The Coronavirus, not the beer

Metaphysicist said:
Ignoring the mischaracterization of what people were previously criticizing Trump for, there is an interesting constitutional question being raised. There are actually two different powers at issue:

1) The power of the Federal Government to intervene and impose some form of lockdown. Assuming Congress is on board, does the interstate commerce power allow the government to regulate businesses into some kind of lockdown measure? I don't think the answer is open and shut either way. The answer given during most of the 20th century would probably have been "yes," but the Rehnquist and Roberts courts have been much more hesitant to allow Congress an expansive use of the commerce power. It's hard to really argue a pandemic doesn't affect interstate commerce, but I highly doubt the court would allow an unbridled lockdown with no restrictions whatsoever. It's a tough question I think.

2) The power to stop the states from having their own lockdown. This is what Trump seems to be claiming he can do. Literally no one thinks this is a power the president has through the Commerce Clause, as far as I can see (except maybe a liberal strawman created by conservatives?). The states obviously have their own police powers; the idea that the Federal Government could just cancel those powers is really out there. The man clearly has no idea how the constitution actually works.

There is also no "emergency" power in the Constitution, which is something that many other constitutions have written directly into them. Strictly speaking, that means Trump has very little leeway to play outside the rules. But in practice, the greater the emergency the more forgiving the other branches are gonna be.
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I've been thinking about it more from a political than legal angle. The states and local governments are basically broke. The federal government is going to be bailing them out. But this doesn't mean the states are without bargaining power. chosen one needs a recovery. There won't be one if state and local government have to cut spending sharply. So they will get the bailout. The question becomes what kind of strings get attached. Will there be mandates as to how some of the funds are used. For example, will each state be required to put in place a plan for testing, tracing and quarantining. I kind of doubt it. But maybe the states that do want to put in place such a system can hold out for federal funding for it.
 
nsacpi said:
I've been playing around with the data trying to understand a plausible scenario for how many Americans were infected and contagious at various points in time (which is not the same as the number who have taken a test and returned a positive result). I offer the following. Just curious what everyone's thoughts are on this.

Dec 15 2,000
Jan 15 20,000
Feb 15 200,000
Mar 15 2,000,000

Around March 15, various measures were put into place to slow its progression.

Without those measures, I would guesstimate that on April 15 it would be 20,000,000.

With those measures, I'm guesstimating on April 15 it will be around 3,000,000.

Thoughts?
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I think it's between 3 and 4 million currently. But hoping it's over 4 million.
 
Carp said:
I think it's between 3 and 4 million currently. But hoping it's over 4 million.
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Seems to me that my numbers for January and February are too high considering how few deaths there were in those months. This would imply a faster spread through mid March. Something obviously slowed it down from then on. Weather maybe. The social distancing surely. Anything else? I would think herd immunity was not yet a factor. I would expect that to kick in around when 5-10% of the population gets infected.
 
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sturg33 said:
[Tw]1249860339912630272[/tw]
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You do realize the influence the POTUS don't you? It doesn't take a genius to realize if he suggests a path, particularly a path that is supported by medical experts, state and local governments are likely to follow suit.
 
nsacpi said:
Seems to me that my numbers for January and February are too high considering how few deaths there were in those months. This would imply a faster spread through mid March. Something obviously slowed it down from then on. Weather maybe. The social distancing surely. Anything else? I would think herd immunity was not yet a factor. I would expect that to kick in around when 5-10% of the population gets infected.
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Possibly. I'm basing my numbers more on what I believe to be the numbers in New York state (a little less than 2 million).
 
Carp said:
Possibly. I'm basing my numbers more on what I believe to be the numbers in New York state (a little less than 2 million).
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A more compressed timeline would look like this:

Jan 15 200
Feb 1 2,000
Feb 15 20,000
Mar 1 200,000
Mar 15 2,000,000

It does give me an appreciation for why the "do nothing" scenarios are so grim.
 
I don't think Trump's aides and cabinet would let him fire Fauci.

I know he wants to because his associates like Hannity want him to, and he can't stand the fact Fauci has like a 90% approval rating during this crisis and he's barely half of that.
 
nsacpi said:
Not sure how representative this group of women giving birth is of the Manhattan population. But one hospital tested all of those giving birth from March 22 and April 4 (sample size 215) and found that 15% tested positive.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316
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Honestly 15% feels like a reasonable ballpark just based on how the deaths are shaking out, if you also ballpark the death rate at 1%.
 
Carp said:
You do realize the influence the POTUS don't you? It doesn't take a genius to realize if he suggests a path, particularly a path that is supported by medical experts, state and local governments are likely to follow suit.
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nope

as with everything

white and black, it has to be this or that

no grey area or middle ground

amazing that asking to lead and use the resources the federal gov't does have

means you want a dictatorship in his view
 
my favorite about face of all of this

is republicans trying to say we have to make things here in the USA cause China and other countries don't have proper regulation.


they backdoor'd themselves into agreeing that regulations are good
 
U.S. Meat Supply Is 'Perilously Close' To A Shortage, CEO Warns

One of the country's largest pork-producing plants closed indefinitely after nearly 300 of its employees tested positive for COVID-19. And the company's CEO warned that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the nation's meat supply "perilously close" to the edge.

"It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running," Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement.
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com
 
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