Coronavirus Has a Silver Lining -- March 3, 2020

Updates

March 13, 2020: was President Trump right about the CDC?  Apparently The New York Times agrees with Trump on this one. 

Updates -- Evening Updates

Politics:

• Super Tuesday polls closing soon. It looks like Colorado, Texas, and California will be the states to watch. The others were just fluff.
• the caucuses are for the birds. Virginia: it's barely 8:00 p.m. ET and already 93% of the votes are counted. If the DNC doesn't end the Iowa and Nevada circuses, the party is nuts.  
• Pocahontas might take third in her home state. If so, she's toast.
• Biden handing off gun control to "hell, yes, we're gonna take your guns" - Beto O-Rourke -- dumbest move this election season yet. 
• where Bloomberg started: Virginia -- and he is doing so poorly, unlikely to get any delegates; best news: money can't buy you a presidential nomination; money might buy you a presidential pardon, but not a nomination;
• Dems call for Mike Bloomberg to drop out of race: this is the worst showing by any candidate ever considering the amount of money spent, closing in on $1 billion with almost nothing to show for it; still delusional, saying he could win at a brokered convention.

Economy:

• so why did the Dow drop 800 points today? Six words in the same sentence -- "the Fed calls an emergency meeting."
• so why did the Dow drop 800 points today? The Fed makes an emergency cut that is as big as any Fed cut recently.

Fox News: there is no reason to have Donna Brazile on their network as part of the panel. Period. Dot.

Flip-flop. I'm flip flopping.

I'm getting tired of Bernie Sanders and his supporters (and others) complaining that the Democrat Party may "steal" the election from Bernie. Heeeeyyy......Bernie -- Bernie isn't even a Democrat. He is a self-described independent and not a Democrat. He should have run as an independent, in the first place, and especially if he thought the Democrat Party might turn on him. I hope the Democrat Party does stop Bernie. He's not a democrat. He's a socialist. He's a communist.

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Corona Virus Update

Final update for March 3, 2020. Four most important data points:

• growth factor: turns up again, but not by much; just disappointing;
• total deaths, change in total, d/d: 3% -- it had been 2% for the past week (and 1% on February 26
• daily deaths, daily change, d/d: an increase of 27% after being a minus 8 percent yesterday;
• US: total increases; more deaths but all in Washington state
• country highlight:
• Italy: still a disaster.
• Iran: still a disaster. 
• Empties prisons in desperate bid to stop coronavirus.

Coronovirus Update, 11:19, yup, there it is, as expected, 27 new deaths reported in Italy; even more than Iran's eleven new deaths.

• Italy: 79 / 2,502 = 3.2% fatality rate
• Iran: 77 / 2,336 = 3.3% fatality rate which suggests total cases much higher than being reported

Italy: almost all new cases in the EU can be traced back to Italy, and most of them had to do with skiing. Anyone ever been on a tram taking skiers to the top of the mountain? We have. Much, much much more crowded than the New York subway. And I've been on the NY subways also.)

This is an incredible interview:

Bruce Aylward, World Health Organization Joint Mission to China:

"I think the key learning from China is speed — it’s all about the speed.

The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be. [...]

People keep saying [the cases are the] tip of the iceberg. But we couldn’t find that. We found there’s a lot of people who are cases, a lot of close contacts — but not a lot of asymptomatic circulation of this virus in the bigger population. And that’s different from flu. [...]

China got patients in treatment early and have highly sophisticated health care treatment procedures. They are really good at keeping people alive with this disease. They have a survival rate (with a mortality rate of just under 1% outside of Hubei province) for this disease I would not extrapolate to the rest of the world. What you’ve seen in Italy and Iran is that a lot of people are dying.

Panic and hysteria are not appropriate. This is a disease that is in the cases and their close contacts. It’s not a hidden enemy lurking behind bushes. Get organized, get educated, and get working."

Bottom line:

• quarantines work
• fast and draconian quarantines imperative
• test kits critical for make quarantines effective 
• the CDC restricted test kits to their own lab; it took Trump to get that turned around; first out of the stable -- state of Nebraska has in-state test kits that provide answers within six hours vs 24 - 48 hours for results from CDC;
• "defunding" CDC had nothing to do with their slowness to respond; it had to do with their long-term regulations that have only gotten worse in the Deep State mentality;
• CDC is a government regulating bureaucracy;
• and, yes, I'm politicizing this; trying to set the record straight. My comments will likely become more harsh.
• I experienced the same problem when I was practicing medicine in the United States.

Rolling Stone supports Trump on the coronavirus story. Now, why would Rolling Stone support Trump on this issue. Rolling Stone knows that panic/hysteria will shut down concerts, and shutting down concerts will "kill" artists, and eventually affect Rolling Stone's bottom line. 

 Updates

Later, 10:28 a.m. Central Time: coronavirus update --

• it's still early in the day, but right now, things look pretty good:
• France: reporting a new death; brings French total to four deaths out of 204 cases (2% fatality rate)
•  China: well below 50 new deaths; 33 new deaths; new cases -- and this is remarkable: only 126 new cases.
• South Korea: still reeling; 851 new cases; but only 6 new deaths. 34 / 5,186 = 0.7% fatality rate.
• Iran: a whopping 835 new cases; parliament infected; we're starting to see reason for their outbreak; 77 total deaths with eleven new deaths; 77 / 2,336 = 3.3% fatality rate. And the rate has to be a lot less; deaths are pretty easy to count; cases are way under-reported.
• Italy: this is of most interest. Right now -- but it will change by end of the day -- zero new cases; no new deaths. 52 / 2,036 = 2.6% fatality rate.
• US: three new cases; now at 103 total cases; no new deaths. 6 / 103 = almost a 6% fatality rate. Interesting, huh?

Original Post

Coronavirus, general:

• Disease is bad, but coronavirus has some positive aspects. It has exposed the CDC for what it is: a government regulatory bureaucracy, slow to react. Chris Hayes, MSNBC, stumbled upon the problem but did not follow up. He would have been nominated for a Grammy had he followed up on this. 
• Speaking of the CDC, the governor of Texas is furious with how the CDC has fouled up testing.
• The numbers during the day, yesterday, March 3, 2020, looked really grim, but when the final numbers were posted, the percentages and the trends looked really good.

Coronavirus debacle, CDC-style:

• I saw this when I was practicing medicine and was considering certain diagnoses
• certain test kits were only available at the CDC; one had to send specimens to the CDC (hopefully not lost in transit, and hopefully "survived" the postal system especially if they needed to be kept frozen);
• it was a minimum of a 48-hour turnaround time
• so, back to coronavirus;
• it is clear that the best way to handle this, as one would handle any infectious disease outbreak: quarantine, fast and draconian;
• the only way to make the quarantine work: fast, and accurate diagnoses
• the best way for fast and accurate diagnoses: test kits
• CDC: 48-hour turnaround; then the CDC, under duress, agreed to release kits to states;
• it turns out that CDC could not meet demand
• and, then it turns out that states like Nebraska had a test kit that would give results in 6 hours but not allowed to be used due to CDC regulations
• Trump got that fixed -- immediately -- mainstream media won't report this 

Coronavirus hot spots:

• China: leveling off a bit? One can only hope. Only 126 new cases; 33 new deaths. I use "50" as the threshold.
• South Korea: oh my goodness -- 851 new cases; no new deaths, surprising
• Iran: 835 new cases;
• Italy: reports no new cases but the day is early; interestingly, it is earlier in the day in Iran than it is in Italy, so we'll see;

Corona politics:

• it appears the disease continues to be politicized, hard to say whether Americans reacting; best gauge: whether the theme parks stay open; apparently Disney is still open in Japan; speaks volumes;
• key data point Americans may react to: number of new deaths; not new numbers unless really excessive; "good news," I suppose that one could say all deaths in the US were in Washington state;

Politics:

• Biden: get's Beto's endorsement in Texas; will take all our guns away; not a good move;
• Bernie: it's clear that Democrat party got to Klobuchar, Buttigieg to withdraw; throw support behind Biden; 
• Steyer: it will be interesting if he fades away
• Bloomberg: predicts a brokered convention, and one he can win;
• Hillary: ordered deposed by a federal judge; will be represented by the federal government, i.e., the Trump administration. Can she appeal. Yes. DOJ / Attorney General would have to submit the appeal. Statute of limitations has run out on e-mail server controversy; lying under oath is her risk. Re-calculating. Re-calculating. Re-calculating.

Almost new news on Hard Ball's Chris Matthews. How quickly we forget. The bad news: Rachel Maddow could be expanded to two hours.