https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/31/covid-19-trump-admin-overspent-ventilators-much-500-m/5556989002/

"An investigation released Friday by House Democrats says President Donald Trump's administration overpaid by up to $500 million on ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic first struck the United States.

According to Phillips, the list price of the ventilator ordered under the contract is $21,000 and was supplied to the Trump administration for $15,000, which the company called a "discount" given the rushed production schedule.

The report, however, disagreed with Phillips' claim. A functionally identical ventilator was delivered to the Obama administration under a 2014 contract for $3,280. Based on the report's review of purchases between December 2019 and May 2020, other small purchasers, even those that purchased only one ventilator of the same model, secured them for as low as $9,327."

I wonder who negotiated that awesome deal in the Trump administration?

Last edited by sethnintendo - on 01 August 2020

Art of the deal.

Jumpin said: jason1637 said: 2 days after the US crossed the 60k new cases mark were ar 71k new cases today... Deadly cases tend to infect for 3 to 8 weeks. About 3 weeks ago it was 20,000 infections per day in the US, 8 weeks ago it was 18,000 infections. The damage being done right now won't be fully realized until August and September.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/241751/coronavirus-covid-19-discussion-thread/605/

Here we are, 3 weeks later, cases have jumped from the 4-600 daily USian death range to the 1400-1500 range (or 2000-2100 if you add on the estimated 34% unreported deaths, which might actually be a lot higher percentage now than it was 2 months ago).

Idiots went on vacation to Spain, now we are most likely gonna see it flare up again

NEW from CDC: #COVID19 outbreak at an overnight camp in Georgia infects *at least* 260 campers & staff.
-51% of positives 6-10yo
-44% 11-17 yo
-Camp required a test <12 days before arriving & attempted "pods"
-Masks required for staff but NOT campers
(1/2)

— Amy Maxmen, PhD (@amymaxmen) July 31, 2020

Who "in their right mind" sends their kids to a 5 day long "over night" outdoor's camp, during a pandemic?
597 of them.. and 76% tested positive?

"Reopen the schools, kids are immune, trust me, im the president of the USA!"

Theres reports that kids have viral loads that are like 100 times higher than adults.
They dont die to it in the numbers that the elderly do, but their fantastic spreaders.
Alot of them (even the kids) will get permanent brain/kidney/heart/lunge damage as well.

mom&dad got 5 days without hyper active kids yelling at them.
Relax time.... kids got covid19 and lasting damage to their bodies, and will now bring it back home to their parents.
(unless they keep the kids locked away at the camp, isolateing them from their parents for a few weeks more)

people are way to much into deaths only...for some of the survivors death would probably be prefered

Yep, I heard that camp story from my wife this morning, eroding my trust in the back to school plans even more.

It's much worse than the conference made it out to be, the actual plans laid out in the article the day after are very inadequate, theater.

In September all elementary schools are set to re-open at full capacity, same class sizes.

- Grade 4 to 8 are required to wear face masks, except during lunch breaks. (lots of fiddling, on and off, long break in the same space without mask)
- Desks will be put 1 meter apart (still sitting in the same room for 6 hours)
- Lunch and Bathroom breaks will be staggered to keep classes apart (yet they mingle on the bus, at after school activities, siblings at home)
- Teachers and staff wear face masks as well (but mingle with other teachers as well and their own kids at home)
- Normal occupancy on the bus but siblings and classes should sit together and the (tiny) windows left open when possible.
- More cleaning in general (not specified how)

To detect Covid19 teachers will get an 8 hour seminar to turn them into medical professionals recognizing the signs of Covid19...

However kids usually have mild to no visible symptoms (are they going to check for covid toes for example...) and you are already infectious up to 3 days before showing symptoms anyway. If suspected, kids will be isolated and required to have a test before returning to school.

Parents are also advised to look out for symptoms and not send their children to school sick. However there is no program in place for people to stay home from work with their 'sick' kids. So the incentive is there to simply send kids with minor symptoms to school to be able to continue paying the rent, as has always been the case.

6 hours a day inside the same room with minimal measures to reduce the risk of airborne transmission, nothing to stop micro droplets (that survive 3 hours in the air and pass straight through masks) from building up during the day. Exposure time plus up to 30 people per room while relying on elementary kids to do the proper cleaning and mask handling. It sounds completely inadequate while cases are set to rise before September.

We had 2 days of under 100 reporting, 76 and 89 (while pending cases kept rising, now 29.2K pending) to announce more phase 3 re-openings and back to school plans. Then it jumped back up to 134 yesterday. The trend has been a rising one already since phase 2 re-openings.

It looks like we'll just have to keep the kids home from school. Unfortunately still no information on the home schooling plans.

Update: 124 new cases today, 5 new in my local county, 27K tests pending. High for a Saturday but a huge backlog to work through.
Those 2 days under 100 look more and more like deliberate postponement of test results to deliver the phase 3 and back to school plans....
It feels more and more that actual safety doesn't really matter, just making people feel safer.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 01 August 2020

Weekly report

World wide reported cases and deaths grew further, 1.81 million new cases last week and 40.0K new deaths.
+8.5% on average for the week, trending down a bit to +2.5% for the past 3 days.

The USA turned reported cases growth around right after switching to HHS reporting. -3.6% for the week.
Reported deaths keep climbing, 7677 last week vs 6385 the week before (5423 the week before that) back to early May levels.

Europe is steadily climbing into a second wave, +16% growth for the week.
Reported deaths have stopped declining in Europe, 2351 last week vs 2325 the week before (2619 the week before that)


The rest of the continents

North / South America and Asia virtually tied at the top.
Africa slowed down a little while Europe caught back up.
Oceania is now higher than its first wave.


Around the world

USA declining again since HHS took over, Brazil is getting more unstable in reporting while India keeps climbing steadily.
South Africa might have hit a test cap, the numbers are fluctuating a lot atm, could be a peak maybe.
Iran's heavily filtered data is starting to creep back up again.
Japan and Australia both beat their previous out breaks and have both passed Canada, even China is getting up there again.
Only South Korea is still managing their case load, can't get rid of it, but still hovering around the 50 per day.


Europe is detail

Basically everyone is back on the rise while Eastern Europe never got through the first wave.
And Sweden, who knows what exactly goes on there.

Schools to re-open in 2 weeks in The Netherlands, same as in Canada, full classes, minimal measures. Good luck...

Looks like Japan is fucked now and there is absolutely no excuse for it. They started out as the country with the best prerequisites to keep cases low and even eradicate it and they completely fucked it.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/

Europeans

How is the current situation of your country?

Are services totally open? Are services partially closed? And events?