I know I talk alot of shit about trump, and I really dont like him much. But I must admit, he has done an amazing job handling the coronavirus so far.

Here are some of the things he has done that I am fairly pleased with:

1) Every year he has been in office he signed into law year-after-year budget increases for the CDC

2) He quickly barred incoming flights from both china and europe once cases became significant

3) he quickly issued a state of emergency and orderer the deployment of a US navy quarantine ship to help

4) His administration approved covering all costs for mandatory medical testing and quarinting for COVID-19 patients...

5) He issued a 1,000$ UBI to all american citizens to help alleviate financial problems.

He definitely did a better job than the last few presidents did when handling H1N1 and SARS.

#uspol #trump #coronavirus

@freemo
4 and 5 are claims he's made, not anything we have any evidence of.

@sda Evidence? He made a public statement and the CDC made a public statement that they would do both #4 and #5.. the outbreak is very new and these decisions were made within the last week. What "evidence" could you want? It takes time to go from an executive decision of that magnitude to actually having money in the bank.

So thats a rather moot point. But I will agree that until he actually executes and follows through it is a promise that is "pending".. obviously if he fails to follow through then we have every right to be upset. But considering the public way he announced these things and commited to them it would really be hurtful to his chances as president not to follow through.

@freemo

Wow. From "worst president ever" to "But I must admit, he has done an amazing job handling the coronavirus so far."

You're giving him credit for already having completed enumerated points.
I might give you #4, because it seems his administration has approved, even though they haven't yet followed through.

#5, I have to say, WTF???
He has issued no such checks, and when/if he does, I've seen statements indicating it'll be based upon income which is definitely not "universal."
Also he has said, "It'll be more than that. Much more."
Then I see rumors of $1200.
To me 20% isn't the "much more" hinted at by his vocal vehemence, particularly when the senate rumors just before that were for $1000 per month for two months.

I've been particularly unimpressed by his handling of COVID-19. He's on network teevee every single day, each day walking back what he said the previous day.

@sda The fact that I thought he was the worst president ever is also why I'm kinda surprised just how exemplary he seems to be responding to this.

@freemo
All I can guess is that you're not seeing the same things over there that we are here. Exemplary is the last word I'd use.

@sda If nothing else just look at the numbers. Americas infection rate per capita is much much lower than any country in europe...

Spin it however you like but the proof is in the pudding

@freemo
Yes "low infection rates" correlate very nicely with practically non-existent testing.

@sda How many tests total has the USA issued, how many total has europe issued? How do the numbers compare? Do you even know or are you just spitting?

@freemo
Since it's your assertion he;s doing so well, let's have those numbers.

@sda 103,945 tests total by the USA as of friday.

@freemo
So, the number of tests all by itself means... what?

@sda Next question.. do you think we conducted more or less tests than european countries? Do you know? How about tests per capita? Or tests per suspected infected?

Do you have any hard numbers of any kind?

@freemo
I have no idea how many tests Netherlands have conducted.

@sda Jsut checked, the Netherlands conducted a total of only 6,000 tests as of friday.

@freemo @sda Which as a fraction of the population is almost double.

@stevenroose

It makes no sense to calculate it per capita for a few reasons..

1) the intent isnt to test everyone in the nation, that is impractical. The point is to test people suspected of being sick. So per capita makes no sense

2) the context is very important here. This was brought up specifically because sda claimed that the only reason the USA shows significantly fewer cases than other countries is due to the fact that the USA is testing less. Yet we are testing 20x more than the netherlands and many times more than most countries and yet still show much much lower numbers. Which directly contradicts the assertion.

Context is everything when it comes to statistics.

@sda

@freemo @sda Of course it makes sense to look at testing relative to the population... How could the Netherlands ever test 100k people? You want to get a number per GDP perhaps (NL 6 vs US 5.8)?

> brought up specifically because sda claimed that the only reason the USA shows significantly fewer cases

These cases should subsequently also be seen relative to the population, of course. In which case NL will obviously have far more cases as well (> 3x more).

@stevenroose

It might make sense to look at tests relative to the population in a different context. not in the context we were discussing.

No you are completely wrong. If we are trying to show a populace has a lower infection rate we care about incidence rate, so the ratio of infected vs tests issues, population doesnt factor into these calculations.

I'm not making this up as I go this is standard data science in a epidemic situation. Its the ratio of tested to infected that matters if we are talking about what country has a greater infection rate.

@sda

@freemo @sda

> If we are trying to show a populace has a lower infection rate we care about incidence rate, so the ratio of infected vs tests issued

That metric just as is does not make sense at all. Most countries have different policies regarding testing. That metric should be

> the ratio of infected vs random tests issued

Most countries have limited testing capacity. So they test people with symptoms. Or people with infected relatives. Those policies totally screw up your statistic.

@stevenroose

yup in which case we would have to fall back to looking at other numbers, such as number of patients actually being treated for it in a hospital (we call those suspected cases) .. we dont look at any one metric. In this case ssuspected cases int eh usa is much lower.

When looking at suspected cases you DO however use per capita, for the reasons you mentioned earlier. the per capita suspect cases int he USA is extremely low compared to other countries as well.

Again demonstrating the excellent handling of the situation so far in america.

Though my main concern is that the administration can only reall y have a strong ifluence at stopping it at the borders. Once int he wild it mostly relies on how strongly the citizenry obeys the social distancing. I dont have high hopes on americans in that regard.

@sda

@freemo @sda Again, comparing such a metric doesn't make sense across countries with different policies. In Portugal, people are only suspect if they (1) have symptoms and (2) they have been in contact with someone that (2a) has symptoms and (2b) they have been in contact with someone that is confirmed/tested.
Belgium has yet other conditions.
Let's leave the metrics to the statistici, won't we? Instead of spraying the internet with apples vs pears comparisons that have no value.

@stevenroose

I am leaving the metrics to the staticians.. I am a professional data science with a good deal of expeirnce working with infectious diseases both for the Dod, FEMA, and McKesson...

So yes I agree, lets leave it to people like me with actual qualifications :)

@sda