
Army Corps of Engineers to Build Temporary Hospitals in NY - antoncohen
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-four-sites-identified-army-corps-engineers-initial-list-temporary
======
DoreenMichele
The Army Corps of Engineers is one of the finer things in the US. I find it
encouraging that they are involved with this effort.

Please note that's an extremely specific observation and doesn't implicitly
suggest anything else, positive or negative, about the rest of this situation.

~~~
dehrmann
They are and they aren't. What they did for New Orleans is stupid-incredible.
Stupid because it's a river-gulf city below sea level that the rivers are
trying to absorb with no plans to relocate. Incredible because wow, that's an
accomplishment. A lot of that is subject to political whims, though, so it's
not necessarily the Corps's decision.

~~~
DoreenMichele
[https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/](https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/)

------
Waterluvian
As an onlooker I feel like once America awakens to a crisis it is impressive
to watch. I mean this kind of should have happened weeks ago, and the
executive branch is a bit of a panicked joke. But I mean... You've got this
colossal capacity to deploy field hospitals and hospital ships and such and
ramp up capacity.

Terrible hurricane? Show up with a massive floating power plant and water
treatment facility plus air logistics.

And I think one of the strongest virtues of the United States is being proven
by Trump: the incredible power of leadership at all levels of government. In
the absence of a leader at the top you've got senators and congresspersons and
governors and mayors and CEOs all getting shit done. This is all an incredible
(but regrettable) exercise of numerous fail safes inherent in the American
system.

~~~
coffeefirst
True, but as an American, it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game
to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced. We had the ability
to write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the
second it was clear this was a global problem.

So instead of sending excess equipment around the world, we're playing catch
up on our own shortage, and the control measures have to be a lot stricter
because of it.

~~~
toasterlovin
> the second it was clear this was a global problem

The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a
pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans
discount that which they have no direct experience of. So it was never going
to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too
long. I mean, most people can't be bothered to not spend everything they make
when the last recession was 12 years ago, so what do we expect when there
hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years...

~~~
ajross
OK, so... how does that explain Taiwan or Korea, who had the same "living
memory" we do and managed to get this under control without breaking their
health care systems?

I mean, your point is true, but the lack of action wasn't the fault of the
average citizen or their living memory. The decision-makers should have had
access to better info, and of course they did. Doctors from China and Italy
told us long ago that PPE equipment was a bottleneck. Epidemiologists could
see what was going to happen with the rate of spread. Local health officials
in states knew at the outset that they needed more tests. Hell, the federal
government has a whole departmental center dedicated specifically to the
control of disease; they've spent decades modeling out how to respond to
crises like this.

Yet... no decisions got made. That wasn't for a lack of "living memory of a
pandemic".

~~~
baybal2
I would like to ask people to not to attach "Asianness" to having a working
government.

Even back just 2 decades ago, in every Asian country, a typical saying
would've been "When will we live like in America?"

The West was the envy of the world in its best years, and it can be again.

If you can fix your societal problems, you will be, if you can not, you will
not.

~~~
solidsnack9000
Western commenters often see the strengths of Asian countries as stemming from
their governments, but much of what goes well in Asia has to do with civil
society.

~~~
bnjms
I think much of what went well in America had much to do with civil society. I
believe we collectively figured out there’s likely no god and mistakenly
assumed everything that went along with the whole community & church system
was to be thrown out. Not sure what to do about it because I think the weekly
meetings with recognizable families was important but the Olstein style self
help pastors isn’t.

~~~
gindely
Sport was originally a form of discipline and training - not just of the body,
but also to be a good loser and a good winner. I think we need to abandon, for
the most part, spectator sport, and create a social norm where people actually
physically meet up weekly to play the sport of their choice at an incredibly
amateur level. Imagine if every Sunday almost everyone in your community
turned up to play - some people playing chess, some people playing football,
some people swimming. Whatever their mind is interested in and their body can
cope with. This would be completely different than the current system of
sport, where those who want to do it fit it into their weekly schedule at a
suitable time. One person goes to yoga on Thursday afternoon in an office
building, another person rides their bike on Tuesday morning, a team meets to
play netball on Wednesday. The would, of course, be permitted to do whatever
they want. But there would also be an expectation.

Unfortunately I don't know how to get there from here - for the time being,
there's no support of anything amateur. We're basically told to be a pro or go
home. Not just sport, anything and everything.

~~~
solidsnack9000
There is a good intuition here. The arts, too, once served a primarily
communal function. Most of the steps that later became the ballet are drawn
from folk dancing, which at one time was common to all communities.

In Tokyo sometimes, you walk through a neighborhood where the people have
blocked off an intersection for circle dancing in a relatively simple style.

Maybe the easiest thing to get tech people to do would be live CounterStrike.
One half of the office is "guarding the VIPs", the other half is rescuing the
hostages. People spend hours and hours on these kinds of games as it is.
Bringing it into the real world would harness some of that engagement for
health and community.

------
soared
> The Army Corps is expected to immediately begin work to construct the [four]
> temporary hospitals. The Governor is also requesting FEMA designate four
> field hospitals

NY is creating EIGHT temporary hospitals total. I can't imagine the logistics,
staffing, materials, etc. A few days ago I wasn't terribly concerned, but it
continues to look worse and worse for the US.

~~~
Balgair
The acoup blog just did a piece on chemical weapons and their dis/use in
modern times. Part of that analysis was a dive into Modern v. Static armies.

Static armies are what Saddam, Assad, and the Iranians have. Though their
weapons are pretty up to date, they still get squished when fighting Modern
armies like the US or France. That is because their 'doctrine' is Static,
mostly to be coup-proof. In Static Armies, you don't give field commanders a
lot of lee-way or control. You send orders, they execute. They don't get to
play jazz. This is due to regime issues that don't translate into up to date
warfare.

In Modern armies, you have terribly expensive weapons too. But the _training_
is what makes it really work. You have to train field commanders to play jazz
and improvise. It's a constant blitzkrieg of movement and mechanized/digitized
warfare. There is no sitting around. That takes training people to think for
themselves; a big no-no in regimes.

The US is _the_ example of a modern force, complete with fancy gadgets and
fancy training.

We should _expect_ that NYNG could get eight field hospitals going in hours.
That is the entire basis of our military, to move really fast and get things
done. Imperfectly? Oh hell yes. But fast is the entire name of the game.

[https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-
ch...](https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-
weapons-anymore/)

~~~
sizzle
What happens when those workers all get Covid-19? This is an invisible enemy
that's already on our soil and growing exponentially with the ability to
spread by asymptomatic carriers. I hope you are right....

~~~
Balgair
Not to be heartless, but many militaries are fairly experienced in rapid
reductions in manpower resources.

Also, acoup's blog post does a really good job of going through the
differences in Modern and Static military doctrines. Much better than my TLDR
of it.

~~~
sizzle
I wonder if there are any historical accounts of military warfare during a
global pandemic affecting both sides at the same time.

~~~
sangnoir
WWI[1] - the pandemic ended up being called "Spanish flu" because Spain was
the only country publishing accurate statistics since it was neutral in the
war. The belligerents were heavily affected, but were muzzling the press due
to wartime censorship.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu)

------
Taek
I really don't think they are doing enough. The virus is still growing at an
exponential rate, and when you look at the other countries that managed to get
things under control vs. the ones that didn't, the actions that NYC and the
rest of America are taking fall squarely into "this looks like the ones that
didn't get things under control."

Public transport needs to be disabled. People need to be required to wear a
mask when they go out. Police need to enforce people staying inside.

Italy got the growth rate down to 15% per day. That's still enough to hit the
whole population by early May.

~~~
jmull
> People need to be required to wear a mask when they go out.

Well, you can’t do that here because those masks don’t exist. We don’t have
enough for healthcare workers, much less everyone else.

~~~
13415
It's probably not surprising to anyone who knows how industrial production
works, but to a layman like me it's really surprising how hard it seems to be
to produce more suitable masks in a short time. I didn't expect the supply
chain and machines for such simple products to be that complex and hard to set
up.

~~~
kevmo314
It's probably not hard to increase production, but it's definitely hard to
increase it 100x.

~~~
lrem
I have no clue about softer materials, but setting up the tooling for making
the simplest of plastic parts is a multi-step process where each step takes
weeks. And, for roughly the same reasons as in software development, making
that shorter is likely to be both expensive and drop some quality. With
medical equipment you generally don't want to drop quality. So, if making
these masks is any similar to the only industrial process I know about, we
might have the needed capacity just in time for the autumn rebound.

------
deng
According to

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

the NY numbers have more than doubled today (from ~10k to ~22k). What is
happening? Are some belated test results coming in?

EDIT: Numbers were just corrected, are now at total ~16k with ~5k new cases.
Still high growth, but more reasonable.

~~~
Izkata
The numbers seem to update in a weird staggered way; for example right now for
New York I see 15801 + 5429, which is right about the +33% the US has been
seeing since Mar 1.

~~~
jacquesm
There is a lot of noise in the data but the general trend is more than clear.

------
jawns
I am very curious about the "technical issue" that is preventing NY from
receiving aid in the relief bill.

~~~
danielfoster
I am as well, but overall I’m very frustrated by the lack of coordination and
leadership overall. This combined with de Blasio’s proven inability to lead is
making the situation much worse than it needs to be.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
This is a pandemic. Across country and state lines.

Any response that is not federal is going to struggle.

The buck stops solely at the white house and congress for failing to see the
warning signs and properly respond.

~~~
m0zg
Cuomo OTOH has been quite effective at working with the administration to ramp
up testing to the highest throughput in the nation, as well as enacting other
measures, and getting FEMA involved, while DeBlasio's response was pretty much
only to point out that "orange man bad", and dragging his staff around with
him to infected areas. As of 2 days ago, he went to the _gym_.

If you listen to WH pressers, you will see that federal government wants the
governors to do what they can to procure stuff and enact measures for their
states, and step in when the governors feel their response will be inadequate.
Which is what we're observing in CA and NY as the governors of those states
chose to put politics aside for the time being and actually engage.

The reason for delegating frontline response to the states is that if the
federal government steps in to buy medical supplies for example (which BTW it
still does from time to time - they ordered $500M worth of N95 masks
yesterday), such a purchase would first soak up available capacity, and then
it'd have to be disbursed to the states, instead of going to them directly,
adding delay and confusion.

FWIW, I have not seen this level of coordinated response to _anything_ and
I've been in the US for 20 years now. I did not know some of the things that
are being done are even possible. FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers started to
step in massively over the past week. Companies are starting to make
ventilators. Drugs and testing equipment are approved for use in weeks instead
of years. The list goes on.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _Cuomo OTOH has been quite effective at working with the administration to
> ramp up testing to the highest throughput in the nation_

Let's be honest, Cuomo just went out and outbid everyone to get the materials
his people needed. He didn't work with the admin to do a thing, he waved money
around in the global marketplace. Not hating on him, that's his job. He's
supposed to look out for New Yorkers. But a lot of states out there don't have
New York's bottomless checkbook. Nor do they have New York's influence.

Easy to look good when you're not really depending on the federal government
for testing throughput. Again, guy's done a great job. But he's done it by
circumventing the limitations set by the administration not really by living
with them like the rest of us have to.

~~~
pplante
Anything to back up your claim of him out bidding everyone else? I believe
right now there are restrictions on price gouging for necessary supplies.

~~~
acomjean
"Cuomo also urged the federal government to nationalize the effort to acquire
protective medical supplies — including masks, gowns and gloves — that are in
short supply. He says masks that used to cost 85 cents are now priced at $7 as
states are forced to bid against each other for limited supplies."

[https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/0...](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/03/22/818971445/new-york-governor-cuomo-calls-for-army-corps-to-
help-build-temporary-hospitals)

------
Reason077
> _" The Governor also issued an executive order temporary closing the
> Department of Motor Vehicles for all in-office visits. Online transactions,
> including for license renewals, are still be available."_

It seems a bit dated to even have in-office visits for things like driving
license renewals. The UK equivalent, DVLA, closed all their office counters a
few years back. Now everything is done online and by post.

~~~
lostapathy
On the contrary, I wish we'd be more aggressive about drivers licensing. The
whole process is fairly meaningless.

My mother-in-law barely has enough motor control to turn the key to start the
car, yet somehow she just renewed her license. People like her need to be
taken for a test drive, not allowed to renew online.

~~~
rtkwe
That more of a retesting requirement than a renewal problem. We can have both,
easy online renewal for most people and an age cutoff for people where they
require periodic retesting.

------
dev1n
Here is the very informative briefing Cuomo gave today [1]. Quick facts for
the state of New York:

1\. ~15,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19

2\. 114 individuals have died from COVID-19

    
    
        a. 70% of deaths were ages 70 and over and "majority" had underlying health conditions.
    
        b. ~80% of those who died under the age of 70 had underlying health conditions.
    

3\. 18-49 years old represent 53% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases.

4\. hospitalization rate of 13% which is very good, flattening the curve
works. Stay inside.

Cuomo has mandated the City of New York to hand over a plan in 24 hours (as of
today) to outline how exactly the local governments will curtail overcrowding
in parks and other public places. When asked why Cuomo can't do this himself,
he stated in a fair manner that while he does have the power to do so, he
would not be as apt to devise the plan as the local governments are. This is
the right move.

Gov. Cuomo made a similar judgement when pressing the federal gov't to curtail
fed regulations and to allow him to open over 200 labs available within the
state of New York to provide faster testing than what the federal government
was able to do.

This opening of state-wide labs is why NY has nearly 15x the number of
confirmed COVID-19 cases when compared to the next highest, the state of
Washington. NY also has a more accurate hospitalization rate because of this,
which is a very important number to be tracking when figuring out how to
"flatten the curve" which currently sits at 13%.

Governor Cuomo is following the playbook of South Korea as effectively as
possible in this current political climate and has successfully deployed every
move available to him and helped push federal barriers down to allow NY to
attack this virus faster than any other state. He is showing leadership that
everyone wishes to see at the Federal level.

Having all of these laboratories in the state of NY makes me grateful every
time I think about how much I pay in state taxes. But I can't help to think
about how all of the bloodshed is a direct result of the failure of leadership
at the federal level to be proactive about the situation. There is nothing of
greater importance than every individual human life. The federal government
sacrificed these people and all the people who will suffer and die in the
future in the name of better polling numbers, placating a fan base, and
keeping stocks afloat for a mere month longer than they would have.

Edit: Moved 53% statistic into its own bullet. Don't know know why I had it as
a sub-bullet of the deaths statistic.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbIVnnMT18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbIVnnMT18)

~~~
phd514
The state tax rate in NY has nothing to do with this response (that seems
quite good) to the COVID-19 pandemic. The labs that will be performing these
extra tests are private labs, not labs funded by NY state taxes. I wish people
could separate their criticism of the different governmental responses to this
pandemic from their preferred stance on domestic tax policy.

~~~
dev1n
We have a well-funded state university system paid for by tax dollars which
provides these labs with competent, well-educated employees. But yes, these
labs are not directly funded by state dollars.

~~~
alkibiades
yes private universities like stanford and harvard would have no way of
creating competent well educated employees. do you have proof the employees
even when to state schools?

------
robomartin
A couple of observations:

First, most of what’s out there in the media and popular discussion is nothing
less than ignorant. Sometimes I feel people watch too many movies and think
they are real.

Under normal conditions it can take over a year to go from nothing to making
something as simple as a certified N95 mask at scale. Under normal conditions
component lead times in electronics can easily be in the 8 to 16 week range.
Not to mention such things as manufacturing tooling, molds, test systems, etc.

Making hardware is hard for a reason. It takes time, and money can’t always
accelerate the timeline.

And so, reporters pounding away at test kit, mask or PPE is ignorant and
counterproductive. Making 100 million masks in haste could result in
ineffective masks that provide little protection.

This problem is exacerbated by a supply chain that has been the subject of
major disruption.

The sad reality is, when you don’t control the entire supply chain you can
only accomplish so much. This is surely a lesson that might change the world
post COVID-19.

Aside from that. It seems to me converting cruise ships to temporary hospitals
might be the quickest way to expand capacity. They are self-contained little
cities with rooms for thousands.

------
leto_ii
This effort should be commended. However, I'm wondering, where are all the
billionaires and corporations when the world needs them? I'm not even asking
this flippantly. Seriously, how come they're not doing anything? Just for the
past few months Bloomberg spent half a billion essentially to achieve nothing.

Couldn't he repeat the feat and build a few hospitals to help out his home
state? Or his country? How about everyone else?

~~~
asdff
I believe he could repeat that feat 120 times and still be a billionaire.

~~~
leto_ii
Indeed. Maybe we should demand it of him and of others in his position.

Regular people are placed under a tremendous burden all over the world and
they are expected to cooperate and to sacrifice.

The very least the rich could do is shoulder part of the financial burden.

------
doctoboggan
Does anyone know if it is possible to volunteer for the Army Corps of
Engineers?

------
huffmsa
All of those shipping container to modular homes should be working on making
mobile hospital wards.

Doesn't need to be fancy, just functional and better than being in a tent.

Need someone to coordinate it though.

------
throwaway8291
At current pace the whole US will be infected by May (I wonder, whether the
market have priced that in already).

~~~
cm2187
To be fair, the market isn't pricing deaths of old and sick people. It is
pricing the suppression of economic activity as a result of the lockdown. If
the whole of the US were really infected by May and if by June the lockdown
would be off and the virus in the rear mirror, you would see a big market
rallye.

------
MiguelVieira
This blog post covers the math of why this is necessary

[https://medium.com/@donnellymjd/covid-19-nyc-should-brace-
fo...](https://medium.com/@donnellymjd/covid-19-nyc-should-brace-for-impact-
and-shut-down-now-a7c62afac81e)

------
BrandonMarc
Why didn't we start a month ago? 6 weeks ago?

------
jacquesm
The United States jumped from position 20 or so on the world ranking for the
number of cases to spot number 3 in a manner of days. NYC doubled overnight.
There was an article published all of seven hours ago that claimed the US was
#4: [https://www.newsweek.com/u-s-now-has-third-highest-number-
co...](https://www.newsweek.com/u-s-now-has-third-highest-number-
covid-19-cases-after-china-italy-1493618) it has already been made outdated by
developments:
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)
.

Wonder what degree of revisionism the 'it is just a flu' crowd will engage in
where they are on the record.

~~~
senordevnyc
From what I can tell (even here on HN by a few bad actors), they seem to have
pivoted to a “we simply can’t do this to the economy; it’s not an option for a
disease that only kills old and sick people”, without the faintest hint of a
plan for what they’d actually _do_ given what we know and the resources that
we have.

We can all wish for the culture, test availability, and competent government
that South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan apparently have, but we don’t have
those. So their “plan” is effectively a plan to just let millions of people
60+ or with pre-existing conditions die without much effort to save them. It’s
not only unconscionable, it’s incredibly stupid. Do they think we’re just
going to go back to work and restaurants and on vacation while millions of our
loved ones take their last gasps in a converted convention center somewhere?
The economy grinds to a halt either way, and there’s no moral or political
path forward for what they want to do. Which is why they don’t have the
courage to even spell it out, it’s just some magic handwaving about how we
must do something different.

And all this against the backdrop of them and people like them downplaying
this from the start and putting us in this position.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Not all Americans are doing that.

I am actively trying to promote work from home options and mostly being
ignored.

I am actively trying to talk about home health care options. It's been
extremely controversial, so I am reluctant to push too hard.

There's a lot of disinterest or active blow back against any attempt at a
grass roots movement in the absence of sufficient leadership from the top.

Given how powerful America is, it's not unreasonable for the world at large to
be concerned.

~~~
systemvoltage
I am actually terrified about home remedies regular people provide without
deep understanding of human physiology and medicine.

Please refrain from providing advice to people if you're not in the position
to do so unless you're a medical doctor. It sounds good hearted but this is
exactly the kind of things we shouldn't be perpetuating. You can cause
inadvertent loss of life in worst case.

My parents are forwarding all kinds of shit from social media from fake
vaccine news to completely insane home remedies such as going to a sauna when
you have fever to "kill the virus". I am not suggesting you're doing this, but
just to illustrate extreme case of misinformation.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Yes, I know. I've actually been around this block before.

I have a form of cystic fibrosis, as does my 32 year old son who still lives
with me. I left all the CF lists years ago because people with CF live in
terror and mostly don't want to take chances on trying anything not prescribed
by a doctor, even though they are facing certain death.

Doctors don't know how to fix them. When I was diagnosed in 2001, life
expectancy in the US was age 36.

Like anyone who has CF or who has a loved one with CF, I know quite a lot
about germ control and daily home management of potentially deadly lung
problems. Unlike most people with CF, I'm currently drug free. My condition is
managed with diet and lifestyle.

I think it's outright irresponsible to say nothing at all in cases where I
know a thing and no one else is speaking up, even though I surely an not the
only person who knows X. I've mostly spoken up to say, essentially, "If there
aren't enough ventilators to go around, airway clearance techniques have been
around forever and some of them are non invasive and don't require mechanical
intervention. You may still have options, even if the worst comes to pass, the
medical system is overloaded and you are trying to survive a deadline epidemic
while locked down at home."

If you want to see my past remarks, I've added the link to that discussion to
my profile. I'm disinclined to do too much cage rattling on HN in discussion.

I'm currently working on developing a blog in hopes of putting together useful
information about best practices for simply avoiding germs in day-to-day life.

I think I know a lot of useful information. I don't think I'm behaving
irresponsibly.

I'm still trying to sort out for myself what I think works going forward. I
don't think there's anyone on the planet who can tell me what that is.

~~~
systemvoltage
Please don't do any of this. I beg you.

If you want to help, volunteer in a hospital.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I absolutely cannot volunteer in a hospital. Cystic fibrosis puts me in a high
risk category. That's like asking me to intentionally become the Typhoid Mary
of covid19.

~~~
systemvoltage
I see, perhaps you can then you can:

\- Spread information about hygiene, CDC recommendations on how to prevent
spread of Coronavirus and reiterate/ephasize the importance of washing
hands/cleaning public spaces.

\- Donate money to medical research, who knows, some of these home remedies
may be useful. But not without getting the research done first.

You don't see the danger of providing medical advise to others? I've been
wrong many times of something that I thought was intuitive to me but
ultimately there was a "oh..." moment when I saw experimental results or some
concrete evidence.

There is also a network effect - you say X to person Y. Person Y tells X to 10
other friends who then tell 1000 other people. The misinformation that started
from you could potentially affect a lot of people and then you start having
deep thoughts such as - I tested X on myself and it worked. But now 100,000
people are doing it - is it safe?

This is why you should stop from providing medical advice to others. I am
saying this with respect to you and your earnest intentions from heart.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Cystic fibrosis is supposed to cost up to a quarter of a million dollars per
year for medical care per patient. Two members of my household have it. I've
supported us all on well under $20k annually for at least eight years and we
were homeless for nearly six years.

I often have insufficient money for food. Yet, we are still alive.

I respect your genuine and valid concerns about giving advice in situations
where you don't know what you are talking about. Trying to give me advice to
do things like volunteer in a hospital or donate money I don't have falls in
that category.

Maybe take a few minutes to at least look up cystic fibrosis before commenting
further about what you think I should be doing.

------
chupa-chups
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22657717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22657717)

------
systemvoltage
I very much admire Gov Cuomo - he is perfectly straight forward in his
approach, putting aside partisanship and truly care about his state and the
New York City. I encourage everyone to watch his updates to see for yourself.
We need more leaders like him. In his presentation, he is telling how to run
the Federal goverment and recommendations - which just illustrates the
competance of the executive branch of the US Govt. Same thing with Gov Newsom
of California.

Latest update:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZeKTlpcqU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZeKTlpcqU)

~~~
untog
This article sums up the feelings of many New Yorkers, myself included:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/media/cuomo-
new-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/media/cuomo-new-york-
coronavirus.html)

In normal times he is utterly infuriating and represents some of the worst
qualities you see in a politician. In a crisis... well, you need a solid pair
of hands and a leader capable of making big decisions effectively. And he is
definitely that.

~~~
Ericson2314
I am not ready to change my assessment of him. There were ample situations in
in "peace time" for him to push harder but he didn't. DeBlasio may be more
inept, but Cuomo only pushes things hard after they become very popular.
That's still not leadership.

~~~
foota
There's a difference between leading with ideas and such and executing well.
The latter is more important in a crisis.

~~~
Ericson2314
I'm not even asking for ideas, though. Subway, weed, rent, cannabis, etc
didn't need ideas.

I'm not asking for Good Robert Moses, I am asking for Good Robert Moses's
Oddjob.

------
listennexttime
So what changed in the last few days? What is playing out is EXACTLY what
epidimiologists, scientists, mathemeticians, the US intelligence agencies, and
the WHO have been saying for over a month at this point. This has ALL been
predicted and no one fucking cared or listened until it is BY DEFINITION TOO
LATE.

I've even been saying this for weeks now, and I get challenged on it. Even
though _every single day_ we continue to just follow or beat the worst trend
lines from the worst affected countries BECAUSE WE'RE NOT DOING ANY OF THE
THINGS WE KNOW WORK.

What's going to be different next time? Are we going to have a global
conversation about our inability to plan more than 2 days out? Our inability
to grasp truly horrific facts and accept them, instead of letting fearful
human brains go "That could never happen in America" (lol) even in the fact of
raw statistics? Or is this just another thing I'm going to be eye-rolled at
and told "it's just how it is". A global pandemic and economic slump (I'm
metering my predictions here because this site doesn't seem to be able to
handle realistically gloomy predictions for the future) still isn't enough to
get us to ask how we got here?

~~~
tekkk
I today saw the number of infected for US jump 8k (it seemed to have been
reduced from 14k, which was really alarming).
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

A quite worrying turn that rate of cases is ramping up so quickly in US. Don't
know what else to say. And there isn't really that much you can do as an
individual, if the other people are not taking it that seriously. Just
yesterday I saw a child with his parent cough with a rattling sound in a
supermarket without covering his mouth. It is these types of small actions of
neglectedness that compound, making this virus so hard to stop from spreading.

Hopefully you at least build antibodies when you get sick. Otherwise this will
never stop spreading until we get a working vaccine.

~~~
ms512
> I today saw the number ...
> [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

Note that the number for the current day isn't yet necessarily complete. For
example, as of this writing, Washington and Illinois were not yet in the table
[1].

Washington numbers get released at 3pm PST [1] and Illinois numbers don't
specifiy an update time [2]. It looks like the number should end up around
8.5k today, so better than yesterday's 14k.

Of course, with all the back-and-forth on test availability, comparing numbers
day-to-day is challenging, since more testing is likely to reveal a higher
absolute number of cases.

[1]
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

[2]
[https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus](https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus)

[3] [https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19](https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19)

------
teddyvangogh
Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist predicts a quicker coronavirus
recovery: 'We're going to be fine'

[https://news.yahoo.com/why-nobel-laureate-predicts-
quicker-2...](https://news.yahoo.com/why-nobel-laureate-predicts-
quicker-210318391.html)

------
gist
Interesting life lesson for those who are not familiar is the concept I think
it's called 'don't spit into the wind'.

By this I mean all of the politicians who constantly gave Trump a hard time at
each and every turn. I don't mean any in particular investigation and I don't
mean they needed to agree and not criticize him at all at any time. But maybe
they should have thought that this person 'The President' has the ability to
give their region (or their state) what they need 'greenlight' and yes he
should do it because 'it's the right thing to do' but human decision making
and interaction is more than that. And people are people. This is no different
for any political process or politician. Sometimes you have to simply (to use
the phrase) 'not be a dick' if there is a person in power who can give you
things you need to play the game. Doesn't mean you should like the game and
doesn't mean it shouldn't be that way but in the end it is the way life often
is.

------
magwa101
Wow, ok, finally.

------
pjmorris
I keep having this crazy, irresponsible, dangerous... hopeful idea: virus
cruises. Take one or more available cruise ships, equip it with ventilators,
tests, supplie, ask for volunteer crew, passengers, and medical staff, and
send everyone off for a two week cruise to get deliberately infected with the
virus, study its characteristics, and start to build herd immunity. Seems like
it'd be a way to get started fighting back.

~~~
jacquesm
You'd be murdering people. That's an un-ethical medical experiment. About as
unethical as what already happened to those on the Diamond Princess. 8 of them
are dead now, there are still another 15 in critical with some of those
expected to eventually die.

~~~
Izkata
Just to punch it in a bit more: The ship was quarantined about a month and a
half ago. This isn't a week-or-so sickness.

------
chiefalchemist
> Over the past days, an inspection team led by the Army Corps of Engineers,
> and including state officials from the Office of General Services, the
> Dormitory Authority of the State of New York

Huh? What? How was this not already done? YEARS ago? What if this was
something _fast_ moving?

We knew a pandemic was inevitable. No stock pile of mask? No plan for ad hoc
hospitals? If they're making it up as they go then what has FEMA, the DoD and
the CDC been doing with our money? Using it for TP?

------
narogab
We have plenty of space (churches, meeting halls, school and university
dormitories) to use for temporary hospitals w/o the Army building temporary
buildings that will cost a fortune and later be torn down all on the
taxpayers' dime. Charitable organizations, universities and institutions
should be willing to donate those resources.

I don't want to pay the army for building: I want their _doctors_ doing
research on a cure/fix for Covid-19 and I want their _soldiers_ alert and
ready. It would be cheaper to hire immigrant Mexicans to build temporary
hospitals.

Using the army to build hospitals when better space is already is a waste of
time, a waste of money and little more than a boondoggle for the suppliers who
are chosen.

And isn't this possibly a violation of the _posse comitatus Act_?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act)

~~~
crooked-v
> We have plenty of space (churches, meeting halls, school and university
> dormitories) to use for temporary hospitals

Making these spaces fit the physical needs of these hospitals (massive power
requirements for equipment, hallways and elevators with certain amounts of
clearance for transporting patients, extremely well-controlled ventilation
systems, sanitizable surfaces everywhere, rooms laid out with central access
for doctors and nurses) would take so much time and effort that it would be
more money- and time-efficient to build new buildings with the expertise of a
group practiced in building new, reasonably high-quality buildings as fast as
possible... like, say, the Army.

These need to be _modern hospitals_ , not 19th-century sanitariums where
patients just get dumped into a bed and left to die or recover on their own.

> It would be cheaper to hire immigrant Mexicans to build temporary hospitals.

Right, and I'm sure hiring random people to construct temporary buildings as
fast as possible would result in something that won't fall in on peoples'
heads immediately.

> And isn't this possibly a violation of the posse comitatus Act?

The Posse Comitatus Act applies to the use of the military as law enforcement,
so, no.

