Corona

[Shannon SteelSlave]

We all must be brave as we confront the reality of this pandemic. If it is appropriate to say so, I would like to state that I am proud of you all for your handling it, and life in general, which has not stopped, regardless of the need to do so.
Can we just take it easy for a minute here? I don't think anyone is posting anything completely untrue, but feelings are getting as high as real life tensions.
I think what we all want is an intelligent discussion, maybe share some experiences, and use this thread to be informed and be calm about what is happening.
May we please have the brand of continuity we have had before? Asking pretty please here. Thanx in advance. Shannon salutes you all in this difficult time.

[ruru67]

[I blame China for not controlling it's internal travel when the outbreak first started. I blame the European countries and the US for not controlling those coming into those countries much much sooner.

China had about a three week window between the medical establishment figuring out that there was a serious problem (end of December), and the national political establishment getting with the programme (mid-late January); local authorities in Hubei were off the line much earlier, as far as they could without central government support. Unfortunately, that window coincided with the New Year holiday, when vast numbers of Chinese go home and China basically shuts down for a week or more.

The response when it came was fast and effective, and China's infection and death rates are actually quite low.

Could they have done better? Absolutely. But they were lightning fast compared to the much too little, much too late responses among most Western governments, especially the USA. They had months to act before the situation got to the point where all they can do is try to slow it down while it plays out.

Now, don't get me wrong, it could be worse. South America is a disaster in the making - the health authorities are in Brazil are acting in spite of their central government, not with its support; the numbers are twice as bad in Chile, and both countries are in exponential growth, as are other S. American countries (although their numbers are not so high ... yet). That compares to basically linear or sub-linear case growth in North America and Europe. But those countries do not have it under control, and relaxing restrictions will - there are no ifs, buts or maybes about this - cause a resurgence in case growth.

I lied about lack of sympathy. I sympathise deeply with poor Dr Fauci every time Trump opens his mouth.

[OrgasmAlley]

Bunch of rewriting going on, I think.

The Western world, in theory, has a one expert clearing house for alerting on something like a deadly virus, and that's the WHO... they're supposed to “prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.” Neither the US nor European nations had any decent visibility into what was happening on the ground in China in December and January... that was the WHO's job. The WHO met January 22-23 and decided they lacked the information to declare an emergency. They met again January 30 and did so. They didn't declare a global pandemic until March 11.

The US restricted entry by people originating from China on January 31, along with Italy... the first two countries to do so. New Zealand did so on February 3. Mayor Di Blasio was encouraging New Yorkers to use the subway and go about their normal routine as late as March 10. Interesting how these dates relate to the WHO actions.

China knew long before they (or the WHO) admitted that the COVID was transmissible between humans. They restricted travel from Hubei WITHIN China while leaving open travel to destinations outside of China, which sure sounds like an intentional effort to allow the rest of the world to become infected. China has lied repeatedly about every phase of the disease, both its progression and their deaths, testing, and fatality rates. The WHO director, Ghebreyesus, is basically a CCP puppet. Have a read: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morn ... ting-lies/

I'm curious. Why is it you blame these other governments for not closing THEIR borders to prevent their population from being infected and subsequently passing it on to your population, but seem unconcerned that YOUR government did not close its own borders to prevent that same transmission until March 19? You can, of course, have no sympathy for people dying or disease and economic ruin if you want... but how things happened is still the way they happened.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

From the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University
Total Confirmed 5,746,086 , Global Deaths 356,606 World wide

100,769 deaths US (Our half measures are grinding up both deaths, cases, and unemployment all at once)

37,919 deaths United Kingdom

33,142 deaths Italy

28,599 deaths France

27,119 deaths Spain

25,598 deaths Brazil

9,388 deaths Belgium

8,597 deaths Mexico

8,463 deaths Germany

7,627 deaths Iran

6,954 deaths Canada

5,922 deaths Netherlands

4,695 deaths India

4,638 deaths China

4,431 deaths Turkey

4,266 deaths Sweden

4,142 deaths Russia

3,983 deaths Peru

3,275 deaths Ecuador

1,919 deaths Switzerland

1,631 deaths Ireland

1,496 deaths Indonesia

1,369 deaths Portugal

1,260 deaths Pakistan

1,231 deaths Romania

1,038 deaths Poland

921 deaths Philippines

890 deaths Chile

858 deaths Japan

816 deaths Egypt

803 deaths Colombia

669 deaths Ukraine

668 deaths Austria

630 deaths Algeria

568 deaths Denmark

559 deaths Bangladesh

552 deaths South Africa

509 deaths Hungary

501 deaths Argentina

485 deaths Dominican Republic

441 deaths Saudi Arabia

318 deaths Czechia

315 deaths Panama

313 deaths Finland

282 deaths Moldova

281 deaths Israel

280 deaths Bolivia

269 deaths Korea, South

258 deaths United Arab Emirates

254 deaths Nigeria

241 deaths Serbia

236 deaths Norway

235 deaths Afghanistan

219 deaths Belarus

202 deaths Morocco

195 deaths Sudan

194 deaths Honduras

185 deaths Kuwait

179 deaths Iraq

175 deaths Cameroon

175 deaths Greece

153 deaths Bosnia and Herzegovina

134 deaths Bulgaria

121 deaths North Macedonia

115 deaths Malaysia

113 deaths Armenia

110 deaths Luxembourg

108 deaths Slovenia

103 deaths Australia

102 deaths Croatia

82 deaths Cuba

72 deaths Mali

72 deaths Somalia

69 deaths Congo (Kinshasa)

68 deaths Guatemala

68 deaths Lithuania

[ruru67]

Well, to use Stalin's logic, each death is of course a tragedy, but the statistics mean I don't have any sympathy for the state of the USA as a nation. You're doing worst in the developed world in containing the virus, even when you account for population, and you've killed as many of your citizens than in all your wars since WWII (and you do a lot more war than any other developed nation). You have no national strategy, and your president flip-flops around what to do. (He didn't actually say that you should inject yourself with bleach, as is popularly reported, but what he did say still didn't make any sense.)

The UK is doing worse in terms of per-capita death rates - I'm not sure why, but the flip-flopping there was nearly as bad.

The USA is hardly the only country to get caught with its pants down, but it's still standing there with its bum in the breeze. You can point your finger at China and the WHO all you like, but the numbers are the three fingers pointing right back the other way.

To find anywhere doing "worse" than the US and UK, you have to go to places like San Marino, a pretty little country (I had lunch there a few months ago) with a population of about that of a small town and completely surrounded by northern Italy and utterly dependant on tourism for its economy. The US (and UK) aren't such sitting ducks, but San Marino is going to recover more quickly than both countries.

But again, South America is fucking this up even more spectacularly - Chile will beat you on cases per capita in a week or so.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

So now that the warm weather is here, and many states lifting stay at home orders, do you think it is time to relax on staying home? How long can a government keep people out of work and ultimately, out of circulation?
Also, did I hear that there is no real proof that warm weather will weaken the virus until the Fall Season? In other words, no seasonal traits? Tell me what you have heard, and how you plan to handle the new lack of restrictions.

[sweh]

We have little knowledge about seasonal variability of this virus, because it's new. Early statements have been made based on the basis of _other_ coronaviruses and the flu. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that areas with max temperatures below 68F have had the greatest growth. Which means that the American South may already _be_ in the seasonal low zone (and have been for weeks), and it's the American North that's just going to start getting the benefits. But the information is too scant for scientists to make any hard predictions. People are reading whatever they like into it.

But I'm taking the "I don't wanna die" approach. Gonna keep social distancing, if I go out then wear a mask. If the office opens I'm gonna stay WFH. I can do this because 99% of my job is talking to people in other locations, anyway (New York, Atlanta, LA, Denver, Omaha, London, Wisconsin, Germany, Singapore, Sydney...) that I don't _need_ to be in the office. I prefer it. I work better in the office. But I work even better when not dead! Not everybody is as lucky as me. It's just gonna cost me in electricity (running air-con for longer, mostly) and coffee

We're meant to be doing yearly goal settings. I've told my boss that my goals may not be corporate aligned. They are: 1) Don't die; 2) Don't get sacked. He wasn't impressed.

I'm expecting to WFH for the rest of the year. I don't even know if I'll be able to fly back to my parents for Christmas.

[ruru67]

So now that the warm weather is here, and many states lifting stay at home orders, do you think it is time to relax on staying home? How long can a government keep people out of work and ultimately, out of circulation?

You simply can't half-arse this. Doesn't work. Go early, go hard, and arrest people who won't follow the rules. Here in NZ we did five weeks total lockdown (23 Mar to 24 Apr) - at the start of that we had 256 active cases, peaking at 929 active cases on 6 Apr. At the end, it was down to 243 cases, and more importantly, every single one of those cases had been traced to earlier cases or border arrivals (with isolation). So we went to a more relaxed lockdown for another two weeks to 14 May, when we were down to 69 cases, and then to opening up again with social distancing. That's due to be reviewed in just over a week, but current plan is to remove the distancing restrictions on 22 June.

As of today there is one active case in NZ. That's what winning this game looks like. Basically, with the exception of the tourism industry (which is, frankly, fucked), things will be back to as normal as we can reasonably expect.

Other countries locked down their borders even earlier, especially those with experience of SARS a few years ago. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam & Taiwan all have low numbers of both deaths and confirmed cases. Again, contact tracing and testing figure highly in their strategies. Australia has taken a slightly less aggressive approach, and while they're getting ahead, they're not there yet. But we're hoping we'll get to a point where travel between NZ and Aus won't require isolation.

If you half-arse it, the economic pain just goes on longer, and more people die. There's no advantage to opening up until you have your contact tracing working and fully on top of the situation, and a solid downward trajectory of cases. Sure you can manage the impacts on the health system, but at what cost? Without concerted action, the USA is still going to be at comparable infection and death rates months from now, and there will still be massive unemployment, and it won't stop until over half the population has been vaccinated. With that vaccine that doesn't exist yet.

But I'm sure there are plenty of thoughts and prayers.

[Shannon SteelSlave]

Good, we all seem to agree, that since full measures would not work, it was decided that half measures would have to do instead. We are left with a frustrated and horny-for-life population. Whatever the government said also kept people out of hospitals so much, that many are facing red ink financial situations. They are calling people to come in for elective procedures, and probably pushing tele health whenever to try to recover their $$. Hospital staff are being laid off and furloughed to avoid closures.
We don't have the strength to do what it takes, or would have taken, like you said Ru, to send EVERYONE home to stay. But that is what a quarantine is supposed to be. The healthy people would have stayed healthy, the infected would have had the virus run its course and be done or recovered.
We haven't outsmarted this thing yet, and have only demonstrated that we lack patience. Half measures
I hated not seeing my Moms on Mother's Day, but it had to be done. I will give up the Holidaze as well toward the end of the year, but I know no one else will. We'll be down to quarter measures by then, at most.

[TNTBound]

you all realize that the us numbers are inflated because hospitals are receiving more aid for each covid death they claim, right? i personally think there is something bigger going on, because i cant see the country being ruined as it is because of a simple cold! its been shown that WHO has ties to the communist leadership in china, so whats to say that this is not some sort of biological weapon? whats to say that some of the people in power in the us are not delighted to take this as an opportunity to take us one step closer to a socialist/communist society? i and thousands of workers were recently left without a job when our company closed its doors permanently in its three sites across the us due to profit loss from the fear this caused, so color me a just a little fucking salty about this whole damn thing! everyone will eventually get it, wearing a see through cloth mask is not going to filter pollen, let alone a virus. every one of their "measures" are simply delaying the inevitable and ruining the world economy. i firmly believe that i had this shit before they even knew about it at the beginning of the year when i had a cough that lasted for two weeks and i felt like shit! i got better, its what the immune system does. are there people with weaker immune systems? of course! does that mean that we have to stay basically in jail until they come out with a vaccine for it? and even then, will they force it down our throats? who exactly does that benefit? BIG PHARMACEUTICALS! they are the ones that will profit from that. and who is in bed with the big pharmaceuticals? the senate, congress, the house of representatives. this didnt just happen....... some have called me a conspiracy theorist, others say to check my facts. but where can you actually find the truth? definitely not the media, google leans far to the socialist agenda so they filter everything out that they dont like, the government definitely cant be trusted, so who is left exactly? feel free to disagree with me, but this is my opinion based on what i have been seeing these past few months. i did not read through the last 18 pages of this thread because im simply sick of seeing and hearing "corona virus" everywhere i turn, and i likely wont keep myself updated on this thread. i simply wanted to share my view on this whole infuriating situation.

[tiemeupalso]

I am not normally a conspiracy theorist BUT,the UN has been trying to make itself a one world government for decades.
the only thing standing in their way is our CONSTITUTION abd the 2nd AMENENDMENT.
remember when sc state
Clinton signed a pact with the un it would have voided the 2nd.never got past the senate.

[BoundInKasugai]

Did someone say Second Amendment?

[ruru67]

you all realize that the us numbers are inflated because hospitals are receiving more aid for each covid death they claim, right?

There is a question of "died of" vs "died with" - because funding is tied to the latter. If someone does in a hospital, and they test positive to COVID-19 either post or ante mortem, they're counted as a "died with" case, and that figure is what's reported.

But I don't think that is inflating the figures too much. I think that first because the counted cases still have to have died and still have to have had COVID-19 in their immediate history, and that limits the ability to over-inflate numbers. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that hospitals are lying about their figures - something that would put them at serious risk of being caught out - rather than merely being liberal in interpreting their results.

The second reason I don't think this is a significant factor is that if it was the case, we'd expect a high ratio of deaths to confirmed cases, when in fact compared to other countries with out-of-control COVID infections, that ratio is actually fairly low. I'm not really sure why that is, but it sure doesn't suggest over-reporting of deaths.

... something bigger going on, ... a simple cold! ... WHO has ties to the communist leadership in china ... sort of biological weapon ... closer to a socialist/communist society ... force it down our throats ... BIG PHARMACEUTICALS ... government definitely cant be trusted ...

[Shannon SteelSlave]

6,435,453 Confirmed Cases 382,093 Global Deaths
What will happen to these numbers with "summer" coming? People are bored, frustrated, and losing faith that safe measures are the right course of action. The weather is probably going to be the biggest factor, in that, people don't want to be indoors when it's hot, plus it makes wearing a mask harder.

[Gregovic]

6,435,453 Confirmed Cases 382,093 Global Deaths
What will happen to these numbers with "summer" coming? People are bored, frustrated, and losing faith that safe measures are the right course of action. The weather is probably going to be the biggest factor, in that, people don't want to be indoors when it's hot, plus it makes wearing a mask harder.

I think those other troubles happening in the US right now are of bigger concern than the number of COVID patients.