Wish I shared your optimism. I'm expecting this online series to be specific to the GG network. Despite Stars being active in NJ for a few years now, and in PA more recently, there's been no public mention of possibly linking either or both of those player pools to any ROW Stars player pool. Because of that, I've assumed that the legality of such extra-US player pooling is questionable at best, and might require movement on both legal and legislative fronts.

it's always arbitrary date to buy more time because nobody can predict with exact precision how it's going to unfold, also the USA aren't anywhere near a complete lockdown so it's bound to take a lot longer than 2 weeks or whatever they said early on

Why should we trust any public officials if they are deliberately lying about such a fundamental issue?

What is causing the most fear right now is uncertainty. And when officials keep moving dates around without any transparency over why those dates were chosen, it just heightens this fear.

what do you want them to say though?

the truth would be "we don't know when, we hope it's soon but we don't know, stay tuned"

We can’t predict exactly how it’s going to unfold.
But why our officials say something like “we intend to lift restrictions once we see and x% reduction in new cases/hospitalizations/deaths over a period of y days” and also “based on current trends, we project that we will achieve this on z date”.

But I haven’t even heard any suggestion for what exactly the value of x is, let alone z. Does anyone have any plan for the conditions of reopening?

well they're probably looking at graphs from other countries and try to make some sort of estimation based on that, it obviously can't be all that accurate given there are so many variables to consider, the USA are not doing the lockdown the same way other countries are

anyway I feel people should fear the end of the lockdown more so than the actual length of it

It seems very irresponsible to me to institute a lockdown when you don’t have a plan for how to end it. It doesn’t have to be a definitely date. But it should be some clear set of benchmarks that need to be achieved (e.g. x% reduction in hospitalizations, and/or testing y% of the population). I haven’t heard anything like this from anyone.

what's irresponsible was not being ready for a pandemic, now they're just winging it

also I think what you mean to say is that it's sub-optimal to institude a lockdown and no plan for how to end it, and it is but everyone was in the dark and trying the best they can to keep casualties to the minimum

buddy that's the whole point.....it's never going to ever really end.....

sure states and counties will reopen time to time....but then they'll be locked down a few weeks/months later when the 'numbers' require them to.....each round of lockdown bringing more and more restrictions

just don't do anything and remain apathetic......in fact enjoy now cause these will be seen as the 'good ole' days' soon....

He isn't selecting May 15th as some arbitrary possible re-open day, he is basically saying there is zero chance of re-open before then. I think if you read between the lines, it's clear we will see many more of these 2-week extensions.

It's not as though these government officials have some sort of playbook as to how to balance a pandemic with re-opening the economy, so I think we are seeing a lot of officials choosing to err on the side of caution.

The "current situation and trends" that you mentioned is that the US hasn't peaked yet. Our daily case numbers have plateaued (possibly only due to testing limitations) but they certainly haven't declined yet, and daily death totals continue to jump (up to 2000 deaths per-day this week in the USA compared to around 500-700 last week). Hospitals have managed to stay under their breaking-points with the current level of shut-down which is what has kept this situation from boiling over. Another current situation is that testing remains limited in the US and antibody tests are still a long way off here on a mass-level which makes re-opening more difficult. Until we start seeing clarity with case numbers and testing availability,we will continue to see these 2-week extensions.

What date would you suggest for a re-open based on the current situation and trends?

I think you are over-looking the fact that government officials probably realized mid-March that most of the country will need to stay shut down 3+ months but the officials understood that the American public would not be able to digest this news all at once. So to prevent pockets of civil unrest and also possible runs on the banks/grocery stores/etc. and stock-market mayhem, the governments are making these 2-week announcements instead of saying just announcing a multi-month lockdown.

You are suggesting that elected public officials should deliberately lie to their constituents about fundamental social problems and choices. I don’t see how this can be a good thing in what we represent to be a free and democratic society.

If we've got scores of walking infected COVID-19 people out there, and we do, who will never once even be tested, and will therefore not have an opportunity to be included in the "Case" group, then doesn't that mean that the death rates by age group, in the younger age categories especially, are significantly lower than the rates that are documented?

For most age groups it's low, but if it's even exponentially lower due to confusion caused by their methodology, then why tha faq are we still shutting everything down? Put the seniors and other vulnerable groups into some sort of isolation care, or subject them in particular to certain protocols instead of the whole of society, and let's get this crapshow moving again.

Edit: I've seen some carrier estimates that were shockingly high. I need to find and vet some information, but this could wind up being the most ******ed pile of horseshit anybody's ever seen, and we have the UN, WHO and our respective derps running the helm to thank for it.

New Guidelines for Opening up America Again:

https://www.scribd.com/document/4567...nes#from_embed

The world was ready for a pandemic. There are a number of pandemics every decade. It just wasn't ready for THIS one. And honestly, outside of patching up inherently broken healthcare systems, and China's malfeasance (perhaps with the help of WHO), I'm not entirely sure what could have been done differently. This thing spread through asymptomatic people and no one knew that to a good enough degree (partially because of China/WHO) until it was too late.

There isn't a monolithic policy in the US as far as shutdown is concerned. I'm not sure why we should expect there to be a monolithic policy about "re-opening". There are lots of places in the US that haven't even experienced this thing to any significant degree. They are not going to remain closed for much longer. They will certainly have to implement testing/tracing procedures to prevent outbreaks and I'm certain there will be some measure of social distancing for a long time to come. But there's just no way they will keep the existing stay at home orders in place in a lot of areas.

I suspect this will be one of the strategies for re-opening any area. Companies will not be welcoming back employees who are most at risk right away. That will take more time.

Edit: BTW, in the US, and I suspect the World, we have seen a huge exodus of knowledgeable/experienced (ie competent) people from the workforce due to the Baby-boomers retiring and being replaced by stupid/inexperienced (ie incompetent) people. Of course this is a generalization, but I think it holds true in general. To some degree, technology has softened the blow of this massive competence decrease in the workforce. But this virus, on top of everything else, is going to exacerbate the problem.

According to all the sources I have seen, virtually no one in China has died from Covid-19 in nearly two months. This level of dishonesty coming from that country, in a time when information literally saves lives, is extremely disconcerting.

death rates by groups are not important today in opening up the economy. First hospital capacity must not be exceeded, which has just been verified.
PPE capacity is not where it needs to be. Shortages of testing swabs are not at a level to mass test. We are closer to a quick serum test but not there yet. New Ventilator capacity is getting added since the close down. Plasma therapies for those most sick should be available to cut down on death rates and quicken the healing time.

While I am chomping at the bit to get the economy open, the questions above need to be resolved. I think we have made progress on all of the points, some more than other. There is no way the decision makers can set a hard date as the situation changes day to day.

According to the US's 3-pahase re-opening guidelines, the earliest life can return to normal anywhere would be after 3 14-day periods where certain guidelines are met. So I think this paints a best-case scenario of late may/early june. But according to their plan, phase three includes large-scale gatherings and non-essential travel (that even exists in phase 2). While it think this is all best-case, and we will see how hard or easy it is to meet the phase criteria, I believe this is definitely a lot rosier picture than many are painting. We'll see if it comes to be reality, and where.

Neither. It's meant to keep numbers down.

In hindsight, some amazingly great numbers, and much more equipment and testing being ready to go.

There's probably too many variables involved, and even what it needs to look like before reopening is constantly evolving.

The way so many use this word now makes me feel like Oxford, Webster, and their ilk are going to have to change the definition of "lie" in some future dictionary editions to say "any statement made that isn't correct".

Unless the previous lockdown said "We are going to lockdown now, but we promise to reopen on May 1", no one is lying. I think most people with common sense knew that the dates would be extended if they needed to.

Right. If you get this, I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble with things changing.

So, they had to wait to lockdown until they had a plan to end it? That wouldn't have worked out very well.

Because those alone aren't good enough. If New York only had 10 new cases per day for the last week, I don't think they could open tomorrow, because they don't have the needed testing in place. There's no "one thing" they need to be able to reopen, and we're learning new things every day. For example, everyone in North America is going to be watching closely as European countries start reopening things, to learn from what happens there. All they do by setting a bunch of conditions, is set up people's expectations for disappointment, and open themselves up to guys like you accusing them of lying about that instead.

This.

Canada says Hi, and we hope your leaders learned more from this experience than you have.

And there are other countries who have fared even better; I only use Canada as a comparison because we are extremely similar and next-door neighbors, yet have very different outcomes thus far. That's not to say there isn't plenty we could have done differently, because our response was far from perfect; it's just mind-blowing to me that you can say "I'm not entirely sure what could have been done differently". Seriously?

how is it partisan to quote something the president said?

Early march would've been way too late for what? To completely prevent any kind of outbreak? Yeah, it would've been too late. But it wouldn't have been too late to take action to prevent thousands of deaths. Instead we had politicians claiming the virus is a hoax.

You should probably get better sources. China hadn't even had its worst day of fatalities two months ago, and on February 17th (exactly two months ago), its number of active cases was right at the peak (58,000 confirmed cases).
I know it's hard to keep track of time during the lockdown, but chronological stats aren't exactly hard to find.
It's ludicrous to say that the West didn't have any warning about this. China may well have massaged its figures, like many other countries have in one way or another, but China had officially reported 3000 deaths by March 4th. It takes some kind of mental gymnastics to argue on one hand that "We weren't warned early enough" (which has been used as an excuse for delaying lockdowns until late March), and on the other to say "I don't trust their numbers". If their 'real' number was suspected of being (much) higher than what was reported, doesn't that make the inaction of Western leaders look even worse?

They are talking about table games dealers returning when the casinos reopen wearing a mask and gloves. Can you imagine a high stakes game at the Aria where all the players wear masks and gloves. Masks are uncomfortable after just wearing for a few minutes. I guess players can wear bandanas and I'm sure surveillance will really appreciate that as it defeats facial recognition software. Expect several casino cage robberies as thieves will resemble everyone else in the casino.