It used to be generally better as it had to include a slightly greater set of voices -- since the lockdown I haven't been in my car and out of podcasts, so haven't listened to their coverage of the pandemic.
...people *want* to believe that the overall death rate will not be much increased, and the survivors will be largely fine. If so, then the costs of lockdown start to look like a more damaging imposition than the alternatives.
I don’t look at the spanish flu global pandemic and share that assumption.
The evidence of the 1920s is that the survivors of Spanish Flu were largely fine. It was one of the most prosperous decades in history.
Though, 'flu and coronavirus are different - there's no reason to assume that the absence of long-term health effects in 'flu survivors will mean there'll be no long-term health effects in Covid19 survivors. It would be better to look at those who survived MERS and SARS, recent outbreaks of similar coronaviruses.
The 1920 was also a highpoint of cultural and technological development as well as rapid economic growth. Most people were "fine" by whichever measure you want to name.
(Though it is extremely difficult to separate out the after effects of the war.)
Not that I've learned this today, but was reminded of. The economists generally define everything by money. A human life in a First World country is worth about $40K per year. A person in a less properous country is valued less. Interventions to control disease are evaluated on a "cost per Qualy" Quality adjusted life year.
What this means is that economists, and their government-corporate friends, decide how much to spend on various things, and can determine how much economic activity they would like to promote and how many lives this will cost. As far as I can see, there are limited or no ethics involved.
Thus wealth does equate to "fine" or health in this Eichmann type of analysis.
Meanwhile, as my radio alarm went off this morning I thought I heard the newsreader saying that President Trump is going to disband the US covid19 task force. I put that down to the sleep-fuddled early morning effect, and I'd misheard the story. Afterall, the hard work of deciding if it's possible to relax movement restrictions, and if so how to do so, without a second wave of infection is only just beginning. But, no that's definitely been reported on the BBC News at Breakfast as well. Which is a decision that seems to defy all common sense.
I thought that he's giving up thinking about the virus, and wants to open up the economy now. Presumably this is a calculation that this is the best way to win the election, and people will tolerate 6 figure deaths, but not mass unemployment.
People will tolerate any number of deaths they do not see. Because there are no bodies on the street, because most people do not know anyone who has died, Because their own families are OK, because their neighbours are not being hauled away to the funeral home; most will not see the direct impact.
And therefore discount it at least somewhat.
Meanwhile, as my radio alarm went off this morning I thought I heard the newsreader saying that President Trump is going to disband the US covid19 task force. I put that down to the sleep-fuddled early morning effect, and I'd misheard the story. Afterall, the hard work of deciding if it's possible to relax movement restrictions, and if so how to do so, without a second wave of infection is only just beginning. But, no that's definitely been reported on the BBC News at Breakfast as well. Which is a decision that seems to defy all common sense.
I thought that he's giving up thinking about the virus, and wants to open up the economy now. Presumably this is a calculation that this is the best way to win the election, and people will tolerate 6 figure deaths, but not mass unemployment.
People will tolerate any number of deaths they do not see. Because there are no bodies on the street, because most people do not know anyone who has died, Because their own families are OK, because their neighbours are not being hauled away to the funeral home; most will not see the direct impact.
And therefore discount it at least somewhat.
Also, the dead can't vote but the unemployed can. Which might understandably motivate many politicians to reduce the latter number even at the cost of an increase to the former.
Also, the dead can't vote but the unemployed can. Which might understandably motivate many politicians to reduce the latter number even at the cost of an increase to the former.
I do care that the media coverage consistently leaves our population uninformed and misinformed.
I think there's a much broader debate to be had about the role of the media, one that intersects with the kinds of discussion about free speech that have been going on elsewhere here.
I'm not sure most people open their papers to find out what's actually going on these days, I think the expectation is more one of entertainment and reinforcement of their own prejudices. Most people don't want to be informed, and many of those who do are very lacking in discernment, which takes them into tinfoil hat territory very fast.
People have always so, otherwise multiple sources would not have existed since the dawn of publication. The peopblem now is the ease in which one can enter an echo chamber. If a neutral bias source exists, at least some will go there and there is a counterpoint to the madness.
...people *want* to believe that the overall death rate will not be much increased, and the survivors will be largely fine. If so, then the costs of lockdown start to look like a more damaging imposition than the alternatives.
I don’t look at the spanish flu global pandemic and share that assumption.
The evidence of the 1920s is that the survivors of Spanish Flu were largely fine. It was one of the most prosperous decades in history.
What evidence are you using to make this claim? The causes of the economic boom were entirely separate from the fact that the world had just got through a pandemic. Both the introduction and expansion of mass-industrialisation and the general expansion of credit are unlikely to be reproducible (and the latter was one of the contributing factors to the depression/slump that followed).
At least in the UK output shrank from 1918-1920 and was not to return to those levels till the late 30s.
Finally, there were long term effects for those going through the pandemic, in terms of both health and general life outcomes.
The moral difference between the Spanish flu pandemic and the Coronavirus pandemic is that today's prevention methods weren't even a consideration. Less was known and understood. So treatment and isolation of the sick were the only options.
The greater knowledge produces the moral choice.
Maximum economic activity subject to minimum death and sickness. Or maximum protection subject to minimum economic need. I'd say we don't really know how to solve either of these equations. There is going to be trial and error.
The 1920 was also a highpoint of cultural and technological development as well as rapid economic growth. Most people were "fine" by whichever measure you want to name.
Except that they were not. Poverty was a real problem as was income inequality.
The fact that the Roaring Twenties happened. If people hadn't been "largely fine" then that wouldn't have been the case.
Economic booms can and do happen on the backs of grinding poverty and exploitation. Certainly the 1926 General Strike indicates a lot of people were far from fine in Britain.
The fact that the Roaring Twenties happened. If people hadn't been "largely fine" then that wouldn't have been the case.
O. the fuck.M.G. That displays an astounding lack of comprehension of economics. The roaring of the 20's was done by middle-class* and rich people. There were loads of people doing horribly. Income inequality was massive.
For your edification: A country can be described as "doing fine" even if a massive number of its inhabitants are not.
The fact that the Roaring Twenties happened. If people hadn't been "largely fine" then that wouldn't have been the case.
I think you need to look again at the evidence -- the causes of the boom were separate from surviving a pandemic, and as others have pointed out it didn't touch everyone in any case.
You'd need to compare it with a number of counterfactuals in order to make your claim which is strikingly naive.
I don't really care what their motivation is, although in recent years the Telegraph has descended from a quality newspaper with a particular political perspective (which I would read from time to time) to a propaganda rag. I do care that the media coverage consistently leaves our population uninformed and misinformed.
Are there actually any quality newspapers left? The Times left the building a long time ago. The Grauniad has occasional moments of intelligence, but is mostly uninspiring flannel. I agree with your assessment of the Telegraph.
I don't really care what their motivation is, although in recent years the Telegraph has descended from a quality newspaper with a particular political perspective (which I would read from time to time) to a propaganda rag. I do care that the media coverage consistently leaves our population uninformed and misinformed.
Are there actually any quality newspapers left? The Times left the building a long time ago. The Grauniad has occasional moments of intelligence, but is mostly uninspiring flannel. I agree with your assessment of the Telegraph.
Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" was more prophetic than they knew.
"All lies and jests
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest"
When and to what extent did contemporary journalism become more about pandering? And who are the exceptions?
Meanwhile, as my radio alarm went off this morning I thought I heard the newsreader saying that President Trump is going to disband the US covid19 task force. I put that down to the sleep-fuddled early morning effect, and I'd misheard the story. Afterall, the hard work of deciding if it's possible to relax movement restrictions, and if so how to do so, without a second wave of infection is only just beginning. But, no that's definitely been reported on the BBC News at Breakfast as well. Which is a decision that seems to defy all common sense.
"Will disband by Memorial Day", which is in less than 3 weeks time. I don't know whether Trump believes his own propaganda, or just wants to project this belief, but he seems convinced that the worst is over and the virus will just go away, and so far as I can tell, this is based on the evidence that it's what he wants, and so therefore it must be true.
And clearly, if the virus is going away, the task force has done its job.
Even by Trumpian standards, this is moronic, but it's also not terribly surprising.
30,076 Deaths of people who have had a positive test result confirmed by a Public Health or NHS laboratory (bold text is my editing)
As we thought likely, this total did rise over 30,000 today and is now clearly the second biggest total in the word. The other thing which is clear is that the death total will always exclude those whose death certificate details have been forwarded to the Office of National Statistics if the certification has not been preceded by a positive test result. This seems likely to exclude significant numbers who have died in care homes. How the death certificates are sorted to exclude this difference I don't know. But it does mean that the weekly ONS stats are always likely to show more deaths than the NHS stats. The latest ONS stats suggest that a large number of people judged by GPs to have died as a result (or contributory result) of COVID-19 were not previously tested.
While that clears up the statistical difference I'm not sure it clears up whether this standard (confirmation by a prior test) is the best way of giving the full picture of how lethal this virus is and has been.
This seems likely to exclude significant numbers who have died in care homes. How the death certificates are sorted to exclude this difference I don't know. But it does mean that the weekly ONS stats are always likely to show more deaths than the NHS stats.
In my part of the US, looking at the CDC total death count and the count for those tagged with Covid-19 suggests that the official death figures undercount by about a factor of 2.
Total cases are also under-counted (probably by a much larger number) because of the lack of testing. Some studies have suggested that total cases may be undercounted by a factor of 10-20. Obviously this is highly dependent on your testing regime.
I'll note in passing that the IHME (which was Trump's pet model) just had a major model update to include some use of SEIR models as well as their template fitting. This has had the effect of significantly extending the predicted tail, and it now looks a bit more plausible. I think it's still optimistic, but it's closer to believable now.
That's the one forecasting 134k deaths by August? Or was, the last I heard.
I like Dr Fauci. He says straightforward things, such as all models are wrong but they tell us something. He thinks a second wave in the Autumn is likely and a further spike in this wave is likely.
It all boils down to 'a lot more people are going to die of this disease this year.' And maybe next too.
but their survivors can. Their children, grandchildren, parents, sisters, uncles, best friends. The more people die, the more people there will be who have a loved one who died.
but their survivors can. Their children, grandchildren, parents, sisters, uncles, best friends. The more people die, the more people there will be who have a loved one who died.
Which is also why the straight trade off between deaths and economic growth doesn't work too well -- people's perceptions of risk will go up if their family members start dying, and they aren't really going to mode of returning to normal and allowing the economy to rip.
rip as in go up 'let rip' (go free)
not
rip as in die.
(in this hypothetical example)
Trumps/Telegraphs plan is that we go back to normal, spend lots of dosh, go to disneyland, etc... and things are exactly as they were before.
while Chris (if I read him right) asserts that if one of your grandparents is seriously ill (or worse), one of your colleagues is fatally injured, and 20 of your colleagues are off sick, thinks that disneyland might not be your top priority.
(I suppose there is the impact of medical bills and insurance as sources of cash flows to discuss)
while Chris (if I read him right) asserts that if one of your grandparents is seriously ill (or worse), one of your colleagues is fatally injured, and 20 of your colleagues are off sick, thinks that disneyland might not be your top priority.
Yeah, though I think a few sentences got lost when I was typing on my tablet earlier.
Basically people's confidence in the economy is going to reflect their own circumstances, and if those around them are dying and getting ill the instinct of most will be to save rather than spend because they'll assume that some kind of rainy day is just around the corner.
United Arab Emirates - 15,738 (12,222 / 3,359 / 157)
Austria - 15,684 (1,437 / 13,639 / 608) 4.3%
Japan - 15,253 (10,201 / 4,496 / 556)
Poland - 14,740 (9,352 / 4,655 / 733)
Romania - 14,107 (7,455 / 5,788 / 864)
Ukraine - 13,184 (10,760 / 2,097 / 327)
Indonesia - 12,438 (9,226 / 2,317 / 895)
Bangladesh - 11,719 (10,130 / 1,403 / 186)
South Korea - 10,810 (1,135 / 9,419 / 256) 2.6%
Philippines - 10,004 (7,840 / 1,506 / 658)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-two of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Russia and Turkey.
The Philippines have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Another 25K new cases in the USA, making over 100K in the last 4 days. And Trump continues this insane stoking up of pressure on governors to relax restrictions. Outside the New York area (where there was a bit of a spike in deaths yesterday), the overall trend for the rest of the USA is upward.
Governor Jay Insley of Washington State has characterised the Republican legal moves against him for his relative caution as showing "biological ignorance and human heartlessness". There are hints of legal proceedings against other "overcautious" governors.
This isn't really about balancing human lives against economic activity. This is the outcome of Trump's desire to get re-elected. A poisonous debasing of the value of human life in pursuit of naked ambition.
I'm totally conflicted. I hope the trends do become more favourable, that the lethality of the virus decreases of it own accord for any reason, that the human cost diminishes significantly everywhere. But I do want this appalling President and his cohorts to get their comeuppance.
"Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on th'other."
(Hostly note to self. I should take my disgust to Hell)
The Telegraph front page claims that parts of the UK lockdown are to be lifted from the weekend -- though they have form on this, claiming a similar thing on the 27th of April.
Well, it certainly looks to be an appropriate time, as the infection rate appears to be falling, to make a statement on what the first phases of easing the lockdown will be when the time is right. The problem being that if the government says "we'll let people drive to other places for their exercise at the end of May, if things progress as they're forecast" may be interpreted by some as though the timescale and provisional statement weren't there. Some steps will need some advance notice to allow businesses to prepare (though, most probably are already making plans on the assumption that, at the very least, they'll need to maintain social distancing ... if they need to get in PPE then they'll probably need help to source PPE that's appropriate for their business without competing against frontline users).
Boris will say something. What that something is may still be at draft stage, subject to consultation and amendment. Let's hope it's at least facts based. Not characterised by "biological (and statistical) ignorance" or "human heartlessness".
We can be fairly sure he'll mumble something, plenty of waffle, little detail ... but enough that whatever the government ends up doing he can point back to his speech and say "that's what we said we'll do". Rather like taking a vague and unclear passage of Scripture and reading present events back into that to say "aha! see, it was prophesied"
Further evidence, if it were needed, of totatal governmental incompetence: the vaunted Turkish protective gear, flown in by the RAF, turns out to be substandard and unfit for front-line use.
The order served the purposes of the government at the time: they could report to Parliament that they'd supplied the hospitals with PPE (including the 400,000 gowns that they'd ordered from Turkey 5 minutes before). It was so successful they tried the same game with numbers again (give numbers of PPE items supplied by counting pairs of gloves as two items) and again (reach 100,000 tests per day by including 40,000 they put in the post just before the announcement).
Of course, it's not much of a surprise. Turkey was setting up to ensure they had the PPE they needed, what they had available to sell was very likely to be equipment they had no immediate need of, including PPE designed for uses other than frontline medical need. AIUI, one of the reasons the EU set up a united procurement system (and, invited the UK to join) was in recognition that there would be a lot of equipment on the market that would be unsuitable, and that the expertise in identifying what was needed spread throughout the EU could be most efficiently used for the benefit of all.
Bloody awful procurement practice. Typically you have a spec and a sample as part of the purchase contract. Fit for purpose requires a clear definition of purpose. I bet they have trouble getting their money back.
Plus Alan's point about central EU procurement. Pissing us off is one thing, pissing off the whole of the EU is another thing.
Just another sign of not knowing how to do things properly.
Bloody awful procurement practice. Typically you have a spec and a sample as part of the purchase contract. Fit for purpose requires a clear definition of purpose. I bet they have trouble getting their money back.
If you take the view that managing government is mostly a good PR strategy then this is merely a cost of doing business.
In this case it's not just money that's wasted. It's human lives, what's more it's the lives of those trying to save lives.
Of course; but so far there haven't been any particularly searching questions asked about the death toll - with the only paper to carry the more detailed modelling coming in for criticism from sections of the press. Meanwhile press coverage is generally fairly positive and the government are riding high in the polls.
Guardian is publishing report from Exercise Cygnus, 3 years ago, which apparently listed various recommendations in the event of a pandemic. I expect people will be focusing on the sections on care homes. Also noteworthy is that it focuses on flu, when of course, covid is different. Expect fierce criticism of govt, plus disclaimers by them.
We can be fairly sure he'll mumble something, plenty of waffle, little detail ... but enough that whatever the government ends up doing he can point back to his speech and say "that's what we said we'll do". Rather like taking a vague and unclear passage of Scripture and reading present events back into that to say "aha! see, it was prophesied"
It's clear from the Sun and the Telegraph is that the strategy is to leak things out, not brief any specifics because they don't want to outright say that they want people to go back to work, and blame the public if/when the infection rate rises again.
...they don't want to outright say that they want people to go back to work
I think part of the problem is also a concern about the reaction of people when they're told they can go back to work, but not to play. People don't want the lockdown over so they can go back to the office, they want it over so they can go back to the pub.
...they don't want to outright say that they want people to go back to work
I think part of the problem is also a concern about the reaction of people when they're told they can go back to work, but not to play. People don't want the lockdown over so they can go back to the office, they want it over so they can go back to the pub.
But then I think that's at least partly rational. If you are being asked to go to work in London on crowded public transport, meeting with a few friends afterwards is going to be seen as having less potential for harm.
In reality what has happened is that after the Sun and Telegraph printed their front pages, the government has been briefing that they are 'concerned' about people taking the wrong message from press front pages.
People don't want the lockdown over so they can go back to the office, they want it over so they can go back to the pub.
I like pubs, and I like beer. I have no intention of trying to go anywhere near one when they open again.
Partly because a pub in which everyone is spaced 6 feet or more away from the next person is too depressing for words; partly because I've got no interest in putting myself near a bunch of random possibly drunk strangers.
I'd quite like to go back to my office. I have a single-occupancy office - my exposure to the virus would be minimal if I went back to work, and I'd rather like to stop having to work from home. I'm not going to go back until - well, maybe late Fall, maybe next year. My employer's firm instructions are that anyone who can work from home must continue to do so. Which I understand, even though I don't like it.
Comments
It used to be generally better as it had to include a slightly greater set of voices -- since the lockdown I haven't been in my car and out of podcasts, so haven't listened to their coverage of the pandemic.
The evidence of the 1920s is that the survivors of Spanish Flu were largely fine. It was one of the most prosperous decades in history.
(Though it is extremely difficult to separate out the after effects of the war.)
Not that I've learned this today, but was reminded of. The economists generally define everything by money. A human life in a First World country is worth about $40K per year. A person in a less properous country is valued less. Interventions to control disease are evaluated on a "cost per Qualy" Quality adjusted life year.
What this means is that economists, and their government-corporate friends, decide how much to spend on various things, and can determine how much economic activity they would like to promote and how many lives this will cost. As far as I can see, there are limited or no ethics involved.
Thus wealth does equate to "fine" or health in this Eichmann type of analysis.
And therefore discount it at least somewhat.
Also, the dead can't vote but the unemployed can. Which might understandably motivate many politicians to reduce the latter number even at the cost of an increase to the former.
Also, the dead can't vote but the unemployed can. Which might understandably motivate many politicians to reduce the latter number even at the cost of an increase to the former.
@Marvin the Martian
Pithy
And terrifyingly close to reality
What evidence are you using to make this claim? The causes of the economic boom were entirely separate from the fact that the world had just got through a pandemic. Both the introduction and expansion of mass-industrialisation and the general expansion of credit are unlikely to be reproducible (and the latter was one of the contributing factors to the depression/slump that followed).
At least in the UK output shrank from 1918-1920 and was not to return to those levels till the late 30s.
Finally, there were long term effects for those going through the pandemic, in terms of both health and general life outcomes.
The greater knowledge produces the moral choice.
Maximum economic activity subject to minimum death and sickness. Or maximum protection subject to minimum economic need. I'd say we don't really know how to solve either of these equations. There is going to be trial and error.
The fact that the Roaring Twenties happened. If people hadn't been "largely fine" then that wouldn't have been the case.
Economic booms can and do happen on the backs of grinding poverty and exploitation. Certainly the 1926 General Strike indicates a lot of people were far from fine in Britain.
For your edification: A country can be described as "doing fine" even if a massive number of its inhabitants are not.
*British middle-class, not American middle-class
I think you need to look again at the evidence -- the causes of the boom were separate from surviving a pandemic, and as others have pointed out it didn't touch everyone in any case.
You'd need to compare it with a number of counterfactuals in order to make your claim which is strikingly naive.
Are there actually any quality newspapers left? The Times left the building a long time ago. The Grauniad has occasional moments of intelligence, but is mostly uninspiring flannel. I agree with your assessment of the Telegraph.
Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" was more prophetic than they knew.
"All lies and jests
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest"
When and to what extent did contemporary journalism become more about pandering? And who are the exceptions?
"Will disband by Memorial Day", which is in less than 3 weeks time. I don't know whether Trump believes his own propaganda, or just wants to project this belief, but he seems convinced that the worst is over and the virus will just go away, and so far as I can tell, this is based on the evidence that it's what he wants, and so therefore it must be true.
And clearly, if the virus is going away, the task force has done its job.
Even by Trumpian standards, this is moronic, but it's also not terribly surprising.
As we thought likely, this total did rise over 30,000 today and is now clearly the second biggest total in the word. The other thing which is clear is that the death total will always exclude those whose death certificate details have been forwarded to the Office of National Statistics if the certification has not been preceded by a positive test result. This seems likely to exclude significant numbers who have died in care homes. How the death certificates are sorted to exclude this difference I don't know. But it does mean that the weekly ONS stats are always likely to show more deaths than the NHS stats. The latest ONS stats suggest that a large number of people judged by GPs to have died as a result (or contributory result) of COVID-19 were not previously tested.
While that clears up the statistical difference I'm not sure it clears up whether this standard (confirmation by a prior test) is the best way of giving the full picture of how lethal this virus is and has been.
In my part of the US, looking at the CDC total death count and the count for those tagged with Covid-19 suggests that the official death figures undercount by about a factor of 2.
Total cases are also under-counted (probably by a much larger number) because of the lack of testing. Some studies have suggested that total cases may be undercounted by a factor of 10-20. Obviously this is highly dependent on your testing regime.
I'll note in passing that the IHME (which was Trump's pet model) just had a major model update to include some use of SEIR models as well as their template fitting. This has had the effect of significantly extending the predicted tail, and it now looks a bit more plausible. I think it's still optimistic, but it's closer to believable now.
I like Dr Fauci. He says straightforward things, such as all models are wrong but they tell us something. He thinks a second wave in the Autumn is likely and a further spike in this wave is likely.
It all boils down to 'a lot more people are going to die of this disease this year.' And maybe next too.
ProPublica?
but their survivors can. Their children, grandchildren, parents, sisters, uncles, best friends. The more people die, the more people there will be who have a loved one who died.
Which is also why the straight trade off between deaths and economic growth doesn't work too well -- people's perceptions of risk will go up if their family members start dying, and they aren't really going to mode of returning to normal and allowing the economy to rip.
I can't parse this.
not
rip as in die.
(in this hypothetical example)
Trumps/Telegraphs plan is that we go back to normal, spend lots of dosh, go to disneyland, etc... and things are exactly as they were before.
while Chris (if I read him right) asserts that if one of your grandparents is seriously ill (or worse), one of your colleagues is fatally injured, and 20 of your colleagues are off sick, thinks that disneyland might not be your top priority.
(I suppose there is the impact of medical bills and insurance as sources of cash flows to discuss)
Yeah, though I think a few sentences got lost when I was typing on my tablet earlier.
Basically people's confidence in the economy is going to reflect their own circumstances, and if those around them are dying and getting ill the instinct of most will be to save rather than spend because they'll assume that some kind of rainy day is just around the corner.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty-two of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Russia and Turkey.
The Philippines have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Governor Jay Insley of Washington State has characterised the Republican legal moves against him for his relative caution as showing "biological ignorance and human heartlessness". There are hints of legal proceedings against other "overcautious" governors.
This isn't really about balancing human lives against economic activity. This is the outcome of Trump's desire to get re-elected. A poisonous debasing of the value of human life in pursuit of naked ambition.
I'm totally conflicted. I hope the trends do become more favourable, that the lethality of the virus decreases of it own accord for any reason, that the human cost diminishes significantly everywhere. But I do want this appalling President and his cohorts to get their comeuppance.
"Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on th'other."
(Hostly note to self. I should take my disgust to Hell)
Of course, it's not much of a surprise. Turkey was setting up to ensure they had the PPE they needed, what they had available to sell was very likely to be equipment they had no immediate need of, including PPE designed for uses other than frontline medical need. AIUI, one of the reasons the EU set up a united procurement system (and, invited the UK to join) was in recognition that there would be a lot of equipment on the market that would be unsuitable, and that the expertise in identifying what was needed spread throughout the EU could be most efficiently used for the benefit of all.
Plus Alan's point about central EU procurement. Pissing us off is one thing, pissing off the whole of the EU is another thing.
Just another sign of not knowing how to do things properly.
If you take the view that managing government is mostly a good PR strategy then this is merely a cost of doing business.
Of course; but so far there haven't been any particularly searching questions asked about the death toll - with the only paper to carry the more detailed modelling coming in for criticism from sections of the press. Meanwhile press coverage is generally fairly positive and the government are riding high in the polls.
It's clear from the Sun and the Telegraph is that the strategy is to leak things out, not brief any specifics because they don't want to outright say that they want people to go back to work, and blame the public if/when the infection rate rises again.
I think part of the problem is also a concern about the reaction of people when they're told they can go back to work, but not to play. People don't want the lockdown over so they can go back to the office, they want it over so they can go back to the pub.
But then I think that's at least partly rational. If you are being asked to go to work in London on crowded public transport, meeting with a few friends afterwards is going to be seen as having less potential for harm.
In reality what has happened is that after the Sun and Telegraph printed their front pages, the government has been briefing that they are 'concerned' about people taking the wrong message from press front pages.
I like pubs, and I like beer. I have no intention of trying to go anywhere near one when they open again.
Partly because a pub in which everyone is spaced 6 feet or more away from the next person is too depressing for words; partly because I've got no interest in putting myself near a bunch of random possibly drunk strangers.
I'd quite like to go back to my office. I have a single-occupancy office - my exposure to the virus would be minimal if I went back to work, and I'd rather like to stop having to work from home. I'm not going to go back until - well, maybe late Fall, maybe next year. My employer's firm instructions are that anyone who can work from home must continue to do so. Which I understand, even though I don't like it.