per 1M)

1. Iceland: 978

2. Switzerland: 864

3. Spain: 612

4. Norway: 417

5. Austria: 396

6. Germany: 297

7. Belgium: 293

8. Iran: 258

9. France: 245

10. Netherlands: 245

11. Denmark: 241

12. Sweden: 191

13. Ireland: 183

14. S Korea: 174

15. Portugal: 157

16. USA: 98

Ignoring smaller countries such as Estonia, Vatican City, etc Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Even the aforementioned ranking is useless because the onset is staggered. It is like taking a slice of a timeseries data in the middle of highest rates of changes and saying "Here! Look. We have some definitive answers."

I am in no way opposed to spreading the message to folks in deep south states who are largely ignoring this crisis. But using misleading data to alarm them is not the right way to go about this. The press should be doing their job of communicating what exactly is going on in hospitals, pressuring leaders of the states to consider the warnings, and generally taking an objective, scientific approach in informing the public.

Taek5• 6 years ago

These rankings are important because it helps us get a feel for what type of quarantine action is getting the virus under control.

Any country with sufficient testing that's managed to bring the growth rate below exponential is worth an enormous amount of attention, because we seem to have many countries who have taken action yet failed to stop exponential growth.

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

Be concerned all you want, but look at it this way: without the most populous nations (for instance, the USA) at the top of a list like this politicians can downplay the seriousness of the threat. HN has a small army of people who do nothing else than trying to make it seem like this is 'just a flu', or something slightly worse.

All of that taken together translates into people simply ignoring the danger and continuing their life making things much worse in the long run.

Viruses don't have legs, they need people to transport them. And as long as we're willing it gets spread around and some people will die. If rankings like these send the message loud and clear that this also concerns you then I'm all for the rankings, even if they are a bs statistic without taking into account the total population size. People find it much easier to relate to 5000 people dead than they do to 2000 people per million infected.

eezurr• 6 years ago

This list is meaningless unless you factor in the geographic sizes of the countries and what percentage of the land passes some density threshold.

If you split up the united states into regions, we definitely would not be 16th on the list.

ars• 6 years ago

You should rank in cases per test instead. Otherwise countries that simply don't test look very good.

vondur• 6 years ago

Now many people need to be hospitalized vs reported cases? Last I heard here in Los Angeles county we had like 270 reported cases and like 40 people hospitalized. This is in a county of around 10 million people.

greedo• 6 years ago

Roughly 20% of those infected required hospitalization.

mhh__• 6 years ago

Wonder what degree of revisionism the 'it is just a flu' crowd will engage in where they are on the record

Just check Elon Musk's twitter apparently

FPGAhacker3• 6 years ago

I’m pretty doubtful that this is much worse than the flu. But I am self quarantined, stocked up on food etc. my level of doubt is not nearly strong enough to counter the severity of consequences if I am wrong.

My wife has asthma, and my parents are elderly. I’m middle aged. I’m much more concerned about hurting other people.

That said, flu statistics aren’t great. I’m pretty sure I’ve had the flu, due to severity of illness. But I’ve never been tested for it. I don’t know anyone who has. When people die of pneumonia etc they Aren’t automatically tested for flu.

marvin2• 6 years ago

Well, the flu doesn't infect 100 million Americans in the same quarter. Just to mention one way in which Covid-19 is clearly worse than the flu.

eanzenberg• 6 years ago

We wont know the extent until 1-2 years from now when statistical studies are done to show the true danger of the Chinese coronavirus. It could very well be the flu, a 10x flu, or worse, or better. It’s the uncertainty that’s killing us, for lack of a better term.

mindslight• 6 years ago

There will be no revisionism, because that would require respect for the value of speaking truthfully and standing behind your words. Rather, bringing this up will just be met with shallow denials that it wasn't important at the time, that nobody could have known, that the questioner is part of the problem, etc.

You can already see the narrative of the ignorance club is shifting to "we're doing a good job" - focusing on current nascent actions and completely ignoring the month long head start given to the pandemic in the US by inaction, incompetence, and outright lies (eg masks).

Not that it makes sense to waste energy bickering about these things when there is still a major problem to be addressed, but the point is that the month or two long societal shutdown we're experiencing is best attributed to a failure of our institutions rather than the force of nature.

pjmorris• 6 years ago

I keep having this crazy, irresponsible, dangerous... hopeful idea: virus cruises. Take one or more available cruise ships, equip it with ventilators, tests, supplie, ask for volunteer crew, passengers, and medical staff, and send everyone off for a two week cruise to get deliberately infected with the virus, study its characteristics, and start to build herd immunity. Seems like it'd be a way to get started fighting back.

jawns2• 6 years ago

I don't think you realize what the severe cases look like.

This isn't chickenpox.

This is people drowning in their own fluid-filled lungs, having to be physically restrained to keep from pulling out their tubes, with a surprisingly rapid progression from mild symptoms to requiring a ventilator to being declared dead.

You willing to sign up for that?

jacquesm19• 6 years ago

You'd be murdering people. That's an un-ethical medical experiment. About as unethical as what already happened to those on the Diamond Princess. 8 of them are dead now, there are still another 15 in critical with some of those expected to eventually die.

Izkata4• 6 years ago

Just to punch it in a bit more: The ship was quarantined about a month and a half ago. This isn't a week-or-so sickness.

layoutIfNeeded• 6 years ago

If this is not peak HN I don’t know what it is.

fma4• 6 years ago

You're getting a lot of downvotes...but this is how the eradication of Smallpox started...through inoculation.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_variolation.h...

burfog9• 6 years ago

It gets interesting if you start people on the anti-viral medication before infecting them. That should make the disease very mild. There might not be anybody who gets severe illness.

DoreenMichele14• 6 years ago

The Army Corps of Engineers is one of the finer things in the US. I find it encouraging that they are involved with this effort.

Please note that's an extremely specific observation and doesn't implicitly suggest anything else, positive or negative, about the rest of this situation.

dehrmann• 6 years ago

They are and they aren't. What they did for New Orleans is stupid-incredible. Stupid because it's a river-gulf city below sea level that the rivers are trying to absorb with no plans to relocate. Incredible because wow, that's an accomplishment. A lot of that is subject to political whims, though, so it's not necessarily the Corps's decision.

DoreenMichele14• 6 years ago

https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/

throwaway8291• 6 years ago

At current pace the whole US will be infected by May (I wonder, whether the market have priced that in already).

cm21874• 6 years ago

To be fair, the market isn't pricing deaths of old and sick people. It is pricing the suppression of economic activity as a result of the lockdown. If the whole of the US were really infected by May and if by June the lockdown would be off and the virus in the rear mirror, you would see a big market rallye.

listennexttime• 6 years ago

So what changed in the last few days? What is playing out is EXACTLY what epidimiologists, scientists, mathemeticians, the US intelligence agencies, and the WHO have been saying for over a month at this point. This has ALL been predicted and no one fucking cared or listened until it is BY DEFINITION TOO LATE.

I've even been saying this for weeks now, and I get challenged on it. Even though every single day we continue to just follow or beat the worst trend lines from the worst affected countries BECAUSE WE'RE NOT DOING ANY OF THE THINGS WE KNOW WORK.

What's going to be different next time? Are we going to have a global conversation about our inability to plan more than 2 days out? Our inability to grasp truly horrific facts and accept them, instead of letting fearful human brains go "That could never happen in America" (lol) even in the fact of raw statistics? Or is this just another thing I'm going to be eye-rolled at and told "it's just how it is". A global pandemic and economic slump (I'm metering my predictions here because this site doesn't seem to be able to handle realistically gloomy predictions for the future) still isn't enough to get us to ask how we got here?

tekkk• 6 years ago

I today saw the number of infected for US jump 8k (it seemed to have been reduced from 14k, which was really alarming). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

A quite worrying turn that rate of cases is ramping up so quickly in US. Don't know what else to say. And there isn't really that much you can do as an individual, if the other people are not taking it that seriously. Just yesterday I saw a child with his parent cough with a rattling sound in a supermarket without covering his mouth. It is these types of small actions of neglectedness that compound, making this virus so hard to stop from spreading.

Hopefully you at least build antibodies when you get sick. Otherwise this will never stop spreading until we get a working vaccine.

ms512• 6 years ago

I today saw the number ... https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Note that the number for the current day isn't yet necessarily complete. For example, as of this writing, Washington and Illinois were not yet in the table [1].

Washington numbers get released at 3pm PST [1] and Illinois numbers don't specifiy an update time [2]. It looks like the number should end up around 8.5k today, so better than yesterday's 14k.

Of course, with all the back-and-forth on test availability, comparing numbers day-to-day is challenging, since more testing is likely to reveal a higher absolute number of cases.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[2] https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus

[3] https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19

alkonaut2• 6 years ago

until it is BY DEFINITION TOO LATE.

There could surely have been faster responses (testing, movement restrictions...)

But hospitals? They are by definition too late when people die from lack of Hospital capacity. Doesn’t hurt to have some margin, but from what I have heard it doesn’t sound like NY has run out of capacity just yet.

dang2• 6 years ago

Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Reason0773• 6 years ago

"The Governor also issued an executive order temporary closing the Department of Motor Vehicles for all in-office visits. Online transactions, including for license renewals, are still be available."

It seems a bit dated to even have in-office visits for things like driving license renewals. The UK equivalent, DVLA, closed all their office counters a few years back. Now everything is done online and by post.

rtkwe4• 6 years ago

There's still things like driving tests that need to be done in person how do they do those? Most things can be done online but they keep the locations open for things like RealID and driving/vision tests.

Reason0773• 6 years ago

Driving test centres still operate as before. You register, book, and pay for your test online, then go to the test centre at the booked time.

But routine things like vehicle taxes, license renewals, updating addresses, etc, are all done online.

lostapathy2• 6 years ago

On the contrary, I wish we'd be more aggressive about drivers licensing. The whole process is fairly meaningless.

My mother-in-law barely has enough motor control to turn the key to start the car, yet somehow she just renewed her license. People like her need to be taken for a test drive, not allowed to renew online.

rtkwe4• 6 years ago

That more of a retesting requirement than a renewal problem. We can have both, easy online renewal for most people and an age cutoff for people where they require periodic retesting.

refurb• 6 years ago

You can do a lot online with the DMV, but not everything.

That said, the DMV is probably one of the most archaic, bureaucratic and dysfunctional government services in the US.

Ripping on the DMV is a part of US popular culture for a reason.

dev1n6• 6 years ago

Here is the very informative briefing Cuomo gave today [1]. Quick facts for the state of New York:

1. ~15,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19

2. 114 individuals have died from COVID-19

    a. 70% of deaths were ages 70 and over and "majority" had underlying health conditions.

    b. ~80% of those who died under the age of 70 had underlying health conditions.

3. 18-49 years old represent 53% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases.

4. hospitalization rate of 13% which is very good, flattening the curve works. Stay inside.

Cuomo has mandated the City of New York to hand over a plan in 24 hours (as of today) to outline how exactly the local governments will curtail overcrowding in parks and other public places. When asked why Cuomo can't do this himself, he stated in a fair manner that while he does have the power to do so, he would not be as apt to devise the plan as the local governments are. This is the right move.

Gov. Cuomo made a similar judgement when pressing the federal gov't to curtail fed regulations and to allow him to open over 200 labs available within the state of New York to provide faster testing than what the federal government was able to do.

This opening of state-wide labs is why NY has nearly 15x the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases when compared to the next highest, the state of Washington. NY also has a more accurate hospitalization rate because of this, which is a very important number to be tracking when figuring out how to "flatten the curve" which currently sits at 13%.

Governor Cuomo is following the playbook of South Korea as effectively as possible in this current political climate and has successfully deployed every move available to him and helped push federal barriers down to allow NY to attack this virus faster than any other state. He is showing leadership that everyone wishes to see at the Federal level.

Having all of these laboratories in the state of NY makes me grateful every time I think about how much I pay in state taxes. But I can't help to think about how all of the bloodshed is a direct result of the failure of leadership at the federal level to be proactive about the situation. There is nothing of greater importance than every individual human life. The federal government sacrificed these people and all the people who will suffer and die in the future in the name of better polling numbers, placating a fan base, and keeping stocks afloat for a mere month longer than they would have.

Edit: Moved 53% statistic into its own bullet. Don't know know why I had it as a sub-bullet of the deaths statistic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbIVnnMT18

ttul• 6 years ago

Perhaps residents of WA will now contemplate the wisdom of higher taxes.

crowbahr• 6 years ago

I suspect Washington will have an income tax roughly around the time we've got a functional self sufficient colony out on Ganymede.

manacit• 6 years ago

WA resident here, I am quite happy with the response here relative to many other places.

UW has been running 2-3k tests per day for much longer than the NY testing apparatus has been spun up, we've actually run more tests per capita than NY (though I expect things to look more normal soon), with additional capacity coming online soon. Those tests have maintained a ~7% positivity rate, which is good news.

We were some of the first to report community transmission thanks to the hard work of our research community.

In addition, the business community in the Seattle area worked to push people to WFH long before other places, keeping hundreds of thousands of people from being potential vectors for spreading COVID-19.

Frankly I don't think now is the time to be making remarks like this. WA is not perfect, but it does not boil down to tax rate.

phd5142• 6 years ago

The state tax rate in NY has nothing to do with this response (that seems quite good) to the COVID-19 pandemic. The labs that will be performing these extra tests are private labs, not labs funded by NY state taxes. I wish people could separate their criticism of the different governmental responses to this pandemic from their preferred stance on domestic tax policy.

akiselev4• 6 years ago

AFAICT the State of New York is contracting out these labs directly and paying for all of the testing.

dev1n6• 6 years ago

We have a well-funded state university system paid for by tax dollars which provides these labs with competent, well-educated employees. But yes, these labs are not directly funded by state dollars.

kortilla• 6 years ago

Having all of these laboratories in the state of NY makes me grateful every time I think about how much I pay in state taxes.

Those labs paid for by federal money?

dev1n6• 6 years ago

Nope most are private labs! But what do you think drew these labs to New York? Possibly a well-educated populace driven by a successful state university system funded by tax dollars? You better believe it!

baxtr3• 6 years ago

2.c is not related to the 114 who died, is it?

dev1n6• 6 years ago

No - sorry for the confusion.

18-49 year olds represent 53% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state of New York.

baxtr3• 6 years ago

It’s interesting that you are “relatively” optimistic about the situation in New York. I’ve been watching Mayor De Blasio in the recent weeks, and, he seems to have become more and more nervous over the course. Almost desperate. Maybe he is just playing it or he is not as cool as Cuomo, who, granted, does a good job so far.

gwright3• 6 years ago

But I can't help to think about how all of the bloodshed is a direct result of the failure of leadership at the federal level to be proactive about the situation.

I feel like this is hindsight thinking and it is also a waste of energy and divisive at this point in the situation. We should all be focusing on what to do next. There will be lots of time for retrospectives afterwards.

gist2• 6 years ago

a. 70% of deaths were ages 70 and over and "majority" had underlying health conditions.
b. ~80% of those who died under the age of 70 had underlying health conditions.

Underlying health conditions is a very broad metric. It could mean something as simple (possibly I don't know for sure) as 'high blood pressure'. I think we'd like to think of it as more severe than what that category includes.

It's similar in a way when their is a fire and the local papers say 'had several building code violations'. Without knowing what the violations were (and if they even mattered to the fire) I don't think many conclusions could be drawn.

And this assumes things are even categorized correctly in the first place.

Of course 'age' is age so that is most likely an accurate metric.

dev1n6• 6 years ago

I agree. I don't like having underlying health conditions listed as a statistic. I think it leads to people thinking "oh it only really affects people who are sick" and then those people go about their day as usual and spread the disease further. I didn't want to skip over it though out of fear of someone saying I tried to frame the stats to fit a narrative or something.

fyp• 6 years ago

The NY governor in your video cited that 40-60% of people are going to get it (20 min mark) and the same thing was said by CA governor a couple days ago too (56%): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22633570

So it seems like there's a consensus within the top-level leadership that containment is impossible. I still don't understand why we've given up when China managed to do it.

dev1n6• 6 years ago

My understanding of containment is that it is only effective when testing and tracing are radically pursued. There just are not enough resources at the state level (at this point) to do this with the effectiveness China has managed to do it. So we are left with one tool to fix this which is flatten the curve to not overwhelm the healthcare system and lead to further deaths. South Korea has been doing a lot of tracing and they are starting to see this as a great success, but mostly due to south korea's ability to track phones of people diagnosed positive.

rb8082• 6 years ago

I think they mean over the next few years. This virus is in every city in the world, we can't contain it everywhere. Eventually its just another endemic disease, but one we can vaccinate for and treat at a steady rate.

fspeech• 6 years ago

I don't get the "NY is testing more" claim. Based on the data I have seen https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en/test NY tested 61401 so far with 15168 positive for a positive rate of 24.7%, while WA tested 27121 with 1793 positive for a positive rate of 6.6%. NY testing seems very restrictive. CA is now limiting tests due to shortage of swabs and PPEs.

robomartin• 6 years ago

A couple of observations:

First, most of what’s out there in the media and popular discussion is nothing less than ignorant. Sometimes I feel people watch too many movies and think they are real.

Under normal conditions it can take over a year to go from nothing to making something as simple as a certified N95 mask at scale. Under normal conditions component lead times in electronics can easily be in the 8 to 16 week range. Not to mention such things as manufacturing tooling, molds, test systems, etc.

Making hardware is hard for a reason. It takes time, and money can’t always accelerate the timeline.

And so, reporters pounding away at test kit, mask or PPE is ignorant and counterproductive. Making 100 million masks in haste could result in ineffective masks that provide little protection.

This problem is exacerbated by a supply chain that has been the subject of major disruption.

The sad reality is, when you don’t control the entire supply chain you can only accomplish so much. This is surely a lesson that might change the world post COVID-19.

Aside from that. It seems to me converting cruise ships to temporary hospitals might be the quickest way to expand capacity. They are self-contained little cities with rooms for thousands.

gist2• 6 years ago

Interesting life lesson for those who are not familiar is the concept I think it's called 'don't spit into the wind'.

By this I mean all of the politicians who constantly gave Trump a hard time at each and every turn. I don't mean any in particular investigation and I don't mean they needed to agree and not criticize him at all at any time. But maybe they should have thought that this person 'The President' has the ability to give their region (or their state) what they need 'greenlight' and yes he should do it because 'it's the right thing to do' but human decision making and interaction is more than that. And people are people. This is no different for any political process or politician. Sometimes you have to simply (to use the phrase) 'not be a dick' if there is a person in power who can give you things you need to play the game. Doesn't mean you should like the game and doesn't mean it shouldn't be that way but in the end it is the way life often is.

doctoboggan• 6 years ago

Does anyone know if it is possible to volunteer for the Army Corps of Engineers?

chiefalchemist• 6 years ago

Over the past days, an inspection team led by the Army Corps of Engineers, and including state officials from the Office of General Services, the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York

Huh? What? How was this not already done? YEARS ago? What if this was something _fast_ moving?

We knew a pandemic was inevitable. No stock pile of mask? No plan for ad hoc hospitals? If they're making it up as they go then what has FEMA, the DoD and the CDC been doing with our money? Using it for TP?

leto_ii2• 6 years ago

This effort should be commended. However, I'm wondering, where are all the billionaires and corporations when the world needs them? I'm not even asking this flippantly. Seriously, how come they're not doing anything? Just for the past few months Bloomberg spent half a billion essentially to achieve nothing.

Couldn't he repeat the feat and build a few hospitals to help out his home state? Or his country? How about everyone else?

asdff• 6 years ago

I believe he could repeat that feat 120 times and still be a billionaire.

leto_ii2• 6 years ago

Indeed. Maybe we should demand it of him and of others in his position.

Regular people are placed under a tremendous burden all over the world and they are expected to cooperate and to sacrifice.

The very least the rich could do is shoulder part of the financial burden.

dillondoyle• 6 years ago

* 1 billion...

teddyvangogh3• 6 years ago

Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: 'We're going to be fine'

https://news.yahoo.com/why-nobel-laureate-predicts-quicker-2...

BrandonMarc• 6 years ago

Why didn't we start a month ago? 6 weeks ago?

huffmsa• 6 years ago

All of those shipping container to modular homes should be working on making mobile hospital wards.

Doesn't need to be fancy, just functional and better than being in a tent.

Need someone to coordinate it though.

Army Corps of Engineers to Build Temporary Hospitals in NY

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