How Does This Realistically Play Out?

According to the SCCM (Society for Critical Care Medicine) there are just over 94,000 ICU beds in the entire country. Most of them are full all the time already so I dont think it would take much to overwhelm the system for those who need critical care.

QP

Living in the Bay Area, I shudder to think about what will happen once it get loose in the homeless population here. We are already in a public health crisis from the lack of sanitation and illness and disease thrive in squalor. All the garbage, needles, and feces in the streets of San Francisco are bad enough, now we need to worry about corona virus mixed in with it.

QP

I agree with some of your points, don't think others will happen.

Fortunately, it is, relatively, a slow moving disaster. Even with a two week latency and incubation, once the numbers start climbing undeniably exponentially, and start freaking people out, all bets are off, that's for sure.

But rather than riots and commonplace pandemonium, I foresee slowdown/shutdown, and it's the right response to limit people's movements and interactions, and thus slow the spread to get the Ro down below one to burn itself out before a vaccine can even be produced and distributed. The JIT think is spot-on, we'll see shortages and transportation bottlenecks, but the response from the Task Force will be very aggressive I believe. Their news conference showed they were as up to date as can be.

Some people will freak out, the will be some panic, some charlatans, etc. that's true, but I think the perception of a strong, effective, and coordinated response from the state and national authorities will calm people down. You may disagree, but I believe President Trump is NOT going to let this be his Katrina.

Even if some people underneath are incompetent, at some point Trump WILL exercise whatever national authority he has or needs and will do whatever is necessary. Right now, behind the scenes (the Task Force is a case in point, they are gearing up for a heck of a response), I bet he is as intense as can be, so he can come to the cameras, and say, we got the best people, we are in good shape at the moment, we're doing everything we need to do, etc, to keep people positive, prevent market crashes, etc.

If necessary, he'll shut the border, he'll wall off California, he'll quarantine entire cities, order the military and ensure state national guard/reserve, are activated, order mandatory quarantine zones, nationalize pharmaceutical resources to prioritize vaccine development/production, etc. If it expands beyond localized and controlled outbreaks, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll activate a multi-layered, contingency response the likes of which the US has not seen since WWII or 9/11, because a virus like this is essentially destabilizing socially, economically, politically, etc. If the US appears pre-occupied, our enemies (or unfriends) may seek to take advantage of us, and that'd just not going to happen. All it takes is a few more emergency declarations.

There already is going to be supply problems, China has essentially shut down, but the US needs to wean off from our over-reliance on Chinese suppliers (and IP thieves,etc) sooner or later anyway. During the supply disruption and slowdown, we'll develop/re-develop industries, etc. to get what we need. Think of smaller town and places like with no infections will become production hot-spots with controlled entry points. Places like San Francisco, Silicon Valley public transport, gatherings, could be restricted. I imagine the hospitality/restaurant/travel industry is likely to get hammered for a while if this pandemic spreads in the US, so if you're into the market, there's that tip.

Hmmmm, I think the OP thrust was towards American leadership, in case that was missed.

Way to go KiwiMum.....

Tell us what you really think....LMAO

Love you Kiwi's....just say it as it is

Just like your cousins over the ditch....

I did see on the National News last night on TV that Trump has designated several military bases as quarantine sites for people coming in to the county from air flights, if it gets to that point.

Well, it may be easy to criticize America's weaknesses all you want, but I can tell you this:

I lived in China for five years, very recently. The fact this virus originated from there, and was allowed to propagate, is no surprise to me. The hygienic practices of mainland Chinese are atrocious. The mindset is to ignore problems because no one wants to get blamed in a totalitarian state. The hospital system is merely cosmetic, it's just window dressing. If you get sick, try to avoid Chinese hospitals, was the lesson I learned. I ended up leaving China because, among other things, my wife developed pneumonia (pollution kills about 6 million a year) and wasn't improving - it was literally life and death. I know that of which I speak.

There is no country on Earth I would rather be than in the US in this pandemic. We will have the resources, and borrow whatever we have to, come together, and prevent the disaster that China allowed to happen. Yes, allowed. They arrested doctors for daring to warn their colleagues about this new virus in the beginning.

Oh, most certainly, the elite will be sheltering in place. Mt. Weather, or wherever "continuity" sites are now.

They may have been designed for nuclear war, but they'll work fine for a pandemic as well.

BabyCat wrote: Well, it may be easy to criticize America's weaknesses all you want, but I can tell you this: I lived in China for five years, very recently. The fact this virus originated from there, and was allowed to propagate, is no surprise to me. The hygienic practices of mainland Chinese are atrocious. The mindset is to ignore problems because no one wants to get blamed in a totalitarian state. The hospital system is merely cosmetic, it's just window dressing. If you get sick, try to avoid Chinese hospitals, was the lesson I learned. I ended up leaving China because, among other things, my wife developed pneumonia (pollution kills about 6 million a year) and wasn't improving - it was literally life and death. I know that of which I speak. There is no country on Earth I would rather be than in the US in this pandemic. We will have the resources, and borrow whatever we have to, come together, and prevent the disaster that China allowed to happen. Yes, allowed. They arrested doctors for daring to warn their colleagues about this new virus in the beginning.

Babycat I'm not criticizing America at all, I think America is in a strong position, as strong as anyone is, but not stronger. We all watch American movies and are used to seeing a wonderful president moving heaven and earth to stop aliens or foreign powers or whatever - and always succeeding. The point I was making was that the list of things you thought would happen immediately are simply not possible.

I graduated in economics and the money and the resources are simply not there. Even if borrowing the money needed was feasible, you don't have the workforce unless you enslave the populace.

But you are absolutely right that America will be a great place to ride out this pandemic. I would rather be in a first world country than any where else. At least our countries and people understand germ dynamics and we live at a level of hygiene that third world countries can only dream of.

Heaven help Africa or India if this virus reaches their shores.

As we all know, the answer to any question about economics is "supply and demand".

So if we look at what is required to implement any one of the suggested measures you mention, we can break it down into 3 component parts:
1. Financial resources - which America doesn't have but can print, albeit with consequences.
2. Physical resources. If you were building a wall to contain California, theoretically you can find the materials sitting in builders yards all over America. But other resources, such as medical disposable items, you won't find. Most businesses operate on a just in time stock replacement system and the supplier will undoubtedly be China. I'm sure that there are huge stocks sitting in stockpiles around the country for an emergency, but this is an on going emergency and if you need 10 million pairs of disposable gloves in a day, that stock pile won't last long. But for arguments sake, let's say that yes you can find the resources. So finally we come to number 3....
3. Labour. This is where it all falls down. One of the biggest threats to so civilization during an emergency is lack of labour. And in a disease type scenario, it's worsened 10 fold. Not only will a good percentage of the eligible workforce be sick, if they are not sick then they may well have sick loved ones that they are caring for, and if not that, then they may well just be too scared to leave the house. We all talk about how we will shelter in place - well trust me, in an emergency so will every one else.

Because this is a recognised and anticipated reaction, governments all over the world have implemented emergency powers to be able to force people to go to work. To physically force them. In planning meetings these powers are planned to be used against key workers on whom the very continuation of society depend: the people who work in law enforcement, healthcare, hospitals, power stations, water pumping stations, electricity companies.

At best it is anticipated that people will turn up under the threat of these powers, at worst, they will be physically kept under lock and key at their place of work and made to work.
The armed services and the civil defence will be called up to fill the gaps.

So with all this in mind, with America already running at about 50% of it's work force, do you still really think you can organise and implement any one of these truly monumental projects, let alone all of them? For all the "Dad's Army" spirit that exists, will people really abandon their sick relatives to do this? Would you really risk the infection and potentially bringing it home to your family for this? Really?

I doubt it. I doubt anyone with a family would. Sure the individual who lives alone might, but maybe they might volunteer closer to home first - like the local fire brigade. You are suggesting something that we might see in a Hollywood blockbuster, not in real life. And it'll be the same scenario in every country in the world, and some will weather it better than others. But one thing is certain, you can't magic up key component parts if they don't exist. You just can't. It's simply not possible.

People grasp at straws when they're drowning. If we all subscribe to Trump's approach of "it'll be great" then that false hope gives license to inactivity and blind faith, and encourages people to not take responsibility for themselves. We need to keep a level of realism in any situation. With luck this will fizzle out and we'll all laugh about it later, but until we know that is the case, the most patriotic thing any of us can do is to make our own preparations and to try not to be a burden on society.

Of course this doesn't affect my own personal plans which are to quickly breed a group of 20 or so flying, fire breathing dragons, then I'm going to teach them how to instantly recognise if someone has the virus and then they will patrol our perimetre and immediately scorch anyone with the virus to death if they approach our fence. I'm sure it'll work.

Dragons....I'm in!

Kiwimum is correct people will not show up at the hospital to take care of people, they will be home with their families trying to stay well. I am never sure if the government has all the preps needed for a pandemic. People in 1918 just did what they had to do but not today.

It will be a mess if this comes to the U.S. or any other country we will be like China. That is why I have the preps I have and getting even more by weeks end.

I agree Babycat. Here in NZ we get 2000 people a day arriving from China, and still no cases? That doesn't seem right. I'm quite convinced that any day now there will be an explosion of cases. There must be a significant lag in process due to incubation periods.

The Trump administration has made the U.S. less ready for infectious disease outbreaks like coronavirus

February 3, 2020 1.51pm GMT

As coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump administration has declared a public health emergency and imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. However, over the past three years the administration has weakened the offices in charge of preparing for and preventing this kind of outbreak.

Two years ago, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that the world should be “preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war”. Gates, whose foundation has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response.

The Trump administration has done exactly the opposite: It has slashed funding for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its infectious disease research. For fiscal year 2020, Trump proposed cutting the CDC budget by US$1.3 billion, nearly 20% below the 2019 level.

As a specialist in budgeting, I recognize that there are many claims on public resources. But when it comes to public health, I believe it is vital to invest early in prevention. Starving the CDC of critical funding will make it far harder for the government to react quickly to a public health emergency.

Cutting funds and staff

Every year since taking office, Trump has asked for deep cuts into research on emerging diseases – including the CDC’s small center on emerging and “zoonotic” infectious diseases that jump the species barrier from animals to humans. The new coronavirus is just the latest example of these threats.

The CDC’s program focuses on infectious diseases ranging from foodborne illnesses to anthrax and Ebola. It manages laboratory, epidemiologic, analytic and prevention programs, and collaborates with state and local health departments, other federal government agencies, industry and foreign ministries of health.

In 2018, Trump tried to cut $65 million from this budget – a 10% reduction. In 2019, he sought a 19% reduction. For 2020, he proposed to cut federal spending on emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases by 20%. This would mean spending $100 million less in 2020 to study how such diseases infect humans than the U.S. did just two years ago.

Congress reinstated most of this funding, with bipartisan support. But the overall level of appropriations for relevant CDC programs is still 10% below what the U.S. spent in 2016, adjusting for inflation.

Even worse, in 2018 the administration disbanded its own global health security team, which was supposed to make the U.S. more resilient to the threat of epidemics. This unfortunate decision was part of a reorganization that former national security adviser John Bolton carried out shortly after arriving at the White House.

Bolton eliminated the National Security Council’s global health security and biodefense directorate, and reshuffled its team of world-class infectious disease experts. In response, two highly respected leaders in the field – Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, the NSC’s senior director for global health security and biodefense, and Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert – left the White House.

Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Ziemer had served as the U.S. point person for a coordinated global anti-malaria campaign that helped reduce deaths from the disease by 60% over 15 years. In 2016 he estimated that funding initiatives to reduce malaria generated a 36 to 1 return on investment because it averted so many deaths and debilitating illnesses.

In 2018 Ziemer was instrumental in fighting the reemergence of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, traveling there and working with public health officials to reduce the spread of the dreaded disease.
A clear and present danger

There is no wall high enough to keep virulent pathogens from crossing national borders, and when they emerge there is a potential for widespread illness and death. Containing the first major Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, which killed 11,000 people in West Africa, required an enormous global effort. Only 11 patients were treated for Ebola in the U.S., but that was because President Obama took the threat seriously, appointing an “Ebola czar” to coordinate U.S. preparedness and assistance.

Now that the White House has evicted the NSC’s global health security experts, it is not clear who in the Trump administration will be responsible for coordinating U.S. efforts in the event of a global pandemic.

The new coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, has already spread to 25 countries. The CDC has confirmed that person-to-person transmission has occurred in the U.S. It will take a large-scale effort to contain this outbreak, and battling the virus requires money.

Although the Gates Foundation and other charities give away billions of dollars to promote public health, such gifts are no substitute for the kind of specific, targeted scientific research into emerging diseases that the CDC and other federal agencies are uniquely designed to conduct. Fighting epidemics also requires planning to prepare and coordinate with hospitals, medical professionals, pharmacies, airlines, local government and the general public, which also requires funding.

President Trump recently signed a $738 billion dollar defense budget – the highest level since World War II. It creates a new Space Force and funds research into dozens of remotely possible military threats. Relative to defense spending, the $6.5 billion CDC budget is tiny. But as I see it, deadly global pandemics and emerging biological and viral threats pose an equal or greater threat to our national security.

As climate change warms the Earth, thousands of long-frozen dormant diseases are defrosting. And the World Health Organization reports that 75% of all emerging pathogens over the past decade are zoonotic diseases, most of which are understudied. As Bill Gates warned in 2018, “If history has taught us anything, it’s that there will be another deadly global pandemic.” I believe the U.S. must allocate more resources to research, detection and global prevention and communication efforts, not less.

Source:   https://theconversation.com/the-trump-administration-has-made-the-u-s-less-ready-for-infectious-disease-outbreaks-like-coronavirus-130983

I have worked in government for more than 20 years and done large amounts of disaster planning and emergency management training and exercises with state and federal agencies. I have faith in the individuals I have worked with, but NO faith in the system or the government to help us when needed. Once it goes beyond a localized problem, the logistics break down almost immediately.
My advice: Buy more food and prepare to SIP.

QP

Besides... when it comes to Trump, it always seems to be someone else's fault.

Sorry to the folks who like Trump. I do not. I promise this will be my one and only post of this nature.

We sure agree on that one.

'And that one - world over!