
Trump Declares National Emergency - david927
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/coronavirus-news.html
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soyyo
It's also been declared in Spain (state of alarm, the mildest of the three
options available under Spanish law), nationwide measures are not known yet

Regions are declaring they own measures in the meantime, in Madrid, schools
and universities classes have stopped, all shops must stay closed, only
pharmacies and supermarkets are allowed to be open, also most business where
people gather, such as gyms, stay closed.

In Catalonia no one can enter or exit.

~~~
pvaldes
> In Catalonia no one can enter or exit.

This is only for four cities of Barcelona, not the entire area. Like the 1% of
the population. Is an unprecedented measure in any case. Lots of social
experiments this days.

~~~
soyyo
Now applies to the full region, Quim Torra (president of Catalonia) announced
it today, you can read it in any Spanish news site

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ashwoods
Torra has asked for it, but that doesn’t mean it has taken effect. With the
mistrust between the Catalan and central government, let’s see what happens.

~~~
soyyo
You are right, it was a request, he does not have the authority to enforce it,
my bad

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snoshy
I've heard mention previously on HN that FDA regulations hampered the
availability of test kits within the US due to archaic laws. Given that these
regulations are about to be loosened or entirely done away with temporarily,
what exactly would this imply?

If the kits themselves have an accuracy rate of ~60% as I've heard mentioned
here and elsewhere, wouldn't faster testing (ex. 3 hour, 1 hour) reduce
accuracy even more and create "diagnostic theater" as an analogy to the
security theater already witnessed at airports?

Would love to hear more about this from an epidemiological standpoint.

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dpflan
What should I be doing to safeguard myself and helping? There is a lot of
uncertainty to manage.

~~~
davidw
Avoid other people. If you must go somewhere, like a grocery store, try and
stay 2 meters away.

Wash your hands a lot.

Encourage other people to do the same things.

[https://staythefuckhome.com/](https://staythefuckhome.com/)

~~~
rosybox
Cannot stay 2 meters away at the check stand. How would that work?

~~~
dawnerd
force the distance? cart behind you and stand back from the person in front.
It's what I've been doing at costco.

~~~
meowface
I'm guessing trying to face away from people's faces probably helps somewhat,
too? If someone breathes, sneezes, or coughs viroids in your general
direction, I would naively guess it's riskier if it's in the direction of
their face to your face. If it touches your back and neck, I'd imagine you're
still at risk, but not to the same degree.

Can anyone verify if this logic makes sense? Or does it not really make a
difference because it'll just float through the air and reach your face
anyway?

~~~
sjg007
This is why they were masks in Asia. The problem is we don’t have enough masks
so we need to save them for healthcare workers.

~~~
benjohnson
The people in Hong Kong learned how to make their own and they work well. It's
not hard and used readily available materials.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-
environment/artic...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-
environment/article/3050689/how-make-your-own-mask-hong-kong-scientists)

Instructions in English.

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enitihas
Considering the fact that most War time presidents in US do not lose
elections, what impact do you think the current health crisis will have on
Trump's re-election?

~~~
joezydeco
Considering the fact that a US President has never had to deal with a war on
US soil since Lincoln, with an invisible enemy that can’t be negotiated with,
I would say the answer is unknown.

~~~
fragmede
I don't know if there's value in arguing the semantics, but there was the War
on Poverty (President Lyndon B. Johnson) and the War on Drugs (President
Richard Nixon), neither of which sets a precedent which bodes well for our
current situation, imo.

~~~
everybodyknows
This war is different, in that it will assuredly be declared at an end, as
soon as the fatality rate declines below the rate typical for seasonal
influenza. Whether it will have been "won" will be a subjective judgement
informed by the body count, and the judger's political biases.

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RickJWagner
My applause to both political sides. It's great to see some cooperation.

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alexeiz
NYT has an amazingly annoying paywall. It makes me want to avoid them as much
as possible.

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davidw
Didn't watch him talk (it's nauseating). What in particular goosed the market
so much? This virus is still going to be awful. Honest question folks. Looking
for a particular policy or something that he announced.

~~~
dlp211
He managed to look and sound somewhat like an adult and it finally looks like
the federal government is going to act competently. Also Google is going to be
running the website and they are partnering with LabCorp and Quest to offer
drive up testing.

~~~
taurath
Heres my problems:

* Only those with symptoms (which?) are going to be "allowed" to be tested. This means you can't stop the spread.

* Testing is going to "come online" within weeks, but cases are already accelerating. We have tripled cases in the last 4 days. Its an exponential curve

* I fully expect them to fudge the numbers on deaths at this point. We will start to see a large uptick within the next week.

~~~
noxer
>This means you can't stop the spread. This was certain since many weeks.

Stopping was probably never possible anyway. But certainly there is no
scenario where the whole world gets it but USA doesn't. And even places like
Wuhan where it seems stooped it's highly questionable what happens if they go
back to normal. Chances are high it will just start again. The 80k immune
there are nowhere near enough to stop a second wave. Herd immunity needs
probably around 60-80%.

