, 03.21.2020 09:00 AM

Nearly 170,000 impressions

A lot of people seem to agree with this. Hope I’m wrong.

45 Comments

  1. duojet says:

    did some math. it’s sobering:
    Between March 13 and March 20, the number Covid-19 cases in the United States rose from 2,163 to 16,009.

    An average of 33% increase per day.

    Extrapolating, at the current rate
    March 27: 120K
    April 3: 875K
    April 10: 6.5M

    For “closed cases” 90K recovered/discharged, 11K deaths. Implying a fatality rate of ~10%

  2. Fred Pertanson says:

    With 10 times our population, they will have 10 times as many cases.

    The genie is out of the bottle. The only way to put it back in is to test everybody and quarantine. We have asymptomatic people wandering around all over the place.

  3. Peter says:

    Likely. Our death rate is already less than half (279 vs. 13). We had about a week’s head start on closings and isolation. Our testing is more comprehensive and our major inner cities are much healthier, socio-economically speaking. Our political culture is more deferential to government. But I’d feel better beating them at hockey than at this.

    • Peter says:

      BTW, those of us in isolation or semi-isolation, or working from home, are starting to understand how dependent we are and will continue to be on the folks our there providing many services. Healthcare workers, grocery store and pharmacy staff, police, Amazon delivery people, etc., etc. Many, many others. These are all now high-stress positions for those workers, especially those with families. Show your appreciation. TIP them generously or find some other creative way to reward them if you can’t or they can’t accept tips. You’ve now got lots of time to figure out how. Warren, a Tweet on this?

  4. PJH says:

    Well if the morons partying on Florida beaches over Spring break are any indication, yes. Canada, by and large, is a far better educated country, with a far less population density, two things that work in our favour. But it appears “Orange Man Bad” after a few early misteps, has found his groove with his team. This pandemic will either make or break his Presidency. If his team is able to keep the lid on this pandemic…he will be rewarded with a second term. If it roars out of control, he’s done like dinner. Pray that Chloroquine is effective, or the US may make Italy look like a walk in the park, possibly Canada and Mexico too….

    • Gyor says:

      I agree 100%, this is make or break time for Trump and despite his early mistakes its still to he desided.

      UBI could be a huge feather in his cap.

      • PJH says:

        The electorate has the collective memory of a gnat….if people see that he handled the CCPCoronaVirus* ably, even with the first missteps, that is what they are going to remember…along with UBI cheques in their hot little hands(which hopefully will be increased for the least fortunate in society…$1200 per person, 500 per kid per month is the figure Ive heard if you have filed with the IRS…$600 a month if you have not….which is chicken feed) Benefits are reduced if you earn over 75K and are eliminated if you earn over 99K…Hes already blocked evictions and foreclosures for low income people for two months with a promise of more assistance to higher income folks….It aint perfect, but “Orange man bad” is trying….and if the economy starts to cook again, once this CCPPlague passes, as I am sure it will, esp with all the pent up demand for products and services…..he will be rewarded with a second term….but how he handles the CCPCoronaVirus* pandemic will be the acid test for his administration.

        *ChineseCommunistPartyCoronaVirus

  5. the real Sean says:

    Completely agree:

    – Better public healthcare system
    – More trust in government
    – More trust in science / evidence / doctors
    – less social inequality

  6. Steve Teller says:

    Yes, I think this is a distinct possibility. Not primarily due to the Mango Mussolini’s inaction, but because the U.S. is more urban than Canada. This virus has shown that it attacks most relentlessly in densely-populated areas. There are more of those, per capita, in the U.S. than in Canada.

    If I am right about this, it will be interesting to see peoples’ opinions about urban planning post-crisis. It was very trendy to suggest that suburbs are “bad”, and densely-packed urban areas (with lots of mass transit, etc) are good. The virus may be one thing that evidences the benefits of spreading out.

  7. Shawn says:

    As compared to what? percentage or numbers. US has 330.000.000 people compared to Canada’s is 37.000.000. If 3% is the going rate for deaths of this virus than The US just because of the size of their population will seem much larger. Nice try Warren trying to play Nostradamus once again.

  8. joe long says:

    Why would the US be hit very, very hard and Canada less so?

    Oh I get it we have the illustrious Justin Trudeau at the helm and the Americans have Trump.

    But on the other hand the most populous US states have Democrats in charge while non-Liberals are in charge in Canada.

    Perhaps the key difference is a media mostly hostile to Trump and a Canadian media that is mostly kind to Trudeau. So the true difference may be in the reporting.

    • Gyor says:

      Because Canada has fewer infections and fewer deaths then the US even when taking into account population size differences. The US is roughly 10 times are population, but their infections and deaths are greater then 10 times ours.

      There are alot of possible reasons for that, so I don’t give Trudeau credit for that.

  9. Quo Vadis says:

    Not with you on this one…
    Canada has many of its own foibles in its response to this crisis but so many Canadian pundits seem to feel better by comparing and criticizing the US.
    Fighting the virus is only half the battle. How well the recovery is handled is as critical if not more. Two things to consider: how was the state of the country prior to the hit by the virus and how weakened will it be after the virus is dealt with. I suggest Canada was very damaged going into this and some experts were predicting a Canadian recession was at hand (rail blockades, self inflicted gutting of the resource sector and other industries, etc) recovery will be very painful.

    I have often thought that our political leadership and MSM had an over the top preoccupation with climate change as our gravest threat at the neglect of other threats.

  10. Mb says:

    I think the exact opposite. We just shut the border a week ago. We shall see in a few weeks.

    • Fred from BC says:

      “I think the exact opposite. We just shut the border a week ago. We shall see in a few weeks.”

      I agree. The US stopped allowing flights from China, and then other nations, long before Canada did. Liberals initially accused Donald Trump of racism and xenophobia, but have since changed their tune.

      You know what is really not helping, though? People being allowed to spread complete bullshit like “Donald Trump called the coronavirus a hoax”. HE DID NOT. All the fact checking sites (including Snopes) agree that he did not. But that doesn’t matter to the people who hate Trump enough to continue to tell lies about him.

      They still aren’t getting it, though…from the individual bloggers, commenters and trolls to the so-called mainstream media like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. You people still marvel (and are outraged) at the fact that despite every stupid thing Trump has ever said or done, every boast and exaggeration, every lie or outrageous fabrication he has ever uttered, his popularity and the likelihood of his re-election is *still increasing*!

      “HOW is this still happening??”, you wail.

      “This is impossible!” , you cry.

      “It makes no logical sense! WHAT does he need to do for people to see the truth about him??”

      You already know the answer. Donald Trump gets away with all this outrageous behavior because NO ONE BELIEVES YOU.
      You’ve told so many lies about him so many times (and justified it to yourselves every time, of course) that your credibility is now NO BETTER than his.

      (yeah, think about *that* for a second. That’s just sad…)

      I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: He does and says so much wrong that you really, really *don’t need * to tell lies about him (what, the truth isn’t enough for you?)….and yet you still persist in doing so, over and over again. Why? Someone please explain it to me, because I still just don’t get why you are all so happily and enthusiastically willing to shoot yourselves in the foot time and time again.

      Oh well, screw it, then. Get ready for another 4 years of President Donald Trump. And remember: you did this to yourselves.

      • Fred Pertanson says:

        Great response.

      • Peter says:

        They’re talking to themselves, Fred. There’s no point anymore in trying to combat TDS or even trying to convince them that, flawed has he may be, he has a ways to go before giving serious competition to Hitler. Even thoughtful leftists who demur, like Taibbi and Greenwald, pay for their heresies. What is actually more worrisome is that he has become their standard for their positions on public policy. No need for any study or research, or even to ponder and reflect, if he’s for it, we’re agin’ it! That was bad enough about North Korea and the Middle East, but it could prove frightening if they all see come to believe second-guessing his every word and deed on the pandemic is their key to victory.

        • joe long says:

          And Trudeau is a humble truth teller!

        • Fred from BC says:

          ” There’s no point anymore in trying to combat TDS or even trying to convince them that, flawed has he may be, he has a ways to go before giving serious competition to Hitler.”

          (LOVE that reference, but you may have inadvertently triggered our resident TDS-afflicted troll with it. Poor little guy…not bright enough to actually follow a simple argument (but too proud to ask someone smarter to explain it to him), he is invariably forced to fall back on the same tired old ‘shoot the messenger’ tactic that his kind always resorts to. Might be funny, if it wasn’t so damn sad…;)

          I see the Democrats are now reminding everyone how they were the preferred Party of slavery and the KKK: holding the Covid-19 relief bill for ransom by demanding ridiculous ‘riders’ on airline fuel efficiency. more power for big unions and wind and solar power subsidies (etc).

          WTF, Democrats?? You go from wishing for an economic downturn to stalling a relief bill and hoping that Americans WILL DIE? Seriously? Just to hurt Donald Trump’s re-election chances? Wow…even for you, that’s despicable.

          I expect that the American public will be letting you know in the next few days just how much they appreciate your efforts.

  11. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Couple COVID-19 with a likely Depression and even Jesus Christ would be thrown out on his ass.

    Remember how WH national security briefings on the former in January and February led to nothing, so…?

    Hello, President Biden.

  12. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Meanwhile, who’s the imbecile who killed Dodd-Frank and deregulated Wall Street, the banks and insurance companies? Here’s a hint: his name isn’t Biden.

  13. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    I don’t believe in any of the conspiracy theories about deliberate weaponization and release but I do worry about adequate containment at CSL 3 and CSL 4 (BSL-3, BSL-4) labs. If agents, toxins or pathogens get out, the world is in incredibly serious trouble.

    • Robert White says:

      I was part of the Harvard Working Group put together by Dr. Marc Lipsitch to rid the USA of the BSL-4 Labs due to lackadaisical safety standards all throughout the USA. In 2014 he put the group together just via a list of names attached to a statement of warning for the USA Government. In 2016 the USA agreed with the Harvard Working Group thesis and we were successful in terms of closing the BSL-4 Labs. All BSL-4 deadly virus testing moved to Wuhan China after that.

      Given the warnings that Dr. Lipsitch delivered to the USA Government it is no wonder that we are now evidencing a bioweaponized release that was either by mistake or intentional.

      The genotype will leave the forensic fingerprint needed to assess origin.

      RW

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Robert,

        The mind simply boggles what with Fort Detrick being reopened again by Trump for BSL-3 and BSL-4 work. And the CDC is letting it happen. Unbelievable, dangerous and likely catastrophic.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Apparently BSL-3 work at Detrick includes the various corona viruses (MERS, SARS, etc.) while BSL-4 concentrates on Ebola, Smallpox, Anthrax, Bubonic Plague and Ricin.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        One would think that the highly localized nature of the initial release would suggest that it was accidental but the secretive and disingenous character of China’ s first response is indeed a cause for pause.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Mike,

        Quite obviously, this information is both open-sourced and declassified.

  14. PK says:

    I’m pretty annoyed that folks at the park, and the grocery store, aren’t observing social distancing, walking side by side, taking up too much space, taking their kids and they are all over the place, so you can’t social distance, offended and childish when you point it out – we have to have police and security guards enforce this because they aren’t observing public health recommendations.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      PK,
      I went briefly to the groceries today. I chose a store (number three) that had the least cars in the parking lot. Then I social distanced by taking the long inconvenient way to each alley. Then I waited until the check out line was minimal before paying with a credit card. And I now wear gloves more often than The Queen.

  15. Tod Cowen says:

    Yanks have more knuckleheads per capita than Canada, and we will pay the price. We elected Trump FFS.

  16. Mark says:

    Remember, the US has 15 times the number of confirmed cases than we do and about 40 times more deaths.

  17. Mark says:

    I should have said the US has about 25-times more deaths than Canada. Also, let’s compare New York City with Toronto. The difference in infection rates and deaths is stark.

  18. Al in Cranbrook says:

    You just can’t make up s*** like this…

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-say-dems-blocking-coronavirus-relief-over-ideological-wish-list

    Now the Dems are trying to pack a COVID relief package with climate change crap! And union bargaining whatever! And God only knows what else!

    WTF is going on in these morons’ heads????

    • Fred from BC says:

      “WTF is going on in these morons’ heads????”

      My guess would be “…but…but…TRUMP!”

      That’s it. That’s all they think they need. Nothing else matters to them, to the point where they don’t even care if Americans DIE because Trump, right? He lives rent-free in their heads, he haunts their dreams and they are absolutely, totally fixated on bringing him down *by any means necessary*. No matter the cost, no matter who gets hurt. Sickening, isn’t it?

      There is a time and place for partisan games, and it’s NOT when people’s lives are at stake.

      (and no, this is NOT about whatever actions Donald Trump may or may not have taken so far: this is about the Republicans trying to rush a bill through RIGHT NOW to help as many people as possible, and the Democrats deliberately blocking it RIGHT NOW. No amount of spin will change that fact, so don’t even bother trying (looking at you, Darwin)…)

      • Fred,

        Remember what the two-faced Trump said as a candidate about the stock market and the so-called Obama bubble and QE? Well, people losing their jobs is now on him because he bought in to the Mnuchin and Kudlow bullshit, knowing full well that it would ultimately never work.

        • Fred from BC says:

          Don’t know anything about that, Ronald. I just know that the Democrats back-peddled on their extortion attempt so fast that they damn near fell over (must have been horrified by the polling).

          As for Barack Obama, he was the driving force behind more than one bad piece of legislation (Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, the Iranian nuclear ‘deal’), as was George Bush (Department of Homeland Security) and of course Bill Clinton (the North Korean nuclear ‘deal’, and of course his responsibility for the US housing crash/worldwide recession). Our own Conservative government once tried to write a bill targeting child pornography but accidentally ended up criminalizing teenagers writing love letters to each other. Seems that whenever governments try to do anything *in a hurry* they screw it up royally, when they should be taking the time to do it properly.

          • Fred,

            We can argue whether Dodd-Frank was passed while imperfect, which I think is fair. But anyone who knows anything about the greed-anything-goes mentality that afflicts financial services knows that it was possibly essential in the wake of 2008. Point is, only 99% of Wall Street are carbon copies of the London Whale. Another example on that side of the pond is, of course, LIBOR.

      • Peter says:

        This one’s for you, Mike.

  19. WestGuy says:

    I’m not sure that the whole “blame Trump” arguement holds up. Look at New York which tends to swing left rather than right. Same for Washington State and California. I think it’s less about political leanings and more about people not being willing to make changes in their preferences and priorities. And places which tend to see a lot of international visitors as well.
    I think the only reason Canada will fare better is we have sparseness on our side. Because even when we have obvious dumbasses (crowded beaches, etc) they’re fewer in number.

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