Syrmax

Damn. He wasn't some geezer with one foot already in the grave. R.I.P.

Likely yes. It's almost impossible to practice sufficient "social distancing" when underway. Here's a Link to what's publically available. Remember, during the Spanish Flu pandemic, US Army training facilities were among the worst clusters of infections...and deaths, in the US.

Oh, the stories about the military and covid-19 problems (CVN-71 namely)...very believable talking to my son who is active duty Navy. And it fits with my experience of how the military "handles" things. Not good. It'll be a Clusterf*ck, believe me...

Stay safe! One of my cousins is a police officer in the Bronx. Walked a beat for a while. Although lately he was doing some plainclothes work cuz the last time I saw him he looked like a homeless man.

No idea of the numbers involved but I've read where "a lot" of people from in and around the NYC metro area have been bagging ass out of there to parts unknown (FL and Carolinas assumedly) over the past two weeks. Almost reminds me of the Exodus out of Wuhan when the word apparently leaked out that Lockdown was imminent. There are estimates that up to 5 million Chinese fled Wuhan area right before they closed it off. So much for containing the spread. Again.

My father (WW II vet from the Bronx) used to say upstate was a good place to be in case of war. Noone knows we're here. Turns out for pandemics, the same sort of applies...

This is a pretty cool read about an Anerican's experience in China during the Lockdown. Some of us can probably relate to this guy's feelings. As bizarre as it is here, I can't imagine being in China. It's a bit long to read but what the hell else do we have to do?

I'm rereading the nonfiction book "Flu" by Gina Kolata, a NY Times Science reporter. Or she was back then. The book is from 1999 or 2000, when i first read it. Pretty much a recounting of the 1918 "Spanish Flu" and the scientists that first discovered it, along with other pandemic backgrounds. Great read and not expensive on Amazon, like $10. I'm just getting to the part about the 1976 Swine Flu fiasco. Most of you don't remember it but I do. And it goes a long way towards explaining why a lot of people have a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to an event like this. Another curiosity is the (H1N1)pdm09 (Swine flu) virus from 2009: CDC estimated that 151,700-575,400 people worldwide died from (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first year the virus circulated. It is estimated that 0.001 percent to 0.007 percent of the world’s population died of respiratory complications associated with (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first 12 months the virus circulated. There were about 20K US deaths in the first year it circulated. Much like covid-19, Seasonal flu vaccines were ineffective against the 2009 H1N1 and yet somehow there wasn't any panic. Although covid-19 has a much higher R0 value, meaning higher transmissibility and it's thought to have a higher mortality, especially among elderly that get infected. Though we are not comparing apples to apples between covid-19 and any other pandemic, yet. So those are really the only differences between this and 2009, which frankly, I didn't even remember. Once this is over it will be interesting to gain some understanding on how this all developed and the global response.

China admitted, years ago, to understating H1N1 and SARS data. That's public record. They had some phoney baloney excuse but it goes hand in hand with their overstatement of economic data since, forever. There were some slick videos circulating out of Wuhan showing a lot of local protest when the Hubei Province CCP leaders came to town basically to have a Mission Accomplished moment. People were yelling "fake" and "F#ck You" out of their windows to the local head party hack that arrived. They probably had a lot more cases overall but the mortality ratio makes some sense so they probably just undercounted both values.

I was more referring in general. You'll get more head nods without the personal attacks is all i'm saying. We're all guilty of it at times. In real life, i get slammed or attacked by both Right and Left and frankly my patience with it has worn out.

You need to calm the f*ck down and read what you post before clicking Enter.

And to my point above....new data is breaking this a.m. (CNBC) Americans displaced by the coronavirus crisis filed unemployment claims in record numbers, with the Labor Department reporting Thursday a surge to 3.28 million. The number shatters the Great Recession peak of 665,000 in March 2009 and the all-time mark of 695,000 in October 1982. The previous week, which reflected the period before the worst of the coronavirus hit, was just 282,000. Consensus estimates from economists surveyed by Dow Jones showed an expectation for 1.5 million new claims, though individual forecasts on Wall Street had been anticipating a much higher number. The surge comes amid a crippling slowdown brought on by the coronavirus crisis. The 4-week moving average, which smooths out weekly distortions, was 1,731,000, an increase of 27,500 from the previous week’s revised average.

From what i have gleaned, the bill, pending House adjustments, would prevent stock buybacks for a period of time going forward. Many corporations have use the artificially low interest rate environment of the past decade (one of the distortions of QE and Fed policy ), to buyback stock to goose share values and P/E's, ostensibly to boost Executive Suite compensation and drive more upward price action. Everyone can agree that it turned out to be shortsighted and greedy but the problem going forward is to protect jobs and business. Sure, it would feel good to let Boeing, American and other major corporations fail. But then there's the jobs that would be lost, many permanently. So, being adults, we hold our nose at the various provisions of the Bailout Bill that we don't agree with but one side or the other wanted. For the greater good.

Euro still showing a system that sort of slows/stalls near NYC in about a week...next Thurs/Fri. Could be the last hurrah for accumulating snow. GFS much warmer/west. If this materializes, will surely be more elevation dependent one would think... Unfortunately, Euro also keeps things troughy in the NE so temps will average well below normal during and after this system. Euro also showing a smaller system for Day 10 fantasyland that could be frozen.

I'm thinking that's a good idea. People cannot stop themselves from personal attacks and mad political rantings that are more unhinged than the people they are bitching about.

Agreed. Now STFU!!

I want to see some Kuchera totals!

I'm not so sure of those points I highlighted. However...its not disqualifying compared to the competition.

Pretty much same perspective here. Actually, its too bad this didnt go down a year earlier as Cuomo would have considerable momentum for making a POTUS run this year. As it is now, Biden doesn't exactly inspire much enthusiasm. I view him as the Trump of the Democrat party...gaffe prone, megalomaniacal tendencies, generally clueless, corrupt around the edges. I dont agree with Cuomo on a number of issues but he at least acts like he has his sh*t together. Which is important in a crisis.

It's just started briefly snowing again. Radar showing not much of anything. I guess I'll be able to add "T" to tomorrow's precip report.

Well, I made it to 86" of snowfall for season thus far. Looks like 90" will be tough to get and barring a really late season Hail Mary, 100" is out. Euro has something out near Day 9 & 10 to keep half an eye on. Of note, KSYR scored 6.4" yday officially while KROC fumbled and had 0.4". That puts KSYR in striking distance for a late Giants over Patriots style victory. Golden Snowball totals I amassed from today's NWS CLI reports: KROC 87.6 KSYR 83.0 KBGM 67.8 KBUF 64.6 KALY 48.7

Well put and I hope nothing but the best for you and your family. Sadly, both political parties, the media, etc., are playing the spin game with this. I'm not a Never Trumper but pretty close. I thought Rusiagate was a farce and my suspicions were confirmed. But, he's not a Unifier and that is what this crisis (which is an actual crisis unlike the hundreds of false crises that we read about) calls for. More importantly, this crisis calls for steady, rational decision making and factual statements. Which is not Trump's strong suit. He could really bollocks things up in a way that matters profoundly.

Its complicated but...if I get all hotels refunded, I'd have to fork over around $2,000 to make my Italy travel partners whole. IF Alitalia refunds ticket (vs future credit) it would drop to $1,500. Which they should as we were notified our flight into Rome is actually cancelled. Not sure if Delta will refund the ticket cost to Orlando or give us future credit...

What I'm a bit concerned about is credit card refunds. I made the hotel reservations and paid on my card for our group of 4 and another person paid for the flights. We all paid our shares to the person who made the reservation and paid. Was easier way to do it. Now, I may get a charge refund to my card but will end up with a surplus credit i don't need as I've paid the charges off already. I guess I will have to dig into savings to reimburse others that paid me. I suppose i could maybe withdraw cash from the credit card but they are usually limited in amount and have high fees. Aggravating.

No disagreement here. The US has evolved into a consumer driven economy. I think something like 2/3rds of GDP is linked to consumer spending. Financial products/engineering probably a large chunk also. Most modern economies though, can't withstand a sudden shutdown of aggregate demand w/o a lot of pain. This could be the "Big Reset" the Doomers have been barking about for a long time, though not for the reasons they imagined.