March 21, 2020

Rachael Maddow went there tonight, said networks should stop broadcasting tRumps lies

should stop broadcasting his misinformation news briefs because its dangerous. Good on her!

She also broke down at the end of the show talking about Larry Edgeworth, I cried too.



A note about the midnight rerun, the network edited out the very end of Rachael's show & the very beginning of Ari Velcher response

March 21, 2020

Hell is Coming: Here is the Mathematical Proof

Inan Dogan, PhD
Insider MonkeyMarch 20, 2020

Right now 2 million Americans are infected with the coronavirus. The total U.S. death toll by April 15th will be more than 20,000. We estimate that 80 thousand of the 2 million infected Americans will be hospitalized over the next 2 weeks. That’s why we are short-term bullish on hospital stocks.

Thesis:

Everything I said about the Coronavirus COVID-19 in February happened, Now I’m telling you this:

Since my last few newsletters to you, I have updated our models, done more research and we now have better estimates.

Three parameter estimates are needed to predict the number of infections and number of deaths over the next 3 weeks: infection fatality rate, infection growth rate, and the number of days between initial infection and resolution (either death or recovery) of the infection.

1. We now estimate that the coronavirus’s fatality rate is ~0.8%. This means 1 out of every 125 infected people will die. We know that almost all countries had problems with testing and identifying all infected people. There are two exceptions to this: South Korea and Japan’s Princess Diamond cruise ship.

South Korea tested more than 320,000 people and identified 8652 infections. The total number of deaths was 94. This means South Korea’s case fatality rate is 1.09%. We believe there are still a considerable number of South Koreans who were asymptomatic and weren't tested. So, we estimate that the actual fatality rate is anywhere from 0.5% and 1%.

In early February the Princess Diamond cruise ship was quarantined in Japan after one of the passengers tested positive. This was a bad idea for passengers as a total of 712 passengers were eventually infected and 7 of these people died. As far as I know all 3000+ passengers of this cruise ship were tested, so we have a reliable dataset with pretty accurate number of infections and number of deaths. The case fatality rate on Princess Diamond is 0.983%. We know that the fatality rate is higher among older people. Assuming that the median age of passengers on Princess Diamond is greater than America’s, which is 39, we can estimate that the new coronavirus’ fatality rate will be around 0.8% in America (maybe a little lower, but this is a nice round number).

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hell-coming-mathematical-proof-185019616.html

March 20, 2020

Target announces paid leave program for employees most susceptible to covid increases hourly wage

Target has a new paid leave program for employees most susceptible to the coronavirus, the retailer announced Friday.
The Minneapolis-based retailer said employees 65 and older, pregnant or with underlying medical conditions can access paid leave for up to 30 days, it said in a news release. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said these groups are most vulnerable to COVID-19.
Target also announced it is temporarily raising pay by $2 an hour until at least May 2 and giving bonuses to 20,000 hourly employees who oversee individual departments in Target stores that will range from $250 to $1,500. The company said the programs and donations to relief funds total more than $300 million.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/20/target-adds-coronavirus-paid-leave-program-seniors-pregnant-bonuses/2884869001/

March 20, 2020

Majority of Americans now say they approve of Trump's handling of coronavirus: poll

Source: TheHill

The majority of Americans now approve of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a change from just one week prior, according to a new Ipsos/ABC News poll.

Of those surveyed, 55 percent said that they approved of the president's handling of the situation, while 43 percent said they disapproved. The numbers were basically reversed from one week ago when 54 percent said they disapproved and 43 percent approved.

Trump's tone and approach to the outbreak has changed in recent weeks, with the president now appearing at daily briefings at the White House with his coronavirus task force. Trump said this week that he knew that COVID-19 was a pandemic before it was labeled as such by the World Health Organization, despite his previous rhetoric downplaying the severity of the virus.

The president has passed two coronavirus stimulus packages that include paid sick leave for certain workers and free coronavirus testing.

Despite the improvement in the approval rating, the public remains strongly partisan.

Nearly 70 percent of Democrats still disapprove of how Trump is dealing with the pandemic, while 92 percent of Republicans approve of how he's handled the crisis.

There are over 14,000 confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. with at least 200 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488597-majority-of-americans-approve-of-trumps-handling-of-coronavirus-poll

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Will tRump run as the war president that saved the country? Are Americans dumb enough to believe him?

and we have this YouGov poll, thanks to a post on this thread

https://twitter.com/YouGovUS/status/1240699651914792966

March 19, 2020

Walmart adjusting hours for second time in less than a week, limit items

Beginning Thursday, all U.S. locations will only be open from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., unless a store already opens later.

This is to help employees better restock shelves and also sanitize their stores.

Shifts and other schedules will stay the same for employees during the adjusted hours.

In addition to the new hours, starting March 24, every Tuesday there will be an hour long senior shopping event for customers 60 and older. These will begin a 6:30 a.m., and pharmacies and vision centers will also be open. This will go on until April 28.

Store officials say they will also be limiting how many items of certain products customers are able to buy at once.

Those items include; paper products, milk, eggs, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, water, diapers, wipes, formula and baby food.

The auto centers will also be closed, as those employees will now be assigned to help stock and clean shelves.

March 17, 2020

European Union will close external borders for 30 days to slow coronavirus pandemic

Source: CNBC

European Union member nations agreed Tuesday to close the EU’s external borders for 30 days in a dramatic new effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the planned closings of the massive union’s external borders at a press conference.

Movement of people within the European Union’s 27 member nations will still be allowed under the restrictions.

“The union and its member states will do whatever it takes,” said European Council President Charles Michel.

Michel said the EU will arrange for the repatriation of citizens of member countries.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-european-union-leaders-agree-to-close-borders.html

March 17, 2020

Amazon suspends all nonessential shipments to warehouses - Business Insider

So, is this a hint that transportation services are at a breaking point?

March 17, 2020

Senate could push through 'phase 3' coronavirus rescue plan this week (bailout for corporations &

the rich while we the people get the shaft

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/senate-phase-3-coronavirus-rescue-package-133149

March 16, 2020

More than half of American jobs are at risk because of coronavirus

Source: CNN

Nearly 80 million jobs in the US economy are at high or moderate risk today, according to analysis in the last week from Moody's Analytics. That's more than half of the 153 million jobs in the economy overall.
That doesn't mean that all those jobs will be lost. But it's probable that as many as 10 million of those workers could see some impact to their paychecks -- either layoffs, furloughs, fewer hours or wage cuts, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
Of those 80 million jobs, Moody's Analytics projects that 27 million are at high risk due to the virus, primarily in transportation and travel, leisure and hospitality, temporary help services and oil drilling and extraction. Maybe 20% of those workers, comprising about 5 million jobs, will be affected, Zandi said.
The other 52 million jobs are judged to face "moderate risk." They are in areas such as retail, manufacturing, construction and education. Some 5 million of those workers are could be unemployed or underemployed.

The shock to the economy could come quickly. When the job changes in the coming week are counted it could show a loss of as many as 1 million jobs, according to Kevin Hassett, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors under President Donald Trump.
That would be significantly worse than the 800,000 jobs lost in March 2009, the worst month of the Great Recession. That was also one-month drop in jobs since the US economy shifted off a war footing the month after World War II.
"You're looking at one of the biggest negative job numbers you've ever seen," Hassett told CNN Monday. He said that even if there isn't a big increase in firings, the economy needs a certain level of hiring to balance out the normal number of people who are leaving jobs.
"The issue is we think next week....there will be no hires," he said.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/economy/job-losses-coronavirus/index.html

March 15, 2020

UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'

Source: The Guardian

The coronavirus epidemic in the UK will last until next spring and could lead to 7.9 million people being hospitalised, a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials reveals.

The document, seen by the Guardian, is the first time health chiefs tackling the virus have admitted that they expect it to circulate for another 12 months and lead to huge extra strain on an already overstretched NHS.

It also suggests that health chiefs are braced for as many as 80% of Britons becoming infected with the coronavirus over that time.

Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has previously described that figure as the worst-case scenario and suggested that the real number would turn out to be less than that. However, the briefing makes clear that four in five of the population “are expected” to contract the virus.

The document says that: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.”

The briefing sets out the latest official thinking about how severely the infection could affect both the public’s health and that of personnel in critical services such as the NHS, police, the fire brigade and transport.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised