12 ms·

Trump Declares National Emergency

76 points by david927 7y ago

soyyo 7y ago
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 7y ago
  > 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 7y ago
    Now applies to the full region, Quim Torra (president of Catalonia) announced it today, you can read it in any Spanish news site
    - ashwoods 7y ago
      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 7y ago
        You are right, it was a request, he does not have the authority to enforce it, my bad
enitihas 7y ago
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?
- jcfrei 7y ago
  He's gonna win. A viral outbreak like this has no precedent for anyone still alive. So it's hard to criticize the government based on personal experience. If they demonstrate leadership and decisive action that should be enough for a reelection. Any candidate simply cannot compete with the media exposure the president gets during times of a national crisis.
  - Trasmatta 7y ago
    > So it's hard to criticize the government based on personal experience No it's not. You had every expert in the world talking about the potential dangers for months, while Trump kept talking about how it was just a flu that would magically go away on its own, and that there wasn't anything to be concerned with. The US's preparation has been incredibly bad and late in comparison to certain other countries. On top of Trump firing the Pandemic Response Team in 2018. The optics are going to start looking increasingly bad for him as the US death rate starts to climb. I don't claim to predict the outcome of the election, but you can't claim that it's "hard to criticize the government" based off of this, or that any future "decisive action" is going to be enough once the death rate hits tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
    - jcfrei 7y ago
      I was trying to emphasize the "based on personal experience" part. Of course you can still criticize the government. But elections have time and time again shown that the opinion of experts matters much less to the electorate than their personal experience. That's one of the reasons why the state of the economy is so important for the reelection of a president. That being said, if the US economy really does tank that could make his reelection more difficult but I think he can easily blame that on the virus.
dpflan 7y ago
What should I be doing to safeguard myself and helping? There is a lot of uncertainty to manage.
- HSO 7y ago
  It depends on your age and general health condition. If you are not a boomer and healthy, you don't actually need to do anything except maybe get that hour earlier to bed in the evening and eat extra healthy to help your immune system. This virus really only concerns particular "risk groups" which is why I DON'T understand why the onus is on younger, healthy people who are actually working to pay the price instead of telling at-risk groups who are mostly pensioners to isolate themselves until a vaccine or antidote is developed. Also, not to forget, those boomers are the ones who contributed 90 percent of the climate change with their consumption patterns and then told us "why would I care about climate change, I will be dead when it arrives." What the hell?
- davidw 7y ago
  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/
  - emayljames 7y ago
    I was pleasantly surprised to find that link is real.
  - rosybox 7y ago
    Cannot stay 2 meters away at the check stand. How would that work?
    - dawnerd 7y ago
      force the distance? cart behind you and stand back from the person in front. It's what I've been doing at costco.
davidw 7y ago
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.
- derision 7y ago
  I'm guessing the Robinhood "infinite money cheat" had a big impact here. Even if only a few thousand people built up crazily leveraged positions it could cause a tumble like this. The pattern makes sense to me, robinhood recalculates margin every night and liquidates in the morning, and the big drops have all been first thing in the morning pre-market.
  - bontaq 7y ago
    You realize that's due to shorts, puts, and more bad news right? It's not mysterious at all.
    - derision 7y ago
      I had no idea!! Thanks man you really opened my eyes /s
      - bontaq 7y ago
        You literally implied robinhood was somehow swinging the dow jones down 7% at open due to an "infinite money" cheat. Maybe just accept new information and correct your weird conspiracy theory.
        derision 7y ago
        The infinite money cheat was leveraged by selling both calls and puts and underlying stock. Forced liquidation would trigger massive selling to unwind these positions
        7y ago
snoshy 7y ago
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.
smacktoward 7y ago
"No, I don't take responsibility at all," said the President of the United States. JFC.
- JohnTHaller 7y ago
  And lied about firing the whole pandemic response office in 2018.
  - atomi 7y ago
    He literally said: > I didn't do it. I have a whole group of people. This president is unbelievable. I don't see how people even listen to this guy.
  - TMWNN 7y ago
    Ah yes, yet another person who looked at the Snopes piece's headline and nothing else. One would think reading it, and the Twitter thread it is based on, that to save money (or because the Trump administration hates science, or something) the entire "US Pandemic Response Team" agency was eliminated to save money and everyone in a large DC office building was fired. Actually reading the contemporary NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-trump-s-homeland-security-adviser-resign-n864321 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-t... and Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0... articles it cites, they seem to have been a handful of people in one team in the National Security Council hierarchy, that the new National Security Advisor reassigned to related agencies, as part of a desire to have his own hierarchical structure. Ziemer resigned because he wanted to keep his team the way it was. COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. And that's exactly what the US did, implementing the ban on non-American travelers who'd been to China in late January, among other things. You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness. PS - No, Trump did not "cut the CDC budget" either. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104 https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104
RickJWagner 7y ago
My applause to both political sides. It's great to see some cooperation.
alexeiz 7y ago
NYT has an amazingly annoying paywall. It makes me want to avoid them as much as possible.

76 points by david927 7y ago

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 7y ago
> 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 7y ago
  Now applies to the full region, Quim Torra (president of Catalonia) announced it today, you can read it in any Spanish news site
  - ashwoods 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      You are right, it was a request, he does not have the authority to enforce it, my bad

enitihas 7y ago

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?

jcfrei 7y ago
He's gonna win. A viral outbreak like this has no precedent for anyone still alive. So it's hard to criticize the government based on personal experience. If they demonstrate leadership and decisive action that should be enough for a reelection. Any candidate simply cannot compete with the media exposure the president gets during times of a national crisis.
- Trasmatta 7y ago
  > So it's hard to criticize the government based on personal experience No it's not. You had every expert in the world talking about the potential dangers for months, while Trump kept talking about how it was just a flu that would magically go away on its own, and that there wasn't anything to be concerned with. The US's preparation has been incredibly bad and late in comparison to certain other countries. On top of Trump firing the Pandemic Response Team in 2018. The optics are going to start looking increasingly bad for him as the US death rate starts to climb. I don't claim to predict the outcome of the election, but you can't claim that it's "hard to criticize the government" based off of this, or that any future "decisive action" is going to be enough once the death rate hits tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
  - jcfrei 7y ago
    I was trying to emphasize the "based on personal experience" part. Of course you can still criticize the government. But elections have time and time again shown that the opinion of experts matters much less to the electorate than their personal experience. That's one of the reasons why the state of the economy is so important for the reelection of a president. That being said, if the US economy really does tank that could make his reelection more difficult but I think he can easily blame that on the virus.

dpflan 7y ago

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

HSO 7y ago
It depends on your age and general health condition. If you are not a boomer and healthy, you don't actually need to do anything except maybe get that hour earlier to bed in the evening and eat extra healthy to help your immune system. This virus really only concerns particular "risk groups" which is why I DON'T understand why the onus is on younger, healthy people who are actually working to pay the price instead of telling at-risk groups who are mostly pensioners to isolate themselves until a vaccine or antidote is developed. Also, not to forget, those boomers are the ones who contributed 90 percent of the climate change with their consumption patterns and then told us "why would I care about climate change, I will be dead when it arrives." What the hell?
davidw 7y ago
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/
- emayljames 7y ago
  I was pleasantly surprised to find that link is real.
- rosybox 7y ago
  Cannot stay 2 meters away at the check stand. How would that work?
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    force the distance? cart behind you and stand back from the person in front. It's what I've been doing at costco.

davidw 7y ago

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.

derision 7y ago
I'm guessing the Robinhood "infinite money cheat" had a big impact here. Even if only a few thousand people built up crazily leveraged positions it could cause a tumble like this. The pattern makes sense to me, robinhood recalculates margin every night and liquidates in the morning, and the big drops have all been first thing in the morning pre-market.
- bontaq 7y ago
  You realize that's due to shorts, puts, and more bad news right? It's not mysterious at all.
  - derision 7y ago
    I had no idea!! Thanks man you really opened my eyes /s
    - bontaq 7y ago
      You literally implied robinhood was somehow swinging the dow jones down 7% at open due to an "infinite money" cheat. Maybe just accept new information and correct your weird conspiracy theory.
      - derision 7y ago
        The infinite money cheat was leveraged by selling both calls and puts and underlying stock. Forced liquidation would trigger massive selling to unwind these positions
        7y ago

snoshy 7y ago

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.

smacktoward 7y ago

"No, I don't take responsibility at all," said the President of the United States. JFC.

JohnTHaller 7y ago
And lied about firing the whole pandemic response office in 2018.
- atomi 7y ago
  He literally said: > I didn't do it. I have a whole group of people. This president is unbelievable. I don't see how people even listen to this guy.
- TMWNN 7y ago
  Ah yes, yet another person who looked at the Snopes piece's headline and nothing else. One would think reading it, and the Twitter thread it is based on, that to save money (or because the Trump administration hates science, or something) the entire "US Pandemic Response Team" agency was eliminated to save money and everyone in a large DC office building was fired. Actually reading the contemporary NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-trump-s-homeland-security-adviser-resign-n864321 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-t... and Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0... articles it cites, they seem to have been a handful of people in one team in the National Security Council hierarchy, that the new National Security Advisor reassigned to related agencies, as part of a desire to have his own hierarchical structure. Ziemer resigned because he wanted to keep his team the way it was. COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. And that's exactly what the US did, implementing the ban on non-American travelers who'd been to China in late January, among other things. You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness. PS - No, Trump did not "cut the CDC budget" either. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104 https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104

RickJWagner 7y ago

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

alexeiz 7y ago

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