A bold program to bring the Philippines into the modern world
Mayon. The Philippines has the most beautiful lands on the planet. They are not presented to the world well at all.
By Joe America
Every national election represents an opportunity to be bold. It would be wonderful to see boldness in the spirit of the Constitution, rather than the undermining of it. I hope in 2022, candidates will take on some or all of the following steps aimed at bringing the Philippines into the modern world as a “First World” performer.
- Arrest former top justice and police officials who violated established laws through widespread, unjustified, and un-investigated assaults on drug suspects. Try them under applicable law. Reconfigure the anti-drug program to feature education, counseling, and rehabilitation.
- Re-establish a Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States to continue to use America’s considerable expertise, generosity, equipment, and military capabilities to backstop Armed Forces of the Philippines operations, and to stand ready to help, as America has in the past, in the event of natural disasters.
- Demand that China remove her military and fleet fishing ships from Philippine seas. Evict Chinese ships from Scarborough through military force backed with explicit agreement from the US to defend the action. Sanction China (nationalize Chinese investments in telecom, mining, and utilities, for example) if she refuses to respect Philippine sovereignty.
- Focus a concerted effort on arresting drug smugglers, drug manufacturers, and operators of drug networks.
- Establish a general amnesty program that will, on the President’s signature, free from jail those who have not received proper legal counsel, have served more than the term of their charge, or are clearly political cases. Grant amnesty for small-package drug prisoners under agreement that future arrest will bring severe punishment.
- Establish a law that gives Executive Branch temporary empowerment to remove judges whose decisions can be shown to be patently political or purchased. “Quo warranto” remove from office Supreme Court Justices who are shown to have taken office to interpret the law for political favor rather than apply and clarify the law.
- Remove Pogos in phased steps that certify and convert legitimate businesses to highly regulated enterprises and remove the high flyers and their alien employees from the Philippines. Require staffing substantially by Filipino citizens. Refocus Manila business on respected enterprises such as BPOs and other service firms.
- Substantially increase the salaries of top agency and local government officials and make performance more rigorous and tied to metrics. In this way, professionalize leadership and remove corruption as a “need” for positions that determine the productivity of the nation.
- End contractual workers as a common form of employment and require businesses to establish career employment opportunities for their staff. Require performance counseling and promotions from within to build fairness, hope, aspiration, and good customer service into the productive use of Filipino Human Resources.
- Return to an aggressive infrastructure program using the Private Public Partnership framework for funding and follow-through.
- Do a feasibility study on a two-year national service program for high school graduates not going to college. Include skills development within the program (eg. masonry in the building of schools; computer technology). Identify funding and returns.
- Upgrade tourism destinations and build tourism.
- Establish a Philippine military-industrial complex for the building of ships, missiles, ground craft, and other resources.
- Seek to build complete goods manufacturing with tax and operating incentives. Continue to specialize in piece work manufacturing. Build a drug-manufacturing capability to compete with China and give western nations an alternative source of inexpensive drugs.
- Clean up and modernize the country. Clean up the beaches. Improve sewerage treatment. Repair streets and sidewalks. Remove telephone wire nests. Make room for bicycles where possible and pass strict car and truck driver etiquette laws protecting cyclists and pedestrians. Pass laws requiring aesthetic standards for street-front businesses and homes.
- Move in steps to phase out cooperatives as the nation’s agribusiness model and replace them with the competitive drive of large, private agribusiness firms. Adjust land use laws accordingly.
- Pass a National Land Use Law that protects forests, seas, small farming communities, and other natural resources and that prepares the nation for the fast-approaching impact of rising seas, intense storms, and changing weather patterns.
- Improve medical services and professionalism. Mandate that doctors set appointments for an appropriate fee, and offer hours of first-come-first serve at lower cost. End the gathering of unhealthy people in hallways of medical clinics and hospitals.
- Focus primary education from grades 1 through 6 on critical thinking disciplines and technology applications, supported by the basics in math, languages, science, and social studies. Build an excitement about discovery into the curriculum.
For every objection, propose a better way.
For every hurdle, figure out a way around it.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
AN EXAMPLE OF PERCEIVED
PRESUMPTIVE ETCHE BUCHECHE
In poetry, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder;
but in a corrupted culture honor is INVIOLABLE
in the mind of the person which
could be opposite those of his beholders.
Honor is NOT EARNED but genetics given
It is not a colored tattoo or pierced jewels
It is more of a birthmark admired by beholders.
Fake honor is bestowed by high government positions
in the executive, legislative and legislative branches
of the government REGARDLESS
of how or what the public perceives.
As popoy’s myopic eyes see it, in the blog the Society of Honor, honor is the fuel of concern for the nation, for the honorable poor. The mantra for any moment is to inform, to argue, to analyze, to debate, to elaborate and motivate, to share selfless ideas.
TSoH is not, repeat IS NOT a venue or a weapon to attack persons of authority like any President, etc. Moronic policy is fair game but policymakers are not because the law (or karma?) shall take care of them; shot down bad policies and expect bad policymakers to fall with them.
TSoH is not space to discard honor as a value of integrity. TSoH is NOT BLAMELESS but it strives to be the domicile or domain of law abiders; not scalawags.
Sorry. Yes Of Course I should stick to the blog topic: “A Bold Program. . .
Seen in many angles or few perspectives from the simple to the complex, the blog is a house wife shopping list, to a non-comm officer it is a to do list; to a pundit it is a list of failed neglects, omissions, incompetence; to an academic it is a paradigm in critical need of paradigm shift which needs mutually exclusive action and resources. For department secretaries riding No. 6 cars, the list is a clarion call to do their jobs. For a country’s Chief Executive, it is a shove not to micromanage and let higher subordinates do their jobs they way they see fit.
In all, the bulleted enumeration are really many strong jumping boards to the swimming pool of national progress. But from the late fifties to the present some policies and inaction gradually remove the water and replace them with quicksand.
The paradigm (jargon for list or outline) is large enough and encompassing that it could well be the nuclear content of a comprehensive political platform for social and economic change of a presidential candidate willing TO RECTIFY failures of past administrations to stay on course, on even keel.
I understand the need for a social currency, as popoy proposes, whose value must be a sine qua non to transact and move the patrimony of the country. We seek a principle from which flows and gives value to all our social transactions, a legal tender whose value we need only the basic common sense that everyone, ruler or subject, understands by intuition and study: HONESTY & HONOR.
Popoy like a broken record but with more scratches repeats the noise: The mantra in TSoH for any given moment is to inform, to argue, to analyze, to debate, to elaborate and motivate, to share selfless ideas AND TO SUGGEST SOLUTIONS; bare breasted Solutions open to corrections and further improvements.
TSoH is not, repeat IS NOT a SUBLIMINAL venue or a weapon to attack persons of authority like any incumbent of past Presidents, etc.
All without exception is for the betterment of the nation.
All we have discussed multiple times.
Only Edgar can reinforce this with his own enumeration.
My first reactions (i.e. first read) too, Neph. Glad to be on same wavelength.
👍
USHERING THE PHILIPPINES TO BE A WORLD PERFORMER
popoy and karl believe the bulleted list of items to usher in the Philippines as a world performer is rather complete in scope. I believe so too.
I may note however, that considering the tons of political will needed from the three branches of government and the associated resources needed to undertake the prescribed list, a starting set may be in order. I put the first undertaking under the group heading, Justice System — a justice system that is world class. From that the other undertakings may flow rather easily. Not quite coincidentally, Joe placed these also as priority in his first set of bulleted items (1, 3, 4, 5 and 6) taken as a group.
I would wish the TSH will end up with a white paper that synchs with Joe’s shopping list and the spirit of the PH Constitution.
(Aside) The wife and I are following the TV special on the House of Windsor. Methinks there is much to emulate in the evolution and history of the British monarchy, very apropos to our search for national character and unity.
Very tempting to think of PH oligarchs competing to grab an elusive Filipino monarch much like the story of King John and the English barony ending in the Magna Carta. I wish…
The said Magna Carta was abolished by the Pope eventually which led to the Barons vs King John wars.
Oh please stop it already, sonny. You know full well that if you’re looking for unity, feudal Britain is hardly the place to look for inspiration. Their history is replete with regional rivalries, clan wars, or plain old internecine struggle for the throne even among members of the royal family..
Besides, Joe is proposing to bring the Philippines into the modern world, not to bring it back to feudalism.
These two have the right idea! Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
Bye Feudalism!
Sorry, Micha.
Joe, I would add that the University of the Philippines Los Baños and Cebu City be centers of research and innovation, not requiring tech, but the fruits thereof be expected to spread into tech industry (and beyond others, and to the world).
Choose areas of studies that don’t require necessarily outside resources or knowledge (so long as it can be Googled, good enough, but start and end nationally then spread internationally, endemic to pandemic is your business model here 😉 ).
Although this image is stationary and flat, our brains may not perceive it that way. Don Hoffman, UCI professor of cognitive sciences, applies that theory to how we see, think, feel and interact with the world around us in his new book, The Case Against Reality. “I’m interested in understanding human conscious experiences and am building a computer model to develop a mathematical theory actually explains them,” he says. “If we are successful, then we’ll be able to more fully understand reality, the truth.”
https://news.uci.edu/2019/07/22/the-case-against-reality/
and
IF UP Los Banyos can extend Hoffman’s ideas, there’s a lot of potential here,
“As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions — sights, sounds, textures, tastes — are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it — or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion — we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.
Not so, says Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. Hoffman has spent the past three decades studying perception, artificial intelligence, evolutionary game theory and the brain, and his conclusion is a dramatic one: The world presented to us by our perceptions is nothing like reality. What’s more, he says, we have evolution itself to thank for this magnificent illusion, as it maximizes evolutionary fitness by driving truth to extinction.”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/
Thank you for this. It is a fascinating topic. So we assure our survival by driving truth to extinction because absolutely none of us can deal with it. I’d offer an example. When we are young and vulnerable, we NEED to think that our parents are infallible.
My brain can’t stop those purple and yellow squigglies from moving about.
It’s like Plato’s cave allegory but opposite.
Parents to DU30, Joe. Everything, every idea, must be turned upside down, topsy turvy.
And for those self-quarantining here’s another good youtube video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HuFHWPc6k (3 hours long, but feel free to jump around )
I thought it was about the stress test thing.
(The picture)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/1309b623-ec96-4213-a54b-0f0699fbd1c8
https://mobile.twitter.com/awfficial/status/1063613392122834944/photo/1
The tweet about the stress test illusion.
PH COVID-19 UPDATE
Sorry to insert this so early in the new blog, but this is not good news. DOH covid-19 Dashboard at
https://www.doh.gov.ph/2019-nCoV
shows we now have 33 confirmed cases of the virus from the 5 before today.
Thanks for keeping an eye on those numbers, NH. I am keeping track on CNN, USA reportage since the WH seems to have other priorities.
UPDATE
The World Health Organization just declared the novel coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic.
In the United States …
Speaking at the House Oversight Committee discussing the coronavirus response, two top US doctors said the next month is critical when it comes to fighting the spread of coronavirus.
“It is critical because we must be much more serious as a county about what we might expect. … A couple of cases today are going to be many, many cases tomorrow,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Doubling down, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “This is a time for everyone to get engaged. This is not just a response for the government and public health system. It’s a response for all of America.”
In the Philippines, the confirmed cases rose to 49 from the earlier 33 — according to JHU-CSSE Dashboard on covid-19. DOH’s Dashboard does not reflect the new number just yet.
TRIAGE
This is an ugly word and we hope medical treatment of those infected of covid-19 will not come to that. But that word is being used in print and broadcast media, especially in Italy.
triage = the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors.
I may note that TSH’s earlier blog on “panic” being useful in certain situations remains useful. That is still useful in the sense of emphasizing the need for the first line of defense to ourselves, regardless of how local, national and international institutions do their work: personal care of ourselves and helping those around us to do the same.
The triage act is bureaucratic right now, with DOH restraining who can be tested because there aren’t enough kits. People are just sent home. As hospitals fill all their beds, the triage will be, “go home”. It seems to me no one in government is anticipating this, and its the most peculiar thing given that we all saw China build a huge hospital in 10 days. Man, I’d be laying claim to that huge Drug Rehabilitation Center, and a lot of condo high-rises nearing completion, under an emergency executive order. Buying beds. Hiring non-medical “attendants” who can deliver food and other basic care. DOH leaders seemingly can’t project forward.
Joe ,
They just canceled the rest of the NBA season tonight; no flights from Europe; the Bernie/Biden debate with no audience.
But still no one’s thinking in terms of Wuhan lock downs, and beating folks into staying home.
So i think it’ll spread more over here. Maybe slow down for the warmer months then kick back up again in Fall.
also just watched Trump tonite kinda breathing heavily, gotta feeling ole’ Nancy will get her wish and be Commander in Chief by November. 😉
Plenty of wars to contend with:
– war against coronavirus;
– Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war;
– war against stock markets plunging;
– the US President’s war on almost everyone and everything;
– fighting a war to get tested, in our part of the world.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
COVID-19 EFFECT
WOW!
DOW DJIA Recent Peak, February 12 US EST, 29,551.42
DOW DJIA March 12 US EST 4:20pm, 21,200.62
DJIA, down 28%, is indeed in bear territory. [A major index at or lower than 20% is in bear territory.]
A US Cabinet Member a week or so ago: “Buy on dips.” He must have been talking about heated swimming pool dips. Or potato chip dips.
This is more crash than dip, and a I’d buy now but now I’m broke (not really, but feeling that way).
How long does a bear market last? Here is a picture. The top line of the chart says that the average S&P 500 bear market lasted 21 months and on average dropped -39.9%.
But let us be kind to ourselves. If you look at the chart, the range of the bear market duration is 3 months to 62 months. Let us take 3 months. I know: wishful thinking. Does my smart phone with its instant information/ misinformation help?
Yeah, Joe.
I can see even a small part of your immense “wealth” [relative to mine — is that a huge laugh, as if I have it] put into some of these deeply battered stocks, yielding large growth in a year or two. You have time, though, because the bounce is not expected to be a “V” but more like a “U” — narrow or wide.
Meantime, the charts below taken from The Economist are useful in this regard. The one on the right is instructive — the trajectory of the confirmed cases in the case of the US is on track, relative to that of Italy.
The US is in worse shape than the Philippines, I think.
THE SUN IS THE ECHE BUCHECHE OF LIFE
In 1967-68 London England
Popoy was there nearby
Spring to Summer brings rains
And hot sunshine. Rainfalls don’t kill
But heat strokes from the sun almighty
Could kill mostly the elderly.
From the second-floor windows in a postgrad college hostel in Bedford, wannabe young engineers were looking down, gawking at kitchen maid lassies wanting to learn English from Germany, France, and Spain scantily clad sunbathing on the lawns below for that precious Vitamin D that turns their milk white skin into golden light brown. Alive in 2020 these lassies are may be grandmothers now; in London’s Hyde and other parks English laddies with their lassies in minis repeat the view cavorting all over the grass. Factual and a truth of nature, the eternal source of energy the God of life rules and never sets in the cosmos.
Okay, OKAY for popoy trying hard to be fake arbularyo or snake medicine man; what about COVID-19? At daytime in any country, outside the box thinker popoy surmised tested or infected or suspected and quarantined COVID-19 unlucky people SHALL for two to three hours in the morning and same same in the afternoon in sundecks of cruise ships, rooftops, balconies, or backyards in comfy chairs or walkabout need not be in shorts or bathing suits SHOULD may be for fourteen days or less DE-INCUBATE or debilitate the killer virus. If nudists colonies still exist will the crowned virus enjoy smorgasbords? Or fizzle out like Bocaue’s New Years’ whistle bomb?
And so the wannabe snake medicine man cajoles and inveigles the doctors of medicine: TRY THE SUN, IT’S FREE.
popoy,
re arbularyo (from the latin ARBOR) and snake medicine (or toad poison in the case psychedelics) , a big part of the this pandemic scare is exactly just that scare. peoples’ risk assessment which they’ve honed for centuries in their DNA via evolution (or from God, if you think Darwin’s evil) is put out of whack due to 24/7 media coverage.
Here are three pages from the book i’m currently reading, explaining how depression and anxiety are actually same-same. One’s past looking, the other forward/future looking…
(karl, i believe this would also cover bi-polar, as non-entropic )
Love the sled analogy, tracks in the snow getting deeper. The psychedelics flattening the snow. I suffered from depression from childhood through my 40s. Then I was placed on a drug treatment program aimed specifically at redirecting my tracks, or reconfiguring my brain chemistry. It lasted about 18 months and, indeed, the feeling was one of being modestly stoned all the time. But it worked, and the demons that had ridden on my shoulder for decades flew off. It was great. Now I suffer from anxiety, though. It’s developed only recently. So my brain just made new tracks. That’s why I believe you’re onto something here.
I thought so too, Joe! love metaphors, i do! but then I read popoy’s analogy,
Greatness is like the hymen of virgin girls
It can be raptured but it can’t obliterate
The reason for a girl’s existential purpose.
This one takes the cake. My depression/anxiety all disappeared in one fell swoop having read that. New snowflakes fell too i’m sure. 😉
popoy is a true poet. i don’t care what Micha says. I bow to him. You don’t need no psychedelics when popoy’s on his keyboard.
👏👏👏👍👊
Take a bow popoy!
@LcplX
That’s just setting the greatness bar low.
America is in the throes of implosion as did the Roman empire collapsed. It’s much like a third world banana republic now actually – decaying infrastructures, urban and rural poverty, homelessness, rigged elections, rigged lotteries, rigged economy, extreme wealth accumulation by the .001%, inadequate or non-existent healthcare for millions of its population, bungled management of this Covid pandemic, etcetera, etcetera.
What’s propping it up is its bloated military, although even that might not be immune to decay as cracks of corruption and inefficiencies are surfacing.
The other day, executives from the banking mafia went to see the Don in the White House assuring him that the cartel is operating as it should despite the looming threat of a market crash. These are the guys who won’t lend him a penny for his real estate projects so his arms went akimbo while presenting them to the press.
These bankers are preempting to avoid a repeat of their mistake in the 2008 crisis when it was almost too late for them to come begging the government for a bailout.
Micha,
Which is exactly popoy’s point! like the hymen it can only be “raptured”
rap·ture
/ˈrapCHər/
noun
noun: rapture
1.
a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.
“Leonora listened with rapture”
Similar: ecstasy bliss euphoria elation exaltation joy cloud nine seventh heaven transport rhapsody enchantment delight exhilaration happiness pleasure ravishment the top of the world delectation
2.
NORTH AMERICAN
(according to some millenarian teaching) the transporting of believers to heaven at the Second Coming of Christ.
Not, not, obliterated. Your use of implosion and collapse is the exact opposite. Until you can find me a hymen you can obliterate maybe i’ll hear you out, til then popoy wins this metaphor. yours is just run of the mill pessimism.
popoy just created a verb & used it passively from a noun. That’s genius!
————————————
Speaking of “ecstasy” which is from the Greek,
Ancient Greek ἔκστασις (ékstasis, “displacement, cession, trance”)
Noun
ekstasis (plural ekstases)
(mysticism, philosophy) The state of being beside oneself or rapt out of oneself.
I just remembered this study, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/20/648788149/octopuses-get-strangely-cuddly-on-the-mood-drug-ecstasy
“He says MDMA, which affects the serotonin system, clearly affects the octopuses’ social behavior, but it’s not clear to him if it’s really inducing greater love for another creature.
“Is it really affection? How would we know?” Mainen asks. “It’s totally fascinating and super-suggestive, but I am not a hundred percent convinced that this is doing the same thing in octopus and in human.”
Still, he thinks it’s amazing that this drug has somewhat similar behavioral effects.
“I like the fact that they’ve shown that a species so alien to us as an octopus has a molecule, a serotonin transporter, which can be affected by a drug which affects us, and that the drug has a somewhat similar effect on the octopus,” Mainen says.
“It just shows us how much we don’t know and how much there is out there to understand.”
———————————–
Now, the drug Ecstasy (MDMA) is a psychoactive (not considered psychedelic) but that octopuses/octopi experience rapture too as we do, and rapt out similarly as us…
rapt
/rapt/
adjective
1.
completely fascinated by what one is seeing or hearing.
“Andrew looked at her, rapt”
Similar: fascinated enthralled spellbound captivated riveted gripped mesmerized enchanted entranced charmed bewitched transported enraptured thrilled ecstatic rapturous blissed out
2.
ARCHAIC
having been carried away bodily or transported to heaven.
“he was rapt on high”
———————————-
We’ll need to consider that maybe human brains is not the pinnacle, thus again popoy is correct in stating that the hymen is far superior than the brain, if cephalopods’ nervous system surpass us, just simple comparison obliterates our most precious organ, thus
as a species leaving us only the hymen to celebrate, the thin veil to heaven.
So, for Joe jr. this book recommendation I give: http://www.cephalopodiatrist.com/p/squid-empire.html
Hahaha, just love the way you’re going several degrees off tangent on the topic, as is your wont corporal.
Four more years of this American Caligula and he will have presided the irreversible rot of the empire. You just can’t MAGA your way out of this yankee doodle morass.
America is broken.
“What we are seeing right now is the collapse of civic authority and public trust at what is only the beginning of a protracted crisis. In the face of an onrushing pandemic, the United States has exhibited a near-total evacuation of responsibility and political leadership — a sociopathic disinterest in performing the basic function of government, which is to protect its citizens.”
“Things will get worse from here. According to a survey of epidemiologists released yesterday, the coronavirus outbreak probably won’t peak before May. That doesn’t mean it will be over by May, of course, but that it will be getting worse and worse and worse over the next two months, and for much of that time, presumably, exponentially worse. And so the suspension of the NBA season and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s announcement that they are sick with COVID-19 will seem, in relatively short order, like quite small potatoes. And for all of that time, the country’s response will be commanded and controlled by Donald Trump.”
“Trump is, of course, the last man in the world you would want in charge right now.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-shows-us-america-is-broken.html
Donald Trump is the very worst person to handle the coronavirus crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/donald-trump-coronavirus-crisis
Been on and off Alprazolam, clonazepam, mirtazepan, escilatopram
A cocktail of anxiolitics and anti-depressants.
Now I just take Valproic Acid for my Bipolar Disorder.
Hopefully I easily snap out of episides if ever
Unless the time comes when my therapists prescribes pdychedelics, that mesns it is already regulated then I would take them provided that they are cheaper.
Looking for cheap highs, huh? hahaha! Seems good to me.
😉
Ain’t nothin’ cheaper than FREE, karl !!! just pluck it from ground.
On second thought….
The president thinks we are a ….
Country
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1239675/that-fucking-country-briefing-did-duterte-manage-to-assure-pinoys
What the Hell?
In Canada EVEN IN THE ABSCENCE of a MANDATED state of national health emergency . . .
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to announce federal funding to help provincial health-care systems cope with the increasing numbers of Canadians infected with the new coronavirus and to help workers who are forced to isolate themselves.
Government sources, not authorized to discuss the plans publicly, said Trudeau will announce the new measures Wednesday. WEDNESDAY.
The immediate objective is to try to contain the spread of the virus as much as possible, while also helping individuals hurt financially by COVID-19, such as by being forced to take time off work while under mandatory quarantine or self-imposed isolation.
Business and labour groups alike have called specifically for the federal government to loosen restrictions on employment insurance payments for people who are off work due to illness. This would also make it easier for people with more precarious jobs to stay home and avoid infecting others.”
More?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/trudeau-to-announce-covid-19-aid-measures-wednesday/ar-BB10YLtp?ocid=spartandhp
Policy is simply “what government DOES OR FAILS TO DO.” Rake over the coals (bad or good) specific policies and chefs will produce well done on a stick a barbecued President or Congress.
“WASHINGTON — Taking dramatic action Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced he is sharply restricting passenger travel from 26 European nations to the U.S. and moving to ease the economic cost of a viral pandemic that is roiling global financial markets and disrupting the daily lives of Americans.
“Congress, for its part, unveiled a multibillion-dollar aid package Wednesday that was expected to be voted on by the House as soon as Thursday.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled an economic assistance plan … –free coronavirus testing nationwide and emergency funding to reimburse lost paychecks for those self-quarantining, missing work or losing jobs amid the outbreak. — the package would also give states money for the newly jobless. It would provide additional funding for food and nutrition benefits for pregnant women, mothers and young children. It also would up money for “meals on wheels” and food for low-income elderly people.”
“ . . . Defence Secretary Mark Esper announced a series of moves, including restrictions for 60 days on travel by servicemembers, Defence Department civilians and their families to, from and through the four counties currently designated by the Centers for Disease Control as the highest risk COVID-19 counties — China, Iran, South Korea and Italy. Esper said the restrictions include all forms of travel, including for what the military calls permanent change of station, in which a servicemember and his family move to a different home base or station.
“Trump said he was also directing agencies to provide unspecified financial relief for “for workers who are ill, quarantined or caring for others due to coronavirus,” and asked Congress to take action to extend it.
“Trump said the U.S. will defer tax payments for some individual and business filers for three months to lessen the impacts of the virus outbreak. He said the Small Business Administration will also make low-interest loans available to businesses to help them weather the storm.”
THE LINK: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/trump-clamps-limits-on-travel-from-europe-to-us-for-30-days/ar-BB114lx9?ocid=spartandhp
popoy’s eche bucheche on policy: Ideally, moronic policy is fair game but policymakers are not fair game because the law or voters (but, Filipinos not anymore) shall take care of them; SHOOT down bad policies and expect bad policymakers to fall with them.
More? COVID-19 puts high public officials OF INTEREST on the dock for test of character, citizen empathy and compassion, gross incompetence and idiocy. The virus was declared pandemic to spare no national leader from the ultimate test of leadership so health professionals and adjunct institutions and the citizenry can do their job for survival of the specie.
Kalamazoo. That is the word I have not heard or seen for sometime. I was greeted with that word early Wednesday morning, when one of CNN’s anchor men voiced and displayed the word — as he discussed the results of the vote in Michigan to choose the Democratic Presidential nominee.
The word gives me the nice, happy feeling — and a clinking, tinkling sound — I enjoyed in my my secondary school years about 60 years ago.
I may be off tangent here again. But I can force-relate it to this blog topic: just as Joe has written about the PH becoming a world performer, I wish for the US to recover the decency and values I associate with America.
With the world pondering, as a result of the emergence of covid-19, how not much investment or consideration has been given to virus pandemics in general, this WaPo article, with the following title, caught my attention:
The silver lining of the market crash: Making the wealthy worry more about coronavirus
I am skeptical though.
Popoy’s ECHE BUCHECHE ABOUT GREATNESS
Wrongly, protesters’ placards ask Americans
“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ because
Rare a thing or event can Un-great a great nation.
Thinking lightly like
Even EC can not Un-Great, Brexit Great Britain.
Even in the midst of great shortfalls
Or periods of lesser greatness
Great once stays Great forevermore.
Greatness is like the hymen of virgin girls
It can be raptured but it can’t obliterate
The reason for a girl’s existential purpose.
KEEP AMERICA GREAT against
the onslaught of COVID-19 need not be said
because the old and present generation
with their blood and toil safeguarded their nation
by their knowledge, resources and fortitude
from non-existent words like Un-great and De-great.
No President or US Congress or Immigrants’ group
Can Un-great or De-great America.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🍻
Try social distancing in the MRT.
More rambling and off topic in Duterte’s speech.
Easier read—-
Highlights of Pres Digong’s Announcement 12 March 2020 at 9pm
Provincial Lockdown – if have 2 confirmed Covid 19 patients
National Offices – no work but w/ skeletal work force to deliver services
Private Sector – Flexible Work Arrangement can be implemented to safeguard their businesses
Mass Transport – shall continue to operate / social distancing to be strictly implemented
DOH advice/instructions shall prevail and shall be strictly followed
Land, Air & Domestic Tranportation – suspended from march 15 (midnight) to april 12 subject to review day-to-day
Code Alert Level – Code Red Sub-Level 2
Imposing strict social distancing to take effect for 30-days
Suspension of classes in ALL LEVELS in MM extended until April 12, 2020 subject to strict compliance of students to continue studies at their homes during the period. Police & Military will monitor students outside their residences and may be brought to the Police Precinct during this period.
Mass Gatherings w/in Metro Manila is strictly prohibited during the lock down period
Community Quarantine
Barangay Quarantine – minimum of 2 infected individuals, the Barangay Captain can implement a Barangay-wide quarantine
Teachers are also in authority similar to a Barangay Captain.
Municipality/City Quarantine – minimum of 2 infected patients in a barangay within their jurisdiction.
If Quarantines are not implemented, the head shall go to prison for neglect of duties. DILG can suspend local officials for neglect.
Regional Offices can implement
suspensions in their locality using their sound judgement but should not be abused.
Meetings daily by the different agencies that are members of the Inter Agency Task Force.
There will be NO MARTIAL LAW! Thos is meant to protect the country from the spread of the CoVID 19 virus.
Entey travel restrictions shall be implemented from countries with confirmed cases of CoVID 19 patients but Filipinos can come back anytime. Foreign Diplomats are also restricted from entry for the same reasons.
Karl, ang galing-galing naman, brilliant and comprehensive, do this do that. take care of yourselves. puro utos, puro utos. papano yung nawalan trabaho, walang mabiling pagkain,
yung mga may sakit na, papano yung namatay na may sakit hindi naman seguradong virus, saan magpapatest kung may lagnat at ubo sa mga barangay na walang ospital, walang health center, walang masakyan kahit trycycle. Papano naman pag nadali ng virus yung ang pangtawid araw-araw ay mula sa tinda ng sitsaron at nilagang mane sa traffic? Yung mga batang nagtitinda ng sampaguita? Nasabi nga dito sa TSoH, Hindi naman kalat pa eh, puro takot at pangamba pa lang yan, tipong psychedelic pa eh. Nasaan ang tulong sa mga taong wala mang pandemic eh walang makain lalo na sa liblib na kanayonan?
Di pa din masasagot yan dahil damay damay na.
Supply chain dusrupted
Labor disrupted
Etc
No ID no entry if you are working in Manila coming from nearby provinces.
karl, thanks for the easy to read summary compared to the full text shown in the link referenced by popoy.
Welcome, thanks to the original poster!
This might be why COVID disease figures have been low in tropical countries like the Philippines.
Maybe COVID disease cases are being diagnosed wrongly as Dengue Fever infections ?
There is lots of dengue fever in all these countries in SEA and the symptoms are very similar.
A new research study from Singapore comes to this conclusion.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/warning-singapore-study-shows-that-covid-19-patients-could-be-misdiagnosed-for-dengue-due-to-false-positive-in-dengue-serological-tests
“TSoH is not, repeat IS NOT a SUBLIMINAL venue or a weapon to attack persons of authority like any incumbent of past Presidents, etc.”
However, BUT, IT CAN’T BE HELPED . . .There’s irony of avoidable eche bucheche in policy making vulnerable to infectious criticisms:
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/13/2000537/full-text-public-address-president-rodrigo-duterte-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
Meanwhile…
Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak.
“Self isolate” for some of world’s richest means Covid-19 tests abroad, personal medics and subterranean hideouts.
Like hundreds of thousands of people across the world, the super-rich are preparing to self-isolate in the face of an escalation in the coronavirus crisis. But their plans extend far beyond stocking up on hand sanitiser and TV boxsets.
The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many are understood to be taking personal doctors or nurses on their flights to treat them and their families in the event that they become infected. The wealthy are also besieging doctors in private clinics in Harley Street, London, and across the world, demanding private coronavirus tests.
Robert Vicino, founder and chief executive of Vivos Group, a California-based company constructing underground shelters designed to withstand a range of natural disasters and catastrophes, said his firm had seen a surge in inquiries and sales since the crisis took hold.
Vivos has converted a cold war bunker in Indiana into accommodation for 80 people, and is offering space in 575 concrete bunkers in an abandoned second world war ordnance depot in South Dakota.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers
This is how the motherf*ckers are preparing for the end times. The world they have created is truly sick.
If this pandemic will, in turn, lead to severe economic crisis, surviving proles might be well justified to sharpen their pitch forks.
Micha,
hymen aside, now Ivanka may be coronavirus positive:
https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-australian-official-who-met-with-ivanka-trump-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/
There might be a lot of crazy rich Americans out there that can hole up, but i assure you most rich Americans are constantly pressing flesh, Micha— that’s why they’re rich. Hearst and Getty type rich folk are few, i gotta feeling coronavirus will affect the rich just as much.
That’s because in the early phase of the outbreak when most cases were only confined within Wuhan, Trump and his wealthy friends thought that corona was a hoax and threw precaution to the wind. He even hosted a Brazilian delegation at Mar-a-Lago headed by Bolsonaro who was also in on the hoax narrative but whose aide actually tested positive for the virus.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/trump-met-brazilian-official-who-tested-positive-for-coronavirus
@ Micha
Trump and his wealthy friends thought that corona was a hoax and threw precaution to the wind
In todays world, the tongue twisters are quite prevalent. The Duterte administration mastered these kind of propaganda against VP Robredo.
Here’s the beaming con Don right beside the infected minister.
Ganyan kayo mayaysman, inaapi nyo kaming kapwa nyo…..na mas mayaman.
The bunkers may become virus centers too — but the residents will be living in style: with vintage wines and caviars.
This 1996 song by Italian Eros Ramazzoti is about how those who want to escape the plague are not spared – it is loosely inspired by Bocaccio’s Decamerone, an Italian classic about nobility hiding and partying in a castle to escape an epidemic.. The translation is a bit rough but one can get the meaning. A man who lives in that age writes a “Lettera al Futuro” about “things that belong to a past that seems to never go away” to someone “who will be born someday in the future” – hoping for better times:
“This is an old story
already told, so many years ago
it’s an old story, but it will surely tell you something…
there were also those dark times
times when it was blowing, stronger than ever,
the bad wind of an awful disease.
it was like this the prince thought about locking himself inside the castle
only with his friends – that’s how he thought
to stay put there
till that fear will pass
and all that darkness…
there was hapiness inside the castle
and people were enjoying each others company
and they were eating a bit of everything
and they were dancing a little
and no one has ever imagined
that the bad wind could arrive there too
but it eventually entered [the castle] … I’m writing to you
these things that belong to a past that
seems to never go away
I am writing all this to you
who will be born someday in the future
and who knows how things will be
if this wind will have left the cities…
I’m writing all this to you
who will be born someday in the future
and who knows how things will be
if this wind will have left the cities.
I don’t know the world you’ll find
I just hope you’ll be
the son of a new
and more fair humanity”
Waking up from sleeping while watching TCM, turning to MSN News at 4:30 am Manila time:
© Associated Press
President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the novel coronavirus on Friday. The move will allow for more federal aid to states and municipalities.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday classified the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic. To date, more than 136,000 people around the world have been infected, and there have been more than 5,000 deaths.
According to The New York Times, as of Friday morning at least 1,663 people in 46 states and Washington, DC, had tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least 41 people had died.
NOTED: The move will allow for more federal aid to states and municipalities. The move will allow for more federal aid to states and municipalities.
There have also been a surge of state of emergency declarations in countries and officials testing positive with covid19 — truly, the virus is nonpartisan.
“NOTED: The move will allow for more federal aid to states and municipalities. The move will allow for more federal aid to states and municipalities…”
Me and the wife (both bonafide elderly) are staying with #2 son who is a newly-minted ER doctor. She and I are bracing for how this concrete funding will reverberate and play out as the funding will put into play the lines of defense and containment. ER facilities are the primary battle lines since those who have no other medical means are already taxing this resource even as we speak. We pray that his and his co-workers’ health hold up when the battles unfold. We are already compromised by age and health issues.
Thanks for the briefing, Sonny. Best for you and your family, and thanks to your son for being on the front lines as our soldier were in WWII. Much respect. Take good care.
Very much appreciated, Joe. America has been good to our families.
Thank you for your service, too.
🖖
With things going the ay they are in the Philippines, how South Korea has handled the Corona 19 plague is worth examining ! The contrast with China is vast. Transparency & public cooperation ! Not force & censorship !
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3075164/south-koreas-coronavirus-response-opposite-china-and
@Bill In Oz
“hardline measures such as lockdowns”, Korea has 51.000.000 people, how do you want to compare this to 1,437,616,423 people ?
The man seems to pretend it was better not to lock down Wuhan with +/-9,785,392 people and Hubei province with +/-57.237.740 people (more then whole Korea).
The article isn’t even written by a Korean.
The province of Hubei, with Wuhan within it has roughly 57 million people. That’s comparable to South Korea in size & population and level of industrial development.
And since when doe an article in SCMP have to be written by a Korean ? Frankly that’s a bizarre thing to write !
@Bill In Oz, Madmax
Lets put it in this way.
Korea has 8.086 cases in whole Korea, Hubei province 67.790 cases. This is 8 times more related to the same number of people but in a province and not a country.
How can this man make any comparison?
@Madmax
A Korean will never write such nonsense because he knows you can’t compare it.
Only some ignorant will bite into this man writings and Koreans don’t want to look stupid.
LONG BEFORE the covid-19 deathful world extravaganza, in popoy’s daily self-quarantined unlonely hours he watches TCM (turner classic movies) and savours the richness of the silver screen (now on TV, laptop monitors , Ipads and cellphone) on the DNA, the sinews, muscles and bones, lungs, heart and soul of American entertainers who did not make or rake in hundreds of million dollars but with their talents and absence of racial eche bucheche HAD CONTRIBUTED AND MADE AMERICA GREAT and the greatest among free and non-free nations in the cosmos.
To those perforce to be on self-quarantine, the link below tells of a segment group of great people honoring their great one who without the eche bucheche of sissies ordered the bombing of a scalawag. It is long in viewing but quite short for those granted the gift of self-isolation.
Come to think of it or enjoy it SELF-QUARANTINE or self-isolation is like a soul cleansing retreat. With instant medical help close by especially for oldies.
Search and see Jack Palance first movie as gunslinger after watching rendition of Call of Far Away Hill:
Here’s the Shane scene where Jack P was uber forma.
I was told Sean Connery was in this movie.
can anyone find him?
Sorry, popoy. IMDB does not list him in the credits of SOUTH PACIFIC. IMDB is dictionary of Hollywood.
https://www.biography.com/video/sean-connery-first-acting-job-1746499795
According to the link, it was his very first acting job.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000125/otherworks
It was on stage not on film.
I didn’t see that. Thanks, Neph. Sure increases my respect for IMDB. Tanod – well-deserved title, Karl. You, the man. 🙂
Thanks to TSoH, viz. Karl and Sonny for the qualitative corrective comment. This is what this blog for imperfections of non-ax grinders commenters.
So give me one inch and I’d ask only for three centimeters more. Like I read in the early seventies that the English is now so abiding and so law respectful BECAUSE for every ten felons then they have hanged EIGHT who were later found innocent which caused my reading on the Poor Law and Transportation which gave the cosmos a kind of race more civilized than poverty-stricken ones.
👍🍻
Athough known to macho men and very beautiful women, who is this Sean Connery in kilts country?
Last na po ito for today.
With indulgence from JoeAm, and just for TSoH habitués who’s imposed themselves into voluntary voluntary home isolation in the South Pacific down down below far North Pacific, THIS LINK might entertain. Otherwise just delete.
All persons entering Australia ( and New Zealand ) from today will have to self quarantine for 14 days. No exceptions !
Short term visiters cannot do that so I suspect there will be a lot less travelling here
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/03/more-proof-that-viruses-dont-have-wings-update-slowmo-moves/#comment-2292144
IS THIS TRUE? Totoo ba ‘to? 2 – 2 -O bai to?
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/14/2000832/philippines-reports-34-new-covid-19-cases-highest-one-day-spike
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines reported 47 new infections of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on Saturday, bringing the tally to 111 cases.
Papano ba ang estadistika nito Mang NHerrera. Kung 47 isang araw lang 47 suspetsang bagong kaso, backtrack 14 days incubation period bawat isa, meron na ang 47 na ito bago lumitaw; kung bawat araw sa first day of 14 days nakahawa sa isa pa (nadoble sa first day = 94 na) pero hindi pa bistado ang infection, Mang NH, meron bang formula para malaman kung ilan ang possibling nahawa sa 47 na ito reported on Sunday March 15, 2020.
Ilan kaya THEORETICALLY ONLY ANG dagdag, ang dagdag (parang tanong sa laki ng bribe sa korapsiyon noon) para sa new cases sa Lunes March 16, 2020. Puede ba ang formula gamitin ay 47 raised to the power 47? This is insanely impossible unless likewise presidential plunder is imagined as ten pesos per day from first day of office to after one year (365 days) in office?
Kaya Seguro Mali na on March 29, ang possibleng bloated prediction ng kaso ay 38,416- total cases where the increase on that day is just multiplied by itself.
Kung sa Wuhan Nakita yung record ng Patient Zero at saka after 5 days na-established na 30 (example only) anong formula maaring gamitin para MAPAGHANDAAN ang gagawing pagiwas sa virus? Okay, okay daming pagkakaiba nang Metro Manila sa Wuhan pero sa hindi tonto, pareho naman ang kalaban COVID-19 virus kaya hindi pikit mata at bahala na.
Puede kaya base on GROWTH OR SPREAD pattern sa Wuhan, Seoul, Northern Italy, etc. Meron kayang basehan ang nakaraan behaviour para basehan ng aksyon makatao na hindi parang suntok sa buwan? Okay NH na hindi pagaksayahan mo ng panahon at isipan ang mga tanong kong tila hindi pangmadla.
We breached 100.
Then brown outs, no water, a perfect storm ahead.
If we do not stay on our couches the 114 cases would reach 600 after a few days.
I read that somewhere @NHerrera, Pls refresh me with your projections.
The number of deaths is too high for the number of cases, so the unknown cases are probably very many. Compare to how many deaths there are in Sokor and Germany which test a lot and both have drive-in testing and a lot of kits, kits, kits.
Not knowing who is infected means harder to isolate them like we are doing over here.
@karl,
Since the JHU Dashboard is updated more frequently than DOH Dashboard, I visited that site again today at 6:40 am and found PH’s confirmed cases to be 140 with 11 deaths.
Considering, among others, my Item 2 note in the comment I posted earlier at
NHerrera says:
March 16, 2020 at 6:24 am,
it is not unreasonable to project that the confirmed cases will reach 600 in a week’s time.
Thanks
nagpapalimos na po ang doh. health care workers are very low on supplies, face masks, hand sanitisers, hasmat suits, etc. asking for donations na talaga sila. methink, bong go’s malasakit centers have eaten most of the bulk of health funds.
apparently, china is sending supplies and hopefully, supply are not used and recycled, the face masks washed and then ironed out and folded. chinese doctors are coming as well kuno. old problem resurfacing, may language barrier. not all chinese doctors speak english and most of pinoy health workers dont speak mandarin.
chinese doctors would have to be accommodated as well. some of our citizens will be asked to move out and live elsewhere, I dont know.
They sent doctors and materials to Italy what about us their new BFFs?
I dont know if DTI has special arrangements with 3M for N95
Green Cross
Rhea
Zonrox
Domex
Time to jumpstart Phil manufacturing
na-triage lang po ang ating bansa, karlg. coronavirus epicenter italy is seen as priority with more fatalities compared to ours, deaths natin stand at 12 for now.
anyhow, wait muna tayo dahil chinese aid is coming kuno, when exactly? when our death tally match that of italy’s?
in the meantime, lockdown na ang ilang communities sa kamaynilaan with checkpoints in place na. military personnel highly visible sa mga checkpoints, carrying armalites like they had expected armed foreign invasion and not virus. them trying to stop our own people from being out and about and spreading the virus and yet wala pang travel ban to and from china.
no guarantee po na yong arriving chinese doctors are not chinese soldiers for mission of immersion.
Nasa operational guidelines ng checkpoint ang sinundan, siguro babaguhin nila yan bukas.
Let us see if they will send Chinese Health workers.
Suspended public transpo na
Ngayun nga lang dami naglakad.
Paswesweduhin ba sila?
Yung Pantawid Oam pamilya nga ATM lang no OTC
it’s only money. I had wished BIR with the basbas of the president waives off the paying of taxes for taxation year 2020, help ease financial burden of our citizens on lockdown.
similarly, water concessionaires to also waive off the paying of water bills, meralco and power companies the electricity bills and in a way, help our citizens already being doubled jeopardy, quarantined and burdened with the need to meet necessities of daily living.
BIR no luck but with MERALco and Maynilad okayed the grace period.
DOH has revised its case tracker to provide a lot more information on the individual cases, hospitals, and trends. It takes a while to figure out but is great for probing details. We can now track PUMs, which are “Patients Under Monitoring”. There were 2,215 yesterday and today 2,389. There are not enough test kits to test these thousands who are ill, and were sent home. (To get to it, push the arrows under the large numbered box in the upper right – it opens showing confirmed cases, I believe.)
https://ncovtracker.doh.gov.ph/
So far recoveries are at 2 and deaths at 12. Deaths to confirmed cases is 8.57%.
Recoveries to deaths is rather like basketball’s assists to turnover ratio, and, boy is the Philippines a lousy ball handler.
Many thanks for this.
Off topic: corona in Europe..
The number to call in case one has symptoms has been repeated so often I remember it. 116 117
Italy: locked down and singing from the balconies to raise their spirits
Spain: locked down and clapping from the balconies, not flamenco rythm but for health workers
France: schools, restaurants, museums, all unneccessary stuff closed down for now
Belgium: also has closed certain stuff, fries joints are still open
Berlin: has closed pubs, clubs etc., brothels, gyms, pools. No more events over 50 people.
Events with 30 people
Bavarian contact tracing and quarantine is aggressive. Home office is very common now.
Contacts are tested immediately, their contacts are asked to self-quarantine
People who have been to Spain or Italy are asked to self-quarantine
Berlin state/city has by ordnance compelled healthcare workers to familiarize themselves with ventilators and to prioritize coronavirus
The military hospital in Koblenz is asking for medical reserve officers to volunteer.
Someone on Twitter hinted that they are building extra capacity for the time it is needed.
An air force base was used to quarantine the German Wuhan evacuees some weeks ago.
The video is the air force plane landing in Frankfurt (refueled in Finland as Russia denied landing)
COVID19 UPDATE
1. I visited the JHU-CSSE Dashboard and found that today, the official Mainland China confirmed cases of the coronavirus at 81,003 is less than the combined Outside China official confirmed cases of 81,684.
2. Whereas before the main driver of the virus spread was thought to be those with symptoms, there are many studies coming out showing that asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic cases contributes significantly to the spread.
3. In an effort to lessen the economic impact of covid19, the US Fed is now planning to reduce the target rate to near zero.
Meanwhile we have a pre-existing threat.
There will be 2.5 million TB cases in 2022.
They are immuno compromised and very vulnerable to COVID.
https://www.who.int/philippines/news/commentaries/detail/it-s-time-to-end-tb-in-the-philippines
TB COVID Q and A
https://www.tbalert.org/about-tb/what-is-tb/coronavirus-covid-19-and-tb-qa/
Make that pre-existing concern.
Another concern is the vulnerability of the 77,000 HIV patients in the Philippines.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hiv-cases-soar-in-the-philippines-as-dating-apps-spread-11570095003
Vitamin D3 boosts the immune system to fight off COVID 19 disease !
Here are the thoughts f Dr Campbell in the UK :
Bill this is uber fantastic and truth laden. I was agriculturist soils extension worker always almost daily for more than 4 hours under the burning sun in the lowland rice paddies in the provinces of Romblon, Antique and Rizal Provinces during the sixties, I recall no memory of colds and coughing problems. The good doctor’s dissection of Vit D reminded me of the thoroughness of Ozzie academics while attending the AAC (Aust AdmCollege) in Kunyung Road. Now high up in the northern hemisphere where the sun seldom rises (sankamap), I needed to combat the old man’s cough that never heals. Thanks and GoDay mate!
A healthy gut means a strong immune system.
Antibiotics kill both bad and good bacteria so teplenish them with pre and probiotics and do not take abti biotics unless you have to.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/research/advancements-in-research/fundamentals/in-depth/the-gut-where-bacteria-and-immune-system-meet
This is new to me, the gut is also a player in regulating blood pressure.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/blood_vessels_sniff_gut_microbes_to_regulate_blood_pressure
pls lang po, let us not forget the value of good night’s sleep. it’s during sleep that the body heals itself, refreshed and invigorated.
I was an insomniac before, I get to post here past midnight.
Stay home, all.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/729875/duterte-orders-lockdown-of-entire-luzon-due-to-covid-19-threat/story/
A Washington Post article talks of Triage or Rationing in the treatment of covid19 in the US
In the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors made life-or-death decisions last month when 1,000 people needed ventilators to support their breathing, but only 600 were available.
In Iran, where numerous high-level officials have been infected, doctors sought unsuccessfully to get the international community to lift sanctions so they could purchase more lifesaving machines.
And in northern Italy, doctors took the painful step last week of issuing guidelines for rationing ventilators and other essential medical equipment, prioritizing treatment for the young and others with the best chance of survival.
Such tough choices could well be ahead for the United States, a nation with limited hospital capacity and grim epidemiological projections estimating that as many as 40 to 60 percent of the country’s population of 327 million could eventually become infected.
“We are looking at a new war no one has seen before. We have never fought a virus like this with this potential consequence,” New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday afternoon. He warned, “It is only a matter of time before ICU beds are full.
…
In an extreme outbreak, rationing would raise tortured questions: Should someone with a terminal cancer or serious heart disease get more or less priority? Should the CEO of a hospital or a health worker be able to jump the queue? What about pregnant women? How should prisoners or undocumented immigrants be considered? All things being equal, would a lottery or coin flip be an equitable approach?
“These are really hard decisions,” said George L. Anesi, a critical care specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. “In a public health emergency, you shift from a focus on individual patients to how society as a whole benefits and that’s a big change from usual care.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/15/coronavirus-rationing-us/
MY COMMENT
I am no epidemiologist or health expert but talking of 40 to 60 percent infected out of US 327 million population seems extreme. Fifty percent of 327 million is 164 million. But even 10 percent infected (33 million) is a big number requiring medical facilities that can overwhelm. It is probably these scenarios by epidemiologists that prompts Dr. Fauci, US health expert, to suggest a further reduction of activities to flatten the coronavirus curve so as not to overwhelm the medical workers and facilities.
I recall that in the early days when TSH came with the first of a series of blogs relating to covid19, when Joe and I discussed probably numbers to be infected before the crisis is over — and we were writing of then big numbers. Joe was more prudent by essentially saying that the numbers he is coming up with are rather ugly. I ventured to write of a few hundreds of thousands to the smaller side of millions for the worldwide total. Well, we have reached 160,000 worldwide. Going forward, I venture to write this range — some more hundreds of thousands to a million or so. In 15 to 20 days.
N’Herrera On Saturday the 7th of March we had just 7 COVID 19 cases here in South Australia. This evening it is now 29. So in 10 days the number has quadrupled !
Mostly still the COVID 19 cases are people flying into Australia from overseas. Australians, permanent residents & visiting foreigners flying in mostly from the USA, Italy, Iran & the UK Just 2 local transmission cases so far.
So closing the borders is a key tool for stopping this disease. Here that means that all arrivals MUST quarantine for 14 days either at home or a hotel. There are now huge fines for breaking the quarantine and it is being locally policed via spot checks and via cell phone location tracking.
The Philippines has also closed it’s borders but Filipinos returning home also need to be quarantined to stop this infectious disease.
This could be questions from a “walang alam” virus monger: Repeat, wala pong alam kasi eh.
Is there available diagrams or photos of COVID-19 testing kit? Is it a use-once and discard medical logistic like a syringe?
Are testing kits manufactured in factories in areas previously ravaged areas
SAFE FOR USED by people in new mildly infected areas?
Are new testing kits sterile and wont likely infect handlers and patients to be tested?
Are testing kits reusable when a tested suspect is tested POSITIVE?
Should not testing kits be used only in ASSESSMENT CENTRES like hospitals?
If there are no assessment centers BECAUSE THERE ARE NO or not enough hospitals or clinic for towns and cities, and the government issues only rules with no funding what should the citizens do?
Probably the best donations to a government in need are green backs to purchase from other countries what the medical sector has determined as urgently needed.
What is the technical life of a testing kit? Ang walang alam kalimitan ay makulit.
partial answer on what a testing kit for COVID-19 LOOKS LIKE?
sorry I forgot to paste this link:
https://kfor.com/health/coronavirus/fake-covid-19-test-kits-seized-at-lax/
Karl, Sonny, can this happen to popoy in the Philippines?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/15/coronavirus-test-results-covid-19-first-person-130739
Here, there is still lack of test kits.
I read a message from a classmate that they have difficulty of releasing an inlaw who passed because the results for COVID coming from RITM has not arrived yet.
A worse nightmare was a viral message of a daughter of a patient who happens to be in the US, she lamented that her mother was cremated alone because the husband is in quarantine.
Our worst fear is being split up as a family, or with Joe Jr on his own. We’ve worked out a plan, but it depends on others here also getting through okay.
Hope everything is and will be okay with you.
Thanks, Karl. You too.
😊
sorry for this may sound incongruous. the mother was not really alone, right? if she died in hospital, there are always chaplains around, on call and ready to give the last rites kahit behind glass. same with funeral homes. although kept at a distance, the dead wrapped in plastic, the dead is given proper send off as humanly as possible, may not be grand though complete with mourners, flowers and wake, but formalities are observed, legal and others. and sometimes during cremation, funeral music like ‘tedium’ is played.
there are grief counselors and social workers employed by hospitals to help families cope with their loss, also to answer questions they may have.
there are probly pics of the coffin taken as well, for families to keep and to remember their dead, plus the report of the last few days of the dead, the report of the summary of medical care given. all they have to do is ask before reports are archived.
OKay, but the immediate family still wished to be with her if only they could.
This is our WWIII. It will drastically affect millions of families. Sea levels will rise because of tears shed.
My sister and family friend on separate flights from the PH came through LAX screening sans incident due to “soft” Covid-19 protocols while waiting Pres Trump’s screening deployment.
Illinois increased Covid-19 count, now stands at 105 stricken. No fatalities, so far. We’re watching NY & New Jersey unilateral efforts at containment. I’m fervently hoping US STEM expertise and infrastructure will come through with test kits. Gov Cuomo has called for alerts to US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS to be on the ready to built hospital capacities. (per CNN). McDonalds still serving full menu, only for take-out, no dining services. Chicago households chomping at the bits for grocery runs. Small diners open as long as their supply lines are intact. Same with Seafood City (Jollibee, Grill City, Red Ribbon, Valerio’s), Chicago.
https://patch.com/illinois/across-il/coronavirus-illinois-march-15-update-93-cases-statewide
I was searching only for photos and OmiGod, I got wealth of INFO too lengthy to read BUT NOT for TSoH commenters whose patience for truth seeking is also part of one’s honor.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a31431716/coronavirus-tests/
Over here people are still ordering fast food and take out at restaurants, though sit-down meals are noticebly down. i just witnessd a kid sneeze at a burger he’s preparing in McDonald’s!
They’ve just instituted bans on bars, clubs and strip joints— why strip joints? I’m worried about the girls, how are they gonna make money?
Gas seems still plentiful, which makes sense cuz people are now holed up. But food looks like it’ll be affected. i’d hoard on gas too, it may soon come to Mad Max times.
Water i don’t think will get affected soon, nor electricity. Until i suppose water and electric folks start dying of coronavirus.
I’m keeping an eye on what Bill Gates is doing, becuz the more i read stuff, the more Bill Gates looks to me like Ozymandiaz from Watchmen
I predict there will be riots in the inner cities here, apartments multi-generational households in city due to food shortages probably around summer. there’s lots of guns to go around.
https://qz.com/1810018/how-bill-gates-wants-us-to-respond-to-coronavirus/
I’m trying to build the case against Bill Gates (which if true i’m actually for). Give me sometime to Google all this. and i’ll present a case to you all, buy it or not, it’s good diversion regardless while we all isolate and ruminate all this. after this pandemic (Bill Gates responsible or not), it’ll be a much different world for sure. or maybe not, but let’s push the envelope a bit re Bill Gates.
yup this is another Means Justifying the End thread.
No, I won’t accept this as it is one of the conspiracy themes pushed by trolls who visited here. I don’t want it on my blog.
LCX, I rejected your comment that pushed the issue. Nor am I particularly interested in taking up American elections unless it has relevance to the Philippines.
MEANTIME, BACK AT THE RANCH
The US Fed cutting the funding rates to near zero did not make the stock market “thrilled” as Trump expected. It made the market more worried [an understatement]. Not helped by the shocking but expected tanking of the Chinese economy as shown by the data from the first two months of the year.
Also, Central Bankers of big economies are running mostly on empty with their monetary tool kits. Use the fiscal tool kit next? To have money to do what? Stay home?
The market remained in the red all day and sold off further in the last hour of trading, as President Donald Trump said the coronavirus outbreak could last until July or August.
The S&P 500 closed down nearly 12%, while the Dow (INDU) fell 12.9%, or 2,997 points, down. The index hasn’t been this low since May 2017.
The Nasdaq Composite (COMP) closed down 12.3%.
The link below demonstrate OPINIONS (and facts) like what could be objective and positive BUT COMBATIVE and CONTENTIOUS, BLAMING-type THINKING; To be responsible for, is to be blame for. This is like NITPICKING suggestive of incompetence highlighting political accountability.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/health/what-60-older-need-to-know-coronavirus-wellness-trnd/index.html
My bad so sorry, I lost, can’t find the correct but it is in CNN BREAKING NEWS. Try this one, it could be a short part of it. It is about MD professionals and experts being interviewed on what OUGHT TO BE the appropriate response and actions Trump should have done at the onset of COVID-19.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/health/us-coronavirus-updates-tuesday/index.html
It’s really quick; it’ superfast, there’s billions pesos (P27.1 billion eh) on March 16 made available (kuno, Daw) to help citizens against the corona virus. 27.1 billion pesos is actually some 531,372,550.00 US dollars. Bilyon-bilyon (27 thousand milyon pesos) naging nauwi lang sa 532 milyon dolyar na puedeng pambili ng gamut at kagamitan, pandadagdag bayad sa mga doctor at mga empleyado laan sa virus. Kung hindi palpak ang plano.
Sa 27.1 bilyon pesos baka yun lang P3.1 galing sa PAGCOR ang palusuting gastos ng mga COA auditors kung nasasakop ng approbadong batas. Yung P2.0 bilyon from DOLE approbado yan ng batas para mga manggagawa hindi para problema ng virus.
SAAN ba kukunin yan P27.1 na yan? Yun P3.1Bn galing sa PAGCOR at DOLE. Yung P22Bn galing (from) existing funding ng SSS (P1.2Bn), TESDA (P3Bn), DOT (P14Bn), D Agri (P2.8Bn) and DTI (p1Bn). Sa P27Bn, maliit lang P5.1Bn (US$100) ang baka maaring gastusin laban sa corona virus KUNG a-aproven ng COA auditors.
Kasi kung earmarked na yan sa approved annual national budget, para sa particular needs yan mga perang yan. Money for this spent but was spent for that minsan problema yan. Pambili ng bigas ibinili ng alak ni Mister, aba ay magugutom ang mga anak. Puede rin Seguro sabihin kung investment at puhunan yan, tawag diyan “opportunity cost of capital”.
NO problem, NO PROBLEM during declared State of National Emergency or Calamity the President MAY and CAN and SHALL AUTHORIZE EXPENDITURE OF PUBLIC FUNDS (peoples’ money really) without approval of Congress as provided by the Constitution.
What PARTICULAR article and section of the Philippine Constitution refers to FINANCIAL emergency powers of President. Should such provision be cited in the issued proclamation of national emergency or calamity. Sa gobierno kahit sampera lang gastos dapat ayon sa batas, Eh.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/16/2001460/duterte-admin-rolls-out-p271b-war-chest-vs-coronavirus-pandemic
my bad, a corrected paragraph, so sorry.
SAAN ba kukunin yan P27.1 na yan? Yun P3.1Bn galing sa PAGCOR at DOLE. Yung P22Bn galing (from) existing funding ng SSS (P1.2Bn), TESDA (P3Bn), DOT (P14Bn), D Agri (P2.8Bn) and DTI (p1Bn). Sa P27Bn, maliit lang P5.1Bn (US$100 milyon) ang baka maaring gastusin laban sa corona virus KUNG a-aproven ng COA auditors.
sa Saligang Batas Meron ba o walang diretsong probisyon? Never mind na lang eh. Magkano na ba ang nagastos, nabawas na (sa P27.1 bilyon) laban sa corona virus mula noong March 12, limang araw na nakalipas sa emergency eh?
https://pnl-law.com/blog/emergency-powers-of-the-president/
Covid-19 will be gone by June, my personal guess. Just a hunch.
The virus will be beaten by statistics, not science. Read good news for a change.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/13/corona-is-slowing-down-humanity-will-survive-says-biophysicist-michael-levitt/
In the meantime, stay cool. Practice all personal safeguards everyone are familiar by now.
Don’t get trampled in a panic buying.
Philippines should reach out to countries for medical aid. Not many are assisting. None in EU came to Italy’s aid, China did. China has one of the best testing kit at the moment. So too Singapore. Indonesia has requested Singapore’s aid and we are sending them equiptment, test kits and personal protection gears. We have already sent some to Batam, a huge Indonesian island 30 minutes from Spore.
That would be best best case. One projection I saw pegged June 30 as peak when some 230,000 Filipinos would be confirmed ill (on that day alone), and the disease would be severely diminished by October. Another report says it comes in waves and will take 18 months to clear. Obviously, I prefer your hunch.
…. 18 months to clear because of increased immunity due to the previous waves and due to improved medicine and possible vaccinations. Thus only for countries that went trough several severe enough waves and with the needed will/resources to organize/pay the pharmaceutical companies.
The after the peak policies will be even more important than the ones to fight the first battle with the invisible enemy.
And most important the global preparation for the next pandemic of a virus that can be much worse then Covid-19. Some predict 40 to 80% mortality rates, not 1 or 2% as this one.
International travel and supply chains… medical infrastructure and needed spare capacity… more robust vital economic sectors…. international cooperation/sharing of knowledge and the opposite, strategic/military opportunities/threats…
This is a ‘post-morten’ done prior to the fact, haha. Good thinking here. I think the US and many European states have sophisticated disease sciences, but I think the Philippines does not provide continuity well, it just jumps from one political leader to the next. Just as with infrastructure investment, it gets jerked around.
While we are at this, this London Imperial College coronavirus study which informed UK strategic moves — and probably the US’s strategic moves as well [the US Administration has been provided a copy] — may be a useful read. It is on the “scary” side of projections. The link is a 20-page pdf file. It is “hot” so to speak, datelined March 16, 2020.
Click to access Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The modelling study — based in UK and authored or collaborated by some 30 epidemiologists and health experts and the WHO Center for Infectious Diseases — discussed the NPI [Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions] and the critical needs for hospital beds and associated coronavirus deaths, etc.
It focused on two main strategies: mitigation strategy and suppression strategy.
Mitigation Strategy “focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread;” while Suppression Strategy, “aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely.”
I may add the following. My feelings about all these reports and readings — even from well-intentioned, credentialed experts — are that there is a whole range of projections: from the reassuring side to scary side. We have to keep a certain balance based on our native valuation of things. I am an octogenarian and considering the severity with which covid19 hits the elderly, there may well be bias in my view of things — as much as I try not to.
One wonders why countries are messing with such predictor diseases. Such a nasty way of fighting, to kill innocents and design one that is hidden for days. Evil, this biowarfare business.
On a related item, I just examined the DOW chart and found that, considering the see-saw in the chart but mostly trending down, the index is now at the level it was during the start of Trump’s presidency in January 2017 — there goes his vaunted stock market, downed by an unseen enemy he cannot threaten away as he has almost anyone he dislikes.
If we view Trump as an “Input-Output Box,” here’s why the Box has changed his tone lately:
Officials and those close to Trump on Monday and Tuesday pointed to no fewer than seven different “inputs” that may have changed Trump’s “output” on the outbreak. They included plummeting markets, economic data from China showing a devastating impact on growth and new statistical models showing millions of Americans could die if action wasn’t taken promptly.
Have you read about the herd immunity proposal in the UK.
That is the oppisite of quarantinr, if that works we could have been immuned to the common cold by now.
Link
https://www.vox.com/world/2020/3/15/21180414/coronavirus-uk-herd-immunity-vallance-johnson
Yes, karl, I noted that in my covid19-related readings.
The idea it seems — espoused by Boris Johnson per advice of some of his advisers but since abandoned due to deep concerns and backlash from knowledgeable critics — is not to quarantine with some exceptions, I believe, so the British population will develop some “natural” immunity in a sizeable part of the population, as happens in some viral infections. If that becomes a reality, this natural immunity acts as some sort of vaccine which effectively reduces the Propagation Number R0 to below 1 [from the current estimate range of 2 to 3] and will thus result in the virus finding less and less viable hosts and eventually dies.
Thanks.
And his opportunism, jumping to a new epitheton again, from “wall builder”, via “drainer of the swamp” with all its fake news to “war president”.
I think reading the fear of many, he will try to project more gravitas in trying to win the elections.
Unfortunately chemp, your hunch is just a hunch. Warmer weather may or may not flatten the curve.
It’s already summertime in the tropics but Manila is still locked down for an outbreak.
There’s also good indication, according to epidemiologists, that this viral infection could go in waves. It might taper off during the summer but will most likely make a comeback in the next winter.
Hopefully some vaccines can be developed by then, but there’s also the possibility that a new, far deadlier, corona strain will also evolve.
Meanwhile here in the US, with lockdowns and closures of businesses, GDP could be in the red by as much as 10%. The economy needs an infusion of at least $2 trillion in mainstreet stimulus if a severe recession is to be avoided but the neo-liberal motherf*ckers in both parties are dilly-dallying on the measure, passing only a very inadequate legislation.
“The economy needs an infusion of at least $2 trillion in mainstreet stimulus if a severe recession is to be avoided but the neo-liberal motherf*ckers in both parties are dilly-dallying on the measure, passing only a very inadequate legislation.”
I’m suppose to get $1,000 in check soon from the Federal gov’t, Micha. But i honestly I won’t spend it anywhere. Where would you spend it?
Having prepped and played a variety of scenarios out, I’m fine. if worst comes to worst, i can lily pad it up on the 395 Highway, all the way to Washington state, get away from population centers.
For now though, i’m simply taking opportunities salvaging and gathering, stuff i can gather, staying clear of crowds. Sadly, for whatever reasons, food banks where i live is where there are less crowds— they’ve gotten an “infusion” of food stuff, where they have to give away excess to make room for more, so
i get to pick.
I say infusion, schmusion, Micha, it’s barter and trade time soon. Tornadoes you infuse money in the local economy, storms same, wars same, big earthquakes, volcanoes, but not this one, not this time.
Though, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson coming out okay; and a bunch of people they are interviewing on TV who have had the virus, but survived, i think will curb all this, not all people die. But people tend to panic for whatever reason, so i’m not worried about the virus, i’m worried about people.
I always bet on people being stoopid.
I’m not taking all my money out of the bank, but i am stocking up for trade and barter time, Micha. How’s that for infusion. And it seems people can’t clean their asses without toilet paper, where i’ve learnt to use water, leaves and yup sand (sometimes just let it dry up, carry on), so i’m ahead, Lol!!! This will be the West’s downfall,
many thought it was gonna be something else, but it’ll be because of over dependence on toilet paper, and lack of imagination as to how to clean oneself once they’ve pooped.
I declined to publish chemrock’s comment on Bill Gates, in response to yours. The subject is dead, here, and if you two tag-team the blog, you’re both outta here. Again. Slow fucking learners.
Got it, Joe. 😉
@LcplX
$1000 to every American will not be enough if it’s just a one time payment. It has to be done, bi-monthly at least, until the pandemic clears and normal economic activity resumes. The amount being floated by the WH is $500 billion in two wave direct payments.
Insufficient, but better than nothing.
Small and medium businesses are also getting hit so they will be needing some form of assistance. A debt jubilee needs to be considered.
Obomber back in 2008 only bailed out the big banks and big corporations.
This virus will be a game changer. The Orange Man is in political survival mode and is moving to the left of Wall Street Democrats presumably until he gets reelected in November.
“The Orange Man is in political survival mode and is moving to the left of Wall Street Democrats presumably until he gets reelected in November.”
Is it possible he’ll do this permanently, Micha? for sure he’s an opportunist, not an idealogue, he was Democrat then Republican. if this $1,000 bucks experiment is a success, then UBI for everyone right? monthly, twice a month.
I don’t see the US going back to 2 months ago, it’ll change. so too the world. chemp says summer, folks in the WH say next next winter! People are comparing it to the Plague. but one thing that’s here now is the very ability to work together without personal contact, thank you Silicon Valley.
think about it, that’s what we do here in TSoH, day in day out.
So I think UBI will be the norm from here on out, Micha. And we’ll normalize death from coronavirus too just as we’ve normalized cancer deaths. We’ll just evolve to be a less interactive species, more virtual, from here on out.
I’ve heard dolphins are now swimming up and down thru Venice canals, and less pollution all around since people are now staying home. less traffic in freeways lately. I read also that people are now planting veggies en masse.
I’ve also heard groceries are doing drive-up service now, you call, or use some app, to order what you need and you drive by and pick it up. they do the shopping , you just pick it up. easy peezy!!! I’m optimistic, but just in case i’m also pessimistic.
But for sure I won’t mind getting a $1,000 check, one time, or 2 times every month . We’ve given out so much money out there to so many unsavory and undeserving characters, I can certainly rationalize receiving one as money earned, Micha. Here’s to dolphins and swans in Venice!
The big four US airlines – Delta, United, AA, and Southwest – whose stocks are now getting crushed because they may run out of cash in a few months, would be the primary recipients of a $50 billion bailout, after they wasted, blew, and incinerated willfully and recklessly together $43.7 billion in cash on share buybacks since 2012 for the sole purpose of enriching the very shareholders that will now be bailed out by the federal gov’t.
Boeing too is begging for a bailout after it totally bungled its 737 Max. The S&P 500 companies, have blown, wasted and incinerated together $4.5 trillion in cash to buy back their own shares.
These welfare queens from Wall Street are now looking to Uncle Sam for help after their shareholders looted their cash.
So yes, don’t feel guilty for that $1000 check – it’s a chump change meant to silence whatever incongruous protest you might be harboring at the multi billion dollar bailout of corporate welfare mamas.
210,000, 000 million (over 18 yrs old Americans) times $1,000 = 210, 000, 000, 000 ,
Micha i have no idea what that number is but that’s 3 more zeros than the first number, which tells me that’s a lot. Though I agree with you , screw the airline industry and screw the cruise ship industry. those two industries are irrelevant in context to this new world order.
Nat’l guards from all states are now poised to protect supply lines. SUPPLY LINES, Micha… that’s combat tactics talk! though they’ve also talked about using the Nat’l Guards (which are essentially Army reservists, activated by state governors in times of crisis) to give away food and do humanitarian tasks, and help out 1st responders.
I get that it’s chump change but what you’re not answering above is what if Trump makes UBI his policy now??? everyone seems to be on board, i remember they did this in Stockton, gave everyone $500 bucks a month.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Can-500-a-month-change-a-city-Stockton-tests-14943872.php
Institutionalizing UBI will be a triumph of progressive ideas along with JG, GND, M4A and universal housing.
Trump seems to be embracing MMT faster than neoliberal dogs Schumer and Pelosi who are still fidgeting over means testing the program.
Will he actually institutionalize UBI?
Nah, I don’t think he will – he’s just for it in aid of reelection in this age of corona.
After his inauguration in January, he’ll scrap the whole program and run the country for and in behalf of the billionaire class.
Nowadays the name of the game is to avert a greater Great Depression,
i think, Micha.
Which means if people are happy with UBI, billionaire class or not, it’ll stick. one thing i know about the US and Americans, once you start giving them FREE stuff, very difficult to stop doing so. entitled is everyone. Americans love FREE stuff, and will fight for it.
As for universal housing, here it is…
As they say, all engineering is military engineering, Micha.
As long as the Don is open to MMT prescription such as UBI and JG, a repeat of the Great Depression can be averted and providing that this outbreak will taper off by summer.
The question is, will he still be open to it when the economy has been restored back to stable and normalcy?
Ahh… that’s where we differ, Micha. there’s no normalcy, this is the new normal.
The corona virus threat to the US, and the entire globe can hardly be exaggerated. Last I posted here several weeks ago,I decried the lack of testing capacity here in the US as Trump minimized the virus threat as a hoax with the level of infections close to levels where the Philippines is now. This testing dearth crippled its ability to trace isolated infections brought in from hot spots overseas who were not showing symptoms but were still contagious. As a result, the virus spread transformed from imported to community contagion. US testing is still woefully lacking and lagging to South Korea levels and may never catch up with the exponential growth of the contagion. When community contagion is uncontrolled in the US and many other countries, then the only option is to suppress and flatten the contagion rate by locking down and quarantining regions if not the whole country, down to the household level.
If China and South Korea indeed rates are indeed slowing down, presuming tested cases correlate to untested contagion rates, it is not driven by statistics but by draconian social restrictions to reduce virus spread until infectable human hosts had run out. Bear in mind that were these societal lockdowns do not halt the exponential spread of the virus, the human toll would be cataclysmuc. Just in terms of the most vulnerable section of the population, those over 80, the virus on average kills 15 to 20% of those infected. In the US and globally, this section comprises about 5% of the population or 15 million or 300 million respectively. Assuming a 40% infection rate, this results in an estimated death toll of 1.2 million to 24 million roughy. This presumes that hospital and medical systems are up to date and are not swamped like they are in Italy and which may hapen in the US and most likely in the Philippines and most other third world countries.
Finally, the aim of suppression strategies is mainly to allow a country to avoid having its hospital and medical staff and systems from being overwhelmed trying to treat of critically infected patients by the exponential growth of virus infections. In other words, it buys time for a country which has the resources to build up its hospital bed, ventilator, and doctor capacity to keep pace with seriously sick patients. Otherwise that 15 to 20% mortality rate estimate among the elderly is optimistic. I would sy that the Philippines is 4 to 6 weeks behind the virus stage where the US us and perhap 8 to 10 weeks where Italy is now.
To those who are complacent about the looming danger, here is a compelling narrative of what Italy is experiencing at this moment.
Life in Italian Lockdown After a Tragic Coronavirus Denial
Life in Italian Lockdown After a Tragic Coronavirus Denial https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-18/this-is-life-in-italy-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown
WordPress.com / Gravatar.com credentials can be used.
Hear, hear caliphman. Last I heard, Spain and Italy have nationalized some or all of its private hospitals and – surprise – nobody is crying socialism. Ditto with the stimulus being proposed Euro wide and here in the US.
That validates what we have known for a long time – that free market neo-liberal shit show is incapable of dealing with a crisis of this magnitude.
Here, all we hear are threats of expropriation, make that bluffs of expropriation.
So many real life lessons,case sudies, foul ups SNAFUs, etc
The Philippines should be made stronger by what did not kill them.
It is one word that prevents this: Continuity.
Unfortunately, Ningas Kugon is a paralyzing quirk of Pinoys.
When this is all over or better yet ASAP,
We should try our best to improve our agri biz locally
Once and for all solve the food suply chain beginning with the middlemen and traders not taking all the profits leaving the farmer with crumbs.
People say it is easier to import, that is why the farm to market roads have been neglected.
People can’t move with out a beast of burden.
This is part of what Micha means when she rants on the neolib policies of the past, present and the future.
Of course the rest are nationalization, but we can’t stop defense spending because we have barely started.
CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO THIS OLDIE
Shelter in Place = Stay at Home? (except when getting groceries, medication and the like)
Am I dense here? A US usage. Is there a difference between SIP and SAH?
From what I read, it is the same difference.
NH,
They use to say “Lock Down”, but this is the same exact terminology they use in prisons (lock down as in no choice).
So they came up with “Shelter in Place”, meaning lock down, but they want people not to feel like prisoners. so “Shelter in Place” is something official, it can be enforced by letter of the law (ie. beating people back to their homes), or spirit of the law (ma’am we’re on lock down now pls go home).
Stay Home, just means stay home. Nothing official , more like a friendly suggestion, one person to another. LD and SIP are what the authorities say to people, gov’t to person.
So SIP does not equal SAH.
SAH equals LD, its a euphemism of LD.
Thanks for that.
Ok, much obliged, Sarge. Sir. I suppose it is like the former Department of State Secretary supposedly referring to The President as moron. That is the official word than: imbecile, dumba.., idiot, nuthead, dolt, fool, jerk, nincompoop. 🙂
LOL! moron, me thinks would be the euphemism, whilst mentally challenged the official terminology, NH! 🙂
A US GEM IN THIS TIME OF THE COVID19
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the experienced, admired Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been all over the place talking in a clear, simple, balanced way about the coronavirus. I saw him just now talking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. It is a wonder his obviously hoarse voice is not worse considering his speaking engagements.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/shelter-in-place-isolation-quarantine-definition/index.html
Remember “storm surge” and “tsunami”, to be correct, both should be used for different phenomena, but they give a different feel of imminent danger too and tsunami was understood by everybody, storm surge was new.
“Shelter” is known by many in the US because of the typhoons. Lock down is newer and more absolute. (quarantine also absolute, preferred in the Philippines.)
Note that “keep social distance” is now changing in the better understood “keep physical distance”
Effective communication is an art, word choice one element.
Thanks, josephivo.
When this is over, or before the end [not “our end” — poor word choice], it may be good to have a list with explanations of all the words and phrases we have in the print and broadcast media relating to the coronavirus. Should be useful reading considering we have time on our armchairs these days. I did a little technical note on “exponential growth” of virus infection and “flattening” the virus propagation curve.
Are you sheltering-in-place, after a travel you were planning to do, posting a query to Joe, I believe, some weeks back.
A BIG QUANTUM JUMP
The US confirmed cases of covid19 — from JHU-CSSE Dashboard — has increased from 9,400 a day before to 13,159, an increase of 40%.
This is probably not surprising considering the increased testing resulting from the new ordered protocol. Meaning these cases did not just arise in a day; they were already there, untested but came out because of the official tests. I believe, there will be many more of such large percentage quantum jump in the days to come.
This is already trite by repetition but indeed US and Europe and other countries had time to prepare but squandered that precious time from the early days of the Wuhan outbreak despite the warnings of the health officials of those countries — with the exceptions of Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea.
Truly, in mathematical terms, of all growths — logarithmic, linear, polynomial (or powers), exponential — exponential growth with time trumps them all by a mile. What is sad, is the US — the most powerful country, militarily and economically, and intelligent country, politics aside — inflicted this on itself, helped by its own President’s past actions and rhetoric.
A lot of this has to do with Americans not wanting to be told what to do, NH. it’s cultural.
Coronavirus is just plain un-American. Either we let it restrict us, a FREEDOM loving people; or we start living similarly and just absorb the deaths that it’ll wreak. I think until the Kardashians fall one by one, this country will continue to party. Thus exponential is where we are headed, NH.
Octogenarians and septuagenarians here will be endangered species. And if you’ve been tracking me and Micha’s discussion above re FREE stuff in America, both are related subjects, NH. one must go, for the other to continue (namely UBI).
That is the calculus here.
Not the calculus I know.
Joe and Micha’s notes below seems related.
There may still be some good things to be said about the US, but the last few years, amplified by the appearance of covid19, have revealed some of the ugliest things about the country. Strictly my opinion.
The most powerful country was 35th on the Wuhan Olympic Army games end 2019. They were called “Soy sauce soldiers” during the games. Those so called genius by you will be suffering the coming months. Their boomerang is coming back to them.
what’s the Wuhan Olympic Army games???
Lance, methinks we are giving air to an obvious troll, a relation of those we had earlier here and suppressed by Joe.
But to entertain your question: that may be a modern day Kriegspiel but this time it may be a game of who best designs a virus game like the “Plague, Inc.” With the best game app given the title, “Wuhan, Inc.”
Methinks you thinks accurately.
🙂
The comment from Lawrence is another in a string of players working the blog for propaganda, not for Philippine best interests. A response to your comment was made from another outsider, new to the blog, that said:
“@LCpl_X (@LCpl_X)
The 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China.
The 7th Military World Games was the first international military multi-sport event to be held in China and also it was the largest military sports event ever to be held in China, with nearly 10,000 athletes from over 100 countries competed in 27 sports.
US was 35th in the final results.
Yes, for some reason not much to find on it in the Western media.
If your cognitive skills are high you could perhaps connect the missing dots.”
I won’t accept this or future comments using the blog to promote a bad faith agenda. I’d suggest that you not pick up the topic.
Joe,
not all conspiracy theories are alike, some can easily be dispelled, ie. chemp‘s anti-Darwin and anti-Islam stuff ,
then this 35th place in final results crap (i’d never heard of these games, Joe!!! i’m not saying these military games are fake news, just that i’ve never heard of these games… which is saying a lot i’m plugged in still with the Marine boxing program, nada, thus we may have placed 35th place in those games precisely because we simply sent pogues to China, or probably just tapped one battalion to participate, though not the point here).
As i’ve said before biowarfare is something the US (as a gov’t) doesn’t bother, too many variables.
This particular conspiracy theory is retarded (unlike the one i’m espousing above 😉 ) because it hinges on (witting or unwittingly) US military releasing COV-19 in China . it’s retarded because China would have all the names and pictures of these US military members, thus can in no time confirm (instead of dragging it with innuendos) this theory. Not just the military any Americans going in China.
Why hasn’t China released the names and passports of these Americans??? BOOM! conspiracy theory deflated. simple.
Thanks, yes. I find it fascinating that grown men run around placing this stuff in blog discussion threads all over the world. Mine is clearly on their list and I’ve taken to deleting a lot of the postings. It’s like dirt blowing in the wind, a speck hitting my eye. Feels good to remove it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games
See section on ‘controversies’ for relevance of the visitor dropping sly hints.
THE PREFERRED TREATMENT OF VIPS
You may think this is an account from the Philippines. No, it is from the US. Same, same.
Here is a note from a Washington Post article:
For 11 days, Luke Janka, an educator from Brooklyn, went from doctor to doctor to emergency room, pleading for a coronavirus test. As his lungs tightened and his desperation spiked, he was finally admitted to a hospital, put on oxygen and administered the test. At the same time, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets was quickly tested, even though most players appeared in perfect health. Results came back fast; four players, including star Kevin Durant, tested positive.
Actors, politicians and athletes have had quick and easy access to coronavirus tests while other Americans — including front-line health-care workers and those with obvious signs of infection — have been out of luck. The nationwide shortage of coronavirus testing kits has amplified inequities in a health-care system in which some merely call a concierge physician while others hope for attention in crowded emergency rooms.
“I think it’s unfortunate that we live in such a wealthy nation, and we can’t even provide access to the backbone of the nation, the people who actually do the work for the nation,” said Janka, who is awaiting results of his test from his hospital room. “And I think that it just helps to further illustrate the hypocrisy of our society, and who really gets valued in this country by the people with power and money.”
Yep.
American values have eroded to the point where it now resembles that of a banana republic – thanks to over emphasis on hyper individualism in a neo liberal framework producing a plutocracy who operates on the credo that greed is good and selfishness is the supreme virtue.
As long as I’ve got mine, I don’t care about the others.
A lot of that idealism has to do with the level of diversity in society, Micha. heterogeneity begets selfishness, or US vs. Them mindset; homogeneity is the exactly opposite, hence in Japan during disasters, their panic buying involves leaving items for other people to buy, not here.
the US as we know is heterogeneous, thus more individualism becuz if you don’t look like me you’re not me (that’s the theory). Also why North Americans (Canada & US) smile more, because you don’t look like me, I have to go out of my way to actually smile (smiling is actually an over emphasizing behaviour) ; homogeneous societies don’t bother with smiles not necessary.
IMHO, nothing’s eroded, it’s always been consistent about Americans. You can always count on Americans being selfish and smiling, Micha— always. But give Americans a goal, and you’ll get there, not as quickly as other nations maybe, but you’ll get there.
Hence, NH’s exponential numbers, we’ll have to wait for Kim Kardashian to actually succumb to Coronavirus before Americans will take this seriously.
If heterogeneity is how you explain the turn towards selfishness then you are undermining your own position for America’s inherent greatness. We were not threatened by diversity, we welcome it.
E pluribus unum – that’s the defining symbolic phrase of what used to makes us exceptional and great.
The turn towards xenophobia and racism is small minded, juvenile, and insecure like a freckled high school kid who doesn’t seem to have a center of gravity.
White men’s hostility towards people of color is a form of misdirected anger because what we are dealing here for the most part is class divide – the war, the struggle, within the framework of a neoliberal turbo charged capitalism, between the denizens of the Hamptons and the scattered proles across this great land.
See it from the prism of economic class and you’ll get a more coherent picture of what is going on in America.
See, for example, this:
https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/we-should-blow-up-the-bridges-coronavirus-leads-to-class-warfare-in-hamptons/
“If heterogeneity is how you explain the turn towards selfishness then you are undermining your own position for America’s inherent greatness.”
Homogeneous nations like Japan, Iceland, etc. tend never to be great. Heterogeneous nations don’t automatically become great, but it seems thats the prerequisite.
Israel though all Jewish, is differently Jewish, theres Falashas (blacks), Ashkenazis (White), Misrahi (Middle Eastern) , and Sephardics (Andalusians) , they came together in a span of half a century BOOMed, though its the yerida (exiting) that’s making it bust now.
So, Micha, my argument is heterogeneity begets selfishness (individuality) , but it’s this very focus on individualism that makes a nation great. No group think.
that’s why it’s interesting to see Coronavirus go up against America; China will kick coronavirus’ butt anyday everytime, they are homogeneous and unselfish, operate like a hive. But the question is,
will America? there’s a lot of variables to consider now with MMT in play (congratz, by the way).
By your account :
Heterogeneity = Selfishness = Individualism = Greatness
Question:
Would we have defeated Germany and Japan in WW2 if most or all Americans invoked selfish individualism and refused to serve in the army?
War time and peace time are two very different things, Micha— again I refer you to Catch 22, Slaughterhouse 5 and Catcher in the Rye (written during the Battle of the Bulge) which capture the pull of these two concepts.
And i believe Platoon and Saving Private Ryan are perfect re the balancing between individualism and the hive.
A counter question: Did the US become great because of WWII or because we annihilated competition, thus were able to enjoy the pinnacle spot?
You think Silicon Valley is hive mind operating or individuals ala 1948 California Gold Rush???
War time is the perfect time for hive mind; peace time the perfect time for individual thoughts,
the question is , is Coronavirus war time or peace time. Easier to answer the call to arms, when you can caricature the enemy, but much more difficult when its invisible.
Thus stands that greatness is not from anti-individualism. But that’s just American greatness, Micha; maybe Chinese greatness is exactly what’s needed now.
I’m convinced that MMT is just what the doctor ordered. 😉
The individual, left on his own, is weak and powerless. A nation that operates on a structure with an atomized citizenry can never be great. That is true in times of war and in times of peace.
Silicon Valley is a product of the hive.
All of the underlying technology in your androids and iPhones were made possible through collaboration between our Defense Department (DARPA) and publicly funded research in the academic community (MIT, Stanford, Princeton).
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, etc, merely made use of technologies that already existed through collaborative communal effort.
The internet also came out of the hive. It was an innovation from a very successful multi national effort at CERN.
If Silicon Valley is your idea of individualism breaking strides towards greatness, I have a bridge in Marikina I’d like to sell to you.
Therein lies the difference, Micha. If as you say it is hive mentality, then why only individuals and certain groups get to enjoy the fruits of said hive product???
Again, to use the Gold Rush analogy, yes people built it, like gold veins underground striking certain points, some the mother lode others only placer deposits. Luck or skill i dunno.
And yes there is a difference between Steve Jobs and Wozniak then Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Micha, therein lies the power of individuality. Zuckerberg and the Winkelvoss twins.
Jeff Bezos and his wife, started selling books online, great idea (used the gold veins established by DARPA yes, tapped into the mother lode, luck or skill i dunno), why weren’t others who sold stuff online as big?
Don’t get me wrong, Micha, as a lowly LCpl I understand how a hive set up works, and its efficacy, but wealth generation is an individual (or small group) affair, for the most part. Sure there’s Mondragon Corp. in Spain and unions like Jimmy Hoffa as head, there’s exceptions sure.
I’m simply saying American greatness is hinged upon individualism, not as collective. Canada’s collective.
If your definition of greatness is just having lots of money then we’re not on the same page here.
Let the eat cake moments. Wala naman inaabot na cake.
The most recent and concerning medical research from the huge CV experience is that 4 of the 5 people who tested positive for the virus were infected by someone who was showing symptoms.
The implications of this explains why the Singapore, S. Korea and maybe China infection growth rate charts are much less steep than the alarming rate charts
for Italy, Spain and what is projected for the US. Testing capacity was adequate in the former countries in the initial stages to isolate imported confirmed cases and quarantine as well as test those they had come in contact with. This was less true in China where CV originated but they rapudly ramped up WHO designed test kits and locked down Wuhan and other regions to an extent not possible in other countries. Here in the US, the situation is spinning out of control because contact tracing and isolation is almost impossible because testing is so limited that it is delayed or unavailable to those who are already symptomatic. Just today the governor of California where household lockdowns are being instituted wrote Trump and Pelosi that he projects half or 25 million Californians will be infected in 8 weeks.
The unstated message is that California and the rest of the US has to get ahead of the virus crisis as these levels of infection will bring the health infrastructure to its knees as it has done in Italy. Without Trump right away ordering the full mobilization of the military and mandating private industry to greatly and quickly expand hospital bed, ventilator, ICU and the medical staff to use them, then the mortality rates for confirmed infections would like spike from 1% to the almost 10% in Italy where treatment capacity are collapsing or have collapsed.
As a Californian and one vulnerable to the virus at that, the prospect is indeed grim and the fear is not being infected which is likely but whether life saving treatment is even going to be available. Sad to say, the future in the Philippines may be even more tragic.
Note to my comment above. The first sentence should read “The most recent and concerning medical research from the huge CV experience is that 4 of the 5 people who tested positive for the virus were infected by someone who was ***N O T***showing symptoms.”
Just wanted to understand the exchange of Micha and LCX
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/trump-coronavirus-bailout-economy-plan-137680
“In Washington, a trillion dollars doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to.”
With all these lockdowns and disruptions to economic activities, GDP is projected to contract by as much 10% – which means roughly $2 trillion in lost output of goods and services.
So $2 trillion of new spending from Uncle Sam is what’s needed to make up for that loss.
Who gets how much is the subject of Washington bickering and politics.
Money’s not the problem – it’s MMT in action.
Okay, thanks.
Trump realized deficits does not matter, maybe he read it from here when Micha told me to repeat after me: Deficits are good.
A WH operative read TSOH archives. 😉
https://reason.com/2020/01/31/trump-has-fully-embraced-the-idea-that-deficits-dont-matter/
LOL! that’s exactly what I was thinking , karl!!! someone’s been reading a whole lot of Micha on here.
Had it not been for Micha, i’d have thought the $1,000 bucks give away was nuts!!! but since i’m a graduate of Micha’s long lectures (sometimes hurtful) towards chemp , i can smartly discuss the efficacy of such policies with friends, families and even strangers.
MMT will be the new norm. All thanks to coronavirus, and Micha. 🙂
Before Chemrock there was the late RHiro whom I think was just devil’s advocating Mcha ala lcplx.
Forbes is like cats and dogs with MMT like Chemrock vs Micha
Here is one MMT article.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanlewis/2019/02/21/the-problem-with-modern-monetary-theory-is-that-its-true/#60ab29f356fb
To be clear, that Reason Magazine article is full of incoherence and inconsistencies. For example, while the author (Greenhut) acknowledges that the federal gov’t has a Treasury and a Central Bank and a money printing press, he is still wont to compare the finances of the central gov’t with that of a household.
This constant, almost predictable, comparison with household finances is what gives away a deficit scold’s erroneous argument from the start.
Households also do not have a legislative body like the Senate or congress which has the power to craft rules and laws that are enforceable and are expected to be obeyed (on pain of arrest or criminal charge) by the rest of the population.
So when conrgress, for example, passes a spending bill to rescue the airline industry, it has all the power of law behind it and the funding of which will be guaranteed by the Treasury in coordination with the central bank who is also authorized to operate the printing press.
That kind of power and institutional mechanism is totally absent in any households everywhere.
Why scolds like Greenhut always make the mistake of comparing federal finances with that of a household escapes me.
I agree, Micha. that article don’t do justice to what you’ve discussed here in the past. Having been schooled by you, I myself can certainly unravel that article with one hand behind my back.
But the important thing about the article is the conservatives it seems are now peeing their pants as Trump is metamorphing into Bernie. again kudos to you, Micha.
Macro can not be micro and vice versa. Got it 👍Thanks.
TECHNICAL NOTE: ON EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF VIRUS
1. First, we have what is known as the Propagation Number, R0, defined as the average number an infected person infects others in an unconstrained situation (without quarantine, social distancing and other constraining factors) — in a population of typical density. In the case of covid19 this is estimated to range from 2.0 to 3.0. We also have the average cycle period for propagation, estimated to be from 5 to 6 days. For our initial purpose let us take R0 to be 2.5 and the cycle period to be 5 days. Thus one cycle means 5 days, 2 cycles means 10 days, etc. Two months or 60 days is equal to 12 cycles on this basis.
2. The numbers below correspond to
– cycle numbers
– cumulative infected cases
– number of confirmed cases for the cycle
for RO = 2.5, 1.5, 1.3 and 0.07. respectively, for a starting confirmed cases of 100 [I have done the calculation only to 10 cycles or 50 days].
3. One can see that for unconstrained propagation (R0 = 2.5) that the numbers increases rapidly. For the constrained cases if proved effective (R0 = 1.5, 1.3) the numbers are drastically down. The confirmed cases, whatever the scenario, will result in either death or recovery — the latter aided if possible by the development of natural bodily immunity or by a vaccine.
4. The keynote then in viral treatment is to act aggressively, for time is the enemy and the nuclear weapon of the virus in an exponential growth of the virus. Not to understate the problem — as a leader may do — with the Administration following that lead as was done in the US, until the virus is already on a rampage.
For R0 = 2.5
0 100 100
1 350 250
2 975 625
3 2,538 1,562
4 6,444 3,906
5 16,209 9,766
6 40,623 24,414
7 101,659 61,035
8 254,246 152,588
9 635,716 381,470
10 1,589,391 953,674
For R0 = 1.5
0 100 100
1 250 150
2 475 225
3 812 338
4 1,319 506
5 2,078 759
6 3,217 1,139
7 4,926 1,709
8 7,489 2,563
9 11,333 3,844
10 17,100 5,767
For R0 = 1.3
0 100 100
1 230 130
2 399 169
3 619 220
4 904 286
5 1,276 371
6 1,758 483
7 2,386 627
8 3,201 816
9 4,262 1,060
10 5,641 1,379
For R0 = 0.7
0 100 100
1 170 70
2 219 49
3 253 34
4 277 24
5 294 17
6 306 12
7 314 8
8 320 6
9 324 4
10 327 3
By the way the phrase flattening the covid19 curve means just that. If one plots the cycle case build-up for the R0 = 2.5 case versus the R0 = 1.3 case, one sees graphically that the plotted curve for the latter is indeed flatter than the steep curve for the former. Hence the advise of washing the hands often, stay at home, practice social distancing when out to buy necessities, and even at home, especially when a member has a cold or coughing, etc. You may still help to flatten that curve to help all of us.
Manong, your model is severely underestimating the rate of infection. In the first place, even before your beginning 100 cases are confirmed, they are already contagious before being symptomatic or about 5 days after infection. They will continue to be contagious until a test can be administered and even later until when the results can be processed until he is confirmed.In the US where testing capacity is very limited and rationed (extremely more so in the Philippines), that is a further lag of at least another week. And even after being confined, he is still infecting caregivers who are inadequately trained or protected to avoid the virus. The assumption that he will infect only 2 5 other people during all this time before he has expired or recovered and no longer contagious is very tenuous at best. The cycle period assumption accordingly has to be longer than 5 days and should be much more than 5 days since he continues to be contagious much longer than that.
That is the significance of the finding that in China on average each confirmed infection are traceable 4 out of 5 times to persons who then had no symptoms. Using statististic s and models based on tested and confirmed cases understates the exponential rate of infection due to the aforementioned lags.
Thanks. Good points. Which means that with the oft-repeated measures, the virus rise is even more scary — flattening that curve will be difficult.
This means also, that in the simple model I am using, the R0 and cycle period I used have to be adjusted to reflect the realities you mentioned. However, I will leave my numbers as is with the important notes you mentioned. I don’t want to scare myself by fiddling some more with the numbers.
Oops. I can’t help my technical self.
A simple adjustment does produce scary numbers. If instead of 2.5 for R0, I use instead 3.0; and instead of 5 days for the cycle period, I use instead 4 days, then 50 days is equivalent to 12.5 cycles.
The calculation for the cycle cases yields the result for the 12th cycle, these scary infected cases: 53 million. Thanks again for your note.
Lcx,
If you are not Laughing Out Loud every time you type LOL, we have a tagalg word for that: Ulol.
Google translate it.
No wonder California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered more restrictions a day after he warned that more than half the state [with a population of about 40 million] is projected to be infected with the virus in two months. And he must have experts advising him. Germany’s Merkel also believes the probability of 40-60 percent infection in Germany’s population.
NH,
though i appreciate seeing you do your magic (with numbers). i’m afraid it is all for naught, and might be damaging in the long run. it’s like weather forecast , we already now it’s gonna rain, why quibble with percentages?
You, me, everyone here are likely to be infected , if not this cycle then next cycle.
Hence, my postings on psychedelics. you keep leading that sled on the same downhill, eventually you’ll hit health problems physical or otherwise, and as we know mental state is (for whatever reasons) connected to one’s immune health.
Just say to yourself it’s 50/50 , get your affairs in order, control now what you can, then live life as normal as possible (respecting of course current norms), then when it hits you just ride it out.
I’m saying peace of mind here is the name of the game. from one octogenarian to another, Lol!!! and check your prostate too. Lol!!! also why i’m pushing so hard for that conspiracy theory of mine, becuz it allows brain functions to entropy instead of
the same now frozen paths in the snow with these statistics.
You are welcome, Manong. Anyone sporting an educational background from Our Lady and The Farm here Stateside is well worth sharing some notes 🙂
@LCX,
Where is the Boy Scout in you? the amount of rainfall forecast makes you know how to prepare.
karl,
I know no umbrellas here, just your immune system (and social distancing), and you cannot prepare all that base on statistics. but i do know, ones mental health is connected (somehow) to immune system.
Though I know stats and numbers is NH’s happiness, just as MMT is Micha’s , and mine conspiracy theories galore (both contra and pro). SO i guess, as long as one keeps a close eye on one’s immune system and mental health. all will be fine.
Eat your bananas, karl. Potassium’s good for you per that link Bill Oz shared.
Lance,
To each his own. Poison?
I wonder, since you are, or were, an admirer of The Twitter-in-Chief or Micha’s “Orange Man,” if you thought about multiplying the application of your millions of ideas by writing to OrangeMan and persuade him to embrace those ideas, the better by first coursing and persuading Hannity or Limbaugh. There I go again, “millions” — numbers. Numbers: btw have you checked your money account lately — they go by numbers too. Hahaha.
Hahaha. Resident comedian.
LOL! NH, the bank account is still the same number, hoping that’ll increase once the $1,000 checks start coming in.
But this is a great example of possibility and probability.
Possibility is 50/50, either yes or no. dead or alive.
Probability is percentage, 10/100, 30/100, 60% change, etc.
Base on Gov. Newsom’s advisory over here, and from many other leaders around the world, we already know it is 50/50.
Why still make decisions based on probability.
I think, this probability-based thinking (basically gambling, hedging bets) is why people are still mingling. They’re thinking in terms of statistics, ie. 30% i’ll get it based on how i think my immune system has been in the past, gotten me out of tight binds before.
I’m saying with this one, Coronavirus much better to think in terms of possibility, either yes or no, 50/50. DEAD or ALIVE! so… flatten the curve is the wrong metaphor, no one gets it,
you’re gonna get it, is a better message. Thus prepare for death. That i think is a healthier endeavor than gambling. As for Trump, my ideas aren’t as bright as MMT from Micha, but so long as Trump’s now pro-MMT, embraced Micha’s ideas,
the future looks bright. now where is my $1,000 Coronavirus check?!!! LOL!
Lance, easy for you to say to Manong NH to just accept getting infected and not stress about it. That’s just like saying to a woman or even a nun who is getting raped to just enjoy the inevitable and not stress about it. In the first place, the latest findings are that octogenarians are extremely vulnerable suffering a 20-30% mortality rate if infected even if treatment facilities are not overwhelmed. Secondly, you belong to the 20-40 age category, and even i true the death rate there is under 5%. But of those confirmed nfected in that age category in the US, the CDC finds that 20% are being hospitalized, defeating the purpose of lockdowns which is to avoid overwhelming the healthcare system in treating anyone.needing medical attention. Finally if those in this young age group get hospitalized, 20-30% have to be in ICU with very acute pneumonia. The last will most probably suffer lung scarring which is not treatable so their breathing capacity is impaired for the rest of their lives.
Getting infected is no laughing matter when addressing an octogenarian specially if he is in the Philippines where the healthcare system is rudimentary compared to the US where most of these statistics are based on.
Who’s laughing, caliphman?
I’m simply saying anxiety you can control; coronavirus you can’t (for me, i see it as 50/50, not 20%… that’s my whole point re possibility vs. probability). I’m ready to go, have always lived my life so, but i realize folks not familiar with risk analysis (not the theoretical kind) might stand to benefit.
Either die with anxiety or die happy is my point here. Though I know that one’s expertise and/or hobby can act as therapy, i’m simply telling NH to enjoy more, and leave the calculations alone now, too late for calculations.
Coronavirus will get you. Now we’re in the Endemic phase, it will be like the flu, if not this cycle then the next or the next after. Thus that 50/50 possibility i’ve surrendered to, is just this cycle… becuz COVID 19 is now endemic, 100% i’ll get it, caliphman.
Same for everyone here.
Anxiety you have control over. But for sure i’m gonna fight and cash that in-coming $1,000 check, caliphman, if only to make Micha happy. 😉 all hail Micha! all hail MMT.
Lance, thought everyone by now understood what LOL means when used if no one is laughing.
Whatever. It’s alright to be scared or stressed or anxious if faced with potential illness, hospitalization, disability or death. Being paranoid or anxious is many times good as one makes one more careful of ones health or survival, or if one is gets infected without knowing it, spreading the virus to those who value their lives and future more than others who do. . Perhaps it’s possible to avoid contracting CV or eventually treating or vaccinating again CV. But unfortunately for Trump and very many of those who support him, there is no cure for stupidity. Blowhards who have sown the wind will inherit the whirlwind. My advice? Put that $1000 dole out in your piggy bank as you might just need when the when the whirlwind recession comes if you survive the virus. Good luck and good night!
LOL was to NH’s joke. and the 2nd LOL was to my $1,000 check.
I would never LOL COVID-19, caliphman. It’s worst than Zika!!!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/shelter-in-place-isolation-quarantine-definition/index.html
Good. Thanks, popoy.
Time-check. Can’t sleep, catching up with TSH fix. 🙂
social isolation’s not so bad when you’ve got TSoH, sonny. Cheers!
TSOH has lifted me up tim and again.
Keeps me sane too from all the madness.
Desperately looking for N95 masks. Realized I can’t have one. There aren’t any within reach, all gone. One reason I can understand:
“… Both the masks made for medical personnel and for consumer purchase require a once-obscure material called melt-blown fabric. It’s an extremely fine mesh of synthetic polymer fibers that forms the critical inner filtration layer of a mask, allowing the wearer to breath while reducing the inflow of possible infectious particles.
“We’re talking about fibers where one filament has a diameter of less than one micron, so we are in the nano area,” said Markus Müller, the sales director at German company Reicofil, a major provider of melt-blown machine lines. …”
(NOTE: A “micron” is an abbreviated term for “micrometer”, or a millionth of a meter (1/1,000,000 meters). This is about . 00004 inches. For Size comparison, a human red blood cell is about 5 microns across.)
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has-caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak
people are making it out of bra, sonny— both sexy and functional!
I want to hear Sonny’s chemical analysis.of the bra.
🙂
No need to analyze bra, Neph. Unless noses are close to bra-wearers.
Kidding aside, the reason for my reason: My years in printed circuit manufacture brought my awareness of small things doing work with plating thicknesses of 0.001 inches (1/1000 = 1 mil). I used a calibrated microscope. 1 mil = 100 microns, red blood cell diameter = 5 microns; 4 microns as diameter of mask material, I can only imagine manufacturing textile material that small. For me, that’s ultra-small world engineering/machining. Way out there for me.
PS. As I understand these, thicknesses lower than 5 microns, wearers will have difficulty breathing. N95 masks will reduce the quantity of virus that go through. And also with the hope that the viral transport medium will increase the effective size of virus and stop penetration. Purely my speculation.
sonny,
microns, schmicrons!!! unless there is a solid seal around your nose, cheeks, chin, all that high tech construction is no good.
I know this not from some technical expertise but from the fires over here, w/ an expensive N95 and i was still smelling smoke (which means nano stuff still getting in). now you can’t get N95 anywhere, yes… but take solace that that too is no good, so better to wear the bra over your face.
So you ain’t missing out, sonny.
Also, from my gas mask training, that seal is very so very important, sonny. N95 no seal.
My bad, 1 mil = 25 microns. (English, Metric translation trips me)
To Nanotech and beyond!
If popoy can be half misunderstood and so only be half apologetic, he sees in this blog’s closing wisdom more eches than bucheches. In college he learned (from frat brods not from a sorority sis) that a panty is the worst enemy of man because it blocks his destination; that a bra is much powerful than a bulldozer because it can make two mountains out of two molehills; it’s also useful for pendulus grapefruit (suha) and utterly useless for jackfruit (lanka). As an enticer invention a bra is designed more for the bulbous shape than for a funnel shape asset of women. A bra can also numb the fingers from delivering exciting impulses to the brain. For outside the craniaum thinking : ECHES are epidermal while BUCHECHES are subcutaneous.