Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[JackRiddler]

.

(Who here has seen Gattaca? I'd guess everyone at RI, maybe not?)

This has enormous disaster capitalism potentials. Did you guys see how it went down in France? The PM claimed he could pass the long-protested pension package into law all by himself, by decree. So he decreed it. On the same day, he banned public gatherings due to Covid-19. The next day the workers started upping the ante, demanding closure of the Louvre on the same basis. With their contagion containment order the government has authorized the backfire of a general strike! I have no idea whether the "decree" in the meantime has been found to apply. But why not? As Mr. Jeff Wells said on Facebook, the ruling class has gone YOLO!

Once the precedents are established they cannot be forgotten. The liability fears alone will suffice to drive future panics about any developing outbreak. The insurance companies will start demanding all kinds of new coverage. It may become an annual thing, to go through the precaution program any time something novel might break out. They'd say it would be irresponsible not to, potentially thousands of deaths, etc. Infrastructure will be built. They will try to present it as a great case of international cooperation. In effect, this will contribute to what we might call the globalization of national lockdowns and aggressive, increasingly identical regimes in border, customs, travel surveillance, enforcement, etc.

I'm not in anyway arguing against responding to minimize spread and casualties from outbreaks of novel diseases, of course. The smartest measures in terms of lasting prevention would look like needed components in a strong program of ecological enlightenment and sustainability. (Examples: stop hunting and consuming the remaining wildlife to extinction. Clean drinking water for all.) I'm just telling you how the response never going to be separated from disaster capitalist exploitations of the crisis and statist-authoritarian growth. Not as long as the present global economic and political orders dominate.

For all cash-rich players on the market, the current crash or correction means now is the time to start up the next generation of bubbles. They'll be looking at related biotech and I expect especially at highly granular data/tracking applications, supposed prevention equipment, measures to secure enclaves from contagion, crowd control... plenty more I'm not thinking of directly. Insurance is going to go nuts on this and basically act as a parallel body to the state for regulation, development and planing, as we've seen with many sectors.

538 or Ladbroke's should run a dystopia odds tracker, i.e., for people to bet on which of all our favorite dystopias will actually come true. The odds on Gattaca just shot up!

In Washington state (50,000 students) they canceled in-person classes through at least spring break, and replaced them with online classes. However that's going to work, on the fly. This may be a wet dream for a lot of higher education "reformers" who want to move in that direction anyway. Completing the casualization of adjunctification process. Laying off superfluous campus workers without impacting the all-important top 3% of administrators who get 20% of the salary pie. Hiring more of those, since this situation calls for a lot more control than we've had. Again, departments for insurance/liability compliance will mushroom.

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[Blue]

COVID-19: too little, too late?

Although WHO has yet to call the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infection a pandemic, it has confirmed that the virus is likely to spread to most, if not all, countries. Regardless of terminology, this latest coronavirus epidemic is now seeing larger increases in cases outside China. As of March 3, more than 90 000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 73 countries. The outbreak in northern Italy, which has seen 11 towns officially locked down and residents threatened with imprisonment if they try to leave, shocked European political leaders. Their shock turned to horror as they saw Italy become the epicentre for further spread across the continent. As the window for global containment closes, health ministers are scrambling to implement appropriate measures to delay spread of the virus. But their actions have been slow and insufficient. There is now a real danger that countries have done too little, too late to contain the epidemic.

By striking contrast, the WHO-China joint mission report calls China's vigorous public health measures toward this new coronavirus probably the most “ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history”. China seems to have avoided a substantial number of cases and fatalities, although there have been severe effects on the nation's economy. In its report on the joint mission, WHO recommends that countries activate the highest level of national response management protocols to ensure the all-of-government and all-of-society approaches needed to contain viral spread. China's success rests largely with a strong administrative system that it can mobilise in times of threat, combined with the ready agreement of the Chinese people to obey stringent public health procedures. Although other nations lack China's command-and-control political economy, there are important lessons that presidents and prime ministers can learn from China's experience. The signs are that those lessons have not been learned.

SARS-CoV-2 presents different challenges to high-income and low-income or middle-income countries (LMICs). A major fear over global spread is how weak health systems will cope. Some countries, such as Nigeria, have so far successfully dealt with individual cases. But large outbreaks could easily overwhelm LMIC health services. The difficult truth is that countries in most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, are not prepared for an epidemic of coronavirus. And nor are many nations across Latin America and the Middle East. Public health measures, such as surveillance, exhaustive contact tracing, social distancing, travel restrictions, educating the public on hand hygiene, ensuring flu vaccinations for the frail and immunocompromised, and postponing non-essential operations and services will all play their part in delaying the spread of infection and dispersing pressure on hospitals. Individual governments will need to decide where they draw the line on implementing these measures. They will have to weigh the ethical, social, and economic risks versus proven health benefits.

A ittle more at March 7 Lancet link.

[JackRiddler]

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comm ... id19_cases

How Turkey managed not to have COVID-19 cases. Lessons from successful management.

Turkey has a border with Iran and Istanbul has the world's biggest airport and Turkey one of the hottest destinations for European tourists. But Turkey successfully managed to prevent any cases. I need to share this you step by step guide for any policymaker in the world.

1 - Don't test anyone. This is the key but it's not that easy. If you don't test anyone people won't trust you. So you should hide the fact that you are not testing. So the rest of the guide about how to not test.

2 - Never let hospitals test alone Have a centralized testing facility so every hospital sends samples there so have to rely on your tests.

3 - Don't make news about the virus Turkish media controlled by Erdogan. Turkey has the highest amount of journalists in prison in the world. So no journalist will be spreading "fake news". When people don't hear about the virus they won't be alarmed.

4 - Develop your test kit Turkey developed its own test kit. They claim it gives results in 15 minutes and the highest accuracy in the world. So the world's best test kit super-fast results and super accurate. But it never gave any positive results yet. So when doctors see test kit says "negative" they have no way to prove it's positive.

5 - Have an ongoing economical crisis Turkey has an ongoing economic crisis and relies on tourism revenue. If tourists are going to stop visiting Turkey. This year the economy will totally collapse. Since Erdogan now at war in Syria economical collapse will be the end of his rule.

6 - Have a semi-authoritarian regime None of the above-mentioned steps could be completed if everyone has freedom of speech. So there should be a leader which can send people to prison anytime he pleases. So no one will be brave enough to spread fake news.

7 - Control social media Turkey has the highest amount of requests from Twitter to learn users' IP addresses and punish users. They also have the highest number of requests to Reddit to remove content. So if random people spread fake news you can easily send them to prison.

8 - Quarantine people (Optional) If you don't you won't look like that you are managing well. So just quarantine people as a normal country would do. So you can give relief.

If you follow these steps hopefully you'll manage to have no cases at all. Your tourism incomes going to feed your authoritarian regime. Stay clean from viruses stay in the power!

Resources: -Test kit https://www.ntv.com.tr/saglik/corona-vi ... N1AjWr07uw

-Journalists in the prison https://cpj.org/imprisoned/2016.php

-Social media control https://stockholmcf.org/turkey-overwhel ... ensorship/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tu ... r-BB10qs7I

[Wombaticus Rex]

Once the precedents are established they cannot be forgotten. The liability fears alone will suffice to drive future panics about any developing outbreak. The insurance companies will start demanding all kinds of new coverage. It may become an annual thing, to go through the precaution program any time something novel might break out. They'd say it would be irresponsible not to, potentially thousands of deaths, etc. Infrastructure will be built. They will try to present it as a great case of international cooperation. In effect, this will contribute to what we might call the globalization of national lockdowns and aggressive, increasingly identical regimes in border, customs, travel surveillance, enforcement, etc.

They already have so much of that, and they didn't use any of it. So this will amount to another DHS -- which is to say, a FedGov jobs program to be stocked by political appointees on the basis of the contents of their control files, their loyalty to current administration, and how many identity politics boxes their resume checks off.

The "international cooperation" will be every bit as much of a PR front, too.

"They're Going To Use This Crisis To Reshape The World!" wears more thin after each successive crisis. They just use it to extract more money and spend it on the same useless baubles and further deregulate as many industries as they can justify touching.

This is not a creeping march of imperial sovereignty -- this is an increasing abdication of sovereignty to an increasingly dysfunctional market.

[Wombaticus Rex]

"They're Going To Use This Crisis To Reshape The World!" wears more thin after each successive crisis.

Well -- with one big exception.

If the NWO threatens to accomplish one major goal with the COVID-19 panic, it's finally winning their War On Cash.

That agenda has been getting crammed into the response messaging, along with hundreds of others, but it might easily grow some legs as this keeps getting worse.

[liminalOyster]

In years of reading this board, I have never more humbly felt that "we're fucked" than today.

[Cordelia]

^^^Me too. (Best to retire for the day.)

I’d forgotten about the upcoming census.

National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, will be April 1, 2020.

fiwiw... regarding senior citizen vulnerability, some data collected while struggling to try to take in the many variables and possible outcomes of this outbreak.

By 2030, All Baby Boomers Will Be Age 65 or Older

2020 Census Will Help Policymakers Prepare for the Incoming Wave of Aging Boomers

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/ ... lder.html#

From the last census:

2010 Census Shows 65 and Older Population Growing Faster Than Total U.S. Population

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/release ... cn192.html

Baby Boomer retirees will, of course, include health care workers, so a shortage of doctors, etc., in the not-too-distant future.

A Growing Need for Care

By 2040, 1 in 5 Americans will be over the age of 65. Statistics show that 10,000 boomers reach retirement age each day. This not only means that the healthcare industry will struggle because of a demographic shift, but it also means that many experienced hospital staff will be among those hitting retirement age. Clearly, this further exacerbates an issue that is already proven to be a pain point. For younger generations pursuing careers in healthcare, it might be a hard truth that their patients will greatly outnumber them and that their job requirements and expectations are likely to grow.

This demographic shift is not limited to a large number of seniors aging, but we’re also talking about a generation that is living longer than ever before. They’re also typically much more unhealthy than generations past.

According to the National Council on Aging, around 80 percent of older adults have at least one chronic condition, and about 68 percent have at least two. Getting older takes a toll on your health, and as seniors live longer, they’ll need to be cared for longer as well. The elderly population is bigger and will live longer than ever before due to advancements in elder care and innovations in medicine.

https://cliniciantoday.com/how-the-heal ... opulation/

With more retirees, the more social security will be paying out (w/less paying in) in 10+ years.

The ratio of Social Security beneficiaries to workers who pay into the system is shifting—in 2019, there were 2.8 workers for each beneficiary, but in 2035 the number of workers per beneficiary is expected to drop to 2.2. About three-quarters of the funding for retirees and disabled workers comes from Social Security taxes that current workers pay, so it's easy to see how this change is straining the system. The remaining one-quarter of the system's funding comes from the trust funds.

Does the depletion of the trust fund mean Social Security is bankrupt? In a word, no. As long as workers are paying their taxes, there will be money to pay benefits. But once the reserves are gone in 2035, only an estimated 77% of expected Social Security benefits will continue to be paid from the government’s tax revenues.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/p ... curity.asp

Also, a continuing crisis in the Nursing Home industry.

Nursing Shortage: What the Future Holds for Nursing Homes

Last Updated: February 27, 2020

The nursing shortage in the United States adds to the growing problem of how to provide appropriate care for senior citizens who need nursing home services. Nursing homes have lost funding in recent years while, at the same time, more and more senior citizens are in need of nursing home services- experts predict that by the year 2050, there will be 15,000,000 seniors who need long-term care. There are several factors that contribute to the nursing home shortage; if the economy improves, some of these problems may resolve themselves, but something still needs to be done.

https://assistedlivingtoday.com/blog/nu ... ing-homes/

And so forth and so on. God help us. (God can't help us.)

[coffin_dodger]

[JackRiddler]

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Italy shuts down Milan region.

Bars and restaurants will have to make sure patrons keep at least a meter apart or they’ll be shut.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... y-corriere

Politics

Italy to Lock Down Milan Region in Bid to Contain Coronavirus Outbreak

By Alberto Brambilla and John Follain

March 7, 2020, 2:41 PM EST Updated on March 7, 2020, 4:46 PM EST

Measures include a virtual ban on entry, exit in Lombardy
Several other northern areas are targeted in draft decree

A woman wearing a protective mask stands in front of an empty bar in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, on March 5.


The Italian government is set to dramatically restrict movement and activity for a quarter of its population, or about 16 million people, according to a draft decree seen by Bloomberg.

The decision to lock down the Milan region and several other northern areas is the latest step in the effort to contain Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak. It comes as cases surged to 5,883 on Saturday with 233 deaths, and as Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of one of the two major government parties, announced he had contracted the illness.

The measures, set to come into force Sunday and last until April 3, will stop anyone from entering or exiting the most-affected areas, while movement inside will be allowed only for “non-deferrable” business or health reasons, the draft said. Skiing, public events, religious ceremonies and work meetings will be suspended, while schools, museums, swimming pools and theaters will close.

Bars and restaurants will have to make sure patrons keep at least a meter apart or they’ll be shut. The draft specifies that failing to respect the measures is a criminal offense, and might lead to imprisonment. Police and the army will be responsible for ensuring that containment measures are respected.

The restrictions will apply across Lombardy and in 11 provinces around cities including Venice, Modena, Parma, Rimini and Treviso.

Italy’s Democratic Party Head Tests Positive for Coronavirus

A second draft decree with new containment rules for the rest of the country, also seen by Bloomberg, recommends citizens avoid travel outside their hometowns unless absolutely necessary, and restricts public events. The government is set to approve both decrees in a meeting Saturday evening.

With Italy’s economy already at risk of recession before the outbreak, the crisis has all but paralyzed business activity in Lombardy -- which accounts for a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product -- and the rest of the north, Italy’s economic engine.

Economic Engine
Northern regions produce a large share of Italy’s GDP


Source: Istat

The government decided on Thursday to double emergency spending to 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) to help cushion the economic impact of the virus. It’s also calling up 20,000 doctors, nurses and medical personnel to help deal with the outbreak. Fallout from the virus’s spread is slamming Italy’s key tourism industry at a time when the country is already teetering on the brink of recession.

The European Commission’s top economic officials approved Italy’s spending plans, saying in a letter to the government in Rome that its stimulus plans won’t be factored in when assessing the country’s compliance with the European Union’s fiscal rules.

One case was diagnosed in the Vatican -- the tiny walled city-state in central Rome that is home to Pope Francis and “emeritus” Pope Benedict XVI.

A man wearing a protective mask and a nun walk in a deserted St. Peter’s square at the Vatican on March 6.

Pope Francis will not celebrate Sunday’s weekly Angelus prayer from the window of the Apostolic Palace as he usually does, the Vatican said in a statement.

Francis will instead hold the event from the library in the palace, to avoid the risk of the coronavirus spreading among people queuing for security checks to access St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican said. The event will be relayed on giant screens and via streaming.

— With assistance by Daniele Lepido, Tommaso Ebhardt, Alessandro Speciale, and Sonia Sirletti

[JackRiddler]

"They're Going To Use This Crisis To Reshape The World!" wears more thin after each successive crisis. They just use it to extract more money and spend it on the same useless baubles and further deregulate as many industries as they can justify touching.

This is not a creeping march of imperial sovereignty -- this is an increasing abdication of sovereignty to an increasingly dysfunctional market.

But if you read what I wrote, I'm saying something similar. My first sentence was not, "The NWO" (oh please) "is going to use this" to implement whatever plan they supposedly hatched 290 years ago. Rather, it was, "This has enormous disaster capitalism potentials." Disaster capitalism uses found situations as they arise. It improvises, but in ways that are predictable once the situation is known. In this situation I expect the capitalist market logic, motivated by the drive to ROI, to converge and aim for outcomes like those I describe. I could be wrong. Certainly, in my view, most of what is likely to come out of this crisis won't be a federal jobs program! Governments will fund a great deal of the response but as many of the new functions as possible will be privatized, as has been the case in the neoliberal era. The state is no longer allowed to conceive things that aren't in line with making profits for contractors. Of course "dysfunctional market" is very near redundant. I didn't say this "reshaped world" is going to work. It will be ever-more intrusive and irrational, though there's no telling when its collapse comes. (As my 1980s revolutionary buddies used to say, Rome wasn't destroyed in a day. In fact, destroying it took longer than building it.)

I had the same thought about cash. I think you know there are several super-powerful interests that will fight that. It doesn't mean it's impossible, at all. It becomes a lot more conceivable -- a lot -- if we assume drug legalization, but damn, that's a lot of hot cash that the banksters and a lot of regimes will miss. What is this, Year 20 in Afghanistan?

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[Wombaticus Rex]

But if you read what I wrote,

Hell, I even quoted it. To wit: "In effect, this will contribute to what we might call the globalization of national lockdowns and aggressive, increasingly identical regimes in border, customs, travel surveillance, enforcement, etc." I disagreed and explained why.

"The NWO" (oh please)

Larry Fink, Richard Haass, Cofer Black, James Baker, Brent Snowcroft, Henry Kissinger, Robert Rubin, Rex Tillerson, Jack Lew, ol' Zbigniew... have their careers taken a dark turn I missed? Some fall from grace?

Have the Rockefellers been able to keep up with the latest fads? How about the Johnsons and the Vanderbilts and the Thomsons -- and the Du Ponts and the Mercks and the Murdochs? Or those wacky Pritzkers? Does the Cuomos still run New York? Does Bill Richardson still run New Mexico?

Do you think of me as Fritz Springmeier The 2nd, a better looking Alex Jones, or more of a David Icke Lite type? Any which way, "NWO" is still useful shorthand, despite your educated distaste for it.

[General Patton]

Disposable masks are out of stock for everyone including healthcare workers, you can still pickup half mask respirators, get price gouged or DIY

Simple Respiratory Protection—Evaluation of the Filtration Performance of Cloth Masks and Common Fabric Materials Against 20–1000 nm Size Particles
https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/54/7/789/202744

Google videos on fitting them and taking them off safely, it's not terribly hard

Consider disinfecting your shoes as you can track it on your shoes from heavy water droplets that fall to the floor, main risk is 15+ min close contact though

[Grizzly]

Coronavirus expert: 'War is an appropriate analogy'

[Wombaticus Rex]

Via: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/transc ... ch-8-2020/

March 8, 2020 / 11:47 AM / CBS News

The following is a transcript of an interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb that aired Sunday, March 8, 2020, on "Face the Nation."

MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Good to have you back on the program.

...

DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, we have an epidemic underway here in the United States. There's a very large outbreak in Seattle. That's the one we know about, probably one in Santa Clara or maybe other parts of the country, other cities. And so we're past the point of containment. We have to implement broad mitigation strategies. The next two weeks are really going to change the complexion in this country. We'll get through this, but it's going to be a hard period. We're looking at two months probably of difficulty. To give you a basis of comparison, two weeks ago, Italy had nine cases. Ninety-five percent of all their cases have been diagnosed in the last 10 days. For South Korea, 85 percent of all their cases have been diagnosed in the last 10 days. We're entering that period right now of rapid acceleration. And the sooner we can implement tough mitigation steps in places we have outbreaks like Seattle, the- the lower the scope of the epidemic here.

...

MARGARET BRENNAN: -- more measures like that. Is it just that it- governors like him don't want to say out loud that we may have to do something like what Italy did?

DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think no state and no city wants to be the first to basically shut down their economy. But that's what's going to need to happen. States and cities are going to have to act in the interest of the national interest right now to prevent a broader epidemic.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Shut down their economy? You mean--

DR. GOTTLIEB: Close businesses, close large gatherings, close theaters, cancel events. I think we need to think about how do we provide assistance to the people of these cities who are going to be hit by hardship, as well as the localities themselves to try to give them an incentive to do this. Right now, if there's no economic support to do this, you don't want to be the first to go. And I think you're seeing that. This exposes one of the challenges of our federal system that we leave a lot of authority to state and local officials. And there's a good- there's good reasons why. But in a situation like this, we want them to act not just in their local interests, but the national interests, I think we need to think about both trying to coerce them. We can't force them but also try to provide some incentives in terms of support. And we're going to end up with a very big federal bailout package here for stricken businesses, individuals, cities and states. We're better off doing it upfront and giving assistance to get them to do the right things than do it on the back end after we've had a very big epidemic.

...

DR. GOTTLIEB: There is no systematic plan for when a city should close schools, when they should tell businesses that they have to telework, when they should close movie theaters and cancel large gatherings. We leave these decisions to local officials, but we really should have a comprehensive plan in terms of recommendations to cities and then some support from the federal government for cities that make that step, make that leap, if you will.

Again, there absolutely are "systemic plans" but nobody at the Fed level wants to pull that trigger, either.

(And as General Patton pointed out elsewhere, most of the expertise who formulated those plans are gone, retired with Bush II. All we got now is Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice.)

[JackRiddler]

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Thanks General Patton. Sounds like I'll probably get fucked by the shoes. Way too lazy, though I suppose I could get serious about it.

WR, jeez, would have thought you'd bold this:

This exposes one of the challenges of our federal system that we leave a lot of authority to state and local officials. And there's a good- there's good reasons why. But in a situation like this, we want them to act not just in their local interests, but the national interests, I think we need to think about both trying to coerce them. We can't force them but also try to provide some incentives in terms of support.

Do you think of me as Fritz Springmeier The 2nd, a better looking Alex Jones, or more of a David Icke Lite type? Any which way, "NWO" is still useful shorthand, despite your educated distaste for it.

Of course not. If that's the sort of strawmanning you project me applying to you, I have to wonder what caricatures you're holding of me. (Albeit, I don't properly recall who Fritz Springmeier was, though the name rings unsavory to me.)

I actually use the phrase new world order in my classes. It applies to two attempts to reimpose world order following its collapse, by agreement amongst the great powers. The first one started in 1919 and is known for failing; the second didn't achieve all aims but was implemented through various institutions founded in after 1944-51 and proved lasting. Bush, as we know, invoked the phrase at a key point of the latter order's adjustment, in 1990. One might speak, usefully if anachronistically, of earlier attempts at proclaiming new world orders in very different contexts (1494, 1648, 1714, 1815, and amid several running attempts to manage European imperialism leading up 1914, I like to highlight the Berlin conference of 1884).

In context here, the phrase would imply a specific cabal with a coordinated plan to refashion the world. For me, your list of old, bad men from the old, old ruling class (owners) and power elites (systemic management) does not qualify. It also contradicts your own description of how dysfunctional such visions constantly prove to be. We're in a phase of world order decompensation.

There is a constantly evolving, often unstable system; it has power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a very few, who constitute a globally-networked set of national and transnational ruling/management classes. They have created institutional channels for handling inevitable crises, profiting from them, and securing their own gains. There are systemic dynamics that drive how they and most of us act, regardless of their plans. These drives generally operate to produce predictable short-term results, but often confound predictions. It's complex. As a shorthand, NWO mashes that down into something that no longer describes the world, and implies an effective central management and a viable long-term plan actually being implemented through stages, which is not the case; rather than dynamics that quasi-predictably arise out of social forces and economic drives, which is afaics. This is why I prefer a shorthand that actually designates the entity in charge, which is not the historically tentative jockey of the ruling class, but the unruly wild horse of political economy. It's capitalism.

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