Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Bunion 2020]

Good news. 39 million N-95 masks located.

Bad news, its a drop in a big bucket.

[Deebased]

Which is radically different than the way Dailywire spun it. If you just read their article you'd think he simply decided to change the simulation parameters on a whim when in reality it had everything to do with the new policies put in place in the UK.

From the DW article

“One last point here: Ferguson gives the lockdown credit, which is *interesting* — the UK only began [its] lockdown 2 days ago, and the theory is that lockdowns take 2 weeks or more to work,” stressed Berenson. “Not surprisingly, this testimony has received no attention in the US — I found it only in UK papers. Team Apocalypse is not interested.”

[The AD]

From the DW article

“One last point here: Ferguson gives the lockdown credit, which is *interesting* — the UK only began [its] lockdown 2 days ago, and the theory is that lockdowns take 2 weeks or more to work,” stressed Berenson. “Not surprisingly, this testimony has received no attention in the US — I found it only in UK papers. Team Apocalypse is not interested.”

I'm not sure what's *interesting* about it. It's a simulation of what would happen if the lockdown continues. Makes perfect sense to me.

[TBS]

Trump issues new sort-of guidance to Governors about changes to lock-down protocols.
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/82204...rus-guidelines

My favorite passage - bold mine

This is what we envision: Our expanded testing capabilities will quickly enable us to publish criteria, developed in close coordination with the Nation's public health officials and scientists, to help classify counties with respect to continued risks posed by the virus. This will incorporate robust surveillance testing, which allows us to monitor the spread of the virus throughout the country. Under these data-driven criteria, we will suggest guidelines categorizing counties as high-risk, medium-risk, or low-risk.

While I like the data driven criteria part, what are these expanded testing capabilities he references? Because Fauci sez

"To be honest, we don't have all that data now uniformly throughout the country to make those determinations. But that's a major, primary goal that we have right now, is to get those data, because you have to make informed decisions and your decisions are informed by the information you have,"

Wonder how many governors are gonna chuck his new suggestions into the shredder?

[old goat]

I got a postcard from the cdc with "President Trump's Recommendations" for controlling coronavirus--social distancing, all the usual stuff. But to put his name on it--shameless.

[Dantheman]

I'm not sure what's *interesting* about it. It's a simulation of what would happen if the lockdown continues. Makes perfect sense to me.

It's *interesting* if you're invested in applying your own biased conclusions to someone else's words that don't actually mean what you think they mean.

[Core Shot]

I got a postcard from the cdc with "President Trump's Recommendations" for controlling coronavirus--social distancing, all the usual stuff. But to put his name on it--shameless.

Me too.

Wonder how many respirators could be made with that wasted money?

[My Pet Powder Goat]

This is what we envision: Our expanded testing capabilities will quickly enable us to publish criteria, developed in close coordination with the Nation's public health officials and scientists, to help classify counties with respect to continued risks posed by the virus. This will incorporate robust surveillance testing, which allows us to monitor the spread of the virus throughout the country. Under these data-driven criteria, we will suggest guidelines categorizing counties as high-risk, medium-risk, or low-risk.


"Just go to Donaldtrump2020 and enter your email address for your covid-19 info and test results"

Sent from my SM-N960U using TGR Forums mobile app

[Boissal]

I got a postcard from the cdc with "President Trump's Recommendations" for controlling coronavirus--social distancing, all the usual stuff. But to put his name on it--shameless.

Free toilet paper. Although if there's a pic of his face on it it's guaranteed to chafe your butthole

[east or bust]

Me too.

Wonder how many respirators could be made with that wasted money?

I bet the hospital PR person is loving this shit.

[Rideski]

Good news. 39 million N-95 masks located.

Bad news, its a drop in a big bucket.

Did I read correctly that because the union found and set up the deal they are going for $5 a piece? Wtf? Multi tasking over here hope I read wrong. What kind of numb nuts didn’t know there was a crisis going on and just sitting there in a daze with millions of masks? Humans are doomed.

[Benny Profane]

We need Huckbuckets daily chart. I thought I saw that Italy hasn't levelled off in the death total category.

[Dhelihiker]

I have a theory on S Korea and the low transmission rate.

We wash hands, stay away from people and then walk in our houses with our shoes on and the pets walk on the floor and......boom goes the dynamite corona everywhere.

S Koreans as a matter of culture never wear shoes in the house.


So Canada has a chance.

[muted]

SLC mayor is gonna put SLC on lockdown in 24-48hrs, governor doesn't want to make the whole state or even SLC to do it....negotiations behind closed doors now.

[bobz]

[Toadman]

Hunh, it has been my theory that Gawd is PISSED about Trump being the ‘most powerful man in the world’

I'm confused. Trump is the 2nd coming of GAWD. Trump is the Chosen One. He will be resurrected on April 12th. For Trump it is a very special day. Trump will perform a miracle and the COVID-19 hoax will vanish. Trump bless America. In Trump we Trust. Amen.

[Bunion 2020]

Complicated story.

nytimes.com
National Cathedral, Nasdaq, Businesses and Unions Locate Troves of N95 Masks
By Mihir Zaveri and Derrick Bryson Taylor
11-14 minutes


March 26, 2020Updated 6:14 p.m. ET

Joe Alonso, the head stonemason at the Washington National Cathedral, had tended to the building for 35 years. He knew its nooks and crannies.

So when news spread of a shortage of N95 masks needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak, Mr. Alonso remembered something nobody else did: More than 7,000 masks — purchased in 2005 or 2006 amid worries about an avian flu outbreak — were stashed away in an unfinished burial vault in the cathedral’s crypt.

“Over the last month, you start hearing, ‘N95 masks, N95 masks,’” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, all those N95 masks in the burial vault.’”

The cathedral donated 5,000 masks on Wednesday to two Washington hospitals to help doctors, nurses and others fight the coronavirus outbreak, part of a worldwide search that is turning up millions of desperately needed masks, sometimes in unusual places.

On Thursday, a health care union called the S.E.I.U.-U.H.W. said it had found a whopping 39 million masks from a private company based in Pennsylvania that distributes medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. The masks were being sold for $5 each to groups like Kaiser Permanente and the Greater New York Hospital Association, the union said, adding that it had no financial interest at stake.

For some multinational companies, the masks were part of a preparedness strategy for a variety of disasters.

Goldman Sachs has donated 600,000 N95 masks, “procured in the wake of previous epidemics,” with 400,000 going to hospitals in New York and New Jersey, Leslie Shribman, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, said on Thursday. Abroad, Goldman Sachs is also donating 50,000 N95 masks to Britain’s National Health Service. Ms. Shribman declined to say where the masks were stored and how many masks in total the company had in its stockpile.

Nasdaq announced in a news release Wednesday that it had donated 12,000 face masks this month to the Greater New York Hospital Association and that the company would continue to collect additional masks from its clients. William Briganti, a spokesman for Nasdaq, said the company had face masks on hand as part of its “global crisis preparedness and business continuity plans” and could distribute them to employees in case of earthquakes, fires or a pandemic.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said in a statement Sunday that Facebook had donated its “emergency reserve” of 720,000 masks, which were purchased during recent wildfires in California. The company is “working on sourcing millions of more to donate,” he said.

Apple procured 10 million masks to donate to “the medical community in the United States,” its chief executive, Tim Cook, said in a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, adding that “millions more” would be provided in Europe. A spokesman for the company declined to provide further details about the masks.

While some companies were donating what is in their reserves, Pornhub purchased and donated 50,000 surgical masks to New York-area medical professionals and emergency responders, a spokesman for the company said on Thursday. The company did not say where it obtained the masks.

Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said that it was good that these companies and institutions had a philanthropic instinct to donate masks, but that quality checks and quality assurance were needed.

“What these companies should be doing is offering funding for the makings of new masks that have specified quality,” Mr. Gostin said. “One has to ponder how it is that private companies that just have marginal needs for masks at best have huge stockpiles that they can donate, and that the government doesn’t have enough in its strategic reserve.”

At the cathedral, the 2,000 masks not donated were being kept as a “reserve supply for pastoral needs as they rise,” said Kevin Eckstrom, a spokesman for the cathedral, but the cathedral will re-evaluate the needs in the coming days.

He said the “first priority was to get the majority of them out to the folks who need them most immediately.”

The cache of masks was stored in 30 cases in an unfinished section of a burial vault that was built in the 1920s, Mr. Alonso said. In another section, the crypt contains the remains of people interred in the cathedral and several chapels.

The boxes with the masks were pushed back into concrete niches, which had openings that were 3 feet by 3 feet, originally meant to hold coffins, Mr. Alonso said. The niches have been used mostly for storage, he said.

“It’s really in the bowels of the cathedral, you could almost say,” he said.

The masks had expired, Mr. Eckstrom said, but were determined to be safe to use after consulting with the mask manufacturer and following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s a burial vault,” Mr. Alonso said. “It’s dry as a bone, as they say, down there. And kind of climate controlled. Very steady, low-humidity environment down in the crypt there.”

He said that discovering and retrieving the masks was not like the experience some people had imagined: Cathedral workers did not crawl, like Indiana Jones, through any skulls or bones in an ancient crypt.

Then again, Mr. Alonso said, he and others did have to crawl about 12 feet deep into burial slots to get the masks — “deeper than a normal-length casket” — wearing masks of their own against the dust.

He added: “We had a little human chain going. Over the last couple days, we got them out, sorted them out.”

Actually somewhat heartening.

[skaredshtles]

I'm confused. Trump is the 2nd coming of GAWD. Trump is the Chosen One. He will be resurrected on April 12th. For Trump it is a very special day. Trump will perform a miracle and the COVID-19 hoax will vanish. Trump bless America. In Trump we Trust. Amen.

Probably a repost... but:

https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1242852430582341639

"Christowitz" - that shit cracks me up.

[Ottime]

USA back where she should be. #1 Baby.

[huckbucket]

We need Huckbuckets daily chart. I thought I saw that Italy hasn't levelled off in the death total category.

Ask and you shall receive. Just got back from flogging myself on a road ride for 3 hours. Jelly legs.

US WINS!!!! Most cases worldwide.

[seano732]

Got a little dusty in my office all of a sudden....

[bennymac]

Probably a repost... but:

https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1242852430582341639

"Christowitz" - that shit cracks me up.

hahahaha onh man that was perfect Thanks I needed that

[old goat]

How would you actually go about determining a county was low risk? I get it that you contact trace every positive, but who do you start with--just symptomatics, random asymptomatics, everyone? And what do you do about people entering or reentering the county--test everyone at the border? Do you do a rapid test and make them wait or let them enter and then contact test them if they turn out to be positive. How often do you repeat. All kind of moot until we have the capacity to test massive numbers of people.

[Toadman]

Probably a repost... but:

https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1242852430582341639

"Christowitz" - that shit cracks me up.

Thanks for posting. That's hysterical.

[Beaver]

Anyone have a 3D printer? Bust that baby out and start printing masks.

https://www.3dnatives.com/en/3d-prin...ors-200320204/