NIH Panel Recommends Against Drug Combination Promoted By Trump For COVID-19
As usual, Trump is an idiotic incompetent who should shut up and accept his own shortcomings instead of trying to talk his way out of everything and killing people this way.
That hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are dangerous if mixed is written quite clearly in (at the very least) the indications that come within the package of commercially sold azithromycin (here, those information sheet are compulsory. Isn't it the same in the US?).
People should be able to trust the President's words, so the President should not speak if he doesn't know what he's talking about.
What Happens If U.S. Reopens Too Fast? Documents Show Federal Coronavirus Projections
If the US reopens too early, the virus will restart its exponential trajectory and the country will have to close down again. The earlier they reopen, the earlier they will have to lockdown again.
To avoid the lockdown, the virus must be contained correctly. Angela Merkel explains it best, speaking of Germany (which is waaaay better equipped against Covid-19 than the US are) and speaking out of her own knowledge of math and science.
This also shows that having someone competent at the helm, when things get stormy, is quite a lot better than having a pathological, ignorant, incompetent narcissist.
Did you read my link? There was a serology by Stanford that suggested C19's real fatality rate is about 0.12-0.2% which isn't far off from the flu at 0.1%
Here in Italy, the flu kills 500 people each year on a total of 5.500.000 infected each year. That's 1/10.000 people. Double it, triple it, make it ten times that, to account for other factors. That's still 1/1000. Covid-19 kills around 1-2% (if everything goes well), that's 1-2/100 (if everything goes well!). The two illnesses are not comparable, as of today.
The problem is how many will die if our economy collapses.
If the economy collapses because of a virus like this, it means the economic system had not taken this possibility into account and has to be modified accordingly. A system that does not prepare for foreseeable crisis is a weak system, and we are seeing it right now.
However, part of the collapse will rebuild fast, because needs, competences and, most of the time, equipement, are still there in good shape. Most of the loss can and will be recovered.
Farmers are dumping milk because there is no market for it.
Food production is indeed one of the most important things to consider, and one of the few production lines that should not really stop.
But if milk is getting wasted, make cheese. When, in due time, milk will cost a fortune and cheese will be cheap, people will eat cheese. Which means: adapt, rather than throwing food away.
Most of the problems for the food production industry, here, come not from the reduced demand, but because of the lack of specialized workers in the fields, who are usually foreigners who cannot enter the country right now; or illegal immigrants enslaved at 2-3€ per day who can't be used now because the police controls when too many people are together and who can't be regularized because the owners don't want to (or can't economically) pay them adequately and because many xenophobes oppose this anyway (the same hypocrit people who normally have no problem in buying and eating cheap produce picked by those same immigrants...)
With oil prices going negative, some of the oil companies will go out of business.
This is Saudi Arabia's long-term plan getting an unexpected help by Covid-19, since they have been playing the cheap oil game for years.
This is, again, the effect of the shortcomings of the US system, that has not taken into account a possibility like this, even if that could be crippling.
None of this is isolated. The whole system can collapses like dominos.
This shows the fragility of the system. But then again, when the market is too free, this might happen. Too many people believed that the high rates of return we experienced were free of risks. They aren't free (that's both the most basic rules of the market tied together: nothing is free and the higher the reward, the higher the risk). So, better be prepared if something goes the wrong way.
A famine will kill more than 2 million. We might not have the luxury of staying at home until the virus is gone.
You might have to anyway, because if things reopen too early, another lockdown will come, and it will be economically worse than the first one, or you'll have another, and another, and another, with a devastating compound effect. It would be like two or more hurricanes hitting the same place in a short period of time. The first is a disaster, the second is a massacre. The third...
Economically, the impact WILL be disastrous. This is why the Government should use its strength to alleviate the suffering and avoid panick-behaviours that would worsen the effects of the crisis. Also because, as we have said, the demand and competences and equipment can all be there after the crisis, if companies and workers and families will be helped to get by and not get broke.
