COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[MU82]

I hate to rain on your parade and your agenda...somehow you will spin this, or just deny it, I'm sure..

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_of_president_trumps_handling_of_the_coronavirus-7088.html

Spin unnecessary. The data shown within this Real Clear Politics aggregate polling link doesn't rain on the parades of the people you think it does.

1. If you go to the link you provided and click on All Public Approval of President Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus Polling Data, you will see that he was getting horrible approval ratings for the first 2 weeks of March. In other words, the vast majority of Americans polled disapproved of his handling of the pandemic during the early weeks of his administration's response. That matches precisely what his critics claim.

2. If you look at the entirety of those polls from March 1 to present, you will see that he was getting horrible approval ratings for how he handled the virus early (March 1-14), followed by several polls showing very good ratings when he finally started taking the advice of Fauci and other experts (March 13-25), followed by much lower approval ratings in the last week or so (March 30 to present). The trend appears to no longer be his friend.

3. Compare his current approval rating on this crisis to the much, much higher approval numbers that other presidents received after crises. For example, in the weeks after 9/11, Bush's aggregate approval rating shot up to nearly 90%. Most polling experts and political historians think it is not a good sign for Trump that despite the uptick he has received during this span his aggregate overall job approval rating is still well below 50%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

4. At this stage of their presidencies, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson and Eisenhower all had higher aggregate approval ratings than Trump, and he only surpassed Carter a few days ago.

5. Within the link that you seem to think accurately shows Americans loving Trump, it also shows Biden beating him in the election by nearly 6%.

Stay healthy, guru, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

[Pakuni]

Are we supposed to be anti-drug companies still during this time, or are we relaxing our disdain for them? 

I have never understood this position.  The best, brightest should be working at drug companies to develop new drugs for humanity. That comes with great cost in research and compensation, but we have done a good job of attacking that industry.  If you want good quality outcomes you need to pay the price.  The source of funding for research is the sale of the products.  It is unfortunate, but a necessary evil in a capitalist country.  It is my sincere hope that these companies can find a vaccine or other drugs that work to combat this crisis.

Lotsa falsehoods here, Cheeks WarriorDad.

Drug company revenues from just their top 20-selling drugs far exceed ALL of their R&D costs. That's just the top 20. Now add in the profits from the 100s of others.
Get the picture?

Facts below:

The most telling data on a disconnect between drug prices and research costs has received almost no public attention. Peter Bach, a researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and his colleagues compared prices of the top 20 best-selling drugs in the United States to the prices in Europe and Canada. They found that the cumulative revenue from the price difference on just these 20 drugs more than covers all the drug research and development costs conducted by the 15 drug companies that make those drugs—and then some.
To be more precise, after accounting for the costs of all research—about $80 billion a year—drug companies had $40 billion more from the top 20 drugs alone, all of which went straight to profits, not research. More excess profit comes from the next 100 or 200 brand-name drugs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/drug-prices-high-cost-research-and-development/585253/

[muguru]

The most recent poll shows the majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the crisis.
Hooray?

Uh...no...don't cherry pick...the top line gives you the average of all the polls.

[Pakuni]

Uh...no...don't cherry pick...the top line gives you the average of all the polls.

Yeah, why rely on the most recent poll from a fast-moving, rapidly evolving situation, when we can equally weigh those from 10 days ago. It's not like much has changed in the past 10 days.
Except almost everything.

Anyhow, historically speaking, Americans tend to rally around their leaders during a crisis.
The first George Bush saw his approval rating soar from 59 percent to 89 percent at the onset of Desert Storm.
The second George Bush's approval ratings spiked in the 90s and held steady in the 80s in the months after 9/11.

What does the fact that Trump can't even top 50 percent tell you?

[muguru]

Spin unnecessary. The data shown within this Real Clear Politics aggregate polling link doesn't rain on the parades of the people you think it does.

1. If you go to the link you provided and click on All Public Approval of President Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus Polling Data, you will see that he was getting horrible approval ratings for the first 2 weeks of March. In other words, the vast majority of Americans polled disapproved of his handling of the pandemic during the early weeks of his administration's response. That matches precisely what his critics claim.

2. If you look at the entirety of those polls from March 1 to present, you will see that he was getting horrible approval ratings for how he handled the virus early (March 1-14), followed by several polls showing very good ratings when he finally started taking the advice of Fauci and other experts (March 13-25), followed by much lower approval ratings in the last week or so (March 30 to present). The trend appears to no longer be his friend.

3. Compare his current approval rating on this crisis to the much, much higher approval numbers that other presidents received after crises. For example, in the weeks after 9/11, Bush's aggregate approval rating shot up to nearly 90%. Most polling experts and political historians think it is not a good sign for Trump that despite the uptick he has received during this span his aggregate overall job approval rating is still well below 50%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

4. At this stage of their presidencies, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson and Eisenhower all had higher aggregate approval ratings than Trump, and he only surpassed Carter a few days ago.

5. Within the link that you seem to think accurately shows Americans loving Trump, it also shows Biden beating him in the election by nearly 6%.

Stay healthy, guru, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I don't know what you are looking at but if you look at the top line...which is all that matters(average of all polls), more APPROVE than disapprove of his handling of the corona virus.

But I'm done here...I just try to balance this thread out some because it's clear where most posters fall. You stay safe and healthy yourself

[muguru]

Yeah, why rely on the most recent poll from a fast-moving, rapidly evolving situation, when we can equally weigh those from 10 days ago. It's not like much has changed in the past 10 days.
Except almost everything.

Anyhow, historically speaking, Americans tend to rally around their leaders during a crisis.
The first George Bush saw his approval rating soar from 59 percent to 89 percent at the onset of Desert Storm.
The second George Bush's approval ratings spiked in the 90s and held steady in the 80s in the months after 9/11.

What does the fact that Trump can't even top 50 percent tell you?

It tells me that it's about 49% higher then I would have(and I would hope most americans would have) on the other person that could be in office right now "handing" this. My god I shudder to think where we'd be.

[rocky_warrior]

Those bickering with guru, and guru.  Please stop.  If you've got new Covid-19 information to share - please do.

[Jockey]

Wisconsin legislature asking Evers to open all churches for Easter services. These are the same people demanding that the polls be open on Tuesday.

I think this is the reason things turn so partisan. One side is asking for people to gather in large crowds during a crisis.  The other side is appalled at the idea.

[MU82]

Coronavirus Update: @pzf

Great news from New York:
- Number of new cases down
- Number of new deaths down
- Number of new hospitalizations down
- Number of new ICU patients down
- Number of newly discharged patients up

That all sounds very encouraging. If NY has indeed turned some kind of corner, that obviously would be huge.

[rocky_warrior]

Interesting side effect:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-standing-still-pandemic

[forgetful]

Interesting side effect:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-standing-still-pandemic

That's really cool. I wouldn't have thought we had that much effect on the earth's movement. Neat.

[GooooMarquette]

Interesting side effect:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-standing-still-pandemic

Maybe we need to set a time for every Scooper to jump up and down (at a safe distance from others, of course) to get things going again.

Who's with me?

[GooooMarquette]

Wisconsin legislature asking Evers to open all churches for Easter services. These are the same people demanding that the polls be open on Tuesday.

I think this is the reason things turn so partisan. One side is asking for people to gather in large crowds during a crisis.  The other side is appalled at the idea.

So the Pope is OK having Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday mass in an empty St. Peter's Basilica (and encouraging people to watch virtually), but the good legislators of Wisconsin have decided that isn't good enough?

Brilliant. Have people stay at home six days, only to waste the isolation by gathering in crowded churches on the seventh.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/virus-alters-holy-week-celebration-worldwide-spirit-69978753

[Jockey]

Interesting side effect:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-standing-still-pandemic

Pollution & CO2 declining as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-pandemic-leading-to-huge-drop-in-air-pollution

[GooooMarquette]

Pollution & CO2 declining as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-pandemic-leading-to-huge-drop-in-air-pollution

I saw something posted on Facebook - probably half-joking and half not - that said something like "COVID-19 is the earth's way of getting back at us for fooking up the environment."

It obviously isn't that simple, but you kind of wonder about the whole butterfly effect thing....

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Boris Johnson has been admitted to the hospital with his COVID symptoms.

[lawdog77]

Citizens who lost health coverage in past 2 weeks due to economic collapse:

USA 3,500,000
Australia 0
Belgium 0
Canada 0
Chile 0
Denmark 0
Finland 0
France 0
Germany 0
Greece 0
Hungary 0
Italy 0
Japan 0
New Zealand 0
Norway 0
Portugal 0
S Korea 0
Spain 0
Sweden 0
Turkey 0
UK 0

Where is this stat coming from? If it is from job loss, their policy would have went through the end of the month, then could have added health insurance via COBRA or the marketplace.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Where is this stat coming from? If it is from job loss, their policy would have went through the end of the month, then could have added health insurance via COBRA or the marketplace.

Just made up hysteria from flyer, thinking that everyone's health insurance is tied to their job.  Nevermind that sone companies are continuing coverage for their furloughed employees, some have coverage through a spouse or parent, or that the great Obamacare is available and is supposedly there to allow folks to take risks, start their own businesses, or do a job they like, not have to for insurance.

[wadesworld]

Just made up hysteria from flyer, thinking that everyone's health insurance is tied to their job.  Nevermind that sone companies are continuing coverage for their furloughed employees, some have coverage through a spouse or parent, or that the great Obamacare is available and is supposedly there to allow folks to take risks, start their own businesses, or do a job they like, not have to for insurance.

Phew! Perfect system we have here.

[WarriorDad]

One easy solution - instead of waffling whenever asked about states that haven’t yet implemented stay at home orders - he could strongly and consistently call out every holdout, pointing out that we are all in this together and need to do what the public health experts are recommending. Consistent, unifying, and supported by what scientists currently know about the virus.

If he repeated that mantra sincerely and consistently, we would have the ability to fight the pandemic in a unified way.

He has for New York and attacked for doing so.  Look at the New York subways, they are packed with people.  Is that blood on the federal government's hands? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8183545/Shocking-picture-shows-New-York-train-packed-mask-wearing-passengers-despite-lockdown.html

This is why this blame game is foolish.  Talk about mixed messages.  Federal gov't advises people to stay home (he cannot order that legally) and New Yorkers packing subway cars at the same time their city is over run with this.  It is easy to point to one single person, but that doesn't make it true.  He has failed as have state and local officials, past and present if you wish to dig deep enough.  A budget cut in 2015 can have an impact today.  What is the point?  Let's solve it.

[WarriorDad]

Sweden is rethinking their strategy.  Sounds like UK 3 weeks ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-04/sweden-girds-for-thousands-of-deaths-amid-laxer-virus-response

Sweeden's policy is set by a scientist and we are told to believe and listen to the scientists.  Which scientists?  Which experts?  This is where the blame game breaks apart. 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1265130/coronavirus-sweden-uk-covid-19-herd-immunity-pandemic-anders-tegnell-lockdown

[wadesworld]

He has for New York and attacked for doing so.  Look at the New York subways, they are packed with people.  Is that blood on the federal government's hands? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8183545/Shocking-picture-shows-New-York-train-packed-mask-wearing-passengers-despite-lockdown.html

This is why this blame game is foolish.  Talk about mixed messages.  Federal gov't advises people to stay home (he cannot order that legally) and New Yorkers packing subway cars at the same time their city is over run with this.  It is easy to point to one single person, but that doesn't make it true.  He has failed as have state and local officials, past and present if you wish to dig deep enough.  A budget cut in 2015 can have an impact today.  What is the point?  Let's solve it.

Would love to. Unfortunately we don’t have the administration to do that in place.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

He has for New York and attacked for doing so.  Look at the New York subways, they are packed with people.  Is that blood on the federal government's hands? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8183545/Shocking-picture-shows-New-York-train-packed-mask-wearing-passengers-despite-lockdown.html

This is why this blame game is foolish.  Talk about mixed messages.  Federal gov't advises people to stay home (he cannot order that legally) and New Yorkers packing subway cars at the same time their city is over run with this.  It is easy to point to one single person, but that doesn't make it true.  He has failed as have state and local officials, past and present if you wish to dig deep enough.  A budget cut in 2015 can have an impact today.  What is the point?  Let's solve it.

What a Chicos.

You can solve while blaming.

[#UnleashSean]

I do enjoy the amount that warriordad posts when chicos is banned

I'm still waiting for my 200 dollars

[pbiflyer]

Where is this stat coming from? If it is from job loss, their policy would have went through the end of the month, then could have added health insurance via COBRA or the marketplace.

COBRA is awfully expensive for someone who lost their job and could face months of unemployment. The marketplace is not reopening.
And this was from March, so the policies are done.
But let’s say that a third of the unemployed are lacking health care. Counting their family members it could well exceed that number.
But even if not, wouldn’t you say 1 million is considerably more than 0?

Point is there are many more that had insurance last month that don’t this month and we are the only first world country where that is the case.