The coronavirus (2019- ), properly known as covid-19 (the kind of coronavirus that it is), started in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and is now spreading worldwide. It is like the flu but much easier to catch and about ten times deadlier. It could be with us for years to come.
Disclaimer: I am not licensed to give medical advice. This post is just meant to give you a rough idea of things.
Wuhan itself already looks like something from a post-apocalyptic science fiction film: a big city with empty streets (pictured above). For the past five weeks people have been told to stay inside. Its province of Hubei has been shut off from the rest of China. Hubei has almost 60 million people, as big as Italy – which now itself has been locked down too, just 19 days after its first case.
Schools have been closed across China, South Korea, Japan and Italy. The Olympics this summer in Tokyo might be cancelled. The new James Bond film, “No Time to Die” (2020), has already been pushed off till later this year. Footballers are playing to empty stadiums. The stock market is going crazy.
The deadliest epidemics worldwide since 1960:
- 1960- : HIV/AIDS: > 32,000,000 dead
- 1968-69: Hong Kong flu: 1,000,000
- 1974: smallpox in India: 15,000
- 2009: swine flu pandemic: 203,000
- 2013-16: Ebola: > 11,300
Covid-19 is at 4,000 dead and counting (as of March 10th 2020). It has hit China, South Korea, Iran and Italy the hardest – so far.
Transmission: Spread by coughs, sneezes or touching things with unwashed hands. It can travel through the air for up to two metres (six feet) and live for several hours outside the body. It enters through the mouth, eyes or nose and lives in the lungs. You can catch it and spread it without showing any symptoms for up to 14 days.
Symptoms: Fever and dry cough on about the fifth day, possible trouble breathing a week later. Headache, muscle pain and tiredness are also common. For about 80%, it will be mild. For maybe 1% to 2% it will be deadly. It hits the old and those with a pre-existing health condition the hardest.
Prevention: the single best thing you can do to protect yourself and others:
Wash your hands! With a lather of soap and water: the palms, wrists, nails, back of the hands, thumbs, fingers, between fingers. Use a tissue to turn off the water!
Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.
If you do get it or have been exposed to it, stay home for 14 days. Cough into a tissue or at least your elbow. If your body temperature goes above 38 C (100.4 F) or if you have trouble breathing, see a doctor. But that is easier said than done for many people:
In the US: Hospitals have little spare capacity, tens of millions have no health insurance at all, and many employers do not provide paid sick leave. Good public health in the US is “pie in the sky”, or so I have been informed as a “naive” Bernie Sanders supporter.
– Abagond, 2020.
See also:
- BBC: Handwashing video – excellent
- epidemics
- The 2020 election for US president
- Olympics
- James Bond
524
Maybe this is just what white supremacy needs to shake things up a little….muahahaha @> : o O ) >
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I wonder if many readers have been to Wuhan or know anything about it.
I have been there. It is located right smack in the middle of China on the confluence of the Han River into the Yangtze. It is the agglomeration of what used to be three separate cities, Wuchang, Hankou (formerly spelled as Hankow) and Hanyang, each of which are cities of a couple million each. Upriver on the Yangtze are the Yangtze river gorges, and two major dams, which are not navigable for ocean going traffic, just local domestic river traffic. However, from Wuhan, it spills out into a wide flat plain, and large ships can sail downstream to Shanghai or the Ocean.
It is also at the confluence of the main rail routes connecting the south (ie, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou) to the north (Beijing). The rail routes from the east (Shanghai, Nanjing) also pass there on the way to Chongqing and Chengdu in Sichuan (Szechuan). Major national highways also pass through Wuhan in all directions.
If the USA’s rail service and main highways running from New York to California and New Orleans to Minneapolis passed through St. Louis, then St. Louis would be somewhat geographically equivalent to the USA as Wuhan is to China. However, since the US rail traffic and transfer to boat traffic in the central region of the country, and the industrial development associated with that is centered on Chicago, Wuhan is often labelled the “Chicago of China”.
Climatically, however, Wuhan is much closer to Memphis, Tennessee. It is chilly in winter, occasionally cold, and although it averages above freezing, there is occasionally accumulating snowfall. The summers are very hot, humid, muggy and rainy, and is one of the “furnaces” of China. South of Wuhan, most people eat rice as their staple. North of Wuhan, not as much. The topography downstream from the city looks similar to the Arkansas and Mississippi delta region. There are many large lakes in this region, including the East Lake adjacent to Wuhan itself.
It also figures highly in modern Chinese history since the mid-1800s.
CNN had a good article on it a few weeks ago:
From one-time Chinese capital to coronavirus epicenter, Wuhan has a long history that the West had forgotten
(https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/22/asia/wuhan-history-hnk-intl/index.html)
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I wonder if anyone noticed that there is some climatic similarities in the regions with major outbreaks. Most of them occurred in places that are cool/chilly (ie, averaging above freezing, but below 50F in the 0-10C range), are in their winter season and are moderately moist (not too wet, not very dry). Northern Italy, Central China, South Korea and even Iran would satisfy this. Iran is generally very dry, but its moistest months are February and March.
This means that in the US, the area on the West Coast between SF and Vancouver and the East Coast and upper south would be ripe for community transmission.
Tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere have mostly imported cases. Northern China, Russia, northern Europe have cases, but no major community outbreak yet, as is the case with the upper midwest in the USA or most of Canada.
As winter moves into spring, it might mean that some more community transmission cases will appear in Northern China, Russia, Northern Europe and Canada, and it might also move south into southern Australia and Tasmania, New Zealand and in South America from Buenos Aires south.
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What doesn’t work is racism….
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I was told a lady purchased the host bat from a seafood market and used it a masturbation dildo.. That rumor way off….
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I have been obsessed with this for weeks! Since I ride public transit every day, it kinda sticks in my brain. No masks here in Philly, excepting 1 person yesterday, it’s been reported in the counties surrounding us, is it a cold or….
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”Footballers are playing to empty stadiums.” Interesting use of the footballer. Most Americans use the term ”soccer”.
Is there something we should know, Abagond?
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@ Cherry Boy
The alternative was “soccer players are playing to empty stadiums” which seemed repetitive in a not-great way (unlike, say, “Haters are gonna hate.”).
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I’ve noticed Universities closing campuses and going online to finish out their semesters… Wonder how long until all our local school districts just cancel the remainder of the school year.
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You wouldn’t believe how hygienically challenged people are when it comes to washing their hands!
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Nm… It’s here too.
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@Herneith
You’d think the people that touch themselves then not properly wash themselves would be spreading a sexually transmitted disease.
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@ jefe
In urbanized Africa we are aware of that almost from the beginning.
There has been talk about “how the last SARS and H1N1 epidemics hardly touched the continent” at their peak, and how those types of viruses do not survive high temperatures.
But at this stage there are no certainties anymore regarding the “novel coronavirus”.
Will the heat of our summer season work as a fortress maintaining the killer at bay? Nobody knows for sure and unfortunately only the actual coming of the disease will validate or refute that belief.
In my country the government maintained in the beginning the position – taken from WHO (World Health Organisation) – that we, as a country, were in the third or fourth row of level of risk of being hit by the epidemic. Those estimations were made based on the levels of contact of each country vis a vis the People’s Republic of China, regarded as the main center of the disease. (But as we all know, other important centers of the disease appeared later)
Until a few days ago…
… when our major neighbor, the Republic of South Africa, recorded the first case of the virus. A South African citizen who returned recently from a visit to Italy became ill and the South African state is putting much effort in tracing his contacts. Later it became clear that this is not the only case.
In Maputo, where one of the favorite passions of the middle class is to go to South Africa to shop, receive better medical help or simply visit friends, a palpable nervousness is building up day by day in the last couple of weeks. People are quietly buying masks, hand wash kits, etc and preparing themselves for the moment – deemed inevitable now – that the killer will arrive in our shores.
I believe that the climate will be a partial help, but definitely human behavior will be the major factor in how much or less severe this epidemic will hit us.
For the moment let’s brace ourselves for the rigors of the days ahead.
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Jefe sounds serious and honest for a change! Now I’m going to fact check what he wrote just to be sure. With some people, you never know.
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@Munubantu,
I am not saying that it cannot be caught in a hot and humid climate. We had many cases in Singapore early on, and transmission there caused some of the early transmission to Europe in late Jan / early Feb. Cases have popped up in Australia and Argentina in the past month.
What I am saying is that perhaps this virus survives outside a host for a long time in certain ideal conditions, and not as well in others. This could hypothetically turn out to be something like surviving 7 days on surfaces @5-6C in moderately moist, but not too wet, not too sunny conditions, but only 1 day @30C in bright sunny conditions, or in heavy rain, or less than a day when the temperature does not get above freezing for over 24 hours. But regardless of the weather, it could be transmitted directly from one host to another, by say, sharing eating utensils.
And once caught, it could be more severe in some climates and less severe in others.
No one under age 9 has died from this coronavirus yet. So it seems to behave quite differently from the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed many children. But for persons who are male, over age 80, who already have chronic respiratory illnesses and weakened immune systems, the mortality rate could approach 50%.
The SARS outbreak of 2003 did hit Hong Kong very hard, and was in full swing by March. But it was largely contained by June. Most of the local scientists do not believe that it was due to the weather, but the containment efforts.
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The governor of Washington State just issued an emergency proclamation that limits large events during COVID-19. According to the governor’s website:
https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-issues-emergency-proclamation-limits-large-events-minimize-public-health-risk
Those three counties in western WA cover much of the Seattle Metro area: Seattle, Tacoma and the northern, southern and eastern suburbs.
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Jefe,
“What I am saying is that perhaps this virus survives outside a host for a long time in certain ideal conditions, and not as well in others.”
In this paper Chinese scientists studied data from 429 cities which indicated the optimal temperature for Sars-Cov-2 transmission is 8.72 C / 47.7 F.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20025791v1
Sun and heat do apparently hinder the transmission, albeit I read a Chinese paper that indicated the virus could live as long as 2 days on a surface with a temperature of 37 C / 98.6 F (Human skin) but other surfaces may be less conducive to survival. It would appear the number of surviving virus particles surviving outside of human hosts drops appreciably above temperatures of 26 C / 79 F.
Regarding Singapore, you are correct there were quite a few cases initially but given their widespread use of air conditioning, I wonder if cooler indoor temperatures at conferences, the subway, office buildings, etc helped facilitate the spread of the virus?
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What were folks doing before this pandemic in regards to washing hands. It’s some nasty folks out here not washing their hands. I am angry and frustrated that the inept and incompetent occupants at the White House don’t know what they are doing. I fear many will die because of Trump and his apathy and stupidity, and narcissism.
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So the brain washed, sycophantic zombie Trump cult believes this is a hoax created by Democrats to hurt Trump. All of those morons need to be catapulted into the sun.
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I’m told to watch the local news for this type of thing, and was immediately appalled at the local gov’t talking apparatchnik claiming they’re going to close everything ‘they legally can’ including ‘private indoor meetings’ and ‘non-essential retail’, this is from montgomery county, ie non-urban white middle + class suburbs! Sheesh.
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“,Trump cult believes this is a hoax created by Democrats to hurt Trump.”
Maybe they’ll change their tune if/when the elections are postponed “in the interest of public safety”.
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Lots of folks freaking out and buying up all the hand sanitizer and wipes. All the Purell and Lysol disinfect gone from shelves.
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@ Mary Burrell
There was a run on toilet paper here. I have never seen those shelves entirely empty before, even under a blizzard warning (although I have seen the bread shelves completely empty in that case). Even at the warehouse-type stores there wasn’t any to be found. Paper towels were almost all gone, too. Guess it is because people are afraid they will be made to self-quarantine for 14 days and don’t want to get caught without a stockpile.
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Sophie Trudeau tested positive for Corona Virus 🦠
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@Solitaire: Yeah, the toilet paper and paper towels are gone too.
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The governor of WA state just ordered the closure of public and private schools in the three counties that encompass Seattle, Tacoma and suburban areas. Schools will close no later than March 17 and reopen April 24. The emergency alert notes:
This dovetails with an article I came across about New York public schools plans to remain open because over 100,000 students rely on the schools for two meals a day and other services. The article, “Coronavirus: New York Won’t Close Schools Because Homeless Kids Have Nowhere Else to Go” on the site Mint Press News explains:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/coronavirus-new-york-schools-homeless-kids-have-nowhere-to-go/265603/
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Asian Americans of various ethnicities are being targeted for abuse and assaults by ignorant bigots. CNN ran a story last month about Americans from the Chinese, Thai and Hmong communities being attacked, shunned and denied service by other Americans.
That article, “What’s spreading faster than coronavirus in the US? Racist assaults and ignorant attacks against Asians”, shows how just a smidgen of stress can rip the veneer of civility away.
One Thai American woman in LA was subjected to a long and loud rant by another subway passenger who blamed all Asian people for “all diseases”. She said,
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/coronavirus-racist-attacks-against-asian-americans/index.html
Anti-Chinese propaganda meets pandemic fears….
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@Mary Burrell: I fear many will die because of Trump and his apathy and stupidity, and narcissism.
Trump’s stupidity and spite is worse than people think. In his zeal to undo everything that Obama did, in 2018 Trump dismantled the comprehensive pandemic response infrastructure that his predecessor set up. For an eye-opener, Google how did trump sabotage obama’s pandemic response. Television and cable are too cowardly to bring this up directly for fear of being accused of politicizing a health crisis. Bloomberg mentioned it. During the general election the Dems ought to hammer this till every American can recite it like the Pledge of Allegiance.
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To be honest,the only virus is fear. That might go over some heads.
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Italy Medical Chief dies from the Wuhan Coronavirus.
Coronavirus: Varese medical chief dies
General practitioner, died in hospital in Como
http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2020/03/11/coronavirus-varese-medical-chief-dies_85409409-db7d-477b-82d9-6249dbefed10.html
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@ jefe
Why you say Wuhan Coronavirus instead of Coronavirus, novel Coronavirus or more aptly Covid-19?
These diseases can sometimes be traced to a specific place but the scientific denominations oft try to describe the core traits of the disease or disease agent instead of the place where humans had the the first encounters with it.
With due respect, jefe, your choice of words smells prejudice.
If this is a Wuhan Coronavirus, then what do we have more. African ebola? Or British mad cow disease? Or … bla, bla, bla…
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@munubantu
The Ebola virus is named for the Ebola river. It was named after a river 69 miles away from the town it was discovered rather than the town it was discovered in so that the town would not be associated with the disease and its stigma.
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I am in Los Angeles. Mad panic buying going on here today. Shelves empty. Not just TP but canned foods ect.
LAUSD closes schools this upcoming Monday. A food program is being set up in places allowing students who rely on school lunches to get fed.
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@ Richard_III
Great points!
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@ Michael Barker
Same here in Seattle. Almost all paper goods shelves are bare. Ditto for frozen foods, bread, beans and rice
A store clerk told me that people were lined up at the door at 6am.
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Trump got rid of the pandemic team Obama put in place, cut the funding for Center for Disease Control. And during his speech today when journalist Yamiche Alcindor posed questions to him about his actions Trump’s response was that she asked him a “nasty question.” The word “nasty” is Trump’s go to word for smart women he doesn’t like. Especially, smart Black women. In November of 2018, during a White House briefing, Yamiche Alcindor posed questions to the President and he said she asked a “racist question.” I don’t understand how an inept and incompetent individual is allowed to be POTUS?
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Narcissists have no capability to take responsibility for anything.
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Munabantu said: “If this is a Wuhan Coronavirus, then what do we have more. African ebola? Or British mad cow disease?”
It’s not unusual to name an infectious disease after a country, city, or geographical location where it was first identified:
German measles; Japanese encephalitis; West Nile fever; Rocky Mountain fever, Norwalk virus named after Norwalk, Ohio (Although now typically shortened to Norovirus); Spanish flu (Misnomer, Spain was not the site of the first but the first country to widely report it); Lyme disease – Old Lyme, Connecticut, Zika virus – from the Zika Forest, located near Entebbe in Uganda; Marburg virus – Marburg Germany – Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever – Omsk, Russia.
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@munubantu
Thank you for expressing your opinion on this topic. I welcome healthy discussion with you. Yet, I must state that I most respectfully, yet whole-heartedly and emphatically disagree with your assessment. In fact, I find your reaction to be much more a display of prejudice than mine.
First of all, I have been to Wuhan on a pleasure trip. I have friends from Wuhan; in fact, just two weeks ago I went on an outing with a friend who is a Wuhan native to counteract some of the cabin fever we have here in Hong Kong from being socially distanced during our experience with the epidemic for the past 7 weeks. I first went to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China in 1980 for a study tour, and have lived and worked across Greater China continuously for 25 years and am on the board for two local NGOs in Hong Kong. I personally know the family (some distant relatives) living in both the village house in China where my grandfather grew up, and the later one he built after he was married (where my Aunts grew up).
Please, pray tell, to where is this alleged prejudice directed?
As Lemmy advised you, it is normal and common practice for people all over the world throughout history to attach geographical labels to diseases that refer to either where they originated or to a region where they later became widespread. He brought up Zika fever, Ebola virus and the Spanish Flu, German measles, Japanese Encephalitis among others. I am a US citizen, but I don’t freak out over the term Rocky Mountain fever. I have German ancestry, yet don’t bat an eyelid over German measles. If you used any of these terms, I would never accuse you of being prejudiced against a people or country or city or anything.
I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the great flu pandemic of 1968-69 which killed millions around the globe. It was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, or A/H3N2 for short. But no one ever called it that. It was called ”Hong Kong Flu” and that colloquial name has stuck around in our general lexicon to this very day. If someone told me that their relative was killed by the Hong Kong Flu, I would never take it personally and do not find it to be a prejudiced remark in the least. I know that is the colloquial term.
Even as late at the 2003-2004 flu epidemic, we were still using terms such as “Fujian Flu”, which refers to a province of China. The scientific term (A/Fujian/411/2002(H3N2)) even has the geographic component in its title.
Yet this time we are being pushed to avoid using those colloquial terms, and instead use the term Covid-19 (which itself, is not a scientific term either – we should use SARS-CoV-2 instead). What changed? Because the WHO was under some very heavy-handed and intense pressure by the CCP to invent and promote a term that did not point back to China in some way. In other words, it was a tool of propaganda.
In Hong Kong, one of the places affected early on in January by the virus, people started referring to it colloquially well before the term Covid 19 was conceived. Still today, the common local term in Cantonese could be best translated as “Wuhan Pneumonia”. The US state department is still using the term “Wuhan Coronavirus” colloquially to refer to the virus, much to the ire of the CCP sycophants who decry how it breaks the “glass” hearts of the (alleged mass) of the Chinese people (but much to the delight of a large sector of Hong Kong).
In Hong Kong, there has grown a wide local activist movement to reject the use of Covid-19 in their daily colloquial lexicon. They recognize it as a tool of CCP propaganda. They will stop using the term Wuhan Pneumonia if and only if Mainland Chinese will stop using the term “Hong Kong Foot”. Hong Kong Foot is the most common colloquial term across Asia to refer to athlete’s foot.
It ain’t gonna happen. So Hong Kong people will not drop “Wuhan” from referring to the virus or the disease.
I have no problem with people using the term Covid-19. You are welcome to do that. In fact, I may use it from time-to-time myself, especially if I write a letter to the WHO. Or I may use the term “Wuhan Coronavirus aka Covid-19”. Or I may use some other common colloquial terms.
I do have a problem with people who maintain double standards whereby they themselves commonly use geographic references in their colloquial terms to refer to other diseases or any other phenomena, yet get persnickety over how this other particular one is treated. Those people are obvious victims of propaganda. Next thing we know, it will be forbidden to talk about Peking Duck or Pad Thai.
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Article about “Hong Kong Flu” referenced above:
How Hong Kong flu struck without warning 50 years ago, and claimed over a million lives worldwide
Known formally as H3N2, the flu strain was highly contagious, and left clinics in the city packed, with 500,000 people infected, before it steadily spread through Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, Europe and the US
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/2154925/how-hong-kong-flu-struck-without-warning-50-years-ago-and
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I was wondering when jefe would turn this into a diatribe against the CCP. Wonder no more, he’s back. Welcome back jefe.
What’s with the “glass heart” reference, are you saying you’re an iconoclast?
How about a kind word for the professionalism of the CCP in handling this crisis compared with Bozo the clown Trump? Nah, go back to breaking those “glass hearts”.
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@ Jefe
May I suggest that one’s perspective on the issue depends a great deal on one’s location. Many people in the U.S. don’t see the naming issue as PRC propaganda but instead as an effort not to further stigmatize Chinese and other Asians, including our own native-born Asian Americans who are among those being racially profiled despite lack of any contact with mainland China.
Perhaps you missed the link Afrofem provided upthread, which detailed several anti-Asian incidents in the U.S. that centered on fears of infection, including one violent physical assault.
These incidents of racial bias and profiling are not limited to the U.S. but have also been reported in Canada, Australia, and several European countries:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-coronavirus-china-prejudice-fear-20200210-rove24w6f5hyxecronrxt7oizy-story.html
I suspect if you were not currently in a majority-Chinese nation, your outlook would be different.
“First of all, I have been to Wuhan on a pleasure trip. I have friends from Wuhan; in fact, just two weeks ago I went on an outing with a friend who is a Wuhan native”
With all due respect, this sounds like the “some of my best friends” argument. You know perfectly well that someone can be friends with or even married to an individual of a certain group and still harbor unconscious prejudices. I’m not saying that you do have any bias regarding people from Wuhan; I don’t have enough data to assess that. But this argument is unworthy of you. You know its flaws and have called other people on the carpet for using it.
“As Lemmy advised you, it is normal and common practice for people all over the world throughout history to attach geographical labels to diseases that refer to either where they originated or to a region where they later became widespread.”
Let me remind both you and Lemmy that just because something has historical precedent, just because it is common practice and has been normalized, that doesn’t make it right.
“Yet this time we are being pushed to avoid using those colloquial terms, and instead use the term Covid-19…. What changed? Because the WHO was under some very heavy-handed and intense pressure by the CCP to invent and promote a term that did not point back to China in some way. In other words, it was a tool of propaganda.”
There’s a problem with your statement — WHO announced the change in naming policy back in 2015:
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/
“In Hong Kong, …. [t]hey will stop using the term Wuhan Pneumonia if and only if Mainland Chinese will stop using the term “Hong Kong Foot”. Hong Kong Foot is the most common colloquial term across Asia to refer to athlete’s foot.”
I can definitely see why people in Hong Kong are offended by this term and want its use to stop. I don’t know that a tit-for-tat response is at all productive. Generally it has the opposite result.
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@ Abagond
I have a comment in mod. I can’t see what I did wrong and would appreciate it if you could let me know so I can try to avoid it in the future.
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I haven’t seen COVID-19 referred too as “Wuhan Coronavirus” in English press. Maybe that’s the way Chinese people refer to it in China.
I think prejudice against Asians in the U.S. will continue to rise. The virus just gives bigots another reason to hate.
Mad panic buying continues in Los Angeles. Most store shelves are stripped of food and paper products.
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https://theconversation.com/naming-the-new-coronavirus-why-taking-wuhan-out-of-the-picture-matters-131738
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@Solitaire,
I am VERY MUCH aware of this phenomenon and even read the article Afrofem linked way back in February. In fact, I have been collecting some articles over the past few days about this and was going to post about this too. I’ll get back to it.
I strongly condemn the racial bias against Asians overseas over this epidemic. I myself was bullied and beat up many times growing up in the USA over stuff that originated in Asia. In fact, you could say it was one of the reasons why I decided to leave the US. I do have many ideas about that and I hope to share it.
In fact, I am rather offended that you suggest that I disregarded the multitudinous accounts about being physically assaulted for being of Asian descent. I KNOW what that is.
This is a completely different issue to do with the phenomenon of the WHO naming this virus. Do not confuse it. I know what the argument that WHO put forward, and, while it may be a factor, it is not the main reason.
For another perspective:
(It is long, but most of the arguments relating to this comment is in the first 10 minutes – after that, he goes on to criticize the WHO).
Coronavirus – ENOUGH with the Disinformation!
(https://youtu.be/AB_A2HKmZgI)
The narrator is a native of South Africa, lived, worked, ran a business in Mainland China for 14.5 years. I saw some of his videos up to 7-8 years ago, and many of his videos highlighted about stuff that impressed him about mainland China, what he loves about it, and were largely complimentary, but some were critical.
He married a Chinese woman doctor (who is familiar with the health care system there) from the mainland and later settled in California a little over a year ago. Since then, his videos are a bit more critical. The guy who joins him later is a native of New York State and lived in the Mainland for over 8 years and brought his Chinese wife back to the US around the same time.
He makes an argument why it is better for the world and for the history and study of the disease why it is better to retain a geographical label to the virus.
Later in the video, he also mentioned about how the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actively promoted a conspiracy theory that the US brought the virus to China and they are the ones to blame for virus. That propaganda has taken off in the Mainland and is designed to convey more misinformation into the
I can find links for that in case you cannot find it.
In short,
I understand your argument, but I disagree with it.
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@ Solitaire
There i nothing from you currently in the spam filter or the moderation queue.
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Iran also blames the US.
Of the three US cable news station, the most racist one, Fox News, is the one that still calls it the Wuhan virus or Chinese virus. Since xenophobia is a huge theme on that station, I doubt that is an accident.
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@ Solitaire
This is how I understood it too.
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Do people in the USA really believe that the pressure that the CCP placed on the WHO in the renaming of the colloquial terminology for the current novel coronavirus has anything whatsoever to do with their concern that they have about Asian-Americans or Asians elsewhere?
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@Solitaire
There are a zillion counterarguments to this.
I provided one in the link above, but I could find more if you need it.
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@Solitaire
In the video link I supplied above, if you skip to 40:00, you will see a discussion of the growing discrimination towards foreign nationals in China who did not evacuate during the lockdown, but stayed behind. Now, outside Hubei province, on some days imported cases outnumber locally transmitted cases (at least, that is how it is being reported).
This led to xenophobic discrimination, some of it violent, towards those who did not evacuate. They are now being blamed for bringing the virus back from Europe and the USA, even if the relevant individuals did not even go there. (In fact, I don’t doubt that many of those re-imported cases are probably ethnic Chinese).
There is a lot of anti-US propaganda circulating on the Mainland now against the US. As I mentioned,a foreign minister created a viral spread of a report that the US brought the virus to China. The government is doing nothing to stop this false conspiracy theory.
So, how does coining the term “Covid-19” reduce this kind of reverse discrimination?
I strongly condemn the xenophobia towards Asians in western countries (and I do know what this feels like), and also towards westerners in China. I do not think that this is fixed at all by coining a new name. What it does do, is distance the virus from the regime that made the very decisions to allow it to spread in the first place. This creates other types of problems.
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Oh no, people on this blog are finally waking up to jefe’s bullshit? Say it ain’t so. Is this jefe’s fool me once fool me twice… moment? how will our hero iconoclast recover? Stay tuned, where’s my popcorn, I’m enjoying this.
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@ Abagond
It was this comment here: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/#comment-434710
Could the culprit have been “tit-for-tat”?
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@ Solitaire
It was the “fuk” in Dr Keiji Fukuda.
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Jefe the liar is caught in his web of lies for even the most gullible on this blog to see. See our hero iconoclast dance his way out of this embarrassing situation:
1) Pathetic links to some former residents of the PRC? Really jefe? Can you spell “anecdote”?
2) A nameless “..foreign minister? I want a name and date jefe, if that’s not too much to ask.
I’ve read “PRC propaganda” from Global Times and it has been very consistent that COVID-19 is a natural virus, not a synthetic one.
JEFE IS A RECKLESS LIAR. Now that he is dimly perceived as such by some of his fans on this blog I feel some satisfaction in his discomfiture.
I’ve brought out the popcorn in hope of seeing our hero iconoclast humiliated some more. Good times.
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@ Jefe
I will say again, WHO was following the guidelines for nomenclature that they themselves established five years ago. That is the main reason.
“What it does do, is distance the virus from the regime that made the very decisions to allow it to spread in the first place.”
How would calling it the Wuhan pneumonia reflect on the other regimes (like Trump’s) who are also making decisions allowing the illness to spread?
Should AIDS be called Reagan’s Disease? Or the USA Syndrome?
Do you really think if Wuhan is not in the name, the experts who study epidemiology are going to forget where it started and why it spread?
I can only guess you want Wuhan in the name to cement the connection among the general public. What earthly good will having Wuhan in the name do 50 years from now?
“So, how does coining the term “Covid-19” reduce this kind of reverse discrimination?”
It wouldn’t, and I never said it would. But that doesn’t mean WHO should continue to follow old naming practices that they know have created problems in the past, including problems that interfered with treatment and containment efforts.
“He makes an argument why it is better for the world and for the history and study of the disease why it is better to retain a geographical label to the virus.”
The medical professionals who specialize in global epidemics disagree with him. Yes, his wife is a doctor — so what? She hasn’t made this particular field of medicine or the study of the history of epidemiology her life’s work.
“Later in the video, he also mentioned about how the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actively promoted a conspiracy theory that the US brought the virus to China and they are the ones to blame for virus. That propaganda has taken off in the Mainland”
Yes, I already know about that. It does not sway my opinion. Including “Wuhan” in the official name isn’t going to stop that type of conspiracy theory.
“Do people in the USA really believe that the pressure that the CCP placed on the WHO in the renaming of the colloquial terminology for the current novel coronavirus has anything whatsoever to do with their concern that they have about Asian-Americans or Asians elsewhere?”
I don’t think the CCP cares and I never said the CCP did. I said WHO cares about that. So does the CDC, for that matter.
Once again, WHO is following the practices they established in 2015. There is no reason to think they would have used Wuhan in the official name had there been no pressure from the CCP because it still would have violated their own rules to do so.
This is a coincidence, not cause-and-effect. WHO was never going to include a geographical reference in the name regardless of where it originated.
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@ Abagond
Thank you. I never would have guessed that one.
Of the three US cable news station, the most racist one, Fox News, is the one that still calls it the Wuhan virus or Chinese virus. Since xenophobia is a huge theme on that station, I doubt that is an accident.
Same here.
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It’s 90% socio-political and 10% biological.
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Solitaire, I hope you won’t take this personally, I love you!
You have utterly destroyed JEFE THE RECKLESS LIAR with your adherence to the facts. Please keep it up.
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@ Gro Jo
I was going to respond to your earlier comments but decided it would be best to ignore them.
Now I feel I have to.
I can disagree with Jefe about this without it meaning that I think he’s a liar. I can disagree with him about this while still agreeing with him on other things about China.
I don’t base my opinions on China solely on what Jefe says. I find his firsthand contemporary accounts of living in Hong Kong interesting, but I have never considered him “a heroic iconoclast” and I’m not now going to consider him “a reckless liar.”
I realize gloaters are gonna gloat, but please leave my name out of your gloating.
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@Solitaire
I see how those optics look, and I will rephrase below, but my point then seemed to fly over your head while you went off the rails on a tangent by saying that it had something to do with reducing xenophobia towards Asian-Americans or people of Asian descent in Western countries. Let me tell you what I mean.
Using the “Some of my best friends are black” argument to illustrate, it would be like saying that objection with the argument relates to the purpose of coining a new term — to reduce anti-Muslim sentiment, and say this to someone who himself is Muslim. Yeah, some Muslims are black and some blacks are Muslim, but it is wrong to use this as a reason. It just doesn’t make much sense.
To go back to my original point, if it were designed to reduce xenophobia towards Asians in western countries, then if I insert a geographical reference, who or what am I being prejudiced towards? Asian-Americans? Geez.
I can tell you with about 1000% certainty, that as someone with a Chinese sounding name, who has lived in Greater China for 25 years and currently lives in HK, who speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and other Chinese dialects about 25-30% of the time while I am in the US, if I were to visit my brother in West Virginia or my first cousin and Aunt in Alabama, no amount of changing any terminology from “Wuhan Coronavirus” to “Covid-19” is going to change one iota any discrimination I might receive at restaurants, hotels, shops or protect me from any potential violence. I might fare slightly better in the more “woke” areas where I spend more of my time, like DC, NY, Boston, SF and LA, but only slightly. Actually people in those areas suffer from something else (which I will expound upon later), ie, having people, even other Asians, shunning their businesses or their services. That also has not changed due to the change in terminology.
So, I maintain that changing the term from “Wuhan Coronavirus” to “Covid-19” to help mitigate somewhat the xenophobia towards Asian-Americans or Asians in Western countries is a bankrupt argument. That was not the primary purpose of that name change (despite what WHO stated represents their guidelines – their guidelines mentioned that it included a requirement to remove geographical references, which is something else) and it does not mitigate that overseas xenophobia either. It does, however, make it easier for the PRC government to implement reverse xenophobia (and I can expound upon that if you wish).
What does, however, reduce some of the xenophobia in the USA and other western countries is to see some high profile celebrities, athletes or government leaders and officials contracting the virus. Tom Hanks and his wife contracting the virus, the Utah Jazz NBA players, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau of Canada, UK Health minister Nadine Dorries, etc. contracting the virus and dealing with it helps mitigate the xenophobia towards Asians in western countries, and makes it more obvious that it is everyone’s problem. However, it also helps to fuel the xenophobia towards westerners in China.
As I said before, I do not object to people using Covid-19. If you prefer to use it, then that is fine. I reserve the right to use it myself as well. In fact, I would likely use it in formal correspondence. And no, I do not require> that “Wuhan be included in the name. What I do not agree with is
Changing the term does much to mitigate xenophobia towards Asians in western countries. (It doesn’t)
there is a “sniffing” of prejudice if the geographical term “Wuhan” is used colloquially to refer to the disease or the virus. (Months before “Covid-19” was invented, an array of terms were already being used in relevant regions and they are “stuck” already. People in Hong Kong, Taiwan, probably Singapore too (and indeed within Mainland China itself as well) will use other terms colloquially). They will not use Covid-19 in daily speech.
There is so much more to discuss about this virus and pandemic than the name, which I hope can be examined.
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The Information Officer spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the PRC (Zhao Lijian 赵立坚) has been tweeting several times daily about the conspiracy theory that the current novel coronavirus was created in the US and brought to Wuhan by the US Army. You can scroll through his tweet page and find a couple dozen references.
He is still doing this and he has been quoted in a host of other media. It has taken hold in the PRC and has spread virally (as it were) throughout the PRC. If you need more references about this spread of this conspiracy theory, I can look for more links.
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I’m really concerned about parents of young children (ages 6 to14) who are in a terrible bind because of school closures to reduce the spread of the virus.
I understand why governments decided to close schools, but having kids in school allows many parents (particularly single parents) to work their job (or jobs) to keep food on the table and a roof over the family’s head.
Government officials are still making decisions like this is the 1918 Influenza pandemic. There seems to be an assumption that an adult is at home and available 24/7. That isn’t necessarily true in 2020 America.
Many two-income households were already one paycheck away from serious hardship. COVID-19 just opened that unwelcome door.
The social, political and economic fallout from COVID-19 could be far more serious than the mortality rate.
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@ gro jo
Deleted three comments for gratuitous name-calling.
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@ Jefe
You keep saying “changed the term.” WHO did not change the term, because what you’re referring to was never official. Even before WHO established the official term, they worked to discourage the media’s use of terminology that contained geographical identifiers.
“Using the “Some of my best friends are black” argument to illustrate, it would be like saying that objection with the argument relates to the purpose of coining a new term — to reduce anti-Muslim sentiment, and say this to someone who himself is Muslim. Yeah, some Muslims are black and some blacks are Muslim, but it is wrong to use this as a reason. It just doesn’t make much sense.”
Actually, your stance on this issue is clearly based on Hong Kong versus PRC.
“if it were designed to reduce xenophobia towards Asians in western countries”
I never said it was only for Asians in western countries.
“That was not the primary purpose of that name change (despite what WHO stated represents their guidelines – their guidelines mentioned that it included a requirement to remove geographical references, which is something else)”
The requirement to refrain from using geographical references was established in part to avoid stigmatizing specific populations or communities. Again, from the WHO article I quoted above:
“We’ve seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities”
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/
The CDC agrees:
“On Tuesday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, agreed when questioned by Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., at a House hearing that it was ‘absolutely wrong and inappropriate’ to use the term ‘Chinese coronavirus.’”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/more-200-civil-rights-groups-demand-congress-publicly-reject-coronavirus-n1158116
From the same article:
“Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chair of the caucus, says she ‘commends’ the groups for speaking out. ‘Despite warnings from health experts and government officials’ to avoid labeling the virus by country or ethnicity, members of the GOP have continued to do so, Chu said. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., used the term ‘Wuhan virus’ as recently as Thursday.
“‘It’s been especially appalling to see this rhetoric coming from President Trump and House Republican leader McCarthy, who should be working to bring our country together during this public health crisis rather than stoking xenophobia and fear,’ she said. ‘If Republicans will not listen to the experts, perhaps they can understand the experiences of those impacted.’”
Of course the name terminology alone will not prevent discrimination. But it should tell you something that the people in the USA insisting on using “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus” are conservative racists and xenophobes.
“What does, however, reduce some of the xenophobia in the USA and other western countries is to see some high profile celebrities, athletes or government leaders and officials contracting the virus. Tom Hanks and his wife contracting the virus, the Utah Jazz NBA players, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau of Canada, UK Health minister Nadine Dorries, etc. contracting the virus and dealing with it helps mitigate the xenophobia towards Asians in western countries, and makes it more obvious that it is everyone’s problem.”
Or it could increase xenophobia as Asians are blamed for beloved celebrities catching the disease.
“People in Hong Kong, Taiwan, probably Singapore too (and indeed within Mainland China itself as well) will use other terms colloquially). They will not use Covid-19 in daily speech.”
That has no bearing on efforts elsewhere in the world to encourage use of the official term.
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jefe,
Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 12, 2020 was hired for his sharp tongue. He is giving the US a taste of it’s medicine. Note that he is addressing a crowd on Twitter not Sina Weibo. The article he points to is from Global Research not Global Times, written by Larry Romanoff. Your eyes deceived you, assuming that you weren’t lying on purpose.
Solitaire, I don’t care what you feel about jefe or you opinions on this or any other matter. When you or anybody here write the truth, you will be praised by me like it or not.
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Hi solitaire,
You know I basically agree with most of what you say. It is really about the two points I summarized above, and they were addressing what munubatu said more than you.
When we have this discussion, we are creating more tiny pieces of imaginary disagreement which are not worth arguing about, eg,
Neither did I.
You did bring up the issue of Asians in western countries and addressed that reference. That does not mean that it only refers to that – for you or for me.
And I have stated multiple times that I did not object to the use of the term “Covid-19” and I may use it myself in specific situations. My main point about that is that that specific term is not normally translated into Chinese language as anything resembling “Covid-19” although it maybe included in parentheses (Covid-19), it is not normally what is used colloquially (and not just in Hong Kong – I really don’t think people use that term in the Mainland or in Taiwan or in other places where it got an early foothold). And English is widespread in Singapore and Hong Kong too. Failure to use “Covid-19” is not viewed as having any kind of prejudice.
I am fully aware of the WHO’s standpoint on it and I watched the speech about that.
I need to do more research on the situation in other countries. I really would like to find out what they use in S. Korea. Maybe I will ask some people.
There are many other issues about this pandemic other than the name itself that are a gazillion times more serious. I was disappointed that the WHO expended so much time on that name when the epidemic was already spinning out of control.
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US summons Chinese ambassador over ‘dangerous and ridiculous’ coronavirus conspiracy theory
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2020/03/16/us-summons-chinese-ambassador-dangerous-ridiculous-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/
Soon after I posted the reference to Zhao Li-jian’s tweets, this news was reported today by AFP. Zhao has not only been spreading this information on twitter, but on a variety of Chinese language and English platforms. It has gained a lot of traction both within and outside the PRC.
This has been a topic of discussion in Hong Kong for the past couple days about how this Foreign ministry official has been spreading this information.
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This virus is connected to 5G technology. Most people don’t realize this is on a huge scale. Check out this article:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/jon-rappoport/5g-and-the-china-epidemic/
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Personally? I don’t think the relentless repetition of ‘wet market’ and the eating of bats etc etc when they first started talking about covid-19 in american msm will ever go away… Which could be how the chinese govt blah blah blah
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@Kushite Prince.
I wouldn’t trust anything Lew Rockwell writes. It is a xenophobic and racist right wing blog.
It think the Cornavirus is a black swan event.
The number of cases increased by 17,000 world wide over a 24 hour period. The numbers will expand expontionally over the next couple of weeks as more test kits become available.
I agree with Afrofems assessment up thread that the economic and socio fallout will be catastrophic.
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Thank for informations
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“[NYC] School Chancellor Richard A. Carranza said that [public schools] would remain open despite the risk and that closures would be considered only as a “last resort.”
That “last resort” came pretty quickly. All public schools in New York City are closed.
Many schools in Washington state and California are already closed. Families who use the free and reduced price meal programs still have the option of getting school meals as take-out.
According to NBC News on 3-10-20:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coronavirus-closing-more-schools-what-happens-students-who-depend-school-n1154181
A more recent report (3-13-20) from NBC indicated that other states are also using USDA waivers to continue serving breakfast and lunch to low-income children.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/why-new-york-s-public-schools-remain-open-coronavirus-outbreak-n1158086
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Also closed are bars, restaurants and coffee houses in many cities and states.
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There are 335 confirmed cases in California with some cities in the Bay area being told to shelter in place.
There are 29 cases within L.A. city. The rest of these are cities that surround L.A. area north of Orange county.
Alhambra 2
Arcadia 1
Beverly Hills 1
Boyle Heights 5
Carson 1
Culver City 2
Diamond Bar 2
Encino 3
Gardena 1
Glendale 2
Glendora 1
Granada Hills 3
Inglewood 2
Koreatown 1
La Mirada 2
Lancaster 1
Long Beach 5
Manhattan Beach 3
Melrose 2
Northridge 1
Pasadena 2
San Dimas 1
San Pedro 1
Santa Clarita and Stevenson Ranch 3
Santa Monica 1
Sherman Oaks 2
Silver Lake 1
South Pasadena 1
Tarzana 5
Torrance 2
Venice 1
West Adams 1
West Hills 3
There are an additional 6o cases south of Los Angeles in Orange and San Diego counties.
The virus seems to be evenly spread throughout the Southern California area. These are the beginning of community spread.
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Trump allowing planes from infected countries to land here was either the single dumbest thing he’s ever allowed, or the single most slithery thing he could pull to try and curtail population numbers. Community Spread was inevitable.
And I’m a little wary of Dr. Fauci when he said “we must embrace the private sector” during Trump’s National Emergency conference.
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Trump called the Corona Virus the “Chinese Virus.” A more apt name for this pandemic should be Trump Virus.
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Heart throb Actor, Idris Alba tested positive for Corona Virus. I see lots of rich celebrities and basketball players get the test while the poors get nothing.
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@ Mary Burrell
“I see lots of rich celebrities and basketball players get the test while the poors get nothing.”
Both true and unsurprising.
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Finally African governments are assuming their limitations in dealing with a possible outbreak of this novel coronavirus in their territories and deciding that the only possible way they can manage somehow this challenge is to tightening the control in the entry points. But even that is easier said than done…
See, edition.cnn.com/2020/03/18/africa/nigeria-coronavirus-travel-restrictions-intl/index.html
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Many people are losing their jobs and having hours cut due to this pandemic. This pandemic is devastating the country. These are some scary times we are living in.
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[…] Check out Abagond’s post: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/ […]
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https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1694829B1/en
This is a patent for the Corona virus that was filed in France in 2003.
The idea behind the patent was that test kits and vaccines could be produced for Corona virus type infections. This paticular strain in the patent is related to measles. That could be why younger people who have been immunized against measles don’t get it.
Some speculation floating around out their is that the Chinese were studying the Corona virus and that the lab animals (rabbits) used for testing were eventual sold at live markets.
Supposedly their is a bio tech lab in Wuhan.
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This must be the bio tech lab in Wuhan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology
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To Michael Barker:
“There are 335 confirmed cases in California with some cities in the Bay area being told to shelter in place.”
All 7 counties of the SF Bay Area now ~ 7 million people. I know of 3 people who have lost their jobs and others who’ve had their hours cut.
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“Some speculation floating around out their is that the Chinese were studying the Corona virus and that the lab animals (rabbits) used for testing were eventual sold at live markets.
Supposedly their is a bio tech lab in Wuhan.”
Please tell me you’re joking? This is the stupidest thing I’ve read on this blog since I started reading it. Hell, you’re making jefe, the reckless lying bs artist, sound sane.
Why would anybody do something so stupid?
How did ‘they’ manage to get the rabbits out of the lab? What are the security protocols for the lab? If you’re going to write bullshit, at least make it amusing like this: ” on Wed Mar 11th 2020 at 06:33:50
untoldstory
I was told a lady purchased the host bat from a seafood market and used it a masturbation dildo.. That rumor way off….”
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“Some speculation floating around out their is that the Chinese were studying the Corona virus and that the lab animals (rabbits) used for testing were eventual sold at live markets.”
GroJo Please tell me you’re joking?
Some Chinese researches have sold test animals at meat markets in the past and have been jailed for it. Google it
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive titled: “Instructions on strengthening bio-security management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”
Seems China just beefed up the security protocols.
Hmmm…
Chinese researchers Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, wrote: “We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus.
“Within 280 meters of the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention, which hosted animals in laboratories for research purposes, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification.
“They were only 280 metres from the seafood market and the WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital where the first group of doctors were infected during this epidemic”.
Another well-known journalist, Chau Sze Tat (仇 思達) in a video from the 16 February 2020 outlined the Covid-19 outbreak.
He cites an article written by two professors, one from Guangzhou’s South China University of Technology and one from Wuhan University of Science and Technology. They claim the source of the outbreak is to be found in the CDC, a Wuhan research center, where experiments with bats would have infected the researchers and some infected bats would have fled the center.
“Chau Sze Tat doubts that another center will be introduced in the search for the initial outbreak to ward off suspicions on the more famous and delicate P4. He cites other reports, officially released and then denied, that link the virus outbreak to people linked to a research center in Wuhan.”
“The hypothesis that the virus escaped from the laboratory was first expressed by the well-known journalist Siu Yeuk (Yuk) Yuen (蕭 若 元), in a video dated January 30, 2020. The video was also on Youtube, but has been deleted; is still present on Facebook (see here). I don’t know if it will disappear soon.”
“According to Siu, in October a Wuhan laboratory (from the acronym P4), after collecting various samples from local hospitals, found a new type of coronavirus in the body of an elderly person. Once the authorities were notified, they would have asked for a more detailed scientific report which was delivered on 26 November. On November 30 the news begins to circulate that there is a dangerous new virus.”
https://asiatimes.com/2020/02/covid-19-may-be-man-made-claims-taiwan-scholar/
Now a professor in etiology at the National Taiwan University has claimed the highly infectious virus could be “synthetic” in nature, or man-made.
“Researchers likely synthesized the Covid-19, although more studies are needed to be certain,” NTU professor Fang Chi-tai told a forum on disease control and prevention in Taipei held by the Taiwan Public Health Association earlier this month.”
“During his presentation, Fang outlined several hypotheses raised by Taiwanese and overseas researchers, including the probability that the virus was “man-made” and was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology due to gross mismanagement.”
“Fang said the Wuhan facility’s biosafety level-4 laboratory was used to store, handle and research samples of SARS, Ebola and other deadly infectious viruses.”
“Given China’s poor track record of lab safety management, including a leakage of the SARS virus at a state lab in 2004, it is possible that a virus escaped from the Wuhan facility and resulted in the epidemic,” Fang was quoted by Taiwan’s Central News Agency and the Taipei Times as saying. ”
“He added that analyses of the Covid-19 virus have shown that it had a 96% genetic similarity with an RaTG13 bat virus also stored at the institute, and that the Covid-19 could be “manufactured” by modifying the RaTG13 virus.”
“Fang also revealed that French researchers had discovered four more amino acids in the gene sequence of Covid-19 than other known coronaviruses, which could be added artificially to make the viral transmission easier.” italics mine
Speaking of the French that points back to the Patent link I first posted up thread. The patent was developed the Pasteur Institute.
https://www.pasteur.fr/en/press-area/press-documents/institut-pasteur-sequences-whole-genome-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov
They were the first to solve the gnome sequencing for this coranavirus strain. They have an affiliate in Shanghai with direct links to the Wahun Institute of Virology.
http://english.shanghaipasteur.cas.cn/Partnerships2016/
I don’t think this is some complicated conspiracy, nor secret bio weapons lab or that the virus came from eating bats,snakes or ant eatters as has been speculated.
I think it was human error. Whether the virus was man made or collected for research and then accidentally released is incidental. The official story is that this virus was a natural mutation from wild life.
There seems to be a lot of coincidence in regards to the origins of the virus and not all journalists and researchers are supporting the official version.
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Boeing machinists in Metro Seattle are pretty angry that the company is not doing what it can to make the workplace safe or offering workers time off with pay. In a Seattle Times article today, workers described the situation:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/worry-over-coronavirus-grows-among-boeing-factory-workforce/
Boeing has been in hot water of its own making for nearly a year. COVID-19 turns the temperature up a dozen notches.
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Since conspiracy theories are in vogue, let me add this video too where US responsibility is posited for the crisis. It’s all suppositions so take from it what you will. Has NYT rehired Judith Miller?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-1FjTNbQqU&feature=youtu.be)
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Michael Barker, your clarifications are as clear as mud. “Some Chinese researches(sic) have sold test animals at meat markets in the past and have been jailed for it. Google it”.
Why? You’re the ‘expert’, make the links you found available to the rest of us, otherwise, your “Google it” sounds like another way of saying “go to hell”.
““Given China’s poor track record of lab safety management, including a leakage of the SARS virus at a state lab in 2004, it is possible that a virus escaped from the Wuhan facility and resulted in the epidemic,” Fang was quoted by Taiwan’s Central News Agency and the Taipei Times as saying. ””
This is hilarious, China has no monopoly on poor lab safety management, and Taiwan is hardly a source for objective reporting on the PRC.
Taiwan was willing to let a murderer walk free than cooperate with anything they felt would give the CCP an advantage over them. That’s the nature of politics.
All of the stuff you wrote was pure speculation. You inspired me to contribute to that trend with the link I posted above.
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Here is a story that talks about Chinese researches selling lab animals. The stories are coming from pro Trump papers here in the U.S. so it could be propaganda but usually where there is make there is fire. What is true is that Chinese labs have had breaches before so it is plausible.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-suggests-that-details-point-to-coronavirus-coming-from-chinese-lab
The world scientific community generally supports the idea that this originated organically in the wild. Now some of that might be political posturing so that their access isn’t denied in China. A good example of the that is the WHO and how they tip toed around China originally denying and cover up the outbreak in its infancy.
Asian Journalists who are not pro China are going to write things critical and will skeptical. But that doesn’t mean we should disregard their opinions.
The French angel I wrote about came from a discussion I had with a French niece who lives in Strasbourg. The alternative media their is pushing hard the Pastuer Institute and its links to Wahue Viral institute. The links she sent me are all in French. Not sure I can post non English links on this blog.
Btw Strausburg is coping hard with the virus. Hospitals are full and triage currently is focused on people between 50 and 75 for hospital beds. If you are older then 75 you have to stay at home. They don’t know real infection rate as they don’t have enough test kits. Not enough hand gloves, face masks or ventilators.
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Edit. Where there is smoke there is fire
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@ munubantu
Just saw a Bloomberg article with an interactive map of the world that shows confirmed cases and deaths as of 3-19-20. All of the countries surrounding Mozambique are reporting COVID-19 cases. Mozambique is grayed out and non-responsive.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-wuhan-novel-coronavirus-outbreak/
What facts on the ground are you aware of in Mozambique at this point in time? How are you holding up?
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@GroJo
Here is a YouTube link that identifies the Chinese researcher who was jailed for the selling of lab animals.
(https://youtu.be/wX3m5BmRkFk)
Btw your YouTube link that you posted is set to private so it can’t be viewed.
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@ Afrofem
The official position of the Mozambican Government has been that we haven’t yet a single case of a coronavirus carrier. But they have tighten measures to restrict public activities and made a campaign to raise the awareness in the general population against this disease. Travel to and out of the country is also restricted. Everybody is supposed to act as if we have already the disease in our midst.
In the past 10 days the President made two main public announcements. The last one was yesterday (Friday, 20/3/2020). In the earlier one it was said, among others things, that gatherings with more than 300 people were not allowed. In the last one that number fell to 50. Also in the last one it was announced that the school system will be closed beginning next Monday. Protocols were enhanced regarding the functioning of some public spaces. For example, now is mandatory to have hand sanitizers at the entry of large public buildings
My take on all this is that we have already probably some carriers of the disease although not many yet, otherwise we could have seen already signs of that (outside the official narrative). And I suspect that the Government wants to hide that in order to prevent panic in the general population.
My suspicions regarding the true number of cases is based on the fact that the number of clinical tests done until now vis-a-vis this disease, is very low (a couple of dozens related to people entering the country mainly through airports) and, therefore, given the nature of disease, probably “healthy” carriers likely remain out there.
The worldwide coronavirus outbreak is revealing some fundamental weaknesses of the kind of development Mozambique is following to date.
For example, the general apathy regarding a true development of our agriculture, particularly in the southern region of the country, now creates a situation where many imported items – even basic food items! – are in danger of become scarce, because our exchanges with South Africa are being tightened.
Also the limited financial resources available will impact in how many tests can realistically be done to improve the accuracy of the situation’s assessment by the country’s authorities. Also the means our hospitals need to cope with a probable increase in sick people will be a challenge. Not to say the limited number of health personnel we have.
We are really entering true “times of sorrow” (as summarized by a “Pandora native” in the fictional movie “Avatar”).
“Times of sorrow, deep sorrow…”
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@ munubantu
I agree that we are entering “times of sorrow”. We are also entering times of extreme clarity. Flaws in a lot of global macro systems (such as finance, trade, public health and politics) will be revealed to everyone. I hope those revelations will spur much needed reform, and in some cases, transformation of those systems. Those systems should serve the mass of humanity instead of just a few.
One thing I suspect is a deliberate undercount of reported cases and rate of mortality. Who knows if we will ever know the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Munubantu, I hope you and your extended family stay safe and healthy.
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Michael Barker, thanks for the laugh. As amusing as your ‘evidence’ is I remain skeptical as to its veracity. The Youtube clip you linked to was provided courtesy of Zooming In program, a news outlet of New Tang Dynasty a/k/a Falun Gong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television), an outfit banned by the CCP as “An evil cult”.
Not being Chinese, I can’t say how ‘evil’ they are but I know bs when I see it. I’m skeptical of the story they reported in that clip since I don’t know Chinese and like our ‘friend’ jefe, they are reckless liars. People have been executed for stealing a lot less than “millions of dollars” from the State, so I find a 12 years jail sentence incredibly lenient for a crime that put the health of the Chinese nation at risk.
” on Fri Mar 20th 2020 at 20:17:10
Michael Barker
Edit. Where there is smoke there is fire”
“Here is a story that talks about Chinese researches selling lab animals. The stories are coming from pro Trump papers here in the U.S. so it could be propaganda but usually where there is make there is fire. What is true is that Chinese labs have had breaches before so it is plausible.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-suggests-that-details-point-to-coronavirus-coming-from-chinese-lab
The world scientific community generally supports the idea that this originated organically in the wild. Now some of that might be political posturing so that their access isn’t denied in China. A good example of the that is the WHO and how they tip toed around China originally denying and cover up the outbreak in its infancy.”
The authorities in Wuhan failed to adequately respond to the outbreak. I read that they have been replaced by more competent people. Claiming ” China originally denying and cover up the outbreak in its infancy.” is hyperbole. The central government did everything in its power to stem the outbreak and the latest news out of China is that they succeeded.
The article you provided to buttress your opinion, refutes it. I’m not surprised that the pro-China propaganda I linked to disappeared. Youtube is not an equal opportunity liar. Pro-US lies good Pro-PRC lies bad, and so it goes.
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@ Afrofem
Many thanks. I hope the same for you and yours.
I’ve been lurking and sometimes contributing in this space that Abagond created for years. It has been a very interesting experience. The different characters contributing here have been, in different ways, a source of reflections and knowledge for me. As somebody said, Abagond invited all us for dinner and after a while it is like we know each other a little bit and care somehow about others. I remember my thoughts when, a few years ago, the news came that a female contributor of this forum died. One thought was “we are not going to read from her anymore, not benefiting from her as a source of wisdom… anymore, what a loss”. So, it has been a sobering experience, at times.
In these difficult times I read with awe and pain your messages about the evolving situation in some cities and states of your country. It is like that happened next door of my home. And in my thoughts it comes with a warning, that probably, in a not so distant future this will certainly hit closer to me. And better if I’m ready!
Many thanks again. Stay safe!
For other lurkers and contributors: I hope them luck in these difficult times, times when, more than in other circumstances, we feel the deep of our shared humanity.
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Munubantu wrote:
“As somebody said, Abagond invited all us for dinner and after a while it is like we know each other a little bit and care somehow about others.”
Indeed.
At the risk of sounding too paranoid, I would like to suggest that the regular commentators not let too long go between comments, even at times when they might not normally have anything to say.
Also, if any former regulars are out there lurking, please consider posting just to check in.
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To Solitaire point about those of us checking I will say that for the moment my family is well.
The situation in California is “shelter in place” and non essential business are to shut down for two weeks. I suspect that will be extended considerably longer.
As a contractor my business is considered “essential” at the moment so I can work. My wife is an RN so she will have some job security for a long time.
Our safety meeting now have shifted from “safe work practices” to “not getting the virus”. Everyone wears face masks and gloves.
Two of my workers have chosen to stay at home and I respect that.
To all of my friends here be safe and I hope you all get through this.
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@ Solitaire
Agreed and well said.
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People need to keep their a$$es in the house. Do the right thing and don’t infect others especially the most vulnerable with underlying health issues and immuno suppressed systems. People need to be considerate doing grocery shopping and not hoard items. This crisis is bringing out the worst in human society.
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On Friday (3-20-20), I went to a regional grocery store whose hours are normally 6am to midnight. I arrived at 6:35am. When I got to the door, there was a sign announcing a change of hours to 7am to 10pm.
I went back to my car to stay warm. Still, I had to get out and stand with the gathering crowd from 6:50 to 7am. When they opened the doors, we all rushed to the four pallets stacked high with toilet paper and paper towels. A worker stood by to remind us that there were purchase limits on:
toilet paper 1pkg of 24 rolls
paper towels 1pkg of 6 rolls
bread 2 loaves
eggs 2 dozen
milk 2 gallons
Other than the paper product pallets at the entrance, the paper goods aisle and cleaning supplies aisle were pretty bare. By 7:30am, the parking lot was two-thirds full and the store aisles bustling. I even snagged a scarce thermometer. Yay!
I went to another store after leaving and they also changed their opening hours from 6am to 8am. However, there were no bare shelves or product limits there.
The first store was taken over by Kroger six years ago with a result of lowered quality and service. The second store is a high-end local natural foods cooperative.
P.S. Now everyone is waiting to find out if the Governor Inslee will issue a more drastic “shelter in place” aka “lockdown” order for the state like California, New York State, New Jersey, Illinois and Florida have done.
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@ Mary Burrell
“This crisis is bringing out the worst in human society”
The worst and the best. Some people in my local area are:
★ forming food drives for school children and the homeless
★ doing yard care for older neighbors
★ volunteering to sew face masks
★ local distilleries are switching production from whiskey to hand sanitizer
★ making a point of ordering takeout from local restaurants to help keep them open during this difficult period.
★ helping out with other people’s kids while they are home from school.
Crisis can bring opportunity. Crisis also show people what they are capable of and reveals the true nature of others. Sometimes that is inspiring, sometimes frightening. Always human.
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In L.A. stores hours have been cut back but what is done a little differently is that senior citizens are allowed in for the first opening hour and then everybody else later.
Food and paper shortages along with the same rationing that Afrofem mentions.
Hospitals here are preparing for an influx of newly infected. My RN wife says the ICU floor she works is under a lot of tension. Hospitals can’t release numbers of how many patients are infected. Family members are no longer allowed in her hospital. Not sure if that is across the state.
Part of the tension is the protocols in handling coronavirus patients changes every few days.
Currently nurses are allowed to enter a hospital room in hazmat three times an hour. It takes 20 minutes to suit up and another 15 minutes to decontaminate. Nurses have to share hazmat suits because they don’t have enough. So you have to trust that the previous nurse decontaminated the suit correctly. That uncertainty cause stress.
If a nurse breaks protocol and are reported they can loose their license. Yesterday a doctor requested a nurse to break protocol and reenter the room. The nurse refused. That created other nurses to by pass the chain of command to get clarification. Management showed up and said that nurses can break protocol to keep patients alive.
Hospitals are trying to prepare but there is some confusion on how to proceed. This uncertainty creates great tension on the floor.
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“Family members are no longer allowed in her hospital…nurses can break protocol to keep patients alive….”
That is scary stuff!
On a related note:
US hospitals have been so careless with epidemic contingency plans, training and materials for a long time. It is unsurprising we have this level of confusion and equipment scarcity.
In 2017, investigative site, ProPublica, ran an exhaustive article on hospital waste. Elizabeth McClellan, head of a group called Partners for World Health, showed the level of waste in her warehouse:
https://www.propublica.org/article/what-hospitals-waste
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Despite the wording of the link address, the article clarifies that these are divisions which already existed, just becoming more glaring in this crisis:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-21/covid-19-divides-u-s-society-by-race-class-and-age
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The Associated Press is running a continuing series of stories called “One Good Thing” about acts of kindness during the pandemic. I recommend reading them periodically to balance out the bad news.
Here is one:
https://apnews.com/bda9c1ed0f8e10742ad2feabb2d52aa2
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@ Michael Barker
“In L.A. stores hours have been cut back but what is done a little differently is that senior citizens are allowed in for the first opening hour and then everybody else later.”
I’ve seen that being done elsewhere as well. Not only does it give senior citizens the first chance at rationed goods, but it also means the stores are at their cleanest during senior shopping.
In my hometown, the grocery store (there’s only one) is having senior citizen shopping from noon to two, which isn’t as good. My parents told me that according to store staff, everything they needed had been stripped from the shelves 15 minutes after opening. So the next morning my octogenarian father went to the store before it opened and stood in line waiting to get in, which he shouldn’t be doing.
I’ve been lecturing them via text messages the last two days about how they need to accept the offers of family and neighbors to do their shopping for them. It’s hard to be so far away.
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This is a blog post about the possible exponential increase in infections if social distancing is not adhered too.
The math doesn’t lie.
View at Medium.com
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I stumbled across this website and found the table of confirmed cases by countries (scroll down a bit) to be more informative than the world maps I’ve seen so far:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
It’s being updated daily.
Breakdown of U.S. by states here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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This is hell, now it’s stay at home, well i have a ‘letter of marque’ to travel due to my profession.
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@ Solitaire
Thanks for these resources.
Seeing the huge number of cases in New York State shows why Gov. Cuomo was so livid at reports of people crowding into city parks.
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WA State Gov. Inslee issued a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order yesterday (3-23-20). All Washington residents are urged to stay home except for outdoor exercise (not in groups!).
Exempt from this order are “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers”. That long list can be found at:
(https://coronavirus.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/EssentialCriticalInfrastructureWorkers.pdf)
Included on the list of essential workers are, “Workers supporting cannabis retail and dietary supplement retail”. Cannabis (Marijuana) shops are entirely take-out stores, not like bars where people tend to linger for hours. The shops in my neighborhood are some of the few businesses open to the public now.
Life is strange….
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For a chilling, yet fictional, take on COVID-19 read Jack London’s 1910 story: http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/The_Unparalleled_Invasion.
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New York has over half the known covid-19 cases in the US, but it looks like Florida might be in much deeper trouble:
https://healthweather.us/
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Why scientists don’t think the virus was made in a lab:
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html
https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200317-andersen-covid-19-coronavirus.html
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De Santis will put Florida on the map for Covid19.
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omg this 5g thread
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I don’t think this strain of coronavirus is man made but I do think that the Wuhan lab was studying the coronavirus and that somehow there was a breach.
This article dated 2017 discusses the Wuhan lab but is updated to state that there is no evidence of a breach.
These kinds of labs are not common on the planet so the coincidence here seems strong to me.
What are the odds that a world wide pandemic from the “wild’ occurs within close vicinity of a lab built to study such a virus ?
https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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@ Michael Barker
If somebody helped, even if unconsciously, this dangerous creature to colonize human populations, then I would forgive them only if they bring now an antidote… and fast, for God’s sake! We are dying, all over the World!
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/-most-since-9-11-nyc-responders-deluged-with-emergency-calls
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@ MJB
“What are the odds that a world wide pandemic from the ‘wild’ occurs within close vicinity of a lab built to study such a virus ?”
I’m 50/50 about it. Seems like there also are optimal conditions in the Wuhan region for a natural evolution and species jump.
I’m not going to rule out a lab mishap, though.
I even think it’s possible we may eventually find out this virus didn’t originate in Wuhan after all, just like HIV now appears to have been circulating among humans in a small way decades before it became an epidemic.
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Grocery shopping during COVID-19 is an adventure in regimentation and scarcity.
The paper goods aisles are still bare or woefully understocked in most local stores. Ditto for eggs, frozen vegetables, canned beans, pasta and cleaning supplies.
Many stores have placed “stand here” decals on the floors leading to the cashiers that space out the shoppers in the checkout lines. The cashiers in big corporate grocery stores are visibly overworked and a bit cranky.
Cashiers and staff in the local natural food co-ops are more relaxed. Management in those stores raised their pay by two bucks an hour for the duration of the crisis.
Bulk food bins are empty. Bringing your own bags and containers to stores is prohibited.
The only sweet spot is traffic. With so many people at home, getting around town is a breeze compared to normal Seattle traffic. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.
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@MJB
“What are the odds that a world wide pandemic from the ‘wild’ occurs within close vicinity of a lab built to study such a virus ?”
It’s very coincidental. IMO, the virus could be from the lab. Scientists at such labs actually make viruses more dangerous supposedly to test how they could naturally become more virulent. There was a period of time, under Obama, when such research was banned in the US while the ethical considerations were being looked at.
We also know that viruses have broken containment at Chinese virology labs before. The new virus is about 80% similar to the SARS virus [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] responsible for an outbreak back in 2002-2003. Afterwards, in 2004, there was another outbreak in China due to the virus escaping from a virology lab in Beijing.
https://www.cdc.gov/sars/media/2004-04-30.html
I have also seen reports that unscrupulous individuals have, in the past, sold the infected animals that are used at the Chinese virology labs at wet markets (for food) instead of disposing of them as required by protocol. If that happened in the case of COVID-19, the wet market in Wuhan could still be part of the story even if the ultimate source of the pathogen is the Wuhan BLS4 Virology Lab.
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This is a source of the 80% figure for similarity between SARS-CoV and the recent SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.
(https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.07.982264v1.full.pdf)
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I didn’t realize the PDF would be embedded.
I guess that’s a new feature, ugh.
Anyway, I had read about someone being arrested in China for selling lab animals for food [unconnected to this outbreak] from an Asian source that I thought to be credible. I was about to post that too but I can’t find the link now.
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@ Origin
I put the PDF link in parentheses so it would not embed.
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@abagond
Thanks.
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The Governors of Alabama and Mississippi are not too bright. These red state MAGAts are going to be sitting ducks for this virus.
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30% of the people of Navajo Nation do not have running water in their homes, which hampers preventive measures against covid-19, already spreading across the Rez.
This is likely to become a problem on other reservations as well:
“Native Americans are 19 times more likely than a white household to not have clean, running water.”
https://www.abqjournal.com/1437880/virus-threatens-navajo-areas-with-limited-water-access.html
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@ Mary
Florida is going to be a nightmare. Governor DeSantis is blaming New Yorkers instead of closing the damn beaches.
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The Weather Underground site has an interactive map of the USA that shows both confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths from the virus at the county level.
When you look at the US as a whole there is information at the state level. To move from state to county level numbers just click on the state.
https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap?covid=1&lat=47.61&lon=-122.34&cm_ven=covid-map
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Kentucky is bordered by four states hit hard by COVID-19: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee to the south. A Kentucky resident posted a graph on Twitter that compares the difference between Kentucky’s response in the early days of the pandemic to Tennessee’s response:
When you click on the graph, there are descriptions of specific actions each governor took along with the dates the actions were taken. Acting early and decisively really made a big difference in lowering the numbers of COVID-19 cases and the mortality rate in Kentucky.
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The graph was created and posted by Stephanie Jolly on Facebook on 3-21-20:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10107475756386200&id=12904706&refid=52&tn=-R
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Question.
Are we (the USA) disinfecting the streets, buses, subways, buildings playgrounds, etc like other countries have done and are doing? I have not seen or heard any evidence that we are.
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@Afrofem
To add to what you were saying about Kentucky’s response, I just saw this:
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/tennessee-travel-limit-gov-andy-beshear-coronavius-covid-19/417-685e666d-b9bc-474c-b5fb-51f60d597555
Kentucky’s governor limits travel by Kentucky residents to neighboring states which do not have adequate measures.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/africa-is-two-to-three-weeks-away-from-height-of-virus-storm/ar-BB11QZdy
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CNN Chris Cuomo is positive for COVID19. Hope he recovers. I was today old just learning him and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are brothers.
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Update
Ten days ago I wrote about the situation of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Mozambique, where I live. See a message above.
We were then in the zero stage of the pandemic. Or so it followed from the official numbers.
Today Mozambique has already 8 confirmed cases, according to the Government of the country. Some quarters dispute that number and suspect a higher one. No dead yet.
Yesterday the President decreed the state of emergency, to start tomorrow (Wednesday, April, 1st) and to last the whole month of April. He spoke of that emergency as of level three and a step before a complete lock-down.
The specifics of that measure will be left for the different branches of the Government to define. One thing will be the implementation of a shift work regime in all state’s institutions at all levels. The idea is to reduce the numbers of urban dwellers roaming around at a given time.
Many people expected more – precisely the lock-down – because they worry that otherwise we are following the horrendous paths of Italy, Spain and now the United States. Others worry about the impacts of these restrictions for the large informal sector that feeds thousands of families in our urban and suburban areas. This sector depends heavily of people moving around, always moving and buying all kinds of things. A complete lock-down will literally kill them! I personally think that a complete lock-down is the only way to go and our Government should have think on schemes of feeding people in need directly like the Government of Rwanda is doing, while they are implementing a lock-down there. Let’s wait what will come from all these developments.
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@ munubantu
Thanks for the update. I hope the Mozambican government does a better job of caring for their people than the US and Brazilian governments are doing right now.
Looking forward to future updates.
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@ Origin
The article you linked to also mentioned a North Carolina county that completely closed a road at the Tennessee state line.
Restricting people’s movements seem “unAmerican”, but these are not ordinary times.
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Please everyone, take this disease seriously regardless of risk factors. It’s a like a “Russian roulette” illness that can just decide to have a loaded bullet for some people and cut them down.
The official advice is to stay in as much as possible and avoid crowds (and breathing other people’s exhalations) when you must go out. Use hand sanitizer while out if you have it and wash your hands thoroughly with soap after coming in since you may have touched common areas like shopping carts and door handles. Avoid touching your face and potentially transferring the virus to places where it could gain entry while your hands are potentially contaminated.
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IMO, masks make sense too but in the US they’re being discouraged probably because they want health care workers to have them the limited supplies. In the Asian countries people routinely wear masks when out during epidemics such as this. Their case numbers have generally grown slower than Europe or the USA and that could be a contributing factor.
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@ Origin
Absolutely, positively, everything you said — especially with reports coming out that researchers now believe a substantial number of people are asymptomatic carriers. We already knew people were contagious right after they caught the virus, before they started evidencing any symptoms (i.e., pre-symptomatic). But now they’re saying another group exists that never gets sick but can spread it. As long as we don’t have widespread testing, we have no real way to know for sure who has it and who doesn’t.
I’m really curious to find out why certain people have no symptoms, others have very mild symptoms, others have a miserable two weeks of flulike symptons, and others quickly go into critically severe, even fatal, illness. Obviously age and pre-existing conditions play a role, but that doesn’t explain every single death. I hope we eventually find out why the illness acts this way: Are there different strains of varying potency? Do some people have something in their genetic code that the virus latches onto and exploits or disrupts? Obviously if it is the latter, the genetic variance is something that cuts across all races.
There’s been a lot of talk in the U.S. about protecting our vulnerable populations and letting the rest get back to work, but it seems increasingly clear that we don’t fully have a handle on who all are vulnerable, much less why.
I just got back today from venturing out to the stores. In three of the four stores I went to, the cashier helping me touched his/her face at least once. They were all young people, so I don’t know if it’s because they feel invincible (even though we now know some young people die from covid-19). Maybe they were just harried and overworked and totally forgot. I watched as one rubbed his finger under his nose, one rubbed her eye, and one wiped her mouth with the palm of her hand (seemingly just out of frustration from a computer problem the cash register was having). And in all three cases they then went on to handle my purchases, debit card or cash, grocery bags, receipts, etc. without sanitizing their hands.
(For the record, I decided to use a self-service register at the one store which had them, precisely in order to reduce my contact with anyone else. That was the computer which decided to freeze up. Some days you can’t win for losing!)
If we didn’t have a critical shortage of masks for the hospitals right now, I think wearing a mask would — if nothing else — help people to remember not to touch their face, especially their mouth or nose. It’s a very difficult habit to break, and the mask would serve as a continual reminder.
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@Solitare. I agree with everything you said:
Obviously age and pre-existing conditions play a role, but that doesn’t explain every single death.
Yes. Some younger people (even teenagers) have died unexpectedly when they had no known preexisting illness. Some older people have also survived severe illness (IIRC a 98 y.o in Italy). It’s more threatening to people who already have a serious chronic disease or are immunocompromised but most diseases are. What’s surprising is the occurrence of seemingly random deaths or severe illness among younger, healthy people. There have been cases where people seem to be recovering then, boom, they’re gone. So I think it’s prudent to avoid an encounter with the SARS-Cov-2 virus if we possibly can.
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I always had doubts about the rationale in the suggestion of use masks only if you are sick already. It seems that this idea is changing too. Look:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/health/coronavirus-masks-experts-debate/index.html
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Scarfs are as good as masks because the shielding helps you not touch your face. That’s more important then if the mask can filter out the virus . You can buy N95 masks in L.A. for five dollars a piece. Or you can get masks that filter out dust particles for around a dollar apiece. You can buy cloth masks that you can wash and wear everyday.
There is a debate about prioritising N95 masks for first responders and health professionals only because they are in short supply. I am conflicted on the matter. I like the idea of being able to acquire the best masks possible for myself versus making sure health care professionals have what they need.
Gloves are an important tool as well. Regular surgical gloves are fairly thin and rip easily. It is better to get gloves that thicker and are a minimum of 4mil. “Mechanic” gloves are four mil for example.
The gloves my workers wear are 8 mil.
You need to disinfect your gloves just as regularly as you would be disinfecting your hands.
Avoid public transportation and confined spaces with other people.
Also wear gloves when using a food cart at the market, public door handles, elevator and atm machines ect.
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Captain Brett Crozier is a hero. He choose to save his sailors. And is being relieved of his duties. Under the Trump administration military officials who are decorated are punished. Perhaps it has something to do with Trump being a coward and having bone spurs.
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Abagond wrote in this blog post: “Covid-19 is at 4,000 dead and counting (as of March 10th 2020).”
Less than a month later, on April 3, there are 7,000 dead in the U.S. alone.
The global death total is more than ten times what it was when Abagond wrote this post.
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One more comparison:
As of March 10, there had been 4,000 deaths total worldwide.
As of April 3, globally we are averaging over 5,000 deaths per day.
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Regarding the links Origin and I posted. It does appear that some on the left and right or looking into this. But for the moment the mainstream media is ignoring it.
I also don’t trust China’s numbers. Early modeling was based on what China was releasing and their ability to contain it, so that left the assumption that other countries could contain this as well. The mainstream media isn’t talking about this.
One Chinese doctor who was one of the doctors who identified this new strain has now gone missing.
The other country I don’t trust is the Soviet Union. They recently sent a humanitarian load of medical supplies to New York. They are willing to throw their countrymen under the bus propaganda purposes.
Similarly to China, doctors there are getting arrested and detained for telling the truth.
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Russian doctor detained.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/world/europe/russian-virus-doctor-detained.html)
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Michael Barker is a bs artist. The Soviet Union died an ignominious death three decades ago.
You absurdly assume that you are better able to determine what’s going on in faraway places!
I’d be embarrassed to display such hubris based on zero facts. You are not an epidemiologist, even they are struggling with the impact of this virus, so a little more modesty on your part is called for. The same goes for the other ‘geniuses’ on this blog.
The US media is full of sh*t, they’ve done a great job leading you by the nose. I thought you claimed to be some kind of anarchist and skeptic, is that true? If it is you are doing a poor job of it. Their stupid he said, she said journalism is wrong for dealing with this crisis
Where’s jefe? At least I expect this sort of nonsense from him.
I hesitated unleashing Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich, a shameless propagandist for the PRC, on the denizens of this blog because I hoped people here would be more rational than the norm. I was wrong so chew on these:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a8avCFbON4)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO5EXjFKE7U)
All the crap you’ve been reading from ‘the free press’ is sour grapes because their system failed miserably.
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It takes only a little bit of research to know that the CCP covered up this outbreak in the beginning, even arresting doctors that were warning colleagues about it. We were even told at first, with the endorsement of the WHO, that there was “no evidence” that the virus can transit from human to human. In this context, it is quite RATIONAL to be skeptical of the CCP’s data.
However, North Korea has zero cases, which is great news!
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Dr Li Wenliang, who was arrested for raising an alarm about the disease in December, later succumbed to it himself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795
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Another Chinese doctor punished for trying to alert others about the outbreak: Ai Fen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-wuhan-doctor-ai-fen-speaks-out-against-authorities
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On January 14, 2020 the World Health Organization posted that preliminary indications from Chinese officials was that there was no clear evidence that human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus was occurring. But doctors who were warning colleagues to take protective measures were being muzzled from December so officials had no reason to be genuinely ignorant about the disease’s communicability near the middle of January.
This isn’t about “love” or hate for any government; I’m not going on a date.
It’s about what’s credible.
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(Singapore’s ST covering a report by Caixin)
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china
But I’m sure the CCP is being 100% forthcoming about the number of infections, how many people died, and whether there are still infections popping up after they told everyone to go back to work. Given their stellar track record of transparency on COVID-19, only a person brainwashed by the Western media would have any reason to question anything, lmao.
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Gropro you have over the years shown yourself to be a defender of the PRC. In that regards you are a true believer.
I’m neither for nor against the PRC. I’m neutral. You call out when nation states do good or bad things.
Bat meat is not a common food at the Wahun wet markets. For me it’s far more probable a lab technician contracted the virus unknowingly and spread it by walking across the street to the wet market.
So yes I am questioning the main stream media’s official version.
If the U.S. had a viral breach here they would be lying about it too and covering it up.
The French announced that they planned on running vaccine experiments on the West African people before introducing it to their beloved Parisian’s. You know protect white people first. There is a few billion to be made with a vaccine and that’s why the French have a partnership the Wahun viral lab.
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Origin, please quit embarrassing yourself. According to Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich, the PRC reported the outbreak to WHO 5-6 days after they became aware of it as opposed to 3 months in the case of SARS.
“Dr Li Wenliang…Ai Fen.” So what? were they in charge of running the response to the outbreak? No, they were foot soldiers in that struggle, grunts, it’s fine to let the grunts grouse about their sacrifices, but in the scheme of things their complaints don’t give an accurate picture of what’s going on.
“It takes only a little bit of research to know that the CCP covered up this outbreak in the beginning, even arresting doctors that were warning colleagues about it.” Yes, the fact that you did “little…research” on this topic shows.
“We were even told at first, with the endorsement of the WHO, that there was “no evidence” that the virus can transit from human to human. In this context, it is quite RATIONAL to be skeptical of the CCP’s data.”
Oh dear, an outbreak of ‘jefe-itis’ is in evidence in this blatant lie. Pray tell, how could they have possibly known such thing? “jefe-itis” is the disease of telling reckless lies with zero support in facts. You are not ‘rational’, just a liar. No epidemiologist would have made such claim about a disease he/she just encountered. I know it’s ‘fashionable’ to make absurd claims about the PRC, but this one takes the cake.
You’re just parroting nonsense from ‘Western Media’. You need to explain why the Western nations ended up letting this stuff run riot when they were all aware of the danger months before outbreaks in their own nations.
The ‘free press’ was full of criticism for the ‘repressive’ methods the PRC applied only to have their nations end up doing the same thing, but much more chaotically.
As far as repressing underlings who speak out of turn, a number of US doctors were threatened with unemployment and one was actually fired (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8165129/ER-doctor-fired-criticizing-Washington-state-hospital-lack-preparedness-COVID-19.html).
This crisis is too grave to engage in the silly bs your and Barker’s comments wallow in. No system is perfect, ‘Westerners’ need to learn humility because their failing is there for all to see. They aren’t the little gods they imagined themselves to be. In this crisis, the Chinese did better than the ‘West’, no amount of sour grapes will make that fact disappear.
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“You absurdly assume that you are better able to determine what’s going on in faraway places!”
Hmm. You’ve done that in the past. You’ve rarely presented factual information in the form of quotes, links or citations. When called on your allegations, you’ve gone into circular Socratic mode i.e., answering questions with questions or name calling.
Calling other commenters “liars”, “bs artists” and “propagandists” without clear factual rebuttals marks you as yet another ‘pot calling kettles black’.
On other threads, you have presented yourself as an expert on Hong Kong politics (as a non-resident of HK), CCP policy (as a non-resident of the PRC) and now the origin of COVID-19 with few credible citations, links or quotes.
If you are able to rebut the ideas presented, do so. I’m ready to learn from different ideas. Name calling is a bore.
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@gro jo
Straits Times (Singapore) is Western now.
Caixin is Western now.
Renwu is Western now.
Since I, and presumably the rest of us, can’t speak Mandarin I post the secondary sources in English, genius.
What an insufferable shill?
What an intellectually dishonest, bloviating, pathetic waster of characters?
Being the quickest to call people names while being the one to which such names must accurately apply.
I guess it’s true what they say about “empty barrels”.
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For those interested, here’s a google translate of a backup of the interview of Dr. Ai Fen by Renwu. The original article was removed.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.dwnews.com%2Fpost-1313840.html
Here’s video coverage [in English] of the same story by Wion (an Indian outlet).
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beDmuDDknNI)
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Here’s another translation of the Ai Fen interview originally published in China’s “People” (Renwu) magazine before censors got to it.
This time by a human so not as stilted.
In the interview she stated that she wasn’t the whistleblower but “the one who distributed whistles”. In other words, the other doctors who were admonished (such as Li Wenliang) got in trouble for talking about the report that she had given to them. Current reports are that her whereabouts are unknown.
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It’s always fun to be attacked by the naïfs on this blog. Let’s take them on one by one:
Afrofem – ” on Sun Sep 8th 2019 at 20:21:13
Afrofem
“It happened while his party was safeguarding White farmers from Nkomo’s guerillas, in rebellion because they didn’t like how the vote for office turned out.”
Thanks for the additional detail.”
If your claim about my parsimony regarding providing evidence to back my claims is true, why are you thanking me above?
How about the following exchange between us on the Uighur Internment Camps thread: ”
on Sun Jan 5th 2020 at 21:11:07
Afrofem
*”If the following information is correct, your Uyghurs were colonists…”
Thanks for the history snippets. Are you willing to provide a link to your source?
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on Mon Jan 6th 2020 at 02:26:40
gro jo
“Thanks for the history snippets. Are you willing to provide a link to your source?”
You’re welcome. I can’t find the article I found this information in, but you will find the same quote as the fourth paragraph of the section of titled “Dzungaria” of this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_and_Turkification_of_Xinjiang” Did I refuse to provide you the source of my information on the subject? No, so stop lying. We don’t see eye to eye on the PRC, but that’s not a reason for you to impugn my honesty. Naturally, you made your accussation refutation proof with this slippery bit of sophistry: “You’ve rarely presented factual information in the form of quotes, links or citations.” Well played, you can dismiss any evidence to the contrary as one of those rare moments. I’m in awe of you.
Origin – Your naiveté regarding the PRC is showing the CCP took power at the head of a coalition that included a fair amount of the remnants of the Chinese capitlist class. I interpret the political back and forth in the life of the PRC in light of that fact. Mao’s plaint about “capitalist roaders” and Deng’s echoing French king Louis Philippe’s ” “enrich yourselves” (enrichissez-vous)” are the poles of PRC politics. If you can’t see that, that’s not my fault. The editor of Caixin Hu Shuli reflects the Deng side, hence her stature as the ‘darling’ of the ‘West’, so does her news organization. in political struggles, crises are perfect tools to pressure your rivals, it is in this light that I interpret Caixin’s criticism of the government’s response.
Michael Barker – “Gropro(sic) you have over the years shown yourself to be a defender of the PRC. In that regards you are a true believer.” Amusing. You don’t know me so your claim that I’m some kind of CCP shill is bs. Unlike you, I read what it and its opponents put out and decide, based what has the ring of truth to it, who’s lying. I’ll defend the CCP every time I find its opponents to be lying.
The following is an example of my method: “Michael Barker, thanks for the laugh. As amusing as your ‘evidence’ is I remain skeptical as to its veracity. The Youtube clip you linked to was provided courtesy of Zooming In program, a news outlet of New Tang Dynasty a/k/a Falun Gong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television), an outfit banned by the CCP as “An evil cult”.
Not being Chinese, I can’t say how ‘evil’ they are but I know bs when I see it. I’m skeptical of the story they reported in that clip since I don’t know Chinese and like our ‘friend’ jefe, they are reckless liars. People have been executed for stealing a lot less than “millions of dollars” from the State, so I find a 12 years jail sentence incredibly lenient for a crime that put the health of the Chinese nation at risk.”
Note that I did not dismiss your source, nor did I take their claim at face value, until I did some digging into their background and determined their agenda.
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” on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 16:07:38
Origin
@gro jo
Straits Times (Singapore) is Western now.
Caixin is Western now.
Renwu is Western now.
Since I, and presumably the rest of us, can’t speak Mandarin I post the secondary sources in English, genius.”
gro jo’s reply: “Your naiveté regarding the PRC is showing the CCP took power at the head of a coalition that included a fair amount of the remnants of the Chinese capitlist class. I interpret the political back and forth in the life of the PRC in light of that fact. Mao’s plaint about “capitalist roaders” and Deng’s echoing French king Louis Philippe’s ” “enrich yourselves” (enrichissez-vous)” are the poles of PRC politics. If you can’t see that, that’s not my fault. The editor of Caixin Hu Shuli reflects the Deng side, hence her stature as the ‘darling’ of the ‘West’, so does her news organization. in political struggles, crises are perfect tools to pressure your rivals, it is in this light that I interpret Caixin’s criticism of the government’s response.” I see nothing in your comment to change my point of view.
“What an insufferable shill?
What an intellectually dishonest, bloviating, pathetic waster of characters?
Being the quickest to call people names while being the one to which such names must accurately apply.
I guess it’s true what they say about “empty barrels”.”
How big was the mirror you were looking at when you wrote those lacerating comments about yourself?
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@ gro jo
Simple deflective tactics are not good enough.
When will you present credible links, citations or quotes to back your claims?
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“Here’s video coverage [in English] of the same story by Wion (an Indian outlet).
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beDmuDDknNI)”
Wow. an Indian outlet? That’s really ‘hard hitting’ objective stuff huh!
No it ain’t. Your naiveté astounds. Context my friend context. Read in light of India vs China rivalry one could hardly expect something different: “Relations between contemporary China and India have been characterised by border disputes, resulting in three military conflicts — the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the Chola incident in 1967, and the 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish. … Both countries have steadily established military infrastructure along border areas.”
To reiterate: ““Dr Li Wenliang…Ai Fen.” So what? were they in charge of running the response to the outbreak? No, they were foot soldiers in that struggle, grunts, it’s fine to let the grunts grouse about their sacrifices, but in the scheme of things their complaints don’t give an accurate picture of what’s going on.”
Being a ‘genius’ like my buddy jefe, you’ll no doubt enlighten us by telling us what could or should have been done differently that would have saved the 3,000 lives the PRC claims were lost or the countless ones of your imagination.
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Wikipedia:
“Qiushi is a bi-monthly political theory periodical published by the Central Party School and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.”
Link to Quishi article (dated Feb 15, 2020):
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2020-02/15/c_1125572832.htm
Quoth Xi Jinping via google translate:
So according to the above statement by Xi Jinping, from early January he was concerned about the epidemic in Wuhan and gave instructions that measures should be taken to control it. Yet as late as January 14 the WHO tweeted out that Chinese officials had indicated that there was “no clear evidence” that the novel coronavirus could be transmitted between humans.
Even ignoring credible reports that Chinese doctors were being muzzled from December and that Taiwan was warning about human to human transmission, this does not compute. Am I to believe that Xi was sufficiently personally concerned about the novel coronavirus epidemic to turn attention to it “from the first day of the year” yet such a basic epidemiological fact about the virus as its communicability was unknown up to mid-January?
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Ah, Afrofem, the godess of sophists. You and the other ‘geniuses’ on this thread breezily dismiss the information put out by the Chinese CDC as lies of the CCP based on lies put out by the enemies of the PRC, such as Falun Gong,the Indian government, US Newspapers, etc. and you want little old me to give you “credible links, citations or quotes”? I love your sense of humor. Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich has provided a timeline of the virus outbreak in one of the links I provided. I’d be forever grateful if you’d use your great intellect to debunk his claims. It’s ok if Origin and Barker join you in this endeavor. Let me take this opportunity to thank you guys beforehand because I suspect You will enlighten me at the end of that exercise.
Your grateful servant, Squire gro jo.
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No shill-ing on my watch gro jo,
no shill-ing on my watch.
You look the fool already to anyone with two brain cells to knock together to make a synapse.
Though I would advise persons with such a paucity of neurons against reading your posts; they might lose them!
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“godess” should have been “goddess”. Sorry Afrofem for misstating your status. 😉
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Origin, flattery will get you nowhere with me. Since when did brain cells ‘knock together’? Obviously, you are as ignorant of the basic facts of brain structure as you are of epidemiology.
“No shill-ing on my watch gro jo,
no shill-ing on my watch.”
My dear friend, I’ve not accused you of shilling, only of being blinded by your bias against anything to do with the PRC. I understand where you’re coming from given the seven decades of propaganda against it you were submitted to. I’ve enjoyed and admired your past contributions to this blog and urge you to use your critical faculties to debunk the information I provided courtesy of Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich.
“So according to the above statement by Xi Jinping, from early January he was concerned about the epidemic in Wuhan and gave instructions that measures should be taken to control it. Yet as late as January 14 the WHO tweeted out that Chinese officials had indicated that there was “no clear evidence” that the novel coronavirus could be transmitted between humans.
Even ignoring credible reports that Chinese doctors were being muzzled from December and that Taiwan was warning about human to human transmission, this does not compute. Am I to believe that Xi was sufficiently personally concerned about the novel coronavirus epidemic to turn attention to it “from the first day of the year” yet such a basic epidemiological fact about the virus as its communicability was unknown up to mid-January?”
You’re perplexed because you’ve been submitted to the joke also known as President Trump and can’t wrap your head around the fact that Xi is intelligent enough to know that he didn’t know if this outbreak could turn deadly and it was better to err on the side of caution. The incubation period of the virus is 14 days so it stands to reason that between 1/1-1/14 what was a potential menace became an actual one.
“Measurements:
Patient demographic characteristics and dates and times of possible exposure, symptom onset, fever onset, and hospitalization.
Results:
There were 181 confirmed cases with identifiable exposure and symptom onset windows to estimate the incubation period of COVID-19. The median incubation period was estimated to be 5.1 days (95% CI, 4.5 to 5.8 days), and 97.5% of those who develop symptoms will do so within 11.5 days (CI, 8.2 to 15.6 days) of infection. These estimates imply that, under conservative assumptions, 101 out of every 10 000 cases (99th percentile, 482) will develop symptoms after 14 days of active monitoring or quarantine.”( https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2762808/incubation-period-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-from-publicly-reported)
Nature rules over paupers as well as potentates
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@gro jo
Kindly leave the thread to people who desire honest discussion.
Nobody is stopping you from “loving” the PRC.
However, for most of the rest of us here, there are no “sacred cows”.
Despite being mostly Americans most posters here can criticize America.
You’re tripping if you think the CCP will get a pass with question.
The disease wasn’t discovered by Xi; it had escalated to Xi by January 1. Why?
What would have had to have been taking place before for it to escalate to Xi?
As Xi is not a doctor, who would have been talking about the virus before Xi?
You think Xi was not told why he was being bothered with this?
I’m honestly shocked that you’re such an immense shill! It’s like an unmasking.
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@ gro jo
“Afrofem, the go[d]dess of sophists.”
Still using ad hominems as sword and shield, huh?
I’m very human, fallible and lacking your world class education. Yet, I know these things to be true:
➢ all governments lie to cover mistakes and shield themselves from embarrassment and responsibility. It is in their nature to do so.
➢ all governments behave like gangsters given motive and opportunity.
➢ the Chinese government is not exempt from those two observations.
I get that a lot of Black leftists are in love with China right now. I hear their adulation repeated on various podcasts and blogs all of the time. Yet, the Chinese government is just another gangster.
Just because the Anglosphere (with the US in the lead) is showing their backsides to the world right now does not automatically beatify the Chinese government.
In your zeal to lionize the Chinese government and the CCC, you are producing more heat than light.
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My dear Origin, sorry to have shocked and disappointed you. I’m having a hard time reconciling your current dogmatic attitude with the intelligence you displayed on the Peter Liang thread. It’s silly of you to mistake me for Nathan “it’s ok to love China” Rich. Unlike that gentleman, my head wasn’t turned by a whiff of Chinese pu**y.
I’ve used his timeline of the outbreak and his take down of some idiotic English teacher masquerading as some sort of ‘expert’ on Chinese politics, because the idiot lives in China and sounds like our dear friend jefe.
I’ve invited you, Afrofem, Barker and anybody else, to debunk his claims. You have not risen to the challenge, instead, you want to exclude me from the conversation!
Please consult the timeline of Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich around 5:20. As I wrote above, there was no confirmed scientific evidence. If you know better just provide your evidence. Trying to shut me up is weak, absurd and unworthy of you. Nature commands, scientists and politicians react to it. If the timeline is correct, only 27 patients were ill so no definitive proof of a virus outbreak.
“@ gro jo
“Afrofem, the go[d]dess of sophists.”
Still using ad hominems as sword and shield, huh?
I’m very human, fallible and lacking your world class education. Yet, I know these things to be true:
➢ all governments lie to cover mistakes and shield themselves from embarrassment and responsibility. It is in their nature to do so.
➢ all governments behave like gangsters given motive and opportunity.
➢ the Chinese government is not exempt from those two observations.
I get that a lot of Black leftists are in love with China right now. I hear their adulation repeated on various podcasts and blogs all of the time. Yet, the Chinese government is just another gangster.
Just because the Anglosphere (with the US in the lead) is showing their backsides to the world right now does not automatically beatify the Chinese government.
In your zeal to lionize the Chinese government and the CCC, you are producing more heat than light.”
My dear Afrofem, this isn’t a debate on the nature of governments in general but of the response of actual governments to a health crisis. All your claims about evil governments mean nothing because, at the end of the day, you pay your taxes and receive services from the government that rules you. I’m not interested in an academic exercise. I want you to take a look at Nathan “it’s ok to love China” Rich’s timeline and tear it to shreds for the nonsense you and others claim it is. I see that using that guy’s moniker has rubbed people the wrong way. Mission accomplished.
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Afrofem, as I’ve said before, I fell out of love with the PRC way back in the 1970s when they made common cause with the USA, backed Pinochet against Allende, UNITA against MPLA, Pol Pot against the people of Cambodia and the Vietnamese army, etc. Not loving them doesn’t blind me to their positive aspects, so I don’t need any politics 101 lecture from you or anyone else. Stick to the facts, not your feelings.
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“Stick to the facts, not your feelings.”
That’s rich coming from you, my dear gro jo. I have been urging you to do the same for some time now.
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@ gro jo
Comment deleted due to moderated language.
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CDC says now to wear face mask. I have been doing this from the start of this crisis. However, this could become an issue for black men being racially profiled. We are trying to survive in this crisis and now racism still manages to be integrated in this pandemic. I have been reading on social media how many black men don’t feel comfortable wearing certain kinds of mask, so they don’t appear looking menacing or criminal.
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“…this isn’t a debate on the nature of governments in general but of the response of actual governments to a health crisis.”
My comments about the nature of governments is informed both by experience and current events. Just today I read of the gangster behavior of several governments including the Czech Republic, Turkey, China and of course, the USA.
US agents have been bribing supply producers and seizing equipment bound for other countries, including traditional allies such as Canada, Germany, France and Brazil. According to writer, Alan Macleod:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/united-states-leads-nations-stealing-coronavirus-equipment/266360/
The gangster behavior of our own government alone during this pandemic is like a bloody episode of The Sopranos with Trump cast as mob boss and the rest of the world as so many extras on the set.
They are engaging in criminal behavior not to ease the suffering of the American people, but to stuff their pockets much like J.P. Morgan did during the Civil War. Morgan sold defective rifles to the Union army which shot off the thumbs of some soldiers firing the rifles.
https://www.history.co.uk/biographies/j-p-morgan
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@Afrofem
I agree with your post about governments attempting to cover up mistakes.
This arises from the fact that their PRIMARY concern is remaining in power.
Xi and Trump reacted in similar ways and so the leaders of the two must powerful countries bear most responsibility for this pandemic, Xi more so.
They squandered the most critical period of time trying to downplay and coverup.
Meanwhile in Russia, reality has gradually started to hit home.
After previously claiming the COVID-19 situation was under control, in late March this was posted on the Kremlin’s site.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fkremlin.ru%2Fevents%2Fpresident%2Fnews%2F63053
In that meeting, the mayor of Moscow admitted that the real infections in the city are probably above the official numbers. Afterwards Putin put on a hazmat suit and respirator to visit a hospital where he also met with medical personnel.
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One of the people Putin met with, without protective gear, was Denis Protsenko who is the head of the hospital which Putin visited in the hazmat suit.
Protsenko has since said that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus but was feeling well.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/31/russias-top-coronavirus-doctor-who-met-putin-tests-positive-a69815
The Russian government is also saying that Putin is fine but it must be somewhat worrying that he was in contact with someone who became a case.
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“My comments about the nature of governments is informed both by experience and current events. Just today I read of the gangster behavior of several governments including the Czech Republic, Turkey, China and of course, the USA.”
My response to the above is a quote from you: “Simple deflective tactics are not good enough.”
The subject of this discussion is the timeliness of the PRC’s response to the outbreak. You and your ‘genius’ pals can show that they didn’t by going to the timeline our friend Nathan “it’s ok to love China” Rich came up with, anything else is just babbling.
gro “It’s ok to respect China” jo. 🙂
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“Xi and Trump reacted in similar ways and so the leaders of the two must powerful countries bear most responsibility for this pandemic, Xi more so.
They squandered the most critical period of time trying to downplay and coverup…One of the people Putin met with, without protective gear, was Denis Protsenko who is the head of the hospital which Putin visited in the hazmat suit.”
Let me get this straight, Xi and Putin were engaged in coverups to the point that Putin risked getting sick? The simple explanation is that the outbreak is a moving target, so, scientists and politicians are playing catch up, some, like Xi, have done it better than others, like Trump.
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Meanwhile in the UK, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been taken to hospital as a “precautionary measure” according to the government. He was in self-isolation since March 26 when he diagnosed with COVID-19.
https://apnews.com/193a0cfe074685144ade169084a68255
There have been additional reports in the Times of London that he has received oxygen but officials have declined to confirm or deny it. Oxygen treatment would imply a reduction in lung function and possible pneumonia which is a complication associated with more severe COVID-19 cases.
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@gro jo
Why are you creating Frankenstein monsters from my post and then commenting on the abomination you created? I mentioned Trump/Xi and Putin in two clearly delineated portions of my post separated by “Meanwhile in Russia…”. I won’t respond to improperly posed questions.
As for Xi, the CCP was not completely forthcoming about the illness initially, and was evasive with the world through the WHO. Even while Xi was locking down Wuhan/Hubei on January 23, as the situation had reached crisis proportions there, both the CCP and the WHO were criticizing countries which were restricting travel from China.
From February 3:
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1739548.shtml
If the CCP is to be believed [lol] that they have basically eradicated the virus in China at this time, then their and the WHO’s advice was foul. For if they had appropriately recommended restriction of international travel that would have reduced exportation of the virus and limited or prevented the current widespread pandemic.
As for Trump, there is a whole thread on his denial and slow response to the appearance of cases in the US. His concern was the economy, on which he had staked a large part of his argument for reelection.
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“Why are you creating Frankenstein monsters from my post and then commenting on the abomination you created?”
One of gro jo’s favorite deflection tactics. It is cover for a lack of credible sources for fallacy based arguments. If you are not careful, you find yourself playing ball in gro jo’s court instead of arguing valid points.
Another favored tactic is attempting to define the narrative/argument. For example, “The subject of this discussion is the timeliness of the PRC’s response to the outbreak.”
Actually, the discussion became heated when speculation about the origins of COVID-19 began to center on Chinese behavior that may have led to the outbreak and early Chinese government response to the pandemic.
A Frankenstein monster is a creature fashioned of hunks of morbid flesh reanimated by a highly intelligent person just to see what would happen. That description is very fitting.
hearty chuckle
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@ Origin
All governments lie to cover mistakes and shield themselves from embarrassment and responsibility. What I have observed over the years is that two major sectors of government, policy-makers and bureaucrats are equally guilty of lying and obfuscating to avoid embarrassment and responsibility for human error. They certainly do it to cover up wrongdoing.
Sometimes they do it to save their jobs and reputation, other times they do it because they can get away with ‘official’ lies. Either way, not taking responsibility or owning up to errors has a corrosive effect on government workers and the people they serve.
Those behaviors seem to be universal, no matter the size of the government, type of government or the culture from which it springs.
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My concatenation of two separate comments you wrote was to show the irrationality of your ‘coverup’ claims for China and Russia. I used ellipses to indicate what I was doing so it was perfectly legitimate. All the ‘brilliance’ you guys have deployed to maintain your ‘conspiracy’ theories indicate to me a refusal to acknowledge the fact that Nature is primary and humans, no matter how ‘powerful’ are subject to its laws. You guys believe in a ‘big daddy’ who knows all and is all powerful.
You feel that ‘big daddy’ Xi didn’t live up to your childish fantasies of omniscience and omnipotence, hence he is ‘evil’.
No head of government, province, district, municipality, hospital or ward is going to create a panic, if they know what they are doing. People in charge have the duty to deal with emergencies in a rational manner by being alert to the risks involved and to do what’s called for when the danger is no longer theoretical, according to the experts.
Ai Fen’s job was to prepare her staff to deal with a potential emergency and avoid panic, not gossip and speculate about SARS.
I’ll leave you with a ‘cheery’ comment by Neil Degrasse Tyson: “The Universe is trying to kill us.” It is certain to do so, no matter how important you are. Panicking about that existential certainty is a recipe for disaster.
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@gro jo
You seem to have reading comprehension difficulties or you deliberately attribute things to people that they didn’t say in order to argue with yourself. Xi and Putin have only one letter in common. Read more carefully.
Also, you’re so full of hot air it’s funny, talking about my supposed desire for a “big daddy”. LOL. Stop projecting! You’re the one in here advocating “love” of Xi’s CCP and being willing to leave all skepticism at the door as one is wont to do with their beloved.
Now to address the only shred of a point than can be extracted from your diatribe: Xi’s putative motivation for initiating a coverup may very well have been to prevent “panic”. That is the oldest justification in the book. However I was not here concerned with his motivation just the act, which you were previously denying but seem to have finally implicitly admitted while spinning it as noble. In any case, his plan may have failed in the long run since his coverup has accelerated a global pandemic, resulting in worldwide panic and damage to his government’s reputation.
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Origin, thanks for the laugh. Once again, I’m gro “It’s ok to respect China” jo, not Nathan “it’s ok to love China” Rich. Proof that you’re looking for a “big daddy” to blame for not keeping you safe from the scary monster is your confusing my respect for the PRC with the other guy’s love for it.
As amusing as I find your rants about coverups I think they are bs. No evidence of a coverup as far as I can see, the outbreak outran the effort to bring it under control. Nothing new about that since that occurs every time something like that happens. It will be years before the real toll of this outbreak will be known for any nation on earth with any kind of great precision.
If you want to console yourself with fairy tales about how a panicky reaction would have made things better, that’s your business. The world doesn’t operate according to your childish desires, you have to adapt to it, not the other way around. Again, to quote Neil Degrasse Tyson, “The universe is trying to kill us”, solipsism isn’t an adequate response to such threats. Your mommy told you you were the most ‘precious’ thing in the world. She lied.
Since you are such ‘genius’ why don’t you tell us what you would have done? A timeline would be useful, don’t you think? You and Afrofem have not debunked Nathan “…” Rich’s timeline, why not? Is such ‘grunt’ work below you dignities? we are talking about factual matters not pure theory. Until I see you guys get your hands dirty corralling the ‘dirty’ facts, I’ve zero reason to take your rants as anything other than reflexive PRC bashing
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So from “precautionary” hospitalization to ICU for UK’s Boris Johnson.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604
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It seems the replies are persisting!
Should I answer? I feel like resisting.
If I’ll answer again,
To posts so inane,
To stay sane, I must make it interesting.
Beijing was not claimed to be “evil”,
Just some statements may not be believable.
Since a coverup’s a given,
Then truth has been riven,
And leeriness is justifiable.
But there once was a man called gro jo,
Who chose to be Xi Jinping’s ho-ho.
Like a pretzel he’d contort,
To please his consort,
But bad arguments are always a no-no.
Indeed it’s as rare as a sasquatch,
To see such a dialectical mismatch.
One side has boot licking,
The other has fact sticking,
That’s why it stops shilling on its watch.
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doggerel.
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Even doggerel can be divine:
“Cast not pearls before swine”.
For each little thing has its time.
Indeed, even an caustic rhyme.
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The Covid virus has come to the occupant of Number 10 Downing Street and he’s in the ICU. He too cavalierly dismissed the virus as a hoax. Here in the USA we are still stuck with the apocalyptic roach tRump.
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ugh ugly thread via nuwauabians it is brother pete 5g dna bloodlines very dark ish coming out of this ignorance or suspicion
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It is obvious that Dr. Fauci KNEW something in advance to give such an assured warning without repercussions. (smh)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8188429/Dr-Fauci-revealed-fears-surprise-outbreak-three-YEARS-pandemic.html
WARN – inform someone in advance of an impending or possible danger, problem, or other unpleasant situation., give someone forceful or cautionary advice about their actions or conduct. (Webster’s online dictionary)
As for Bill Gates, does anyone recall when was his medical degree bestowed upon him, with a minor specializing in vaccination? I thought he was a computer geek. These people are pure freakin EVIL! No surprises here though, because the Bible clearly prophesied that such days would come upon us.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOsUR0XYETA)
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It’s wierd being in the supermarket you just get sort of a visceral thing a vibe from the humans around.
Gotta die of something. Just don’t rush it.
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Epidemiologists and other scientists, as well as medical professionals, have been warning about the eventual likelihood of this scenario for more than a decade:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18810803/
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/coronavirus-prediction
Not because they are evil, but because in the course of their work and research, they identified certain global trends that could lead to this outcome.
The links above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to published research and news articles about those predictions. I’m only linking two so this comment doesn’t get thrown to mod.
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I’ve known about those types of scientific predictions given above for a long time. What I did just discover is that economists had predicted the effects we’re seeing now on the global economy:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/22/economists-pandemic-predictions-covid-19
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@ Afrofem
I recently read some articles that tie into the report you linked to upthead about stockpiled hospital supplies going to waste.
The federal government has been sending expired equipment to the states:
https://www.propublica.org/article/heres-why-florida-got-all-the-emergency-medical-supplies-it-requested-while-other-states-did-not
Despite the reassurances, much of the equipment is not usable:
https://apnews.com/07b9c1a39a688da54eaf6c860f596cd7
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@ Afrofem, cont. 2/2
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergency-ventilator-stockpile-ended-up-on-the-auction-block/amp
This is a lengthy and detailed article about the difficulties inherent in keeping such stockpiles up to date, whether on the city, state, or federal level — and even at individual hospitals which, due to budget cuts, have “taken to holding just enough to meet day-to-day needs.”
One solution that came to my mind (along with the obvious need to increase funding) would be to set up a rotation, so that medicine and equipment nearing their expiration date would be transferred to hospitals for immediate use and replaced in the stockpile by new products. Of course, it would be much easier to implement such a system if the U.S. had a national health service.
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“Gotta die of something. Just don’t rush it.” – v8driver
You’re correct, we all “Gotta die of something”. However, let it be because it’s the will of the Most High and not because of strategically racist snares or the evil machinations of white men!
@@@@@@
“Not because they are evil, but because in the course of their work and research, they identified certain global trends that could lead to this outcome.” – Solitaire
Now, here comes Solitaire, another white apologist. Just so that there is no misunderstanding, I personally don’t give a damn about you or v8driver’s opinion. And as far as your silly ass, milquetoast comment above, if it’s “Not because they are evil”, well then, what is it?? I’ll wait …
You seem to believe that this current pandemic is in potentially full throttle existential mode “because in the course of their work and research, they identified certain global trends that could lead to this outcome.”
WHAT?? This is one of the most asinine comments that I’ve heard on this blog in quite some time. Dr. Fauci has served as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.
But yet, after all this time in researching “trends” of infectious diseases, clearly this country is woefully ill-prepared and woefully ill-equipped for such an “outcome” as you stated above. So again, Dr. Fauci “identified” NOTHING!
With the length of time that Dr. Fauci has been employed within this area of research, his experience and his voice alone should’ve been utilized as a bullhorn calling for the stock piling of certain equipment and so forth. Hell, we have first responders that are scrambling for equipment as simple as face masks.
While speaking to an audience at Georgetown University in January of 2017, Dr. Fauci said to them: “There is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration (Trump) in the arena of infectious diseases,” he said.
For him to say something such as this on one hand as an open-ended warning, and on the other hand, did nothing or failed to act in a manner that would be consistent with stemming the potential tide or wave of deaths, .. well then, because it bears repeating, .. that’s freakin EVIL because he did NOTHING!
“Not because they are evil.” What in the world are you talking about?? Bill Gates was/is a software engineer. He doesn’t have a background or specialty within the medical field. So why then is he always speaking of vaccinations?? Once again, it bears repeating, .. pure freakin EVIL! And that’s notwithstanding Bill Gates’ father’s connection to Margaret Sanger. He worked on the Board of Planned Parenthood. Most people are well aware of her dealings in regards to eugenics targeting Black folks!
And since Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci are such smooth speakers, I have a scripture for both of them:
Psalm 55:21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
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@ blakksage
If you’re going to believe in conspiracy theories, there’s nothing anyone can say to convince you otherwise.
My point, though, was not about Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci themselves, but that they are just two of the many voices that have been upraised on this topic for years. Scientists can only raise their voices and try to influence opinion; they don’t control the presidents and other politicians who up until now haven’t thought preparing for a potential epidemic was worth the money.
This country — and pretty much the entire world — is “woefully ill-prepared and woefully ill-equipped” because the rulers didn’t heed those warnings, just like they aren’t heeding scientists’ warnings about climate change.
The directors of the NIH and the CDC don’t even control the budgets of their own organizations. Congress has slashed their funding again and again over the last 40 years, and they have been forced to make cuts to their public health programs and biomedical research accordingly.
In early February, before the coronavirus had made much impact here, Trump requested in his proposed 2021 budget a 7% cut to the NIH’s funding, while asking for increased spending on artificial intelligence and quantum information science. Trump prioritized computers over human lives.
You seem to think Dr. Fauci has a magic wand to wave that would have made the stockpiles appear from thin air. He can’t even get Trump to wear a face mask and stop shaking hands, much less authorize a national lockdown.
You appear to believe that “this current pandemic is in potentially full throttle existential mode” because it is a nefarious evil plot. Why would such villains give any warning at all if they wanted their plot to succeed? Much less provide exact blueprints for the steps that governments could have taken to stop such a plot in its tracks?
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The State of California at one time had a massive medical reserve set aside for a pandemic. It got defunded later when Governor Brown was looking for budget cuts.
It seems governments are more reactive then proactive.
https://revealnews.org/article/california-created-a-massive-medical-reserve-with-acute-care-beds-ventilators-and-n95-masks-and-let-it-collapse/
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“This country — and pretty much the entire world — is “woefully ill-prepared and woefully ill-equipped” because the rulers didn’t heed those warnings, just like they aren’t heeding scientists’ warnings about climate change…You appear to believe that “this current pandemic is in potentially full throttle existential mode” because it is a nefarious evil plot. Why would such villains give any warning at all if they wanted their plot to succeed? Much less provide exact blueprints for the steps that governments could have taken to stop such a plot in its tracks?”
This is very well said. The believers in “coverups”, “conspiracies”, etc. are scared children who don’t believe in inertia! Just because epidemics can be predicted, it’s not easy to separate noise from signal. Cases of deaths due to patients not responding to the usual medicines occur on a regular basis(noise), it becomes a signal of something more dangerous when you get clusters of such occurrences(signal). No matter how well prepared any nation is it will sustain losses since it takes time to gear up to respond to the crisis.
A view of what it’s like on a hospital ward: (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/icu-doctor-covid-crisis-hospital). Doctors are doing heroic work.
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New Zealand has established a four-level alert system for different stages of the crisis, with clear guidelines about the public health measures and types of social distancing for each level:
https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/covid-19-alert-system/
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@ Solitaire
Thanks for the info about expired, contaminated and defective equipment distributed by the Trump administration. That info dovetails with recent reports in the LA Times about the Feds seizing PPE and medical equipment orders placed by states, hospitals and clinics.
In a 4-7-20 article, Noam Levey described the confiscation of orders placed by states and hospitals:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies
The Feds are not confining their supply grabs to Blue States. Oklahoma and Texas have also been hit by these raids.
An earlier article (4-4-20) on the Talking Points Memo site speculated on the strategy behind the seizures:
“…these seizures of shipments are at best causing confusion for desperate states and hospitals. And they seem so haphazard that they are raising legitimate questions about whether they are being allocated to states in a preferential or politicized fashion.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/whats-up-with-the-feds-seizing-ppe-shipments-to-states-and-hospitals
In other words, what is the endgame? A sick patronage scheme? Grab and resell for a profit? Who knows?
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Where did the novel coronavirus come from?
You could think it came from a place in China. But wait a moment. Maybe you were wrong! It came from some place in Africa (sic), and therefore…
… Africans are now being discriminated in China because of the Covid-19 pandemic!
Crazy stuff!
See, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWqAvIxbbHc)
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“In other words, what is the endgame? A sick patronage scheme? Grab and resell for a profit? Who knows?”
Trumpcare death panels, maybe?
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@ gro jo
“Trumpcare death panels, maybe?”
Maybe. US- based Black people are perishing at higher rates than the general population. I don’t see a big push by the administration to send supplies to Detroit, Chicago or Memphis.
However, Trump is grabbing PPE and equipment from all Americans right now. We will have to see how this plays out.
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@ munubantu
Not surprising. Mistreatment of Africans in China predated COVID-19.
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@ munubantu
I am shocked, simply shocked that anyone would scapegoat Black people for something that was not their fault.
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There have been reports about people recovering and testing negative for the virus before testing positive again. I thought it possible that perhaps there were false negatives which were exposed on subsequent retesting. But South Korea’s “CDC” thinks actual reactivation of the virus may be occurring.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/coronavirus-may-reactivate-in-cured-patients-korean-cdc-says
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@munubantu
I guess the CCP has given up on the “started in America” theory:
It seems Africans, specifically, are being scapegoated because the lady in the interview said they were declined service after their passports were checked. Perhaps a myth that the disease came from Africa is taking root in China? That has no basis in fact but as abagond sarcastically suggested, it wouldn’t be the first time black people take heat for made up 5**t.
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“There have been reports about people recovering and testing negative for the virus before testing positive again.”
A transparent CCP ‘coverup’ no doubt.
“… Africans are now being discriminated in China because of the Covid-19 pandemic!
Crazy stuff!”
What are African embassies, consulates, doing to defend their nationals?
“Not surprising. Mistreatment of Africans in China predated COVID-19.”
Are we talking about official policy or racist practice from some citizens?
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Now for a different take on Africans in China.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7fnBcP_fvg)
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https://s.amsu.ng/cMXGTrsrL0BN
My wife suited up in her PPE at her ICU.
She says the work environment is stressful and will likely lead to PTSD amongst a lot of nurses.
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Sounds like “official policy”.
(https://www.africanexponent.com/post/7376-africans-evicted-from-chinese-hotels-over-coronavirus)
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@ Michael Barker
Thanks for that link from The African Exponent. The writer of the article shows how intertwined official policy or racist citizen action are most of the time—–this time in China. Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza notes:
The “official policy” aspect is clearly shown in the mass evictions, the police harassment and the Chinese authorities allowing the buildup of conspiracy theories and racist memes in their closed social media system.
The Chinese are trying to cleanse their world image by throwing their psychic garbage on African nationals. This is after they failed to pin the virus on mythical American service members and cyclists.
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“Thanks for that link from The African Exponent. The writer of the article shows how intertwined official policy or racist citizen action are most of the time…The “official policy” aspect is clearly shown in the mass evictions, the police harassment and the Chinese authorities allowing the buildup of conspiracy theories and racist memes in their closed social media system.
The Chinese are trying to cleanse their world image by throwing their psychic garbage on African nationals. This is after they failed to pin the virus on mythical American service members and cyclists.”
Wow, the leap in jumping to conclusions is very impressive, even world class. Have the evicted Africans sued their Chinese landlords? Have the courts rendered negative verdicts? The PRC does have a legal system where such things can be challenged. Why have these Africans not complained to their representatives in China? Are they legal residents of the PRC?
M. Barker’s link to the African Exponent doesn’t answer any of these questions.
Speaking of the “African Exponent”, this article says they are unreliable:
” mediabiasfactcheck.com
The African Exponent – Media Bias/Fact Check
3-4 minutes
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.
Detailed Report
Reasoning: Poor Sourcing, Sensationalism, Lack of Transparency, Failed Fact Check
Country: Tanzania
World Press Freedom Rank: Tanzania 118/180
History
The African Exponent is a website that focuses primarily on African related news, but also covers a wide variety of topics including business, finance, markets, politics, culture, science and technology. This website does not list an editor or ownership information. The Contact page indicates the site is based in Tanzania.
Funded by / Ownership
The African Exponent does not disclose ownership or financing. Revenue appears to be derived from advertising.
Analysis / Bias
In review, The African Exponent uses emotionally loaded headlines such as “The New President of Tanzania, John Magufuli, Wins Hearts of Tanzanians and Africans”. John Magufuli is the president of Tanzania and chairman of CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi – social democratic party) with the article heavily favoring him. Although The African Exponent occasionally sources properly, most of the articles are poorly sourced and only the image credit is given. Further, they regularly rewrite the articles and republish them, such as this one “With $100 Million, This Is How Kenya Is Constructing Africa’s Largest AIDS Drug Factory”. This same story appears in The Guardian under the title “Kenya steps up Aids battle as building starts on $100m drug factory”. Lastly, they also publish sensationalized stories without sourcing, such as this: I Thought I Was Having Sex With My Housekeeper, I Didn’t Know He Was My Son…
A factual search reveals a failed fact check by an IFCN fact checker.
Overall, we rate The African Exponent left biased and Questionable based on poor sourcing, a failed fact check by an IFCN fact checker, publication of highly sensationalized stories and a lack of transparency regarding ownership. (M. Huitsing 4/19/2019)
Source: https://www.africanexponent.com”
I’m not passing judgement on AE, just providing a fuller picture of what’s going on. As members of the Abagondsphere I’m sure you guys will appreciate the added information.
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@ gro jo
The short answer to these questions is: African states do not provide much of a protection to their citizens overseas.
This is one of the weaknesses of many of those states. And the level of commitment of a particular state to the protection of its citizens can also vary in dependence of the embassy’s or consulate’s personnel (the bosses) working there at a given time. Some of them are only minding “high state’s businesses” or their individual affairs and resist being involved in “troubles” involving “simple” citizens. It shouldn’t be like this but this is the reality.
This is why many Africans oft do not trust their representatives in foreign countries.
Regarding the legal status of those Africans I can only speculate but the testimonies that the young Ghanaian showed us in the video-clip above seem to indicate that even regular/legal people are being harassed.
I note that these events are currently happening in specific areas of China and I would not conclude yet that this is a widespread phenomenon. But it’s troubling anyway.
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I wonder if Chinese state-owned media is biased? Perish the thought!
But in case any vile reactionaries should make such a charge, I’m sure they’re “biased” in the right direction.
https://newsaf.cgtn.com/news/2020-03-27/China-temporarily-bans-entry-of-foreign-nationals-Foreign-Ministry-PbrzyyPDEI/index.html
This was a culmination of days of reporting that imported cases were rising while China had controlled their local epidemic (heh). There is a certain irony here because the CCP had vociferously opposed America’s restriction of travel from China (against WHO recommendations). Yet when the CCP decided it was in its interest to restrict entry of foreigners, the measure is implemented without any fanfare or fuss.
Anyway, there have been reports of a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment in the wake of this belief that foreigners are bringing the disease (back) into China while local transmission is now negligible. Since the edict said that visas and residence permits valid as of the announcement would be suspended, probably authorities can treat foreigners already living in China as being there illegally.
Even with such a policy, Africans taking the most heat must be nothing but racism. African countries were among the last to start confirming cases as Chinese and (later) Europeans gradually exported the disease. Furthermore, Africans living in China who hadn’t traveled recently would have been facing the same infection risks any Han Chinese who hadn’t traveled. I like the way Afrofem put it:
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By March, 21st Afrofem wrote:
(emphasis added)
This insightful thought came back to my mind a few days ago when an interesting episode happened recently in Maputo. What was?
The son of a former president of Mozambique became ill (cardiovascular problems) and, as usual, made an appointment to go to South Africa to be seen by a doctor and receive medical treatment there.
The problem happened when he was landing in Johannesburg airport. South Africa is in a lockdown, a serious one, and he was not let in the country.
A flurry of comments invaded our social media networks talking about the case and the implications regarding some old habits of the local elite, and indeed, much of the elites in many African societies, which instead of developing and investing in the local health systems, prefer to go abroad for medical assistance (oft using taxpayers money!). Many commentators said that they were pleased that at last “these people are feeling the effects of their own policies onto themselves”.
Notice that Mozambique was after its independence (1975) following the socialism and we had at that time a more equal medical care for all. We haven’t abandoned totally some aspects of that system but, after the turn to “democracy and free market” (1994) increasingly the citizens receive a medical treatment depending on their money. Basic medical care is for all but specialized treatment depends on how much you can pay.
People are noticing that this pandemic is forcing people to rethink old ideas and routines.
See also, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/africa/african-leaders-healthcare-coronavirus-intl/index.html
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“The short answer to these questions is: African states do not provide much of a protection to their citizens overseas.”
It is as I suspected. The root of the problem is that these governments don’t value their citizens, the racism flows from that fact, whether we are talking about Asia, Europe or North America.
Thank you Origin for the information you provided. As a “vile running dog of US imperialism”, in hoary Maoists parlance, I’d like you to explain how “…throwing their psychic garbage on African nationals. ” serves to cleanse their image. Wouldn’t it make them look racist instead? Does your boss, Trump, need the competition in that arena?
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A interesting duet is being played between Africa and China in the last two decades. Now some stress and mistrust is building up because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But not all the good that was achieved until now is gone.
See how a Nigerian citizen went to the social media to protest the recent harassment experienced by her fellow citizens in China, when in the meantime the Nigerian authorities are bringing Chinese doctors to Nigeria, supposedly to help the country battle the disease,
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q3rNeLtDaM)
(vox populi, voice of the people)
And look also how Nigerian authorities reacted to the Chinese in regard to the mistreatment of Nigerians in China,
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey6OScFlJ-U)
As the saying goes, while there is life, there is hope!
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Grojo “I’m not passing judgement on AE, just providing a fuller picture of what’s going on. As members of the Abagondsphere I’m sure you guys will appreciate the added information.”
Alright. Lets take a closer look at your “source” and get a “fuller picture”.
United Kingdom
1.) BBC. Overall, we rate the BBC Left-Center biased based on story selection that slightly favors the left and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information.
2.) Sky News. Overall, we rate Sky News Least Biased based on balanced news coverage and a reasonably balanced op-ed page. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to a reasonable fact check record.
(Google “China’s deadly Coronavirus cover up” Sky News. I watched this and it reminded me of something that Fox News would have produced.)
3.) Reuters. Overall, we rate Reuters Least Biased based on objective reporting and Very High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information with minimal bias and a clean fact check record.
World Press Freedom Rank: UK 33/180
Since Reuters has the highest rating for accuracy, which Grojo would approve of, lets see what they say about Chinese State discrimination against Africans.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-africa/african-ambassadors-in-china-complain-to-government-over-discrimination-idUSKCN21T0T7
U.S.A.
1.) MSNBC. Overall, we rate MSNBC Left Biased based on story selection that consistently favors the establishment left. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to news hosts and the website producing 3 pants on fire claims.
2.) Fox News. Overall, we rate Fox News strongly Right-Biased due to editorial positions and story selection that favors the right. We also rate them Mixed factually and borderline Questionable based on poor sourcing and the spreading of conspiracy theories that later must be retracted after being widely shared. Further, Fox News would be rated a Questionable source based on numerous failed fact checks by hosts and pundits, however straight news reporting is generally reliable, therefore we rate them Mixed for factual reporting.
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 48/180
China.
1.) Xinhua. Overall, we rate Xinhua Left-Center biased based on left leaning editorials that endorse socialism/communism. When it comes to factual reporting we rate them Mixed due to a lack of linked sourcing and promotion of pro-Chinese government propaganda.
2.) China Daily. Overall, we rate the China Daily Questionable based on endorsement of the Chinese Communist Government and editorial positions that promote state propaganda. World Press Freedom Rank: China 176/180
Seems Grojo’s source has a dim view of China.
South Africa.
1) All Africa. Overall, we rate AllAfrica Least Biased based on balanced and diverse story selection and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202004120030.html
2.)The Citizen. Overall, we rate The Citizen, Right-Center biased based on story selection and editorial content that moderately favors the right. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to reasonable sourcing and a clean fact check record.
World Press Freedom Rank: South Africa 31/180
I also searched for Black owned news sources in Africa. Nigeria prints four newspapers but none of them were rated. Similarly the official news agency for Kenya was not rated. It seems Media Biased Fact Check is in fact biased in favor of Western and white sourced news media. “All Africa” is a white owned news source so therefore can be “trusted”. Black owned new sources are ignored or considered “sensationalism”.
From Wikipedia: “According to the city, there were 16,000 Africans including North Africans residing in Guangzhou. Of these residents, 4,000 were long term residents, which is defined by city officials as living for longer than 6 months in the city.” The city is a hub for international trade, has a garment district ect.
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“It seems Media Biased Fact Check is in fact biased in favor of Western and white sourced news media. “All Africa” is a white owned news source so therefore can be “trusted”. Black owned new sources are ignored or considered “sensationalism”.”
There is a reason for that. Media Biased Fact Check (MBFC) is a White and Western owned amateur fact checking operation. MBFC is headed by Dave Van Zandt.
MBFC, according to their F.A.Q. page is a “LLC is a Limited Liability Company owned solely by Dave Van Zandt. He also makes all final editing and publishing decisions.”
His LinkedIn profile describes Van Zandt as “the former owner of Van Zandt Webs and studied at William Paterson University of New Jersey.” He is further described as having a “communications degree”.
As to MFBC’s methods the site has this to say:
The Pointer Institute is funded by Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Duke Reporters’ Lab, the *Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations and the Park Foundation.
At present, there is an attempt by the Oligarchs/Billionaire class to scrub non-corporate, non-neoliberal content from the internet. They have instituted news rating apps like NewsGuard to color code the news. They have de-platformed organizations who do not conform to the corporate narrative. They have buried independent websites on the 5th page of Google (if they are lucky). They have invested millions into “fact checking” websites like MFBC, either directly (through foundation grants) or indirectly (through advertising).
As Tamar Wilner of the Columbia Journalism Review noted about “fact-checking” sites like MBFC:
https://www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php
Those subjective assessments are often reflect inherent biases against Black and African news sources. They tend to discount the facts those news sources present and their point of view.
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@ munubantu
“We haven’t abandoned totally some aspects of that system but, after the turn to “democracy and free market” (1994) increasingly the citizens receive a medical treatment depending on their money.”
Likely as the result of some International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank structural adjustment scheme.
Free Market indeed. The freedom of a small group to pick everyone else’s pockets clean.
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“Psychic garbage” in this context is guilt, shame, loss of “face” and sense of responsibility for negative global events.
The Chinese authorities are attempting to shift blame (toss psychic garbage) onto African nationals within their borders. They don’t care about “looking racist”. Dumping garbage on Black people/Africans is an international sport.
When the Chinese government tried to pin the COVID-19 tail on the Americans, they did not suddenly eject all Americans, Europeans or White people in their country from apartments and hotels, etc. Nor did they ban them from certain public spaces like grocery stores.
The Chinese authorities apparently also don’t care that everyone in the rest of the world knows where COVID-19 originated. As long as they can cleanse themselves internally in the eyes of their population, they can avert calls for change in their government.
Their actions buttress my earlier point about how all governments behave:
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“The root of the problem is that these governments don’t value their citizens, the racism flows from that fact”
Wow. That’s a new twist to victim-blaming, or at least one I haven’t heard before.
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@Solitaire
It seems almost like an adaptation of “black teens are naturally stopped more often by police because their families have failed them” to the international level. When a supposedly black person starts repurposing white nationalist rhetoric in order to exculpate a polity accused of discriminating against black people, one has to start wondering.
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“Wow. That’s a new twist to victim-blaming, or at least one I haven’t heard before.”
Pray tell, which victim is being blamed in that sentence? The African victims of discrimination? No. Their do nothing governments? Absolutely.
British football hooligans riot and cause mayhem from one end of Europe to the next. When they are rounded up by the police, their consulates provide them with adequate representation, as documented in Bill Buford’s 1990 book: “Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence”.
Your claim of ‘victim blaming’ is nonsense. If you want to do penance for outing jefe as a liar by attacking me, get better material to attack me. Naturally, I’ll repay you in kind.
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“@Solitaire
It seems almost like an adaptation of “black teens are naturally stopped more often by police because their families have failed them” to the international level. When a supposedly black person starts repurposing white nationalist rhetoric in order to exculpate a polity accused of discriminating against black people, one has to start wondering.”
The stupidity of that remark takes my breath away.
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Michael Barker, Afrofem, Nice job outing MBFC! I didn’t think you guys still had a critical bone left in your bodies, parroting the “the Oligarchs/Billionaire class”
media attacks on the PRC, as you have.
Note that gro jo prefaced his use of MBFC’s criticism of AE by declaring he did not endorse their view of that website. When trying to score cheap political points, it pays to read selectively.
Some comments are chuck full of the manure about not ‘respecting’ ‘Black’ media, how can such person be black etc. I owe allegiance to the truth as I see it, not to any race, nationality, party or universal ‘genius’ and sage. If I’m wrong I say so and move on.
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” If I’m wrong I say so and move on.”
Not really. You simply retreat to the same derail, deflect and dismiss tactics we’ve all come to expect from you.
deep, hearty chuckle
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/13/asia/china-guangzhou-african-blacklash-hnk-intl/index.html
Kind of a Rosa Parks moment for Black Africans, if you allow me to draw a comparison. History being made…
Let’s hope that something good arises from all this.
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” on Mon Apr 13th 2020 at 03:38:22
Afrofem
” If I’m wrong I say so and move on.”
Not really. You simply retreat to the same derail, deflect and dismiss tactics we’ve all come to expect from you.
deep, hearty chuckle”
Ahh, the “goddess of sophistry” is at it again! The reason you wrote the above is because you are deflecting your refusal to admit your ignorance, such as on HK, the Uyghurs, etc., to me. Unlike you when someone provides me with accurate information, I have the basic decency to thank them for it. I’m still waiting for you to thank me for letting you know that the PRC collects no tax from HK and that the Uighurs were settled in Xinjiang by the hated Han Chinese, etc.
Since I’m all about educating you, allow me to take this occasion to disabuse you of the following absurd notion : “The Chinese authorities are attempting to shift blame (toss psychic garbage) onto African nationals within their borders. They don’t care about “looking racist”. Dumping garbage on Black people/Africans is an international sport.”
Right. The PRC was one of the main backers of the Bandung Conference in 1955. They built a railroad line that allowed Zambia to bypass Rhodesia and South Africa, thereby allowing it to resist the racist regimes in place back then.
” The TAZARA Railway, also called the Uhuru Railway or the Tanzam Railway, is a railway in East Africa linking the port of Dar es Salaam in east Tanzania with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia’s Central Province. The single-track railway is 1,860 km (1,160 mi) long and is operated by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA).
The governments of Tanzania, Zambia and China built the railway to eliminate landlocked Zambia’s economic dependence on Rhodesia and South Africa, both of which were ruled by white-minority governments.[1] The railway provided the only route for bulk trade from Zambia’s Copperbelt to reach the sea without having to transit white-ruled territories. The spirit of Pan-African socialism among the leaders of Tanzania and Zambia and the symbolism of China’s support for newly independent African countries gave rise to TAZARA’s designation as the “Great Uhuru Railway”, Uhuru being the Swahili word for Freedom.”
When you have contributed one millionth what the PRC contributed to fighting racism, I’ll take your nonsense seriously. The PRC is no fount of virtue, it is a real place with all the imperfections known all over the world. I have my criticisms of the PRC government’s policies, but I don’t buy the bs claims made by ‘regime change’ types like you and others on this blog.
As I wrote above, if the Africans in AE’s video had legally binding leases for the space they rented they should sue their landlords in court and demand that their nations put political pressure on the PRC to do them justice.
You are so desperate to write anti-PRC nonsense that you ignore that even nations that grew fat and happy on racism are quick to absolve themselves of it. The following quote from a NYT review of Richard Wright’s book, “The Color Curtain” nicely illustrates how silly your claim is: “… Tillman Durdin suggested that “Mr. Wright…overplays the color angle and attributes to Asians and Africans uniformity of attitude on color that does not exist. He does not sufficiently bring out that Western manifestations of racial superiority in Asia and, to a lesser degree, even in Africa are largely a by-product of past Western political domination over the two continents.” But elsewhere in the review, Durdin observed, “In his concluding chapter…Mr. Wright correctly poses the crucial question highlighted at Bandung. He asks whether the sensitive and resentful people represented there are to be brought out of their present state of poverty, ignorance and economic backwardness under the aegis of a bloody Communist totalitarianism or through wise and generous aid from the West that will link them with our freer, democratic system.”[14]”
Your claim about the PRC is as ridiculous and hypocritical as Tillman Durdin’s was in 1956.
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@ gro jo
That wasn’t an attack — more like an expression of befuddled surprise.
I thought racism flowed from the people who are being racist.
You can fault the governments for not adequately protecting their citizens abroad. I have no quarrel with that. But to say the lack of protection is the root of racism??? No.
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Ok, if it wasn’t an attack, I take back what I wrote as far as that goes.
“I thought racism flowed from the people who are being racist.
You can fault the governments for not adequately protecting their citizens abroad. I have no quarrel with that. But to say the lack of protection is the root of racism??? No.”
Are the African victims of discrimination barred from seeking redress from PRC courts because of their race? Have their consuls taken up their plight? If they haven’t that makes them enablers of racism. “Foreign devils” whose governments won’t defend them make easy targets, citizens from nations with track records of defending their citizens, as documented in Buford’s book don’t experience such things. To you, racism is a ‘feeling’ you disapprove of, to me it’s a power relationship, first and foremost. Hence, weak governments enable racism against their nationals. How come none of the anti-racists on this blog have failed to call for contributing to a fund to allow the victims to sue to get justice? 10 percent of the $1,200.00 COVID-19 money, for those able to part with it, would help more than the hot air commenting on their plight has generated.
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@ gro jo
“The PRC was one of the main backers of the Bandung Conference in 1955.”
Ancient history.
A lot of things have changed since 1955. Allies have become adversaries and enemies have become friends. The Chinese have become extractive in Africa and abusive toward Africans.
A Zimbabwean news site illustrates those points in this article, “Chinese exploiting Zimbabwe: Analysts”:
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2013/02/chinese-exploiting-zimbabwe-analysts/
You will argue that this is just one site with “sensationalistic” content—an outlier. Yet, if you read English language sites throughout Africa, the theme of this story is repeated. The Chinese are just the latest Pale supremacist group in Africa.
Admire the PRC if you choose, gro jo, but colonialism is ugly no matter the shade of the colonizer.
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“You will argue that this is just one site with “sensationalistic” content—an outlier.”
Nice bit of mind reading on your part. Africa is already colonized by the ‘West’. Admire the West if you choose, Afrofem, but colonialism is ugly no matter the shade of the colonizer.
“Ancient history.
A lot of things have changed since 1955. Allies have become adversaries and enemies have become friends. The Chinese have become extractive in Africa and abusive toward Africans.”
A cliché that gets you nowhere. Now flesh out that ‘thought’ if you can, with facts. You know me well enough by now to know that clichés like things change mean nothing to me. Show me how they have changed.
The Zimbabwean example you chose to show how the Chinese are “extractive in Africa and abusive toward Africans.” neglects the role of the Zimbabwean state and Western aggression against that state. Typical of pro-Western propagandists like you.
The Chinese you mention are obliged to obey Zimbabwean law. Their state defends them against abuses they suffer in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa. African governments should do the same for their nationals in China.
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Since you guys are too sensitive to read Global Times, the mouthpiece of the PRC, I deputized myself as the designated reader of that source:
” Global Times
6-7 minutes
Washington’s hysterical COVID-19 claims will fail
By Hu Xijin Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/13 23:43:40
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci as US President Donald Trump dismisses a question during an unscheduled briefing after a Coronavirus Task Force meeting at the White House on Sunday, in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP
We are being confronted by real international hooliganism.
Washington is now attacking Beijing from three directions. First, it is accusing the Chinese government of initially “concealing the epidemic” which allowed the crisis to get out of control and “harm the US and the world.”
Second, Washington has blackened China’s reputation saying it is hiding the “actual number of deaths,” claiming it’s somehow higher than the official account. This is an obvious attempt to deflect attention from the shocking number of deaths in the US. It’s an attempt to deceive people into think that the US is more honest than China, rather than reflecting on the dereliction of duty or even malfeasance that has occurred in the US.
Third, the US has encouraged a few lawyers to initiate lawsuits against the Chinese government, making farcical claims and instigating anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. Washington has turned to extreme nationalism in the hope of saving itself.
China is being forced into needless and pointless war of refuting US’ hysterical claims against us. We need not worry about this as there are two reasons Washington’s travesty will fail.
First, China’s performance in the fight against the epidemic is well-organized and achievements have been huge. All the world knows this obvious fact. Considering the serious global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world will fairly judge the city of Wuhan’s overall performance in overcoming the virus.
Wuhan was the first to report the epidemic and the first to have to make difficult choices on implementing anti-epidemic mobilization. When European countries and the US started to deal with the epidemic, they already knew much about its virulence and how it spread. Pre-warned, they only needed to weigh the risks between all-out containment and weathering the damage that would do to the economy. If all countries have failed to make all the right choices, how can they focus blame on Wuhan?
As early as January 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant countries and regions of the pneumonia outbreak. Chinese medical experts and administrative authorities have been collecting and accumulating knowledge on the virus ever since. On January 20, China formally confirmed human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus and made this knowledge public. Completing this evidence-based process was no easy task.
Chinese scientists have maintained close contact with WHO and the international medical community. They have published several papers on the coronavirus outbreak in the world’s most prestigious medical journals, sharing information with the international community without reservation.
Wuhan issued a notice locking down the city in the early hours of January 23, a decision so shocking it woke the entire world. For the first time in human history, a mega-city with a population of more than ten million shut down all its outbound channels.
This was a deafening siren warning the entire world.
China has worked hard to annihilate the virus through unprecedented suspension of economic activity at the national level.
The ruling powers in Washington clearly knew what was coming their way. The virus had broken out in several Asian countries and regions and European countries were hit hard by the virus one after another. How much information do US decision makers need before they sober up and place the epidemic at the top of all matters? Are they deaf or blind?
We see US political circles projecting incredible impetuousness and stupidity. Some senior officials, US senators and influential media workers publicly claimed that the COVID-19 was a mere influenza that would pose very little risk to the American people. Super Tuesday, the climax of the primary elections, was still held on March 3 with great fanfare. Who can tell today that how many Americans were infected during those election rallies? Some US politicians and famous TV pundits were still playing down the epidemic and in early March were still telling people not to worry. How dare they blame their ridiculous response to the contagion on China? Where is their shame?
The second reason is that lies will eventually be fully exposed. US partisanship is one of the angles where the US lies will wear out. There is plenty of evidence that the US Democratic Party wants to prove the weakness and inability of the Trump administration’s epidemic fight. The mainstream media supportive of the Democrats will also lend a helping hand. With the approaching presidential election, the Democrats will not allow the Republican-led government to duck its responsibility.
The outbreak in the US is still brewing. In recent days, some 2,000 people a day are dying from the deadly virus. Public anger will generate more and more pressure on US politicians. It is becoming more difficult for the US political elites and their supporters to make up lies to deceive the public and override international law. They cannot justify themselves in face of such heavy casualties.
Of course, since the anti-China atmosphere has been formed in US society, and the political elite take the initiative in attempting to suppress China, they are certain to receive support. China should prudently cope with the Washington-launched propaganda war and display facts to the world as best as it can. No matter how powerful US soft power may be, it cannot beat facts and morality. The ruling elites in Washington are living in a fantasy where they think blurring the facts and spreading their slander allows them to call white for black.
The author is editor-in-chief of the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn“
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@ gro jo
You are missing the point.
Recent commenters have not put the US government on a pedestal. We are well aware of the crazy amount of propaganda that political factions in the US gin up to besmirch the PRC (and Russia, Iran, Venezuela and other countries).
The point is the PRC is not some forlorn victim shivering in the woods. They are masters of propaganda, too. In fact, the Chinese have thousands of years of experience in “blurring the facts and spreading…slander [that] allows them to call white for black.”
I tend to think of both the US and the PRC as komodo dragons in a tussle for control. One is weakened from self-inflicted wounds and trying desperately to take the other down before it bleeds out. It is a loud and ugly battle devoid of heroic figures.
It is just one more spectacle for these extraordinary times.
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yeah ok gro jo
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/here-chinas-plan-nuclear-war-against-america-73646
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Yeah ok v8driver
Now tell me about the US’s plans for nuclear war against the PRC and other nations.
“Targeting China: U.S. Nuclear Planning and Massive Retaliation in East Asia, 19531955
Article in Journal of Cold War Studies 10(4):37-65 · October 2008 with 15 Reads
DOI: 10.1162/jcws.2008.10.4.37
Cite this publication
Abstract
This article assesses how the U.S. National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Strategic Air Command (SAC)devised highly classified plans for nuclear war against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the period after the July 1953 Korean armistice. The Eisenhower administration was seeking to rely more heavily on nuclear weapons in East Asia. Important differences of opinion emerged during intra- and interagency debates on the matter. The Air Force’s preference for nuclear operations aimed at the total destruction of the PRC’s military-industrial potential clashed with the State Department’s desire to retain allied support by avoiding mass civilian casualties through selective targeting. The expansive nuclear planning that was eventually undertaken was an Asian counterpart to the overkill usually associated with SAC’s plans for general war with the Soviet Union during this era.”
The USA has been planning nuclear war against the PRC since 1953, the PRC didn’t acquire nuclear weapons until 1964. Got that v8driver? The days when your nation could blackmail China are over and done with, get used to it.
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Regarding nuclear war between China and the U.S.
Globalism and “free trade” make it less likely that both of those countries would go to war.
Corporations have billions invested in China and China holds billions in U.S. treasury bonds that back their currency. Similarly the U.S. market helps fund China’s prosperity.
So while both are competing Empires the economics behind war between those two countries doesn’t make sense in the present time.
Long term China may come out on top. They are Empire building in South America and Africa and if those places as well as the rest of the world can replace the U.S. market then that might embolden military action between the two countries.
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ooooh, if we can ascertain a definite reason for or source of the coronavirus? coronavirus deaths can become crime stats!!!!
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well the nuclear arms race kinda went along with the whole anti-communist thing? and yeah look what we ended up with, korean war and vietnam.
as soon as one nuke goes up it’s going to be like the last few pages in the bible of course.
And until nuclear weapons are outlawed, yeah right! we are all being held hostage
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when did it go from a shooting war to economic conflict, that’s interesting, i guess after japan’s manufacturing declined, mid 80’s?
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China’s actual plan for war with the United States is supposedly a multi-pronged asymmetric approach involving economic means and “lawfare” through the commandeering of international organizations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
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My previous post didn’t show up and I don’t think there is anything in it that should have been triggered the automatic censor.
Anyway, I’ve seen reports recently which suggest that the CCP may be taking an “editorial” role wrt scientific research into the origin of the novel coronavirus. A number of news outlets have reported on this but I’ll provide links to the Chinese websites from which the information was obtained.
The China University of Geosciences, which had said it was doing coronavirus research, posted this notice:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L9chDVyS40AJ:kjc.cug.edu.cn/info/1193/5233.htm+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de
Translated by google:
The link is from google’s cache because the live page now has nothing but “该内容已经被撤销” for which the automated translation is “This content has been revoked”. I”m not sure whether that means the policy has been reversed or that it wasn’t supposed to have been publicized so the page was edited. I suspect it’s the latter.
Fudan University also had a similar notice which was removed.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200409053204/http://www.it.fudan.edu.cn/Data/View/3657
The live page gives a 404 error now indicating that nothing is at that URL.
I believe what this appears to be on its face: an attempt by the government to control information about where the virus ultimately came from. A continuing coverup fits the previous pattern of behavior [like the muzzling of doctors and labs in early January]. But if there’s a solid scientific consensus that the virus came from the Huanan seafood market, why is tracing its origin and spread considered a particularly sensitive issue?
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but, the US is clearly on a huge campaign to blame the wet market/BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, like 3 MSM stories on it today!
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@ Origin
I do not see anything at my end, either in the moderation queue or the spam filter.
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@ gro jo
“Ok, if it wasn’t an attack, I take back what I wrote as far as that goes.”
Thank you.
“To you, racism is a ‘feeling’ you disapprove of, to me it’s a power relationship, first and foremost.”
No, racism isn’t just a feeling. People act on their racist beliefs in ways that may be small and individual but are still harmful. I make a distinction between that and the power relationship you describe, which I would call structural racism or institutionalized racism. I know there is a difference of opinion about this — another school of thought would describe it as prejudice/bigotry versus racism. Ultimately I think either wording describes the same dynamic. Perhaps you are only concerned with institutionalized racism and discount the other?
“weak governments enable racism against their nationals.”
Seems to me that racism has a lot to do with why those governments are weak.
“How come none of the anti-racists on this blog have failed to call for contributing to a fund to allow the victims to sue to get justice? 10 percent of the $1,200.00 COVID-19 money, for those able to part with it, would help more than the hot air commenting on their plight has generated.”
Good idea. Are you offering to set it up? Surely with your knowledge of China, you’d be able to establish the fund in such a way that the money is guaranteed to get to those victims, or better yet, to advocates in China who can take on these cases and help the victims successfully navigate the Chinese court system.
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“No, racism isn’t just a feeling. People act on their racist beliefs in ways that may be small and individual but are still harmful. I make a distinction between that and the power relationship you describe, which I would call structural racism or institutionalized racism.”
Not terribly interested in definitions. “prejudice/bigotry versus racism.” Don’t see how versus is appropriate here. Prejudice and bigotry are to racism like rivers to the ocean.
“Seems to me that racism has a lot to do with why those governments are weak.”
Only because you prioritize opinions over facts. Only after the conquest of the other continents could Europeans afford to be racist. If you are right, can you explain why the Japanese were given “honorary White” status in Apartheid South Africa? In my book, Japanese industrial might had everything to do with it, not the opinions of some Boers.
“How come none(sic) of the anti-racists on this blog have failed to call for contributing to a fund to allow the victims to sue to get justice? 10 percent of the $1,200.00 COVID-19 money, for those able to part with it, would help more than the hot air commenting on their plight has generated.”
The above paragraph should have read as: ““How come all of the anti-racists on this blog have failed to call for contributing to a fund to allow the victims to sue to get justice? 10 percent of the $1,200.00 COVID-19 money, for those able to part with it, would help more than the hot air commenting on their plight has generated.”
As originally written, my question implied that there was a unanimous call for such fund. Happily, you got the gist of what I was saying. I thought only Afrofem could read minds!
To answer your question, such fund doesn’t seem to be needed since the governments of a number of African nations have made it clear they wouldn’t tolerate such practices and the PRC has committed to rectify any abuse.
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“I believe what this appears to be on its face: an attempt by the government to control information about where the virus ultimately came from.”
How many ‘coverups’ are you juggling now, I lost count?
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@gro jo
“How many ‘coverups’ are you juggling now, I lost count?”
You would struggle to keep up if, as I suspect, you can’t count past number one.
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@ gro jo
“Don’t see how versus is appropriate here. Prejudice and bigotry are to racism like rivers to the ocean.”
I already said I don’t ascribe to that belief. It’s the typical wording used by those who define racism as “prejudice + power.” I was simply acknowledging it because there are (or have been) commenters here who do ascribe to it.
“Only because you prioritize opinions over facts. Only after the conquest of the other continents could Europeans afford to be racist. If you are right, can you explain why the Japanese were given “honorary White” status in Apartheid South Africa? In my book, Japanese industrial might had everything to do with it, not the opinions of some Boers.”
I’m not in the mood to argue this in depth. I’m just going to say that the history of Europeans inflicting slavery, conquest, colonization, and discrimination on Africans is fact, not opinion, as is the interference by the CIA and others that destabilized many early African governments after the end of the white supremacist colonial rule, as is the ongoing looting of African natural resources and money by the IMF, France, etc.
“As originally written, my question implied that there was a unanimous call for such fund. Happily, you got the gist of what I was saying. I thought only Afrofem could read minds!”
Yes, I caught the gist, noticed the error, and chose to ignore it instead of pouncing on it. See, I can be nice sometimes! 😀🤗
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The following information is
@open-minded-people ie
NOT
@gro jo or anyone else unquestioningly loyal to the CCP
(Note: I’m not an “evangelist” and I’m NOT interested in changing minds so don’t expect me to engage in endless time-wasting back-and-forths with people who’ve made their entrenched positions abundantly clear.)
Anyway, as early as late January there were studies suggesting that the Huanan seafood market may not be the source of the outbreak. This is because some of the earliest cases show no link to the market. That leaves the epidemiological possibility that the virus was brought into the market from some other source and then spread out further from that cluster since many people gather there.
This is an article about a study published in The Lancet about this:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally
I had only skimmed this article months ago but reading it again, a greater understanding of the early information flow started to come together for me. The claim that the outbreak originated at the seafood market and, therefore, Chinese authorities had contained it by closing the market is related to the long-held claim that the virus was not being transmitted from human to human. If the virus strictly transmits from animals to humans then only a place where animals and humans are in close contact could sustain infections. However once human to human transmission is acknowledged, then the virus could have come from anywhere. Conversely, any early cases which were not linked to the market (and there were reportedly several) would have strongly implicated human to human transmission. In any case, with human to human transmission an obvious fact at this point, the ultimate epicenter of the outbreak has become an open question; the answer to which could be “classified”.
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The following comment is
@Origin or anyone else unquestioningly loyal to the Western media.
Origin is a very imaginative fellow. He suffers from having been abandoned by Dad at an impressionable age, hence his search for an ur-dad. It’s a sad story, if only his father had abandoned the family when our hero was a mature 41 instead of 31 years old man we would be spared his nonsense.
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the reinfection thing ? seems to be complicated by the 2nd strain? the anti-vaxxers and so forth are up in arms, i get my flu shot
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and i’m sorry gro jo, in specific, that article you pasted? pure agitprop not to say cnn isn’t or reuters or anything
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purely comintern claptrap with those strong aggressive qualifiers!
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@gro jo i told her she says god in the name of jesus cause she has daddy issues and apparently mommy issues caused me to start the church of the goddess? whatever man
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my dad sucks too and i say jesus and thank god all the time
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@gro jo
LOL…accusing me of being “imaginative” while conjuring up some counterfactual story about my father. Typical dishonest, deflecting, projecting gro jo. You seem like a studied propagandist.
Anyway, you’re trying to style yourself as the “skeptic” here but “skepticism” and “credulity” can prove to be two sides of the same coin. If you’re consistently skeptical of one source of information you may become credulous with respect to sources which dispute it and confirm your presuppositions. The only way to be a true skeptic is to be open minded while avoiding knee-jerk reactions based on where information comes from while being willing to examine that information in the light of reason.
Looking only a the issue of human to human transmission, I think even the most medically illiterate layperson – upon hearing that doctors have discovered a new strain of flu that had actually sickened people – would take precautions to avoid infection if they had to be around sick people. Why? Because transmission between persons by respiratory droplet is a common epidemiological trait of influenza.
By January 3rd, at the latest, we know that the pathogen which was sickening people in Wuhan was known to be a new coronavirus.
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e3c63ca9-dedb-4fb6-9c1c-d057adb77b57
These viruses have been known to cause infections colds as well as much more serious infectious viral pneumonias such as SARS – which also originated in China – and MERS in the Middle East.
In fact, the new virus is so similar to the communicable SARS virus (called SARS-CoV) that it was christened SARS-Cov-2 by the “International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses”. WHO chose a name for the disease (COVID-19) which obscured the link to SARS on purpose.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it
Yet we are to believe that it was an organic scientific consensus in China that no precautions against human to human transmission was necessary until late January. That is, having discovered that a new SARS-like coronavirus was giving people pneumonia in Wuhan the doctors didn’t think, right away, that they and other people could catch it. Heck, even if there was “no evidence” of transmission precaution was warranted given what was at stake and the known family tree of the virus. From a medical perspective, the behavior does not make sense.
It makes far more sense that the doctors were aware of the risk but when the crisis escalated to the highest levels of the CCP, instructions came down from above to control the narrative. In Qiushi, Xi said that he found out about the epidemic on January 1 while Caixin reported that orders to destroy samples and to muzzle doctors were also promulgated on that date. That makes sense. Once the leaders got personally involved political considerations took over and medicine served politics.
So, in summary, I’ll say that I learned something about myself today.
If I have to choose between believing nonsense and being accused, by gro jo, of growing up abandoned and fatherless, I’ll choose the latter every time.
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without provenance on a frickin DNA level it is not going to resolve clear
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i mean i passed ap bio and all but, this aint my bag for sure
https://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/view/Johns_Hopkins_ABX_Guide/540747/all/Coronavirus_COVID_19__SARS_CoV_2_
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@v8driver
Wow, that’s a comprehensive page on the virus.
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“v8driver
and i’m sorry gro jo, in specific, that article you pasted? pure agitprop not to say cnn isn’t or reuters or anything…purely comintern claptrap with those strong aggressive qualifiers!”
Ok, now you need to show where they are just making things up. Your bit about “…strong aggressive qualifiers…” is more a stylistic criticism than a challenge to the facts they cite.
Show that the following is bs and I’ll take your claims seriously:
1- “Washington is now attacking Beijing from three directions. First, it is accusing the Chinese government of initially “concealing the epidemic” which allowed the crisis to get out of control and “harm the US and the world.””
2- “Second, Washington has blackened China’s reputation saying it is hiding the “actual number of deaths,” claiming it’s somehow higher than the official account. This is an obvious attempt to deflect attention from the shocking number of deaths in the US. It’s an attempt to deceive people into think that the US is more honest than China, rather than reflecting on the dereliction of duty or even malfeasance that has occurred in the US.”
3- “Third, the US has encouraged a few lawyers to initiate lawsuits against the Chinese government, making farcical claims and instigating anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. Washington has turned to extreme nationalism in the hope of saving itself.”
4- “First, China’s performance in the fight against the epidemic is well-organized and achievements have been huge. All the world knows this obvious fact. Considering the serious global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world will fairly judge the city of Wuhan’s overall performance in overcoming the virus.
Wuhan was the first to report the epidemic and the first to have to make difficult choices on implementing anti-epidemic mobilization. When European countries and the US started to deal with the epidemic, they already knew much about its virulence and how it spread. Pre-warned, they only needed to weigh the risks between all-out containment and weathering the damage that would do to the economy. If all countries have failed to make all the right choices, how can they focus blame on Wuhan?”
5- “As early as January 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant countries and regions of the pneumonia outbreak. Chinese medical experts and administrative authorities have been collecting and accumulating knowledge on the virus ever since. On January 20, China formally confirmed human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus and made this knowledge public. Completing this evidence-based process was no easy task.
Chinese scientists have maintained close contact with WHO and the international medical community. They have published several papers on the coronavirus outbreak in the world’s most prestigious medical journals, sharing information with the international community without reservation.”
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Origin, if you can dabble in amateur epidemiology, and poetry, why can’t I dabble in amateur psychology? It’s all in good fun so don’t stress it.
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gro jo i cant argue facts, i consider the global times somewhat ‘purple prose.’ bordering on vitriol? and noone loves a literary critic i would know.
the rhetoric is getting out of hand and trump is i aint even gotta say nothin about that
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also? i think you forgot wuahai or whatever the phone company with canada and all that
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*huawei sorry
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@gro jo it is 1 billion people in china, right? i lean strongly towards underreporting on that one #2 but i obviously can’t prove anything
and we are not getting logs from the biosafety level 4 lab ever, so who knows man, there is something going around diplomatic cables from the US was blah blah it’s just a whole mess
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v8driver, thank you for your honest response. I was certain you wouldn’t be able to refute the facts in the article, I only wish others on this blog would simply admit that they can’t either and move on.
The PRC is a sovereign nation. “As of November 2019, China’s population stood at 1.435 billion, the largest of any country in the world. According to the 2010 census, 91.51% of the population was Han Chinese, and 8.49% were minorities.”
As a sovereign nation the PRC is not obliged to report anything to anyone, so any talk of ‘coverups’, ‘under-reporting’ is just talk. Like the USA, the PRC will release what information it deems in its interest.
“and we are not getting logs from the biosafety level 4 lab ever, so who knows man, there is something going around diplomatic cables from the US was blah blah it’s just a whole mess”
All the blah blah about logs from biosafety level 4 lab is just idle talk and will remain so until the leaders of the PRC decide otherwise.
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they’ll get “found” in a basement the day after everyone renounces their nuclear weapons!
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@gro jo i hate to say but this thing about mcdonalds’ in china went from youtube to the ny post last night
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how do you get past that feeling of wow you’re a walking disease vector?
I mean i’m used to it for a variety of reasons but everyone, really?
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A black doctor can’t even help the homeless in peace during a plague.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/15/dr_armen_henderson_arrest_miami
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@gro jo
I’m not “dabbling” in epidemiology. I cite sources for my claims;
many of which, you’d be happy to know, are even Chinese!
Show me the source of your information on my father…
Just as I thought, Herr Joseph Groebbels dishonestly comparing apples to oranges and deflecting as usual.
As for the poetry, I agree that I should get myself paid for it…just as you’re paid for 5h1lling on blogs. 😉
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“As a sovereign nation the PRC is not obliged to report anything to anyone, so any talk of ‘coverups’, ‘under-reporting’ is just talk. Like the USA, the PRC will release what information it deems in its interest.”
And both are wrong. Both nations are part of a community of nations. As such they are absolutely obliged to report factual information regarding this global pandemic.
To do otherwise is irresponsible and amoral.
The days of “go it alone” horse manure is over. We no longer live in the 1200s or the 1800s. This is a connected world. The sooner governments and certain individuals learn that lesson, the sooner we move to a functional global society.
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@Afrofem
I missed that statement because I honestly stopped reading much of gro jo’s nonsense. I know you’re not one for “undiplomatic” speech so I’ll implore you not to respond to me so that you aren’t implicated. However, I must be blunt here.
By the imbecilic argument made above gro jo should say that there was nothing wrong with Iran’s military initially covering up the accidental destruction of a passenger plane, loaded with international passengers, over Tehran because it was deemed to be in that government’s interest. He’d say there’s nothing wrong with the USA withholding information so that healthy Guatemalans were unknowingly infected with syphilis for “study” because it was deemed to be in the government’s interest.
The idea now being advanced by this sock is that governments are right, by definition, to manipulate information in their own interest regardless of the consequences for life and limb. So in addition to blaming African countries for racism against black people he’d also willingly give governments license to wreak all manner of havoc just to defend the Chinese Communist Party!
He’s either being paid, is a superlatively brobdingnagian tool, or he’s just trolling and arguing for the sake of arguing. Either way, he’s getting something out of it and I’m not. So I’ve stopped reading, only incidentally seeing when I skim for new responses by anyone else; which is how I saw the short post directed at me. What can be learned from engaging with someone who’s not arguing in good faith?
To quote the so-called “good book”:
(Proverbs 29:9)
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13 days have passed since I posted 2 links to Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich’s youtube account.
12 days ago Afrofem declared: “If you are able to rebut the ideas presented, do so. I’m ready to learn from different ideas. Name calling is a bore.”
I naively thought that the youtube links blew deep holes in the whole PRC is hiding something claims.
Origin posted a link about a Dr. who was punished for talking out of turn. I pointed out to that “superlatively brobdingnagian tool” that people gossiping about an epidemic isn’t the same as doing something about it, but being a tool, he just didn’t get it. Dr. “superlatively brobdingnagian tool” thinks it’s a good idea to yell fire in a crowded room, sane folks disagree.
Since people on this blog are too sensitive to read PRC news comments I posted an article from that source and asked all the little geniuses to tear it down and show why it’s just PRC propaganda. ‘
To his credit, only v8driver picked up the gauntlet. He couldn’t refute the facts but found the style not to his liking.
I’ll make my position perfectly clear.
1) The PRC is a sovereign nation, as such, it will do what’s in its interest whether Afrofem thinks that’s ‘moral’ or not. Funny how all the ‘woke’ people on this blog have given Trump a pass.
Where’s the outrage over Trump’s threats to cut off funding for WHO? I guess that when you get down to the nitty gritty All USAers are arrogant bullies who imagine they have the right to lord it over the rest of humanity! Their motto is ” We’re all Trump now”.
2) The PRC authorities became aware of the epidemic sometime in December, let the WHO know that a potential problem existed by the 3rd of January, by the 14th of January they had indications of human to human transmission, 6 days later they informed the WHO of that fact and 3 days later they took drastic measures to bring the epidemic under control.
The ‘West’ was aware of the possibility of a pandemic but treated it as a ‘Chinese’ problem that didn’t concern them. When they were obliged to face it, “herd immunity” was their ‘solution’. Blaming the PRC is bullshit, blame your ‘democratically’ elected leaders for not caring about you.
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@ Afrofem
“We no longer live in the 1200s or the 1800s. This is a connected world.”
Even in the 1200s, the world was connected to a greater extent than most of us realize today. This movement of diseases from Asia to Europe is nothing new. The bubonic plague, for instance, followed this same path, travelling along the trade routes and carried with military campaigns.
The difference now is the rapidity at which new diseases can traverse the entire globe. What used to take hundreds or thousands of years can now happen in a matter of weeks.
The other crucial difference is we now have the ability to communicate instantly across the globe. We need to use that advantage to fight the disease through honest, timely communication.
“The sooner governments and certain individuals learn that lesson, the sooner we move to a functional global society.”
Note who already has learned that lesson. Scientists and medical professionals around the world are trying to share accurate information with each other even when their governments interfere, even when it may come with great personal cost.
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@v8driver
“how do you get past that feeling of wow you’re a walking disease vector?”
I hear you. I’m absolutely concerned about accidentally transporting little virus hitchikers from one person to another.
But, I don’t think most people think that way. They’re worried about themselves and whether or not they’ll get sick, and if so, are they likely to survive it. Like Afrofem said in another thread, people are only checking off boxes as to whether or not they should be concerned about themselves.
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Abagond, what did you do with my reply to that “superlatively brobdingnagian tool” a/k/a Origin?
The PRC, like Trump is free to ignore anything it considers not in its national interest. Afrofem’s ‘feeling’ that it’s ‘immoral’ is besides the point.
Afrofem is a faux moralist since she has no power and can’t get anything done. In my book morality is desire and ability to do things that benefit humanity. Only ego maniacs engage in moral protests, as such, to hide the fact that they are weak and irrelevant. The true purpose of protests is to put the powers that be on notice that their time is up.
Back to my favorite “tool”. Origin, I’m still waiting for you and your friends to demolish the timelines provided by Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich 13 days ago and the one in the Global Times article I posted. Only v8driver, to his credit, took a stab at demolishing the article by faulting it for use of “…those strong aggressive qualifiers”. I thanked the gentleman for his effort and pointed out to him the obvious fact that he had refuted nothing. He was honest enough to agree. How about a similar collective or individual effort from Afrofem and or Origin?
Afrofem wrote: “…Name calling is a bore.” By its self, yes, but not when I also provided two timelines to go with my name calling, no.
More Afrofemism: “…I’m ready to learn from different ideas…” Really!? Please let me know what you’ve learned from the timelines courtesy of Global Times and Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich?
I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from this dispute. USAers of whatever shade and stated opinions are, at heart, little Trumps who believe the world is theirs to command. I thought you guys made excuses only when Obama and Clinton used racist propaganda to demonize the Blacks of Libya, now you are making excuses for bozo the clown Trump by trying to blame the leadership of the PRC for the 30,000+ USAers dead because your clown president didn’t give a damn about your lives. If he had done what the PRC did, tens of thousand USAers would be alive today. All the talk of ‘coverups’ is nonsense. The PRC authorities knew they had a problem by the end of December and alerted the W .H.O. by the 3rd of january, they knew that human to human transmission was possible by the 14th of January and told the W.H.O. of that fact by the 20th. On the 23rd they took drastic actions to halt the epidemic. You can argue that they should have taken such action on the 14th or the 20th, that’s the ‘superiority’ of hindsight. You ‘geniuses’ wouldn’t have done better than they did.
Since you guys are the paranoid type, let me leave you with a nightmare scenario.
THE FOLLOWING IS PURE FICTION FOR THE IDIOTS WHO BELIEVE IN AN ALL POWERFUL AND EVIL UR-FATHER:
Xi was bored and idly perused an old book written 110 years ago by Jack London called the Unparalleled War. In that book, he imagined a biological war initiated by the Western powers against China. The phone rings minutes after he finished that novella. It’s 1/14/2020, Xi is told of the outbreak, the central committee gathers and they discuss preparations for dealing with the crisis. It is decided that the W.H.O. would be told about the fact of human to human transmission after the disease has spread enough to cause a pandemic. He calculated, accurately, that the threat would not be perceived by that blowhard Trump and his equally stupid European allies, especially Boris “herd immunity” Johnson. The financial damage the disease would cause would set his rivals back for several years. That’ll teach these “foreign devils” to mess with Huawei and China inc., he thought. He smiled beatifically and moved on to other businesses on the agenda.
To my favorite “”superlatively brobdingnagian tool” a/k/a Origin, be absolutely brutal in your criticism of my ‘literary’ confection. Your ‘friend’ JOseph GROebbels. 🙂
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@ gro jo
Your comment was in moderation due to its language. It is now up.
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J. you are a funny guy, my language was English,what was immoderate about it?
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The official death toll in Wuhan, China has been revised upwards by 1290 deaths from 2579 to 3869.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185900.shtml
[Global Times is state media, which explains the congratulatory language]
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@ gro jo
You used the word “shit” in “bullshit”.
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I think excess death studies will show that the pandemic hit the US much sooner and harder than we think. The media and the government are only looking at the official numbers – which are limited by limited testing. They probably show only about half of what is going on.
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A little thing for the times and for all times as long as the internet has existed:
The ancient truth about trolls and their host:
Attention is that which they will want the most.
Deny them their fuel,
They’ll reckon it cruel,
And soon they’ll decide not to post.
Yes it is written of trolls and their ilk,
Your mind is food just like calves and their milk.
Their aim is extraction,
They seek a reaction,
They’ll go once there’s no mind to bilk
On finding one, give it wide berth!
Among them there’s logical dearth.
For them it’s a mission,
To divert discussion,
To prop up their flagging self-worth.
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@abagond
Something that I’ve found interesting is reading up about the history of the Spanish flu [which didn’t actually start in Spain but was covered up by the nations which were fighting WW1]. The Spanish flu was spread rapidly by the war which had soldiers moving around the globe. Of course, in our day rapid long distance travel is quite common as a norm.
There were some more parallels such as initial claims that the new flu wasn’t a big deal and you only needed vicks. There was even premature optimism that caused additional waves of infection [link below]. That correlates with the current anxiety to “Reopen America” which may very well have the same effect wrt the current coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/03/18/you-can-thank-military-parade-social-distancing.html
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I don’t think Grojo is a troll.
China, like Russia has a troll puppet army to sway public opinion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
We all have our own idiological blinders that bias our opinions here.
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@mjb
There are a few theories in my mind: trolling, shilling, a combination as a “perk” of the job. Who knows? Why not both? However mere “ideological blinders” went out the window for me with the claim that governments are justified in spreading whatever misinformation “in their interest” regardless of the consequences. Nobody can go that far without some ulterior motive.
That dumb argument leaves no moral basis even for his own opposition to the claimed Western bias against China. It would simply mean that he has a “side” which he’s sticking to regardless of what. Which would mean he is here as a propagandist pretending to be a skeptic. Shilling is deception.
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“now you are making excuses for bozo the clown Trump”
All that’s necessary to refute this statement is to run a word search on this thread for “Trump” and peruse the results.
“Blaming the PRC is [moderated word], blame your ‘democratically’ elected leaders for not caring about you.”
Why does it have to be an either/or choice? I blame both.
“Where’s the outrage over Trump’s threats to cut off funding for WHO?”
JFC, if I have to comment on this blog about every single thing Trump does that makes my blood boil, I wouldn’t get anything else done all day.
Since this is apparently required for Gro Jo to take seriously anything that anyone says, I’m just going to go ahead now and submit my blanket condemnation of and fury over every single thing Donald J. Trump Sr. does, says, or tweets from here on out until he takes his last breath.
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Correction: I meant to include the following quote along with the Bozo quote:
“Funny how all the ‘woke’ people on this blog have given Trump a pass.”
Again, just run a word search on this thread to see how well that assertion stands up.
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“I don’t think Grojo is a troll.” Thank you for stating the obvious Michael Barker.
“Origin
The official death toll in Wuhan, China has been revised upwards by 1290 deaths from 2579 to 3869.”
What!? No claim of a ‘coverup’? have you recovered your good sense?
Would it have killed you to give old gro jo ” Xi Jinping’s ho-ho” a/k/a “Herr Joseph Groebbels” a little credit for anticipating such news?
” on Mon Apr 6th 2020 at 21:06:25
gro jo
Origin, thanks for the laugh… It will be years before the real toll of this outbreak will be known for any nation on earth with any kind of great precision.”
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Grojo is our in house Mao communist. That is his idiological blinder.
I remember the debate he and Kiwi had over the “Great Chinese famine.” That involved hundreds of posts and that debate went on for weeks.
The WHO does seem politically biased as opposed to neutral. In my opinion they helped China keep the lid on the potential severity of this epidemic and that lulled countries into not taking proper preparations.
I think the WHO leadership compromised and need to step down. I don’t think funding should be stopped during the pandemic.
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@ MJB
He has increasingly struck me as an old-school Maoist.
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it’s not his flow, it’s the soviet flow!
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” However mere “ideological blinders” went out the window for me with the claim that governments are justified in spreading whatever misinformation “in their interest” regardless of the consequences. Nobody can go that far without some ulterior motive.”
That’s because you have a problem dealing with the real world where governments lie all the time.
“Remember the Alamo”
“Gulf of Tonkin incident”
” Saddam’s nukes”, etc. all lies faithfully parroted by the ‘free press’
” It would simply mean that he has a “side” which he’s sticking to regardless of what.” Very perceptive of you! I, gro “It’s ok to respect China” jo do stand on the side of the PRC on this question because they are right. When they became aware of the menace of the epidemic, they threw everything at it, including the proverbial kitchen sink. When done PRC, I say.
Please gather the evidence in as many posts as you please.
“Why does it have to be an either/or choice? I blame both.”
You would wouldn’t you? Being a good white female liberal, it’s only natural that you would defer to a white quasi-fascist like Trump and pretend that his crime against his nation, 30,000+ dead and humanity, cutoff of W.H.O. funding is equivalent to 4,000+ that you can lay at Xi’s feet. I won’t follow you in this train of thought.
My dear lady, if you are going to be sarcastic, do a better job of it, this won’t do: “Since this is apparently required for Gro Jo to take seriously anything that anyone says, I’m just going to go ahead now and submit my blanket condemnation of and fury over every single thing Donald J. Trump Sr. does, says, or tweets from here on out until he takes his last breath.”
My favorite ““superlatively brobdingnagian tool” a/k/a Origin”, is much better at it than you are.
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yeah i forget where i was, maybe nyc and this woman, a bit older than me, had this communist russian flag, hammer and sickle, it was giant, all that.
I was like is that your flag, a little nervously.
she said no it’s the soviet flag,
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@ Michael Barker
“I don’t think Grojo is a troll. […] We all have our own idiological blinders that bias our opinions here.”
Agreed. I admit to strong opinions, tightly held. I have my share of biases and a few ideological blinders.
Comparing Abagond’s comment section to a cafe is a useful analogy when it comes to describing gro jo’s current behavior. Gro jo is a regular customer. Over the past five years that I have been a commenter, he has added to the atmosphere, contributed special dishes, banded with other regulars to toss tomatoes at drive-by trolls and argued vocierously with the other patrons in entertaining and enlightening ways. All well and good.
He was often on the garrulous side, but his discourse was generally worth reading; deep and informative with flashes of brilliance. I learned a lot from gro jo.
However, over the past 18 months, gro jo has descended into a pit of classic troll behaviors: thread-stalking, feuding, flaming, name-calling and making flimsy arguments with little or no factual backup. Even when I later find his arguments have merit, I find the facts elsewhere, not in gro jo’s arguments. This is a recent development.
Using the cafe analogy, gro jo went from playfully flicking bits of food around and setting small fires in ashtrays (remember when those were ubiquitous in restaurants?) to tossing plates around and tripping waiters and other patrons alike.
All of the commenters and lurkers have their own motivations for frequenting this cafe. For some, it is mere entertainment, for others it is learning mixed with fun, for still others, it is connection. For some of us it is all three and more.
So MJB, I disagree with you on this. I do believe gro jo has become a troll. He is a resident troll. Gro jo engages in online actions to disrupt, derail, deflect and dismiss arguments. I think he does it just for his own entertainment—lots of heat, no light. Those are the actions of a troll.
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“on Fri Apr 17th 2020 at 18:58:43
Michael Barker
Grojo is our in house Mao communist. That is his idiological blinder.” Wrong.
“Solitaire
@ MJB
He has increasingly struck me as an old-school Maoist.” Wrong.
I flirted with that ideology until the blinders fell from my eyes on September 11, 1973.
I retain a healthy respect for the CCP because it led the Chinese people from “pulled rickshaws to rockets.” Anybody who sneers at such feat is a cretin in my book.
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@ Solitaire
“Scientists and medical professionals around the world are trying to share accurate information with each other even when their governments interfere, even when it may come with great personal cost.”
So true. They are doing so even when faced with death threats and defunding.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/490763-fauci-dismisses-death-threats-its-my-job
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@ Origin
“So I’ve stopped reading, only incidentally seeing when I skim for new responses by anyone else; which is how I saw the short post directed at me. What can be learned from engaging with someone who’s not arguing in good faith?”
Understood. I’m moving in that direction, too.
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Maybe so Afrofem.
I learned a lot from Grojo’s earlier content over the years as well. That’s in part why I am inclined to defend him.
Name calling doesn’t bother me. I am desensitized too it from years worth of commenting on social media.
That said intent is important. Are comments meant to engage discussion or intended for personal amusement at the expense of others.
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“I retain a healthy respect for the CCP because it led the Chinese people from “pulled rickshaws to rockets.”
I would argue that is what George Bush senior, the trilateral commission and the CFR that opened China’s markets to Capitalism and Corporatism.
American corperations saw a cheap labor market.
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@Origin
(emphasis added)
This madness has no end.
Everybody is watching a great nation kneeling and shooting itself repeatedly.
One mistake is understandably. Repeated errors in succession, no.
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@Afrofem
“Understood. I’m moving in that direction, too.”
Indeed.
I also “moved in that direction” with some hesitation because I generally enjoy other people’s divergent opinions and even a bit of banter. gro jo has, in the past, posted things I did not know and was happy to learn. Name-calling isn’t a huge issue if not overdone so that the signal to noise ratio becomes too low; I can give and take there.
However, underpinning it all has to be the belief that you’re conversing with a reasonable person who’s expressing his or her actual opinions. In the absence of that conviction, engagement feels completely pointless. For me, this thread eroded that conviction. Something feels “off”. It would have been quite an investment to become a regular on the blog just for these moments. But reading MJB’s “50c Army” link shows that propaganda is serious business.
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Well Michael Barker, since you’re the only one willing to dialogue, your claim is a part of the truth, not the whole truth. The PRC acquired nuclear weapons and long range missiles before Nixon’s trip to China in 1972. The PRC was going to grow no matter what “George Bush senior, the trilateral commission and the CFR” did, short of war.
The hope of the people and organizations you mention was that they could control the PRC by making them junior partners. It didn’t quite turn out that way. The “Yellow Peril” is back.
Your cheap labor market claim turned out to be a double edged knife for US corporations. They were under the illusion that the PRC’s corporations were unable to compete with their national champions, i.e. firms that are global behemoths and work in harmony with their states. Two decades later, the PRC developed its own national champions such as Huawei, etc. You might find this article of interest. (https://www.ft.com/content/979f69c8-f35b-11dc-b6bc-0000779fd2ac)
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@MJB
For all their squabbling now, it’s interesting how instrumental the USA (especially under Nixon/Kissinger) has been in China’s rise. For a long time, America considered the Soviet Union to be the primary “communist threat” and didn’t want a strong Eurasian alliance between China and the USSR. The USA hoped to put a wedge between the two and felt that the battle was finally won once the USSR collapsed. With China isolated, it was thought that integrating the country into the global community might eventually bring about political change. It didn’t work the way American political thinkers might have envisioned. China got wealthy, created alliances, and shrewdly maintained its political system.
@munubantu
Some state governors have revolted and Trump has backed off the claim that he can unilaterally reopen the country. I sincerely hope the epidemiologists will not be shoved aside when critical decisions have to be made.
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@ Gro Jo
“I retain a healthy respect for the CCP because it led the Chinese people from ‘pulled rickshaws to rockets.’ Anybody who sneers at such feat is a cretin in my book.”
Your “healthy respect” spurs you to attack any criticism of the CCP’s current actions, no matter how heinous. And I object to the insinuation that someone criticizing a specific action is sneering at the entire history of the CCP or the achievements of modern China.
I don’t have a problem with communism per se. I do have a problem with authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
“My dear lady, if you are going to be sarcastic, do a better job of it, this won’t do”
I wasn’t being sarcastic.
“You would wouldn’t you? Being a good white female liberal, it’s only natural that you would defer to a white quasi-fascist like Trump”
You know how I feel about personal attacks. Too bad, we had actually been getting along fairly well lately.
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Origin wrote:
“Some state governors have revolted”
It has been very instructive to watch the governors take charge. I’ve generally thought of the balance of powers as being between the three branches of the federal government, and in fact I believe this is the emphasis given when taught in schools. But current events have made it quite clear the founders also intended the governors of the states to be able to provide balance against a corrupt and/or incompetent president.
Most of the examples I can think of in my lifetime until now of governors defying the federal government have been ones that do not reflect well on the states, such as resisting desegregation.
This is different. This is the governors in a national crisis filling the vacuum of leadership created by an inept federal executive. This is the governors forming their own alliances, sharing medical equipment among themselves without waiting for FEMA, setting their own deadlines, and refusing to follow federal guidelines that they believe would endanger their citizens.
The big problem is the governors are not all on the same page when it comes to reopening the economy, and some look like they’re going to try too soon, which could hurt not only their states but those around them.
The lack of federal leadership is still sorely felt. It’s obvious that the states alone can’t accomplish what they could with strong federal guidance, support, and oversight. But still, it’s a history lesson in real time watching this all play out.
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“Your “healthy respect” spurs you to attack any criticism of the CCP’s current actions, no matter how heinous.”
Nonsense. I defended the CCP against the absurd charge that they are responsible for the pandemic, you haven’t proven that they are. All the claque on this blog has come up with is that they feel the CCP should have acted sooner. Pretty ironic when the same claque were whining about how ‘heinous’ locking down Wuhan was. In this instance the CCP was right, the results speaks eloquently to that fact, no matter how ‘offended’ western liberals of whatever hue are.
“You know how I feel about personal attacks. Too bad, we had actually been getting along fairly well lately.”
It wasn’t a personal attack, just a statement of fact. White American liberals are quick to find villains overseas and overlook their home bred monsters. If you want to get along with me, you’ll have to tolerate frank assessments of how things stand from my point of view just as I put up with yours. I don’t sugarcoat for anyone.
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@ munubantu
“This madness has no end.
Everybody is watching a great nation kneeling and shooting itself repeatedly.
One mistake is understandably. Repeated errors in succession, no.”
It is the chickens coming home to roost. This “great nation” has stifled the development and wellbeing of scores of other countries all over the globe for fun and profit.
When you throw ugliness into the water, it eventually floats back to you.
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White American liberals are also quick to tell non whites who they should vote for, what their family values are presumed to be, what their dreams, goals and aspirations should be, what words they can and cannot say ect.
White American conservatives are similar though they place the blame on communities and suggest they can pull themselves up with their bootstraps because racism is exaggerated.
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When I was a kid “made in Japan” meant a poor quality made item. The U.S. underestimated the Japanese the same way they underestimate the Chinese today.
Have you noticed how the countries that make the best cars have faired best with pandemic?
I don’t know if there is a real correlation there lol
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https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/how-stalin-elevated-the-chinese-communist-party-to-power-xinjiang-1949
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So life in L.A. :
The majority of people are wearing masks. There are no traffic jams and the last time the air quality was this good was in the late 40’s.
New guidelines for contractors like myself have been issued. Most of them I had already implemented or they don’t apply as we don’t work in enclosed structures. I will have to get a thermometer to measure the temperatures of my workers before they start everyday. Workers are suppose to wash their hands once every hour but in our situation where we have workers climbing in trees that’s not practical.
Smaller cities have closed down their city halls and permits are processed online.
Calls in to my company have slowed down but since many people are home there has been a shifts towards home improvement projects.
Unemployment in Los Angeles is around 50%. It is strange to drive up and down streets and see everything closed.
I am in need of a haircut.
When my wife comes home from the hospital the first thing she does is spray her shoes with bleach. We wash our clothes separately and use pine sole instead of bleach to disinfect as that keeps the colors from fading. But the clothes do end up having a pine sole fragrance. We also disinfect the inside of her car and mine as well. I reuse my masks by disinfecting them with alcohol every night. I can make one mask last three days.
The hospital has made it difficult for nurses to get themselves tested for the virus. Many nurses are calling in sick and sometimes they walk off the job. My wife says that no one talks about it but there is an underlining fear when you go to work. She has trouble sleeping at night. It is why nurses snap at each other and why there is tension on the floor. “Overwhelmed” is what nurses talk about.
Her PPE resembles a space suit which offers 100% protection but it requires concentration and continual self monitoring to not infect yourself. That is what makes 12 hour shifts draining.
The pay for traveler nurses has quadrupled. My wife picked up a new contract at a hospital in Ventura county that pays “doctor wages” for nurses working codvit-19. She will be staying at a hotel three days a week working there, as well as working two days a week at her present job. This will be the highest paying job of her career as a icu nurse.
Hopefully she will be able to keep it together.
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@ Gro Jo
“It wasn’t a personal attack, just a statement of fact.”
This is what you said:
“Being a good white female liberal, it’s only natural that you would defer to a white quasi-fascist like Trump”
If that is a fact, then show me exactly where I deferred to Trump. A direct quote, not your suppositions about what goes on inside my head or using the statements of other people in this thread as indicative of my own opinions.
“White American liberals”
I stopped identifying as a liberal some time back. If you want to pigeonhole me as that, I can’t stop you, but it has about as much effect on me as if you called me a Democrat.
shrugs
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Well the U.S. is quasi fascist already. That won’t change if Biden becomes president. In fact today Biden was criticizing Trump for not holding China accountable.
The U.S. is becoming more nationalistic and the economy is already run by corperations which are protected and nurtured by the State.
I can see China becoming the new scapegoat. Nobody is talking about Islamic terrorism anymore.
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Solitaire said,
“But current events have made it quite clear the founders also intended the governors of the states to be able to provide balance against a corrupt and/or incompetent president.”
I think prior to Lincoln state rights were stronger then federal rights. That changed after the civil war.
I’m not sure whether the “founders” put that in by design or whether the nature of travel and communication resulted in a more decentralized government.
The resurgence of “state rights” returned with right wing conservatives in the civil rights era and within the last few years with womens rights and abortion. Republicans also uses state rights to hinder federal voter guidelines ect.
Governor Newsom has on occasion referred to California as a “nation state”. I think it’s good that states are pushing back against Trump whenever he evokes his “absolute authority” rhetoric.
It also makes sense that in opening up the economy Governors would have a better pulse on the conditions within their territories that would allow people to get back to work while minimizing the spread of the virus.
It maybe that life as we use to know it make take a few years to return to normal.
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@ Michael Barker
“…life as we use to know it make take a few years to return to normal.”
I sometimes wonder what that new “normal” will look like.
COVID-19 has been a godsend to repressive governments. Macron in France, Modi in India and Duterte in the Philippines have used virus related “lockdowns” to suppress protests and dissent. The parliment of Hungary dissolved itself and handed total power to the Viktor Orban.
Authoritarians love heavy handed measures and COVID-19 restrictions on the population is definately in their comfort zone.
We have to wait and see which restrictions are lifted and how soon.
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@ Michael Barker
So true. Very interesting indeed.
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@ Origin
“There were some more parallels such as initial claims that the new flu wasn’t a big deal ….There was even premature optimism that caused additional waves of infection”
That “premature” optimism and boredom with social distancing measures are being exploited by so-called “business leaders” and the Prez for their own ends.
I came across an article that echoes your example. A local site detailed resistence to containment measures and instances of “premature optimism” during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic:
https://crosscut.com/2020/03/premature-optimism-pandemic-can-be-deadly
While certain “leaders” are egging on misguided protests against shutdown measures, those same “leaders” are safely esconced in their spacious homes with large private outdoor areas. They have freezers and pantries full of food and toilet paper.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer responded to the protesters in her state with this quip recently: “six feet apart or six feet under”.
To paraphrase the old saying: ignorance of history leads to repeating history.
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For the #COVIDIOTS of the world:
https://twitter.com/walusiter/status/1241754116126380037
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@Afrofem
Thanks for that info on Seattle’s Spanish flu outbreak. I recently came upon an article about San Francisco’s outbreak which documented a similar course of events.
https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-sanfrancisco.html#
This is was a century ago and people are basically the same. Folks in Michigan were protesting “social distancing” while some beaches in Florida were opened as the state’s daily infection count rose. From photos, it seems the beaches were packed.
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@Solitaire re: the governors revolting.
It’s interesting, but is it indicative of a weakened federal government?
States have been revolting in various ways under the Trump administration including refusing to cooperate with the admin’s immigration sweeps.
There’s a thread on twitter following the state blocs while they formed as governors coordinated to handle the epidemic in the absence of unifying coordination at the federal level.
Some people have alluded to Garreau’s “The Nine Nations of North America” which proposed a set of redrawn borders according to cultural blocs without regard for the existing state lines.
One could wonder what are the implications of erosion of confidence in the federal government in a way that’s particularly strong in some states but not in others?
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@ Mary Burrell
What is your experience with the COVID-19 pandemic in Dallas? How are you holding up?
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@ Origin
“States have been revolting in various ways under the Trump administration including refusing to cooperate with the admin’s immigration sweeps.”
That’s true. What I find different about this situation is it’s not just state resistance to federal policy but actually stepping in to perform what should have been the federal executive branch’s actions when that branch either could not or would not.
Trump and his administration are not providing a strong coordinated response to the pandemic, like any halfway competent administration should have done. Of course, Trump is also actively dumping a lot of that responsibility onto the states, like expecting them to find their own PPE, so to some extent the governors are being forced into this position.
“It’s interesting, but is it indicative of a weakened federal government?”
I think that remains to be seen. Many of the governors have expressed frustration and dissatisfaction over the current state of affairs, and would presumably welcome a stronger federal role. This could just end up being a blip due to Trump’s personal ineptitude.
I guess what I was getting at, is comparing our current situation to the type of monarchy which ruled us in the 1770s. When the king is off his rocker, a crisis like a pandemic can take a nation under. There often is no regional mechanism for thwarting his crazy dictates.
As MJB pointed out, I may have gone too far by saying the founders purposely instituted a structure where the state governments could bypass a crackpot president in a way that a crackpot monarch usually could not be worked around. But whether it was intentional or not, that appears to be what’s happening. In particular, the 10th Amendment is currently giving the state governors constitutional grounds for their actions, whereas in an 18th century monarchy they would have had no such legal power.
“Some people have alluded to Garreau’s “The Nine Nations of North America” which proposed a set of redrawn borders according to cultural blocs without regard for the existing state lines.”
That’s an intriguing observation.
“One could wonder what are the implications of erosion of confidence in the federal government in a way that’s particularly strong in some states but not in others?”
I suppose we could consider the Confederate secession the ultimate example of states’ revolt in U.S. history so far. I don’t think we’re there yet, but if Trump is re-elected in November and the pandemic continues or worsens, it’s certainly possible that some of these blocs may move in that direction.
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I think that FEMA was never designed to deal with a crisis on a national level. It was designed more towards regional disasters like hurricanes ect.
Also obvious is the the Federal government had no plan in place to deal with a national pandemic. So while there were government agencies that studied viruses like the coronavirus there appears there wasn’t a plan in place to deal with a pandemic if it actually occurred.
FEMA has been running around the country “reallocating” medical supplies. This has involved interrupting shipments to hospitals that had ordered them as well as on an international level by out bidding other countries for supplies thus “pirating” shipments directly to the U.S.
So on one hand federal intervention seems to be interfering with hospitals on a local level yet the Governors on the West coast are praising FEMA for their efforts.
So I am not sure what to make of it.
California at one time did have a reserve of medical supplies set aside specifically for a pandemic. During a recession Governor Brown chose to shut down and liquidate the supplies. He did so because even though he was a “liberal Democrat” he was also known to be fiscally conservative when it came to running deficits within the State budget.
To Afrofem’s point about lifting restrictions too early I agree. That will lead to further infections.
I also think that stock markets are in denial and that the current value of stocks do not reflect the reality of mass unemployment, drastic falls in GDP, inability to move goods ect.
Meat processing plants will have to be designed for social distancing to keep people from getting infected. Meat shortages are on the horizon.
It maybe that we will have to come to live with the virus. It seems to me that “non essential” businesses like hair and nail salons, pet grooming, snoke shops, book stores, clothing ect will have to restructure how they do business through limiting the number of patrons, social distancing, face masks ect.
So while big business wants to push the limits in getting their factory workers back to work there is also many small business owners who are floundering right now. These “business loans” go to places like the high end chain ‘Chris Ruth steak house” but are unavailable to the local nail salon down the street.
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FEMA justifying what they are doing.
https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/04/15/fema-administrator-april-15-2020-letter-emergency-managers
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Covid-19 resource list.
View at Medium.com
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“One of the areas I get the most questions about is regarding FEMA ‘seizing’ or ‘commandeering’ critical PPE. I want to share the ground-truth with you – FEMA is neither seizing or taking PPE from local or state governments or taking PPE from hospitals or any commercial entity lawfully engaged in the PPE distribution.”
From the FEMA link I posted.
They are denying that they are doing this yet there are reports that they are seizing PPE.
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@ MJB
“Also obvious is the the Federal government had no plan in place to deal with a national pandemic. So while there were government agencies that studied viruses like the coronavirus there appears there wasn’t a plan in place to deal with a pandemic if it actually occurred.”
There was a federal plan. Abagond linked to it here:
More about it here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285
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Obama’s outgoing administration also briefed Trump’s incoming team on the pandemic threat:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797
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@ Michael Barker
I googled it. It took less than ten minutes to find the pandemic plans for both Bush II and Obama. And the UK.
In January 2017, during the transition, Obama’s people briefed Trump’s people on what to do in a pandemic. Two-thirds of those Trump people, however, are now gone.
Last year the US government and several states went through a simulated pandemic – Crimson Contagion. The draft report is online. Over a half million people died because the US government was too uncoordinated and underfunded and the states did not know what to do. Oh, and because there was a shortage of ventilators.
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So Trump and his administration never took it seriously. And still doesn’t if he thinks he can safely open up the economy.
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$2.2 trillion / 140.9 million US taxpayers = $15,613.91
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@ Abagond
“$2.2 trillion / 140.9 million US taxpayers = $15,613.91”
If only…
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On another blog I frequent, I read a second-hand account of how business owners of New Zealand are being cared for by their government:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/links-4-19-2020.html#comment-3344827
❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
During the furor about Trump calling African countries, “$hIthole countries” I remember thinking about how the US is the premiere $hIthole country: decaying infrastructure, poor educational and healthcare systems, inadequate housing and greedy oligharchs sucking the lifeblood out of the population.
COVID-19 throws a harsh light on our third-world status at present. New Zealanders get financial relief within days, or even hours. In the USA, millions of workers and business owners will be lucky to get financial relief in months—-if ever.
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@v8driver
“how do you get past that feeling of wow you’re a walking disease vector?”
I hear you. I’m absolutely concerned about accidentally transporting little virus hitchikers from one person to another.
But, I don’t think most people think that way. They’re worried about themselves and whether or not they’ll get sick, and if so, are they likely to survive it. Like Afrofem said in another thread, people are only checking off boxes as to whether or not they should be concerned about themselves.
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@ Michael Barker
“It seems to me that “non essential” businesses like hair and nail salons, pet grooming, snoke shops, book stores, clothing ect”
Hair salons and book stores “non essential”, speak for yourself! LOL.
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@abhishek
Was there a point behind copy/pasting my post: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/#comment-436505 ?
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@ Open Minded Observer
I believe it’s spam. This is the link their username connects to:
https://www.lyricsejwal.com/
I didn’t click on it, though.
The spambots usually write things like “great article with much information” but perhaps now they are copying from valid comments to try to avoid spam filters.
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@ Afrofem
“Hair salons and book stores “non essential”, speak for yourself! LOL.”
Reading this, I just realized that until very recently I would have ranked book stores way above hair salons as essential to my life. But now it dawns on me that I can still order books online or read e-books, but I can’t cut my own hair. Yikes!
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https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-lausd-serves-10-million-meals/
Los Angeles schools have so far manged to serve 10 million meals since the beginning of the pandemic.
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@Origin,
By December 31, Taiwan had already launched a protocol to address the emerging epidemic and started monitoring persons arriving from Wuhan with checks for fever and other flu-like symptoms. Any arrival with symptoms were promptly separated and subjected to tests for seasonal flu, SARS and MERS.
Taiwanese doctors regularly monitor Mainland medical chat groups, including the chats from the whistleblower Li Wenliang (李文亮), the one who died in early February. As soon as a SARS-like pneumonia was being reported in hospitals, and spreading to medical personnel over a period of weeks in December, that alerted Taiwanese officials to activate their epidemic monitoring protocols.
Some screen saves from Dec 31, 2019 were shared in this article:
CORONAVIRUS/How an online post forewarned Taiwan about COVID-19
https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202004170016
Meanwhile, in early January, Li Wenliang (李文亮) and his cohorts were arrested, forced to admit their transgressions, sign forms that they would never do it again, and had their chats and emails deleted.
So, Taiwan launched their epidemic control (formulated after the 2003 SARS epidemic) protocol weeks before anything was done in Wuhan, and way before WHO raised any signals. Since Taiwan was excluded from the WHO, they did not feel obligated to follow their recommendations. Conversely, WHO completely disregarded anything discussed or discovered in Taiwan. The world is poorer for it.
This did not go unnoticed in Hong Kong, as people in Hong Kong noticed that information coming out of the mainland and from the HK government and the WHO did not mesh with what was going on in Taiwan. If you may recall, Hong Kong was the epicentre of the 2003 SARS epidemic, with almost 40% of all global deaths in HK alone. Hong Kong had about 300 deaths from SARS, and so far, only 4 deaths from the novel coronavirus 2019-20. Since the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong followed a massive cover-up on the mainland, they have developed a natural skepticism of reports coming out of the mainland, and started challenging both the government and the WHO on the situation.
Since Taiwan is excluded from the WHO, it might be good for people who are skeptical of the WHO to follow the media in Taiwan and its government’s health department to get an alternate viewpoint. BTW, Reporters without Borders (RSF) relocated from Hong Kong to Taiwan 2 years ago due to the deteriorating press freedom in Hong Kong. Taiwan’s rating is now the best in Asia. Let me know if Google Translate is giving you gibberish, I can help with it.
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jefe, well done, if what you claim is true. What about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, any input on them as well? There’s some controversy regarding Kim Jong Un’s health, your employer, US intelligence, says he’s on the precipice, hanging on for dear life, while the PRC and South Koreans dispute that claim. What can your network tell us about this?
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The U.S. hit 20,000 deaths on April 11. We doubled that in about a week’s time, reaching 40,000 this weekend. Today, Tuesday April 21st, we are over 45,000. New deaths yesterday was almost 2,000; today well over 2,000.
If my math is not wrong — and it could be, I’m not good at math — unless there is a drastic decrease in the average daily death rate, we are on track to break 50,000 in the next few days and 60,000 by the end of April.
Why am I still seeing projections in the media and from governments that the total death toll in the U.S. is going to be between 60,000 and 100,000?
I really do not understand this. Please, if I’m missing something or just panicking, explain it to me like I’m five.
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@ Solitaire
My two cents on your numbers puzzle.
The sequence of numbers you are looking at is rising but eventually will reach a plateau and hopefully begin to come down.
This is the only possibility to reconcile what you are seeing right now and what is the immediate future the projections assume.
Maybe you can look at the two trends simultaneously: 1) number of cases, 2) number of deaths.
I suppose that there is a constant factor between them (approximately) and a fixed time lag between them (approximately).
Then, if the first curve, the number of cases, is already in its plateau or decreasing phase (or close; maybe only decelerating the ascension) , then the second curve will follow suit and therefore both are close to the peak (one ahead of the other, of course).
In practical terms: if the grow of the number of cases is already decelerating then the grow of the number of deaths will follow that trend, maybe in two weeks (if this is the “time lag”). So, the number of deaths can be increasing today but, following the decelerating trend in the number of cases today, the former will be decreasing in a few days (maybe one week or two). And both will plateau next and hopefully begin to decrease (first the curve of number of cases and then next the curve of the number of deaths).
Makes sense?
I haven’t looked at the USA specific numbers but this is my take on this apparent puzzle. Try to see it in graphical terms.
Unfortunately the way this disease spreads and the decisions to re-open soon the economy, taken by the politicians, only will complicate matters and the plateauing and decreasing of both the number of cases and the number of deaths will have to wait more weeks to materialize.
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@ Munubantu
Thank you. Yes, I do follow what you’re saying about the lag in time between new cases and the number of fatalities within that specific group of new cases.
It seems to me the U.S. may actually be at a plateau right now as far as death rate. The daily numbers aren’t steadily rising anymore, but they aren’t yet falling quickly either.
To provide more context for my earlier question: 60,000 deaths is also the rough number for the total U.S. flu fatalities in the most recent flu season. Because the University of Washington model forecasts this same number for covid-19, I’m seeing a lot of conservative opinion pieces and blog comments where they claim covid-19 is no worse than the flu.
Your point about the number of new cases is well taken. I have to say that it is very unclear to me whether the decrease we have seen on some days is statistically significant — but again, I’m not good at math. Since the beginning of April, the daily number of new cases has been between ~25,000 and ~34,000. But it has wobbled back and forth. We will have 2 or 3 days below 30k and people will get optimistic, but then there will be an uptick above 30k for the next couple days.
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re: Solitaire
Every one of those opinion pieces is comparing apples to oranges by using a false comparison.
But for the seasonal flu, we don’t do society-wide societal shutdowns with strong social distancing measures and other mitigation measures. And we have a vaccine.
so if the seasonal flu kills as many people as the current coronavirus under strict mitigation measures, imagine what the comparison would be without the mitigation measures.
The current pandemic is at least 10 times as deadly than the common flu, and actually probably even much worse as we have no vaccine.
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https://news.usc.edu/168987/antibody-testing-results-covid-19-infections-los-angeles-county/
If this Los Angels study turns out to be true then the virus is far more contagious then people realized. The good news would be that it would be far less lethal then what current projections show.
The test base for this study was less then 900 people so its possible that it has some divergence with its results.
The current models are based on people who have been tested because they have shown symptoms. Those models show a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate.
This study indicates that a far greater portion of the population are or were infected, it is just that they didn’t show symptoms or get sick. That also means that they can infect other people during the period that they are shedding the virus.
It could be that people who get a light viral load are able to build antibodies quickly to resist it. Those that get infected with a heavy viral load get sick and those with preexisting conditions are more likely to pass away.
So for example if you were sitting on a bus and someone infected sitting next too you coughed all over then you would be recieving a heavy viral load. If you were sitting five seats down then you would be getting a light viral load.
A study recently showed that Codvit is airborne up to 12 feet which twice as far as the recommended distance of six feet.
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This study suggests that the Coronavirus can be airborne up too 27 feet.
I believe this is building herd immunity through spreading light viral loads that help develop anti bodies without the accompanying sickness.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/30/coronavirus-social-distancing-mit-researcher-lydia-bourouiba-27-feet/5091526002/
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Paper on viral loads in relation to the Coronavirus.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/how-much-of-the-coronavirus-does-it-take-to-make-you-sick/
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@ Jefe
Right, and the mitigation effect was pointed out in some of the comments I was reading. But even the people who pointed out the mitigation effect were talking about the 60,000 projection as if that was going to be the total number of deaths, period.
It’s actually the projected total for August 4, not overall. But I don’t see how we aren’t going to hit the 60,000 mark way before then unless — as I said above — I’m missing something about how rapid the decline could be.
I think my big mistake was spending too long in a right-wing bubble. And the particular places that I was lurking weren’t populated by tinfoil conspiracy Q loons, but mostly more traditional moderate conservatives, people who obviously had functional brains and a decent education, so it was more alarming.
And then I started thinking that in the mainstream media, I’m still seeing lots of references to the 60,000 projection, or sometimes 100,000. Also a lot of reporters who seem to think if we’re past the “peak” everything is going to improve rapidly. That doesn’t look to be the case to me. I don’t know if I’m interpreting the numbers wrong or if it’s just too early to tell.
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Solitaire. There is so much we don’t know about the virus.
The projection model that points towards 60,000 to 100,000 dead are based on three things. People who were sick who have been tested, the virus is currently limited spread and the assumption the virus will act the same way as the flue virus by producing enough antibodies to protect those who recovered from reinfection.
The virus is not acting like it is suppose too.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-patients-ins-idUSKCN2240HI
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My point is that current projections are probably wrong.
Not enough testing and the general population with no symptoms has yet to be tested.
1 to 2 percent of those who recovered months ago still test positive for the virus. Of those a small percentage have shown symptoms again.
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@ solitaire
In HK, we have been exercising social distancing measures for 3 months already. Schools, cinemas, most govt offices, community centres have been closed since January. All large events were cancelled. Bars, gyms, karaoke lounges, beauty salons and massage parlours, and all social clubs were added in March after the 2nd wave. Together with daily reminders for hand hygiene,disinfecting homes and surfaces in public places, maintaining physical distance, and ubiquitous donning of facemasks, we have been in this mode for 3 months and it is even being extended. We are not in full lockdown, and apart from a few industries, there has not been any lockdown of non-essential services nor any shelter in place order.
With this in place, the health department reported a significant decrease in seasonal flu cases. So, our total infectious disease cases (including both influenza and coronaviruses) are actually down from prior years and deaths resulting from these diseases are also down overall. So, this activity has indeed reduced all cases and all deaths.
So, if the US deaths from this coronavirus meets or surpasses the deaths from influenza at all, then that is already fantastically horrific. That means despite all the hygiene and social distancing measures, the disease is still spreading like wildfire. And it is a disease that has no vaccine.
That is like a raging wildfire in a densely populated area surrounded by dry brush with no prospect of rain or water for the next 18 months. We kept people alive by keeping them out of their homes. Relaxing the social distancing would be like letting them back into their homes while the fire is raging all around them. (Epidemic is the opposite, keeping them IN their homes.)
I strongly suspect that US is generally very lax in doing what it can, based on what I see from reports and images and what I know about the US. All essential workers (not just medical personnel) should have their temperature taken before and after they work, and be wearing PPE, ie, high grade surgical facemasks, single use sterilized gloves, and even something to cover themselves, not unlike a surgical gown, and their workplaces should be disinfected multiple times per day, as well as their clothes and gowns. But I know there is no PPE available, so I think we will continue to have high infection spread among the essential workers, as well as in places where people live together, like nursing homes and prisons.
It is alarming to see the images here from the US about people going outside like they do (I mean cavalier attitude, no facemasks for everyone or no gloves for workers, no temperature check, disregard for maintaining physical distancing in indoor spaces, etc.). They would never do that here. It seems pointless to do shelter in place without doing the rest.
It is alarming to see the way they conduct press briefings in the US. Everyone would be wearing a mask in HK and maintaining their distance, as well as getting their temperature checked. They do not do that in the US. And senior officials should be setting a much better example to their constituents than they currently are. I was very very incensed when Gov. Cuomo explained a few days ago why he did not wear a mask at the press briefings. His explanation was dead wrong.
Yet, in HK, we have never been under total lockdown. Most shops are still open and people can go out anytime they want, and even meet friends and family (in groups no larger than 4). And we have had only 4 deaths and 1030 cases since January. We have had only single digit new cases recorded for the past 9 days and even zero reported this past Monday.
The difference is really very simple. Anyone here can be tested for free. They do diligent contact tracing, and test every single contact and isolate anyone positive and quarantine the rest. In the US, there is still way too much untraceable community spread. That has to be zero untraceable community spread before relaxing measures. ZERO. Even S. Korea still does not have that yet.
Only Taiwan and HK are experiencing that now. I really think that their respective experience with SARS has what has set them apart (together with distrust of the CCP propaganda and skeptical view of the WHO, who spread a lot of misinformation).
Also, each and every person arriving into HK now must be tested for the coronavirus, regardless whether they are showing any symptoms, and must wait for the results in one of two designated locations. They will not be released into mandatory quarantine (negative) or sent to hospital isolation (positive) until the test results are returned. All asymptomatic cases here will be sent to an isolation ward even if they display no symptoms.
We have had 11 consecutive days with no untraceable community spread. However, they told us that they will require 2 consecutive periods of 14 day incubation periods each (ie, 28 consecutive days of zero community spread) before they will relax any of the social distancing measures.
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@ MJB
“My point is that current projections are probably wrong.”
I agree.
@ Jefe
“So, if the US deaths from this coronavirus meets or surpasses the deaths from influenza at all, then that is already fantastically horrific.”
Yes! That’s why I was freaking out. I went back over the daily numbers for the last thirty days and started thinking, Why is no one shouting from the rooftops that we are nowhere near ready to relax what paltry measures we have in place? It’s true there are scientists and medical officials cautioning that if we don’t start doing the things you described to trace and stop the community spread, we may start seeing another spike in numbers. But none of them are stating it in unequivocally strong terms — or if they are, I’m not seeing much media coverage.
I should point out also that the 60,000 number for influenza was a particularly bad year. The average is around 25,000 to 35,000. Coronavirus deaths are already past that.
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@ Michael Barker
Probably true.
There is much to know about the behavior of this novel coronavirus and its interactions with our bodies.
I was wondering if the “asymptomatic carriers” eventually become free of the virus (thanks to their immune systems, of course) and being this the case, how long it takes to them to become “corona-free”.
There has been a lot of talk of how those “asymptomatic carriers” are dangerous for the weaker portions of the population but any numerical/mathematical model must include (describe quantitatively) all the processes that take place during the epidemic:
1 people getting infected (and adding to the pool of the “cases”);
2 people becoming sick (and requiring hospital services);
3 people passing away (and reducing the number of “active carriers” and hospitalized but adding to the number of fatalities);
4 people recovering from the disease (and reducing the number of “active carriers” and hospitalized but adding to the number of “cases cured”);
5 people remaining asymptomatic (and potentially contributing to new infections but not yet adding to the pool of known “cases”);
6 people recovering spontaneously from the infection (and so never being in position of being added to the pool of known “cases”);
7 people previously cured but becoming spontaneously re-infected (I don’t know if this makes sense but in some Asian countries some evidence was found of that! chilling; adding to the pool of “cases” and … “re-infected”!)
8 people traveling outside the country (hum… they don’t exist anymore in this “Brave New World” of ours!)
9 people coming into the country (idem)
Any idea of more processes? Any comments?
For a quantitative model what we need more will be an estimation of the corresponding parameters.
Exercise finished.
Back to the need of more and more testing.
I believe that if you have a reasonably good model of how the disease interacts with the society you should be able to infer the outlines of the epidemic from the tests targeting a relatively small sub-set of the population. I wonder why people are obsessed in testing many people. Not too few and not too many must be reasonable.
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@ jefe
I was wondering about the similarities of the way my own country (Mozambique) is both similar and dissimilar to Hong-Kong in the way it has reacting to the pandemic. I will post something about recent developments here but the number of cases remains relatively small although this can reflect partially how many tests have been carried out (around one thousand) until now. Anyway there is been NOT (small)talk about people becoming “strangely sick” or “passing away in strange ways” so I must conclude that we are not yet in a full blown epidemic or something similar. But people remain on guard, and this is not bad.
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@Michael Barker
Then, we must all ware eyeglasses for sure! Remember that this enemy enters our bodies also by the eyes.
Michael, you were the first to mention here – as far as I know – this concept of herd immunity. This was/is a new concept for me. Before that I was thinking in the lines o Darwin: if something attacks a population of living organisms then some of its members are killed and some survive either by luck or because they are strong enough to withstand the attack. Next time you will find that the population – a few generations later – has more descendants of the previous survivors than others, and in that way has become stronger regarding the same “attack agent”.
By this concept, this virus would kill the most vulnerable members of today’s societies and the let the rest live. How can this been reconciled with the concept of “herd immunity”?
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@ gro jo
You just cut and pasted an entire 3,000-word article from The Atlantic, which has a pay wall. I doubt that counts as “fair use” of copyrighted material.
There are no hard-and-fast rules on fair use, but going forward I will draw the line at no more than 250 words quoted from a given source. To give you an idea of how much that is, most of my posts are usually about 500 words.
Comment deleted.
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@ Munubantu
“I wonder why people are obsessed in testing many people.”
In order to track the spread and to identify new hot spots before they get out of control. It is a containment issue. If you are testing lots of people, you have a better chance of catching pre-symptomtic carriers before they even know they are sick.
One very frightening thing about covid-19 is it appears the most infectious stage may be at the very beginning of the illness, when most people have no idea yet that they have caught it.
This isn’t true with all contagious illnesses — often the sick person is most infectious after they become obviously ill with pronounced symptoms. With those types of illnesses, it is easier to prevent the spread without lots of testing.
With the coronavirus, the strategy works kind of like this:
Person A feels a little sick and goes to a clinic to get tested.
Person A tests positive for covid-19 and is put in isolation.
If the testing stops there, you haven’t caught any of the people whom Person A may have already infected but who haven’t started feeling sick yet.
If you want to catch as many of those new infectious cases as possible, you start tracing Person A’s recent movements and contacts, testing not just their family and household but their coworkers, people who were at the same store that Person A shopped at two days ago, the mail carrier who spoke with Person A while dropping off a delivery, the restaurant employees where Person A picked up some takeout food, etc.
Any of those people who test positive are put into isolation immediately to reduce the chance that they will further spread the disease.
If you don’t have this type of contact testing, the mail carrier or restaurant employee or neighbor infected by Person A is still out there feeling perfectly well and unknowingly spreading the disease to even more people.
It’s important to note that right now in the USA, we can’t even guarantee Person A won’t be refused a test and sent home from the clinic without a definitive diagnosis.
In the absence of this type of contact tracing (or in tandem with it), widespread testing for anyone who wants it can also help to catch many infectious people at an early stage.
“By this concept, this virus would kill the most vulnerable members of today’s societies and the let the rest live. How can this been reconciled with the concept of “herd immunity”?”
Everything I’ve read suggests that building herd immunity works better with vaccinations. If 99% of the population is vaccinated for Disease X, the 1% who are not vaccinated for X are unlikely to ever come down with X because there are so few people to catch it from. Disease X can only take hold in the 1% of the population that hasn’t been vaccinated, and unless that 1% all live very close together, it is unlikely they will be able to readily pass X among themselves. This is how smallpox was eventually eradicated.
Trying to build herd immunity through catching a potentially deadly illness cannot be accomplished without incurring a significant number of fatalities. Boris Johnson was advocating back in March that the UK should just go about their regular business and let everyone get infected with the coronavirus naturally and build herd immunity that way. The UK has since reversed course, but their death rate has been staggering. The raw numbers are lower than the USA because their population is smaller than ours. But the USA is currently at 142 deaths per million whereas the UK is at 267 deaths per million. Compare those numbers to Hong Kong, which is at .05 deaths per million, or South Korea at 5.
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Munubantu
To add a bit to what Solitaire posted the following is from the artical I posted up thread regarding anti bodies.
The people tested had no symptoms but the results showed many had contracted the virus without even knowing that they had it.
The testing was done within Los Angeles Angeles county.
“Based on the results of the first round of testing, the research team estimates that approximately 4.1% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus. Adjusting this estimate for the statistical margin of error implies about 2.8% to 5.6% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus — which translates to approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county who have been infected. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county at the time of the study in early April. The number of COVID-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600.
“We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” said lead investigator Neeraj Sood, professor of public policy at the USC Price School for Public Policy and senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.”
If the above numbers are indeed true and applied to the rest of the U.S. then that would mean that the actual numbers of those who had gotten infected and recovered or are currently asymptomatic would be in the tens of millions.
That could mean that herd immunity is far more widespread already, that the disease statistically is not as deadly as is currently assumed.
That wouldn’t mean that the virus is not dangerous or that if “shelter in place” was done away with that hospitals wouldn’t then become overfilled.
In short we still don’t have a clear picture what we are dealing with.
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@munubantu,
Hong Kong’s testing numbers are way ahead of Mozambique’s for sure then. I think well over 1000, some days 2000 are tested per day, and we have been doing it for 3 months. I would guess that well over 100,000 have been tested. All overseas arrivals are being tested, and even though most flights are grounded, we are still getting 200-850 persons arriving per day. For the past 10 days, new cases have been in the single digits or zero, and all from the overseas arrivals. We had a 2nd wave of community spread after we got down to single digits or zero in early march, and some modified relaxation of social distancing was enforced (eg, reopening of govt offices and some commercial offices). Even then, most of the new cases came from people fleeing Europe and the US to come back to HK (eg, overseas students).
Regarding herd immunity, my understanding is different from yours. You suggest that it is a Darwinian thing where the sick or vulnerable are culled and the strong survive.
My understanding is that herd immunity takes place when most of the members of society are immune already, so it is difficult for a never infected person to come into contact with an infected person shedding the virus AND get infected, and an infected person shedding the virus rarely encounters a person who is neither immune nor infected already. At that point, new infections occur, but they are usually very small in number and can be isolated and treated.
I read it somewhere, and I forget the exact number, but the proportion of the immune in the population has to start to exceed 60% before some herd immunity starts to take shape.
Seasonal influenza already has some level of herd immunity, and most people do not get sick, but some people, especially older persons, start to lose some of their immunity, and if they do not get flu shots, maybe become increasingly less immune after a number of years.
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@MJB
It would mean that immunity would be more widespread and the disease is not as deadly as assumed, but it does not mean that herd immunity has taken hold already. In order for herd immunity to be occurring already, the number of new cases would be decreasing already. They are not.
Let’s say that 5% of the population (16 million) were infected already and recovered and have some immunity. That is not enough for herd immunity, because 95% have not been infected, and it is still easy for an infected person to encounter a non-infected person without the mitigation social distancing controls.
Maybe once the infection rate approaches about 50% then the herd immunity effect will start to become apparent.
To get to that level, without the controls, means tens of millions in the hospital and millions dead first. It will take a couple years before herd immunity naturally reaches that level without killing so many people.
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@jefe
I had read an article which adds to your observation on “herd immunity”. Herd immunity is related to the “basic reproduction number” or “R0” (“R naught”) of the disease. That is the number of people one infected person passes the disease to on average.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/herd-immunity/
There have been many estimates of COVID-19’s R0 because it depends on multiple factors including how people behave. I think there is at least a consensus that it spreads more easily than the flu. Based on the examples in the article above, I’d agree that over 50% of the population of population would need immunity before herd immunity kicks in and protects even those without it. But there has also been a constant trickle of information about people who have recovered but tested positive for the virus again. It remains to be seen what the true implications of those cases are.
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@abagond
Thanks.
At the end of the paragraph above I was alluding to some scientific studies suggesting that SARS-Cov-2 (which causes COVID-19) can attack T-cells of the immune system unlike SARS. It does this, even though T-cells don’t have the ACE2 receptor which the virus usually targets. It uses a “membrane fusion” ability instead.
Combine that with some evidence that some people who’ve had the disease have unexpectedly low levels of antibodies against it and I’m not so excited for the “let’s quickly infect everyone so that the economy can restart” strategy. It could prove to be a bad idea if there are later discoveries that the virus sticks around in the body and causes problems later on. Imagine if the reaction to HIV were to give it to everyone. IMO, humility and caution are warranted with a new disease.
Immune cell’s potentially vulnerable to novel coronavirus:
https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/coronavirus-could-target-immune-system-by-targeting-protective-cells-warn-scientists/ar-BB12uI6s
Low level of antibodies in some recovered people
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/covid-19-reinfection-risk-questioned-after-low-antibody-levels-detected/ar-BB12jB2B
Some of those studies were not peer reviewed yet at the time the articles were written.
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@ Jefe
“I would guess that well over 100,000 have been tested.”
My source has Hong Kong’s current total of tests as 131,786 (so you were right on the money).
More importantly, Hong Kong has tested 17,579 per 1 million population.
According to the same source, Mozambique has done 1247 tests, which is 40 per 1 million.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
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@ Munubantu
I see that Mozambique has had only 41 cases so far and no deaths. Just a few months ago, our numbers looked much like yours do now. That is the same thing the Italians were trying to tell Americans two months ago. Do everything you can to protect yourself, even if other people think you are overreacting. Wear a mask, wear gloves, stay home as much as possible, practice social distancing when you are in public.
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@ jefe
Yes.
They are following a few “trees” of contacts that initiated in March “seeded” by infected people who came into the country from the outside (Europe; nobody from PRChina, by the way).
I noticed that in the ramifications did’t show up many new infections and this tells me something about the level of conscience of the populace in general. But some contacts got infected anyway.
So we are in the method somebody described here as clusters testing as opposed to random or general testing.
Clearly the problem remains that some people certainly entered the country as “asymptomatic carriers” and I have no idea how many other clusters remain hidden, although I can’t believe that those could be many, otherwise some of the “fragile members” of said clusters should have already come to the surface as sick individuals in our hospitals.
Only the future will tell, but the Ministry of Health has already suggested that they intend to widen testing procedures.
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@ Solitaire
Thanks.
I believe that the Government of the country has done until now as much as it could to spread this message* and I believe a sizable part of the population believes we “are under siege” and better to “overreact” than to die. The horrendous spectacle people watched in a daily basis in their TV screens from the many deaths in other countries has functioned like a “psychological vaccine”.
I’m not sure if this collective behavior will be enough to maintain the disease at a low grow pace but the health authorities hope to slow up the peak to at least a few months.
Let’s maintain the hope…
*And above all wash your hands frequently!
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@ Munubantu
“And above all wash your hands frequently!”
Yes, how did I forget that?!? Maybe because it isn’t something people might consider odd, unlike wearing PPE. But yes, “wash your hands, don’t touch your face” is the new mantra of our lives.
“I believe that the Government of the country has done until now as much as it could to spread this message and I believe a sizable part of the population believes we ‘are under siege’ and better to ‘overreact’ than to die. The horrendous spectacle people watched in a daily basis in their TV screens from the many deaths in other countries has functioned like a ‘psychological vaccine’.”
That’s reassuring to hear. I hope you will benefit from our mistakes. Also your nation doesn’t have the arrogance of the USA, which is leading us down a deadly path. Be safe, be well.
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@munubatu,
The situation remains, but because a few such clusters occurred last month and early this month (at bars with live bands, at a wedding reception, gyms, etc. ) after some asymptomatic carriers entered the territory, they now have proceeded to test every single new arrival, and force them to be tested and wait several hours for the test to be completed. Late afternoon or evening arrivals are forced to wait overnight in a designated hotel room. After test results, each person, even if they are asymptomatic are sent to isolation wards in hospitals (if positive) and to home or to a hotel for mandatory 14 day quarantine (if negative). The quarantines are enforced by a wrist band attached to the relevant person. Shops are instructed to refuse to admit anyone wearing a wrist band and each person must report their body temperature several times per day via an app.
There are fines and even jail time for any person breaking quarantine. There have been a few arrested already and sentenced.
We had a couple of retirement home cluster outbreaks early on in late Jan to early Feb, but none in the past 2 months. I understand that the strain of the virus now in HK is the one imported from US and Europe; its RNA is already slightly distinguished from the one showing up here in Jan-Feb, which was seeded from China.
Anyone who has symptoms can go and get a test. One of my friends who had a slight fever and cough just went to get tested on his own (he was negative).
I wonder if there is any other place on earth (apart maybe from Taiwan) doing something like this. But it means that we have not had a single case of untraced community spread for a couple weeks now. But, I think that what saved HK was the 2003 SARS experience. Any rumour of a contagious disease in the mainland sent everyone into to panic, but vigilant mode immediately. I even started carrying my face masks with me from Jan 21, before HK got a single recorded case.
But, this will present a very different problem for the government at large. These strong social distancing measures and mandatory quarantine or isolation has put a damper on the protests which started last year. They still occur, but in small numbers, and the police immediately arrest them. There is so much pent up anger that this year’s spring stay at home measures will spring into a summer of discontent with a vengeance. In the past year, there have already been 4 protests which garnered over a million participants each. They are anticipating at least 2 million people will attend the July 1 protest march — while the rest of the world will still be reeling from the pandemic. This time, the authorities may not refrain from using lethal force.
The anger in the population is already a lot worse now than it ever was last year.
I would rather not be here, but I am afraid of the uncontained epidemic across the US in other parts of the world.
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@ Jefe
Have you seen this graph? The stats used are through April 19.
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So, the numbers I was freaking out over a couple days ago? The Washington Post has now noticed it, too:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/23/misunderstanding-math-trump-embraced-coronavirus-death-toll-well-soon-surpass/
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@Origin,
Maybe we can conceptualize the herd immunity concept like this.
We need R0 to be less than 1 for new cases to decrease or stay low. R0 greater than 1 and they increase exponentially (the higher the number the more quickly).
R0 for measles is between 12 and 18. Say it is about 15. Then for R0 to be less than one, we would need 14 of the 15 people to be immune or not infected. This is almost 94%.
R0 for polio is between 5 and 7. Say it is about 6. Then for R0 to be less than one, we would need 5 of the 6 people to be immune or not infected. This is 83%.
Let’s say that R0 for Covid-19 is about 2.5. Then for R0 to be less than one, we would need 1.5 of the 2.5 people to be immune or not infected. This is about 60%. If the R0 is about 2.25, then we need 1.25/2.25 to be immune or about 55%.This would change if people could get reinfected. We would need a reinfection rate to calculate, but if it is significant, then we cannot achieve herd immunity.
Of course, I know that it is not actually calculated this way, but only a way to conceptualize herd immunity and how many we need to vaccinate.
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@munubantu
Actually, it was more like this:
Wave 1 (mid January to early March): infection clusters in Hong Kong were seeded almost entirely by people from PRC. The border was not restricted until early February. This resulted in multiple cluster infections occurring throughout February. The infections never reached an exponential level. Part of the reason was the social distancing measures kicked in by Chinese New year. New infections were in single digits for the first 2 weeks of March, even zero on several days.
Social distancing was relaxed in the first 2 weeks of March, with some government offices reopening, some employers relaxing the Work from home procedures. Bars filled up with people again. Schools, however, did not reopen.
Wave 2 (mid-March to mid-April): infection clusters in Hong Kong were seeded by people returning from Europe and the Middle East, and the latter half also from the USA, mostly travelers or students returning home. There was no reason for them to stay overseas as flights disappeared and schools closed.
The 2nd wave spiked to a higher level than the first wave. More stringent social distancing was reinstated, With diligent contact tracing, untraced community spread never exceeded a handful of people and this phenomenon almost disappeared by mid-April. For the past 12 days, there has been no untraced community spread, and all cases are imported or traced to a confirmed individual.
They have also blocked all non-residents from entering HK from overseas.
Residents returning to HK from overseas must be subject to virus testing, and wait for the results. Then they either go for isolation at hospital (positive) or quarantine (negative). Quarantine can be at home or at a hotel.
For some reason (oh, yeah, we know why), mainlanders are not blocked, but must undergo testing and isolation / quarantine the same as returning residents.
They have extended the current social distancing measures to May 7. Let’s see if we maintain no untraced communnity spread until then. If so, then maybe we can at least open back government offices and allow people to work or meet in offices. Maybe libraries could open back up. Dining in restaurants can be continued with physical distancing. Still we cannot let non-residents back in until it is controlled overseas.
Curiously, they will keep businesses like bars and beauty salons closed, the very types of businesses that the US state of Georgia wants to open back up first. The ones they are opening back up are the very worst choices.
Coronavirus: Hong Kong may be able to ease social-distancing restrictions in early May, top medical experts say
(https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3081205/coronavirus-hong-kong-medical-experts-say-social)
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@ Jefe
I think Munubantu was talking about seeding in Mozambique.
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According to ABC, Elizabeth Warren’s older brother has died from the disease.
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@ Solitaire
Yes, I was speaking about the situation in Mozambique.
Anyway…
@ jefe
Thanks for your informative comments about the dynamics in Hong Kong, despite the fact that you seemed to misunderstood my previous comments following my suggestion of comparing Mozambique and Hong Kong.
Your data about Hong Kong is well taken, particularly because it seems to be a very good example of contention of the epidemic. Given the rapid evolving situation of the novel coronavirus pandemic worldwide, we must quickly see where successful examples appear and quickly learn and adapt to our own situations wherever we are.
There are similarities as well as dissimilarities between Mozambique and Hong Kong.
Some dissimilarities:
* Hong Kong is a small place (a city as far as I known); Mozambique is a medium sized country (hundreds of thousands of square kilometres!).
* Hong Kong has a temperate climate (I’m guessing here! Maybe somebody can please correct me here!); Mozambique has a tropical climate in most of its territory.
* Hong Kong is a rich developed society; Mozambique is a developing country.
* Hong Kong is close to the primary or the first source of the current pandemic, People’s Republic of China; Mozambique is very far from that center (this means that Hong Kong was forced to react much quicker than other places, as soon as the disease began to spread).
* Hong Kong tested dozens of thousands of people, apparently a mixture of clusters following and random or systematic testing; Mozambique has until now only followed clusters of cases. The difference in material resources between the two societies plays certainly a role in this difference.
And similarities:
* In Hong Kong and in Mozambique the society began to react to the coming epidemic before it entered the respective territory. In Hong Kong because they had a previous experience in the 2000’s with the earlier version of SARS, and in Mozambique because they had time to see the developments in other places (China, Italy Spain, etc) and they could understand what was coming to them and had time to plan accordingly. The campaign to educate the population in Mozambique about the new disease began as early as January this year and has been in a crescendo.
* In Hong Kong the epidemic hits a population already fully aware of the dangers of the disease (previous experience was useful for sure) and probably they are more likely to follow and obey the instructions of the authorities; in Mozambique some sectors of the population take the challenge of the disease quite seriously, but some want to see to believe (we had a similar experience with disastrous results in the epidemic of HIV where we could have avoid a lot of human suffering)
* Hong Kong has until now few cases and it seems to be able to contain their rise; Mozambique has also until now few cases although it’s not clear how much this comes from the relatively low level of testing and how it will fare in containing their grow (I hope so but with a little bit of skepticism).
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Regarding the protective equipment that has been talked about (face masks, gloves, protection visors, space-suits, etc. one kind has always let me wondering: gloves.
How are gloves supposed to protect a simple civilian in a normal situation?
In the ebola epidemic yes because that virus once in contact with your skin is able to penetrate your body from there and begin to ravage it form inside.
But the novel coronavirus?
As far as I know this virus is not able to penetrate your skin and it will ravage your body only if able to get to your lungs, which happens by entering your body through the mouth, nose or eyes.
It seems to me that if ware gloves this per si will not help.
What will help is if you don’t touch your face with anything in a “dirt state” (aka, carrying the virus) and this should apply equally to: naked hands, hands with gloves, or any other object.
Considering that naked hands are easier and more natural to carry on, why not going that way and insist on the practice of hand hygiene?
Can somebody come with an explanation, please?
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^
Sorry, when I saw They are following a few “trees … ” and the prior sentence had “Hong Kong” as the subject, I thought it was about HK.
Anyhow,
It seems like you have not yet visited Hong Kong. I’ll fill you in.
yes, it is fairly small, about the same size as the 5 boroughs of New York city, or marginally larger, but with a larger sea surface area than New York city. However, 90% of the population lives in 10% of the land area, and nearly half the land area is country park with no development.
it is subtropical monsoon (hot with heavy rain in the summer, relatively drier and cooler and breezy in the winter), but borderline tropical. The winter is slightly cooler than Maputo’s, but the summer is noticeably hotter, and subject to typhoons. Despite having a cooler sometimes chilly winter, the annual average temperature in Hong Kong is still slightly warmer than Maputo. I can grow pineapples and mangoes outdoors, and they have planted coconut trees in certain places which do reach a tall size (although do not reliably produce coconuts due to a few very cool snaps every few years. The part of US most similar to climate to HK would probably be the Florida coast between St. Petersburg and Sarasota.
It is “rich” and developed, but with exceptional income inequality. The vast majority under age 30 (or maybe even age 35) must live with their parents in a very cramped flat as they cannot afford to live separately. Otherwise, they live in a tiny subdivided flat. It has the most number of skyscrapers of any place in the world, and the potential for spread between units is immense, as many families cannot really quarantine effectively at home, and units share drains and exhausts with each other. We learned that during SARS in 2003.
There is no way that they can maintain the same level of physical distancing in the way that they do in the US and Europe, hence the ubiquitous use of face masks and frequent disinfecting even before the very first reported case.
Hong Kong people in general have a very strong distrust of the CCP state reports and information coming out of the WHO and pay more attention to alternate reports from academics and from Taiwan. The majority of residents already believed by mid-Jan that they reports from the CCP and from the WHO that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus were likely false and a cover-up, so they would not take any chances. In fact, citizens even protested and medical workers conducted mass strikes to push the reluctant government along faster to prevent the epidemic from spreading into HK.
Wuhan is midway between Hong Kong and Beijing on the high-speed rail link. Flights from Wuhan take only about 1hr. 40 mins. So, yes, they felt it was too close for comfort. Wuhan’s climate is on the cooler side of subtropical, closer to Memphis, TN or eastern NC, with a few snowfalls and a few days dropping below -5C (but many days still surpassing 15C) but with oppressively hot and humid summers much worse than anywhere in Mozambique. It is one of China’s “furnace” cities.
Hong Kong has not conducted any random testing or any kind of “systematic” testing as far as I know; all testing was initially (ie, the first month) done only on symptomatic patients and followed contact clusters. Only much later on did they follow clusters to lead to testing asymptomatic positive carriers during the 2nd wave. And they have been testing all new arrivals to HK only for the past 2 weeks.
What Hong Kong has done quite well is the contact tracing. That is why I know that other countries, regions and cities must have an very good system in place to do this in order to contain the spread.
HK people sometimes push the authorities until the authorities reach a point where residents feel it is reasonable and the residents will then obey the measures. Expatriates from Europe or North American in general had a very cavalier attitude during the first 2 months of the epidemic, perhaps because most were not here during SARS 2003, but most have fallen in line. But, if the government does something that the majority of people feel is unreasonable, they will not hesitate to protest. I have a strong feeling that last year’s binge of protests will return with a vengeance after social distancing is relaxed.
Hong Kong has already had 2 waves of outbreaks, but they each only lasted a few weeks and after a brief spike, they come back down. I think the main reasons are
* they move quickly into pandemic mode as soon as there is one outbreak with a few cases. It is like an instinct now.
* very good contact tracing and testing of all contacts and immediate isolation of positive cases
* willingness to cooperate with the government and obey orders if they trust that the government has the public health interest in mind.
I am not sure if the people in Mozambique have a “pandemic prevention instinct” that they will do things to protect themselves whether the government instructs them or not.
However, if the government gives out orders which HK people do not feel are in the best public interest, they may not necessarily obey and some even openly defy them. On a few occasions, millions pour out in the streets in unauthorized protests even if the police are shooting tear gas, water cannons, etc. So, let’s say, after many weeks of zero cases, if the government continues to enforce strict social distancing to prevent protests, then millions may then go out on the streets to protest.
On the other hand, I have never had to worry about random street violence like I had to all the time in the USA. It’s just not a thing.
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@munubantu
For this coronavirus, gloves are useful only if people use a clean glove once to do one task, and then either dispose of it and get a new one for the next time, or thoroughly disinfect it before reuse. Otherwise, it can pick up a virus from one place and spread it to another, just as easily as hands.
If you are going to be touching multiple places or locations, or your face or someone else’s face, and not trying to prevent other things (Eg, bacteria), then you might as well use your hands, and wash frequently or use hand sanitizer when you cannot wash them. Food preparers might use gloves as they always do, or people trying to keep their hands from getting dirty would be wearing gloves anyhow, so I don’t think the coronavirus spread should be a factor.
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@ jefe
Thanks for the info.
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Now for a word from Nathan”It’s ok to love China”Rich:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpNkqQaTEM)
This one’s for jefe.
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Some thoughts about this pandemic.
I know that the disease is new and many things humans are painstakingly discovering, but there is an intriguing aspect that has crossing mind. Let me explain:
a) Some people become infected (and therefore adding to the pool of “cases”, either known/registered or not);
b) Part of the infected become ill enough to require hospitalization;
c) Some of the hospitalized recover and become “corona-free”;
— but —
d) Some “corona” carriers never become ill enough to require hospitalization and in some instances are never registered as “cases”; etc.
But what happens to them?
Normally the justification for more testing is connected to the idea that there are undetected cases out there spreading the disease. And implicitly there is the idea that those are a cumulative number. This is a sound idea.
But is this a complete picture?
If somebody has a strong enough immune system to avoid becoming ill after becoming infected, what happens to him/her after a few weeks? Do he/she remains indefinitely as a “corona” carrier or – I find it more likely – at some point in time becomes spontaneously “corona-free”?
Another – somewhat related – question: we see rising numbers of “cases” almost everywhere; we see also growing numbers of recovered (previously hospitalized), but the latter are far smaller than the former. What about the large number of people who entered the ICUs weeks or months ago but aren’t yet dead nor recovered? How long do they remain in treatment on average?
These are grey areas for me. Do somebody have answers?
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@ Jefe
The advice here has been changing in contradictory ways. At first we were told not to wear gloves when out in public, for the reasons you delineated. We were also told not to wear masks. One reason was because — at least in the USA — most people don’t know how to wear them properly, and studies here have found people touch their face more when they wear a mask because they keep trying to adjust it. (My guess is that this isn’t true in places like Hong Kong where the populace is more accustomed to wearing masks in public when ill or during a flu outbreak.)
Then we were told that gloves might actually provide better protection out in public as long as we remain very aware of not touching the face. Also to wash hands thoroughly as soon as we remove and discard the gloves, which should be taken off carefully by peeling each glove off from the inside out so as to not touch the outside of the glove with bare hands. And then to clean any surface one might have touched with the gloves on (e.g., phone, keys, wallet, eyeglasses), but this would also be true if one had touched those objects while shopping with bare hands (between washings).
Personally I have found it easier to remember not to touch my face when I have gloves on. Also, we are still experiencing a shortage in hand sanitizer. I haven’t been able to find any for weeks. And some stores where I live have closed their public bathrooms due either to the shortage in toilet paper and other supplies or because they feel it’s the best way to protect their employees. These things have made it more difficult than usual to wash or sanitize one’s hands when out in public.
Also, one’s hands can get chapped or split skin from frequent washing, especially in colder environments or older people with more fragile skin. We’ve been told there is reason to believe that the coronavirus can enter the body through open cuts, even very small ones like that, so in this case someone should wear gloves to provide added protection. I had this problem myself a couple weeks ago during a cold snap, with several open splits near my fingernails or the middle of the fingertips. Admittedly this may not be as much of a concern in warmer parts of the world.
We are also now being told to wear masks in public, which is a reversal of the previous advice. The instructions are to wear cloth masks in order to reserve scarce PPE for the hospitals and first responders. Cloth masks are known not to be as effective in prevention, but because there appears to be asymptomatic spread, the idea is less to protect oneself and more to protect others from your own germs in case you are unknowingly asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic. There are still plenty of people here, though, who don’t understand how to wear them and keep fussing with the mask, or wearing it with their nose exposed, or taking it off when talking to people and then putting it right back on.
Your points about the gloves are well taken. That’s exactly what we were being told at first, and some experts here are still saying that. I will retract that part of my advice to Munubantu, with the caveat that the pros and cons are something he might want to weigh in any situations where it is difficult to wash one’s hands frequently.
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@ Munubantu
“What about the large number of people who entered the ICUs weeks or months ago but aren’t yet dead nor recovered? How long do they remain in treatment on average?”
I don’t know about the entire hospital stay, but I do know that if they are put on a ventilator, covid-19 patients require longer treatment than usual. For typical pneumonia or other reasons for respiratory distress, a patient is on a ventilator for about 3 to 6 days. With the coronavirus, it is more like 10 to 14 days.
Also, covid-19 does something unusual. Patients are presenting with a blood oxygen level so low that according to conventional medical wisdom, they should already be dead, yet they are ambulatory and thinking clearly.
Some doctors believe we may be putting covid-19 patients on ventilators unnecessarily and that this may even be reducing their chances of survival. These doctors are still recommending oxygen therapy but using less invasive means.
Here are a couple articles about that:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/
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Here is another article about ventilators and intubation, with doctors from several parts of the world giving their experiences and opinions. The article also notes that some coronavirus patients have been kept on a ventilator for as long as 3 weeks.
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN2251PE
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On the West coast I am hearing that ventilators only help around 10% of the people who are on them.
Something troubling Solitaire mentioned is the low oxegon levels many patients have.
This question is for Jefe: I was wondering how available surgical and N95 masks are where you are. The U.S. is recommending cloth masks for everybody who is not an essential worker. A lot of homemade masks here.
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It seems that good records in the fight against Covid-19 last only if you remain on the alert forever. It is easy to relapse as the recent developments in Singapore show:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/24/asia/singapore-coronavirus-foreign-workers-intl-hnk/index.html
Rethinking social structures is also asked for.
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@solitaire,
Yeah, people in HK think the people in Europe and US are simply crazy (not to mention the CDC, WHO, etc.) for advising against wearing masks. As I mentioned earlier, as soon as there were reports about potential human-to-human transmission, HK went swiftly into pandemic prevention mode – hand hygiene, mask wearing, disinfecting everything, closing toilet lids and filling all the drains in the house with water (dried out drains proved to be a vector of virus transmission during SARS. 2 days later govt offices closed, as did libraries, sports centres, etc. Cinemas did not close for another week or two, but people stopped going anyway. People stopped having social gatherings. and companies ordered employees to work from home. No one needed any directive from the government to do this, and they certainly did not pay attention to the WHO, which was giving advice conflicting with what people believed here and what they were discussing in Taiwan.
Expatriates who got most of their information from overseas or from the WHO were slow to join in, but I guess they are there now.
Taiwan also moved into pandemic prevention mode too, even faster than HK. And the government there made sure that everyone had enough face masks and even ordered all factories to stop exporting any overseas during February and March.
There was a lot of study and discussion about wearing surgical face masks during SARS (2003), They decided that it does indeed work at a community level if everyone, or at least 90% does it. It is not fullproof to stop all respiratory emissions, but say it stops 80%, and the other person’s mask can stop 80% of the 20% you emit, then only 4% can be exchanged. You can still catch it, but at a community level, it is reduced enough so that hospital admissions do not exceed capacity, and positive cases are few enough so that all their contacts can be traced. It can reduce the R0 to less than one, which is all that matters. It is very helpful if people practice social distancing together with mask wearing, hand hygiene and surface / environmental disinfecting.
Cloth masks catch most of large particles, but almost none of the smaller ones, and many micro droplets still escape through the mask. However, of course, this is better than nothing. Say that a mask stops only 50% of the emissions. Then a cloth mask will still keep 75% from being exchanged, which does have an effect at the community level. But cloth masks can be washed and reused.
N95 masks block more, ie, 95%. so if both persons are wearing it, only 0.25% gets exchanged. Only health care workers need that level of protection, as they need to work among it all the time.
And since we learned about asymptomatic transmission by the end of January, then everyone in HK just seems to know that we all have to wear masks even before the public health department says so.
One reason was because — at least in the USA — most people don’t know how to wear them properly, This is a completely bullshit argument.
During SARS (2003), the HK govt broadcasted PSA 24/7 at least once an hour about how to properly wear, use, and take care of a mask, and when you should replace with a new one. They did it again this year, but not as much as most people were already used to it.
If people don’t know how to use it properly, then you simply instruct them. Any local department public health can prepare a PSA video to teach people and broadcast every 1/2 hr. on TV, before every youtube, every time possible. Within one week, everyone will have seen it dozens of times already.
They truth was not that people could not use them properly, but that there were not enough of them to go around. What masks were available in January in the US were swiped off the shelves or emptied out from Amazon and mailed to Asia. The US should have ramped up production of them (like they did in Taiwan), but they did not. Instead, the CDC, US Surgeon General and State health departments disseminated false propaganda about wearing masks. I was angry about that Jan – Mar.
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@Michael Barker
I responded to Solitaire in a comment that is in moderation now, but I will address your question here.
The last week of January and throughout the month of February and until about mid-March, both N95 and Surgical masks disappeared off the shelves and could not be ordered online easily. Unlike Taiwan, HK govt could not arrange to import masks for residents here, so some political groups and some private entrepreneurs found alternate sources. Later, some stores would advertise that they had, say, 200,000 boxes to order online and pick up, and within minutes, they would be sold out. District Councillors tried to win points with constituents by passing out some in the community, mostly to retirees or unemployed people.
I had my university roommate in CA mail me a box in early Feb, express priority mail (3-5 days), but it took over 3 weeks to arrive — not surprising since most flights to USA were cancelled. I also asked my cousin in Alabama to get some for me and mail to me as I heard that masks were gone in metro areas with large Asian populations. However, by then, those packages did not make it through US customs and were mailed back to her. Well, at least THEY now have some masks.
In the past month, surgical masks of various qualities have appeared back on the shelves, a bit more expensive than they used to be, but easy enough to find. N95 are difficult to find but still might be possible, but still they are reserved more for health care workers (or maybe others, such as dentists). Some people wear cloth masks for fashion purposes, but surgical face masks are now widely available.
Cloth masks are better than nothing, but surgical face masks will catch more emissions and block more smaller particle emissions from entering. But cloth masks can be washed and reused.
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Update
Covid-19 pandemic; situation in Mozambique
There is a public daily brief – shown in different local television networks – by personnel of the Ministry of Health where they bring the official data about the status of the pandemic in the country.
The last data read:
total of positive cases of Covid-19: 70
total of imported cases: 8
total of cases of local transmission: 62
total of cured cases: 9
total of fatalities: 0
number of provinces with cases: 3
_Capital city of Maputo: 15
_Great Maputo area: +5
_Cabo Delgado: 50
To put those numbers in perspective it must be added that:
total population of the country: aprox 29 million
total/cumulative of persons followed until today: > 500 000
total/cumulative of quarantined persons: > 11 400
total of laboratory tests (Covid-19, PCR test): 1575
total of laboratory tests in the last 24 hours: 136 (131 negatives and 5 positives)
The Ministry of Health is following basically a few clusters that developed:
in and around the capital city, “seeded” by travelers coming from outside (mainly, but not exclusively, by airplane and from Europe) in March; the total of cases in those clusters is 20; and
in the northern province of Cabo Delgado; in that province a massive infrastructural development is taking place to allow for the extraction and processing of natural gas in the coming years; the gas deposits there belong to the largest in the world; a multinational set of engineers and workers was assembled there to do the job; some of the infected persons there are foreigners and the “seeds” definitely came from that sub-group); total of cases there 50.
Despite the fact that the area around Maputo has much more people than the Cabo Delgado province, more cases were locally transmitted in the latter place, This speaks about the different level of consciousnesses in the two places. In Maputo the level of information and awareness is certainly higher than in the “remote” Cabo Delgado area where work on gas infrastructure is being carried out.
In the last 7 days the total number of cases jumped more than 50%. A few days ago the number was 41. Today is 70. I believe that as the outer ring of the cluster in Cabo Delgado is more and more searched and tested, more cases probably will appear. The good new is that workers in the gas project live outside their normal sites of residence, in a compound, and therefore, probably no contamination occurred outside their workplace.
Some restrictions are already in place regarding the movement of people between the compound of gas project workers and people’s settlements nearby.
For the compound itself more strict rules of hygiene were imposed. For example now everybody must ware a face mask.
But in the neighbor province of Nampula (much more populated than Cabo Delgado itself) the local leaders show already some nervousness via-a-vis a possible future spillover of cases from Cabo Delgado to Nampula. They are trying hard to rise the alertness of the population for the rules of behavior that must be followed to escape the disease, in the urban as well as in rural areas.
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Windows of hope
A friend of mine sent a moment ago a WhasApp message speaking about some results already achieved in the search for a cure of Covid-19. With the whole humanity under siege this enemy can only expect a forceful response. I doubt that it will survive much long. Look at these two examples of lines of research:
a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favipiravir
b) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011
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@ Jefe
“No one needed any directive from the government to do this”
While it wasn’t anywhere on the same level as Hong Kong, we did have a little of that. Where I am, for example, several school districts, public library systems, and stores shut down days before the county issued a stay-at-home directive.
“There was a lot of study and discussion about wearing surgical face masks during SARS (2003), They decided that it does indeed work at a community level if everyone, or at least 90% does it…. It can reduce the R0 to less than one, which is all that matters.”
This is really good information to know, thank you. The problem here is going to be getting 90% of the populace on board.
“Cloth masks catch most of large particles, but almost none of the smaller ones, and many micro droplets still escape through the mask.”
Some people are making cloth masks with a slot where you can insert disposable filters to try to increase the mask’s efficiency. People have been making their own filters out of things like vacuum bags and Swiffer dry sheets. I have no idea how effective or safe this might be.
“This is a completely bull[moderated word] argument.”
Yeah, that seems clear in retrospect. The study I’ve seen cited most often was of U.S. medical students or interns, people who were just starting to get accustomed to wearing surgical masks and learning how to use them. As far as I know, there was no follow-up later on to see if they were still touching and fiddling with the masks or if they’d got it figured out.
“If people don’t know how to use it properly, then you simply instruct them. Any local department public health can prepare a PSA video to teach people and broadcast every 1/2 hr. on TV, before every youtube, every time possible.”
Well, yes, but this is Trump’s America, where the more urgent PSA at the moment is to warn people not to inject themselves with Lysol like the president suggested. One hell of a learning curve we’ve got here.
I do agree with you; we just really need to ramp up the instructional videos or something, and it doesn’t seem anyone’s doing that.
Just in the last week I have had multiple conversations (online or text, not in person! because social distancing) with people scoffing at “the idiots driving around all alone in their car wearing a mask — do they think they’re going to catch it through the air vents?” Each time I’ve had to explain that you’re not supposed to take the mask off and put it back on a few minutes later; that defeats the whole purpose. So if someone has multiple errands to run — which is likely if they’re trying to only go out once every week or two — then yes, it makes perfect sense that they would be wearing their mask in their car as they drive from one place to the next.
It also doesn’t help when newscasters on television are adjusting their masks on air, or seeing Nancy Pelosi take hers off to address the House and then put it back on. I realize we are all still learning this here, but we need better role modeling as well as more PSAs.
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Exactly, there are only 2 cases when you should take it off, ie,
to eat or drink (no choice there), but you can bring a clean napkin or paper towel on place it on and only remove and replace by the ear loops, and only after hand sanitizing before and after you take it off and before and after you put it back on.
when you get home.
Well there is a #3, but hopefully most people are not one of them.
3. When you smoke – this is terrible behaviour during a pandemic as people touch their mouth and face every 15 seconds and then cough out in public.
So, if you are driving a car, that means you left your house and are in public and going to a destination that has other people. You should leave it on. Besides, if you have any passengers, then you are breathing, coughing, touching stuff in the car.
Yes, the journalists and public officials at press briefings, or at meetings in the US are doing a terrible role model job. Governor Cuomo, his team and all the journalists should absolutely be wearing face masks together with physical distancing at each and every public meeting. The virus can be spread by aerosol micro-droplets that can remain airborne for a few hours. The way they act and behave is dreadfully irresponsible and displaying horrendous role model behaviour to their audience and constituents.
The way public officials and journalists act in the US would be unconscionable in HK.
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@ Jefe
“The virus can be spread by aerosol micro-droplets that can remain airborne for a few hours.”
That jogged my memory. Another reason we were originally told not to wear masks was they didn’t think there was aerosolized spread.
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^ There was evidence that it could be spread by aerosolized micro-droplets by asymptomatic carriers by late January. That was widely being reported already by microbiologists and epidemiologists in HK and Taiwan by early Feb.
WHO discounted or ignored this.
CDC stated in Feb and Mar to early April that there was no evidence.
US surgeon general said that too.
Now you know why there is intense distrust of the WHO here. They have repeatedly failed to provide timely and trustworthy information.
I disagree that WHO should be disfunded, as we do need an institution like that, but I support a thorough investigation of their actions and behaviour. If Trump’s defunding order manages to force that to happen, then I can accept it if it is only temporary.
Now that we know it for a fact, it is unconscionable that officials and the media act the way they do in the US and Europe.
It is easy to see your microdroplets in winter or in places that turn cold. They freeze or condense outside your mouth every time you talk.
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@Solitaire
Why is that? I am trying to figure out what is wrong with the US.
I guess it is a new cultural norm and people just aren’t used to it. For years, they mocked people doing it overseas.
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Delete my comment above. Link doesnt work.
Link on making your own masks, best fabrics ect.
(https://m.facebook.com/groups/670932227050506?view=permalink&id=687259882084407)
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This Vox video discussing the value of wearing face masks is pretty good.
What face masks actually do against coronavirus
(https://youtu.be/P27HRClMf2U)
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https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments-that-may-have-started-coronavirus-pandemic-1500503
“Around this time, Ron Fouchier, a scientist at Erasmus University in Holland, wondered what it would take for the bird flu virus to mutate into a plague virus. The question was important to the mission of virologists in anticipating human pandemics. If H5N1 were merely one or two steps away from acquiring human transmissibility, the world was in danger: a transmissible form of H5N1 could quickly balloon into a devastating pandemic on the order of the 1918 flu, which killed tens of millions of people.”
“To answer the question, scientists would have to breed the virus in the lab in cell cultures and see how it mutated. But this kind of work was difficult to carry out and hard to draw conclusions from. How would you know if the end result was transmissible?”
“The answer that Fouchier came up with was a technique known as “animal passage,” in which he mutated the bird-flu virus by passing it through animals rather than cell cultures.”
“After passing the virus through 10 ferrets, Fouchier noticed that a ferret in an adjacent cage became ill, even though the two hadn’t come into contact with one another. That showed that the virus was transmissible in ferrets—and, by implication, in humans. Fouchier had succeeded in creating a potential pandemic virus in his lab.”
“When Fouchier submitted his animal-passage work to the journal Science in 2011, biosecurity officials in the Obama White House, worried that the dangerous pathogen could accidentally leak from Fouchier’s lab, pushed for a moratorium on the research. Fouchier had done his work in BSL-2 labs, which are intended for pathogens such as staph, of moderate severity, rather than BSL-4, which are intended for Ebola and similar viruses. BSL-4 labs have elaborate safeguards—they’re usually separate buildings with their own air circulation systems, airlocks and so forth. In response, the National Institutes of Health issued a moratorium on the research.”
“What followed was a fierce debate among scientists over the risks versus benefits of the gain-of-function research. Fouchier’s work, wrote Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch in the journal Nature in 2015, “entails a unique risk that a laboratory accident could spark a pandemic, killing millions.”
“Lipsitch and 17 other scientists had formed the Cambridge Working Group in opposition. It issued a statement pointing out that lab accidents involving smallpox, anthrax and bird flu in the U.S. “have been accelerating and have been occurring on average over twice a week.”
“Laboratory creation of highly transmissible, novel strains of dangeorus viruses… poses substantially increased risks,” the statement said. “An accidental infection in such a setting could trigger outbreaks that would be difficult or impossible to control. Historically, new strains of influenza, once they establish transmission in the human population, have infected a quarter or more of the world’s population within two years.” More than 200 scientists eventually endorsed the position.”
I think there are some doors science shouldn’t open and this is one of them.
Humans are already destroying the Earth through global warming and unsustainable economic models.
All we need is a bug to escape and wipe out most of the Earths population. It seems to me the risk outways the reward.
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This is something else that I want to ask people in the US (and maybe Canada, Australia and Europe too). re: those who have tested positive, but are not showing symptoms, or at least none serious enough to require hospitalization. Are they indeed released to quarantine at home?
This idea would be unthinkable in Hong Kong.
Everyone who tests positive here are sent away to a separate mandatory isolation ward away from home (it does not have to be an actual hospital; it could be an empty hotel or dormitory) and they must stay there indefinitely and monitored continuously until they show no symptoms and test negative twice at least 24 hours apart. So no, you cannot go home and quarantine nor have contact with anyone at all, even a family member.
The ones who are sent to home quarantine and daily temperature checks are those who tested NEGATIVE, but had contact with someone who had tested positive. And they are tested again after 14 days to confirm they are still negative.
If this is the case in North American or Europe, this might explain why it took so long for cases to come down.
The successful Asian coronavirus-fighting strategy America refuses to embrace
Other countries have had better results putting sick people into isolation instead of sending them home to potentially infect their family.
(https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21238456/centralized-isolation-coronavirus-hong-kong-korea)
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@jefe
Yes, if you don’t require hospitalization, you are sent home. This is true whether or not they offer to test you and whether or not you test positive. Testing is becoming much more accessible now. But, tests were harder to get a few weeks ago which led to many people being denied tests and sent home only to die. There were two highly publicized cases in Detroit recently with a medical worker being turned away from her own hospital, multiple times, without a test and also the daughter of a police officer and a medical worker being mis-diagnosed and turned away multiple times only to later die of Covid19.
So, not only do we send sick people home here, but apparently we don’t even test the all folks that need it.
NOTE: Both patients in my response had something in common. Care to guess what it was?
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@ Jefe
“Are they indeed released to quarantine at home?”
Yes.
Not only that, some are dying at home, which raises questions about how well they are being assessed when they first present for diagnosis and treatment.
We had a case in my county where a patient was diagnosed and sent home, and died less than 24 hours later. Details are scarce but family called an ambulance so this person may not have lived alone. It is not fully clear either if the person died at home or en route, but apparently was DOA at the ER.
If you look around YouTube, you can find footage of journalists like Chris Cuomo (the governor’s brother) and Brooke Baldwin reporting from home quarantine.
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@ Open Minded Observer
This is kind of a tangent off your remarks and not meant to detract from the tragedy you described.
About a month ago, I remember reading a number of op-eds, Twitter threads, etc. written by doctors who had flu-like symptoms but couldn’t get a test even from their own hospital. Most in the U.S. but a couple in Britain.
They were all continuing to work. The running theme in their accounts was if they could get tested and were positive for covid-19, they would self-quarantine, but if they tested negative and it was “just” a flu bug or a cold, they would keep working because that’s what they always do when they are sick. A couple said or implied that’s what they learned to do as interns and residents: you go to work unless you literally cannot stand up.
I was appalled. You would think physicians would be the first to realize the importance of staying home when sick with something communicable, regardless of severity.
It is equally appalling that these doctors were refused covid-19 testing, and even more so since their hospitals must have known they were continuing to work.
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@Open minded observer,
I am not referring to whether people have access to testing or not. I mean, among those who are lucky enough to get tested and receive a positive result, but who are not sick enough (or sick at all) to go to the hospital, are they simply sent home to self-quarantine.
This is a grave mistake. We should not be doing any self-quarantine for those who test positive, even if they have no symptoms. They must be completely removed from society to avoid infecting other people.
But regarding testing, in order to contain, not only do the asymptomatic infected individuals need to be ISOLATED away everyone else for 14 days and monitored throughout the day and not released until they test negative multiple times, every single one of their contacts need to be tested too, and isolated if positive, or quarantined if negative.
The US is still in mitigation mode, not containment mode. Until they move to containment mode (isolate all positives, quarantine all negatives, contact trace and test all contacts), they should not under any circumstance relax social distancing measures. It is not contained.
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@Solitaire,
Yes, I saw the videos of Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin.
This would not be allowed at all in Hong Kong.
Even the top journalists and politicians and celebrities are not allowed to go home and do self-quarantine if they test positive. They are required to go to a separate isolation facility away from home, and stay until they test negative twice.
If the relevant person is a returnee from overseas (and all of those are being tested, and forced to wait for the results), and tests positive after landing at the airport, that person is not allowed to return home anymore, but goes straight to isolation wards in hospitals even if they display no symptoms. They will not be allowed to go home until they test negative twice, no matter how long it takes.
The ones who are allowed to go home are those who test NEGATIVE. These are typically those who are contacts of a positive case, or a returnee resident from overseas who tests negative. And they are required to quarantine for 14 days and report their temperature throughout the day and wear a wrist band monitoring their location to ensure they do not leave home for any reason. Anyone violating quarantine are arrested and fined. A few have been jailed.
One reason that it is dangerous to send people home in Hong Kong if they test positive, is that flats in HK are generally tiny. A typical family of 4 or 5 lives in a 400-500 s.f. flat. Many families live in quarters even more crowded. There is no way to isolate yourself in such conditions. But even if one is wealthy, lives in 5000 s.f. with 6 bedrooms and domestic helpers, they are not allowed to go home if they test positive. All must spend isolation in offsite isolation camps until they test negative.
Maybe this is why HK, after having 2 separate waves of infections with sudden spikes, have gotten back down to single digit new infections for the past 16 days, without a single case of untraced community spread. 5 days out of the past 8 days reported zero new infections. There have been only 4 deaths.
Ramping up testing is only one thing. It will not contain the spread unless you
– do comprehensive contact tracing of all positive cases and test all contacts
– Isolate those testing positive, and keep them isolated completely from everyone else until they test negative at least twice, even if they never show any symptoms
– Quarantine those testing negative. Ideally you test them again after 14 days to make sure they are still testing negative (ie, testing negative twice).
The only exception here would be the healthcare workers treating the covid patients. They are contacts of positively infected patients, and should be tested regularly, but if they are still negative, we still need them to work.
The article above suggests that the measures that you find in HK, Taiwan, S. Korea simply would not fly in the US. Somehow it is an infringement of individual liberty.
But even under the HK scenario, the celebrity in an isolation camp could theoretically still work every day from their room and doing pretty much everything they would have done in home quarantine. The only difference is the physcial is separation.
But this is incredibly better for society in general. Everyone not in isolation or quarantine would be free to move about more in society, as long as we keep some measure of social distancing (ie, no large events or mass gatherings), physical distancing (6ft apart), ubiquitous wearing of masks in public, diligent hand hygiene and disinfecting of any location which is a known contact vector for a positive case.
In HK, restaurants have remained open throughout the entire pandemic. Hair salons have never closed. Most businesses are still open. Starting next week, the government offices will be fully open back up, as well as librairies and some other public facilities.
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A curious view of life in Hong Kong:
edition.cnn.com/2020/04/25/asia/hong-kong-social-distancing-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html
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Abagond wrote in this blog post: “Covid-19 is at 4,000 dead [worldwide] and counting (as of March 10th 2020).”
In a comment on April 3, I wrote:
“Less than a month later, . . . there are 7,000 dead in the U.S. alone.”
The U.S. fatality count passed the 60,000 mark on April 29.
There have been over 200,000 deaths worldwide.
There are 3 million cases globally. 1 million of those — one third — are in the U.S.
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Monday I go in to have an antibody test done.
I will keep you posted about the results.
L.A. county will now be offering free Codvit-19 testing and it is not necessary to have symptoms to qualify.
I thought I would do the antibody test first.
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@ Michael Barker
What is your purpose in doing this?
Is it to fulfill a kind of citizenship duty, to contribute to give the health authorities, both local, state or national, a more accurate picture of the pandemic (also to calibrate the mathematical model that describe it)? By the way, is it anonymous?
Because at a personnel level I don’t see much advantage. The antibody test will not give a certainty of your status vis-a-vis the novel coronavirus, specially if the result is positive.
Ok. Maybe if you test negative, it’s fine, you happily go back home. Otherwise you’ll feel the need to advance to the more complex PCR test, to clean your peace of mind about yourself!
But are those reverse transcription polymerase chain reactiontests also fully available for free in your location?
By the way, the health authorities in my country are going, in the near future, to add to the PCR tests they are doing right now to uncover clusters of infection, also those antibodies tests, to create a more encompassing map of the spread of the virus nationwide. Until now it seems that we have only mainly two localized clusters of infection, one in the extreme north and other in the extreme south. But nobody know for sure if there is something else.
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By the way…
What is happening to California? (When I was a kid there was a song called “Hotel California”… huh,,, sweet memories!)
They are fed up of living like birds in cages, aren’t they?
See, https://globalnews.ca/news/6872261/coronavirus-beaches-california-heat-wave/
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Munubantu.
As a civic duty as well as a moral one if I turn out to be a carrier. I don’t believe the test’s are anonymous.
If I test positive I have to list who I have had interactions with over the last two weeks. Since I am considered an essential worker needed to maintain infrastructure I have a lot of daily interactions. On average I meet ten new people a day. Add my family and workers that’s around 150 people over a two week period.
The more people that are tested then the more info the CDC will receive. That will help the CDC figure out the scale of the pandemic ect. I think testing should be mandatory.
If my antibody test comes back positive then I will take a covid-19 test. If that’s positive then I self isolate and contact those who I have interacted with. If the test is negative then I will know that I received a small viral load and my body was able to resist it.
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Is the 3rd World War in sight?
Maybe the novel coronavirus is one of the horses of the Apocalypse, the one bringing the bad news of the coming Armageddon between two earthly giants…
Who knows?
See
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/us-china-coronavirus-diplomacy-intelligence-donald-trump/index.html
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Munubantu
Closing the beaches in California is controversial. Hiking trails are closed as well in Southern California. Same with Natinal parks, camp grounds ect.
Personally I think they should remain open but police or park rangers should be able to cite individuals or groups who violate social distancing guidelines.
It is preety easy to maintain social distancing in outdoor areas, along hiking trails ect.
It is enclosed areas with recycling air that spreads the virus more often.
Some people don’t have a yard to go out into if they live in apartments so parks, beaches and trails should be open for mental health.
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With regard to this viral outbreak, I see two issues being frequently combined even by respected journalists. A virus doesn’t have to be man-made to escape from storage in a lab. The genetic origin of a virus and the epicenter of an outbreak are two separate considerations. Naturally occurring viruses have escaped from research containment before.
https://www.cdc.gov/sars/media/2004-05-19.html
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https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/
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“Is the 3rd World War in sight?
Maybe the novel coronavirus is one of the horses of the Apocalypse, the one bringing the bad news of the coming Armageddon between two earthly giants…
Who knows?”
3rd World War against the PRC and Russia has been on the US agenda since Bush had the idea of invading Afghanistan using “Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a tactic based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight”, followed by Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” policy.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013000508.html)
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Interesting article from newsweek:
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
More at the link including information on how a different virus was made to transmit to ferrets (years ago) through repeated mutations, resulting in calls from hundreds of scientists to end those experiments. Dr. Fauci thought that kind of research was valuable enough for it to be worth the risk.
If US funded Chinese research caused a pandemic that’ll put a wrinkle in Trump’s quest for reparations, eh?
The employer is often considered to be ultimately liable when the employee screws up and damages innocent third parties.
If the US government suddenly gets disinterested in where the virus came from I guess we’ll know what’s up, LOL.
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@ Origin
(emphasis added)
Jesus, Origin, reparations? Is this not a reserved word here?
Used only in contexts like https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/ta-nehisi-coates-the-case-for-reparations/
It is like to say that the novel coronavirus is inflicting a holocaust worldwide. Holocaust? Can’t say that!
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@mununbuntu
I actually thought about those reparations as I was typing the word. Some associations are strong indeed.
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It looks like the “word” is actually reserved, lol.
My response didn’t show up yet.
Anyway, following up on my previous post on the Newsweek article: NPR had run a story a few days ago in which scientists were quoted throwing doubt on the lab origin theory.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident
Does the name Peter Daszak sound familiar? He’s the same guy from the same company mentioned in the Newsweek article:
Newsweek
So the same guy whose company was running the bat coronavirus gain-of-function research project in China (which was just terminated on April 24, 2020) was quoted in NPR assuring us that it’s a “conspiracy theory” to consider that the virus could have come from a lab. Who thinks NPR should have exposed that potential conflict of interest in its own story? If his research could possibly be implicated in this crippling pandemic wouldn’t he have a vested interest in discouraging that line of inquiry?
Finally, just in case it is unclear, the aim of gain-of-function research is to produce more dangerous pathogens which transmit more easily and/or cause more severe illness. That’s why some scientists think it should not be done, period, since there’s a always non-zero risk of accidental release.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/
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This is an opinion piece from CNN, so we have to take that into consideration, but I do agree with much of it.
The US (and several of the Western European countries) talk about testing, testing, testing.
But actually, the number of tests in the US is not really that bad, and compares favourably to Asia-Pacific nations. What US fails miserably at is the action done after the tests are performed, ie,
Every single person testing positive should, to the best of their ability, identify every contact they have had for the prior 14 days and then those people should be tested. Of those who test positive, first isolate them completely out of the community (and definitely not at home), then quarantine and test all their contacts for the prior 14 days and so forth.
No one is released from isolation until they test negative at least twice 24 hours or more apart.
There are so many empty school dormitories and hotels out there, there should be enough space to isolate every positive case. If not, then erect temporary isolation camps.
By no means allow people who test positive and shedding the virus in the community, including at home. They must be removed so that they do not infect a single other person. I wish they would stop this practice of home quarantine for POSITIVE cases.
This is what the US is doing a terrible job at. Their testing is not behind other nations, but what they do with those test results is.
What Asian nations know about squashing Covid-19
(https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/02/opinions/us-can-learn-from-asia-sachs/index.html)
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Jefe
I think the U.S.and Western countries don’t have the discipline to force quarantine their citizens.
Already people are ignoring face masks and social distancing. They think the threat is overblown.
I think the virus will be with us for awhile.
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The PRC is having a laugh at the expense of the US and the ‘geniuses on this blog. Enjoy or not.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5BZ09iNdvo)
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Thanks Grojo I liked that.
It is a fine piece of propaganda because it’s mostly true.
Of course they left out the part about the virus escaping from the lab …..
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Mike, you’re even funnier than the video. Still pushing that Wuhan lab lie?
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The country that should be laughing its rear off right now is the Republic of China.
It’s not even a member of the WHO and did a better job containing the virus than everyone else, lol!
The rest of us with runaway outbreaks [thanks Trump] will have to bottle some of the laughs for the coming months when we’ll need them!
By the way there is a fascinating fact that a few countries with female leaders have had better mortality outcomes during the pandemic than others.
Republic of China’s Tsai Ing-wen leads the field in COVID-19 containment despite being geographically close to Xi’s pestilence-exporting mainland.
Angel Merkel’s Germany is probably the best place to be in Europe during this outbreak.
While New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern has also earned the praise of her people for her handling of the crisis.
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ROC deserves praise for taking swift action.
“By the way there is a fascinating fact that a few countries with female leaders have had better mortality outcomes during the pandemic than others.
Republic of China’s Tsai Ing-wen leads the field in COVID-19 containment despite being geographically close to Xi’s pestilence-exporting mainland.”
How did Hong Kong do, also under female leadership? Initially, very well but as I said, this thing is a moving target, more recently, not so good. The final verdict on the crisis will be several years in the future.
“Epidemiologists and journalists lauded the Chinese territory for controlling the spread, and Hong Kongers emerged from their tiny apartments to resume life. They headed back to work and the gym, even dined out for noodles and dim sum, as they welcomed home residents and students who had been stuck overseas.
With most everyone’s guard down, the predator lashed back last week. Cases of Covid-19 surged.
Hong Kong logged a daily record of 48 new infections Saturday as travelers returned home, and as of Wednesday, the city of 7.4 million had reported more than 400 cases. This week, the government ordered all residents back home, and closed public sports facilities, museums, and libraries that had just reopened. What’s more, the city stopped admitting visitors for two weeks. As an extra measure against socializing, the government demanded that bars stop serving alcohol.
Physicians and scientists in Hong Kong said they were not surprised by the jump in cases. The pandemic will work in waves, said Keiji Fukuda, former assistant director-general for health security at the World Health Organization and a medical professor at the University of Hong Kong. “This is going to be a difficult situation for the next several months. I don’t think any of us believes this will resolve in the next six weeks or two months. … Hong Kong is going to be affected by what’s going on in other regions and other countries.”
Even as a growing chorus in the U.S. and other countries calls for a quick end to sharp restrictions on civic life, Hong Kong’s message is clear: It will take remarkable persistence to control the coronavirus — a herculean effort by both governments and their citizens.”
superlative Brobdingnagian tools should refrain from making overly broad generalizations, or celebrate victories that might turn out to be ephemeral. Caution is the order of the day.
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Look at what happened in Stillwater, Oklahoma:
If this is how they react to mandatory face masks, just imagine the response to enforced isolation and quarantine.
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Forgot the link:
http://stillwater.org/news/view/id/567
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@Origin said
“By the way there is a fascinating fact that a few countries with female leaders…”
Somebody who doesn’t pay attention read:
“By the way there is a fascinating fact that ALL countries with female leaders…”
Having invented this “broad generalization” as a strawman the individual proceeds to provide a counterexample to refute it.
Logic Primer:
Universal quantification (“For All …”) is refuted by providing a counterexample.
Existential quantification (“There exists some such that …”) is refuted by proving there are none.
My statement, though casually stated, was of the latter form and can’t be refuted with a counterexample. Obviously, inventing a statement I didn’t make and refuting that is also faulty logic.
But it’s nonetheless interesting that the example that is claimed to be failing now is the one that large swathes of her city’s population was protesting against because they disapproved of a CCP-friendly law she had proposed which they felt undermined “One Country Two Systems”. I was actually surprised Hong Kong managed COVID-19 as well as it had given how beleaguered Carrie Lam was throughout last year. It’s a testament to how seriously the citizens take these outbreaks after the SARS experience.
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By the way, I suspect our favorite poster’s Daddy, Xi, is reaching for the strap because he implied that Hong Kong is a country.
Oops!
Somebody is about to get re-educated.
I’m sure there’s one more space in those Uighur concentration camps.
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re: Origin
Being excluded from WHO was a blessing in disguise. The ROC’s measures and instructions to their population did not follow the WHO guidelines and it turned out to be considerably more effective.
Hong Kong probably had the next best response after Taiwan, ROC. They have recorded 1041 cases and only 4 deaths. 8 days out the past 14 recorded zero new cases, and there has been no recorded death since March 13. There has been no recorded case of local community transmission for 16 days. All cases, if any, now are imported from returnee residents. One case was recorded yesterday, a woman who returned from the USA who was asymptomatic. As I mentioned above, HK is testing every single arrival, and sending them to isolation (NOT quarantine at home) even if they are entirely asymptomatic.
The large unsourced text dump above referring to 48 new cases is over 6 weeks old. That occurred on March 20. The last time there were double digit new cases (11) was 24 days ago. You can check every day’s report here.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china-hong-kong-sar/
The success in HK was due in no thanks to its female puppet chief executive, but rather more due to the pressure that citizens put on the government. through strikes and protests to force government’s hand, as well as higher trust in academic experts. Together with Taiwan, they also “benefited” from their prior experience with SARS(2003) which have the population poised to hop immediately into pandemic prevention mode, as well as general skepticism of the WHO, which is not trusted with delivering timely and trustworthy recommendations or information.
Neither Taiwan nor HK ever had to exercise lock down or stay-at-home orders like many places in US and Europe (eg, restaurants and shops remained open for the past 3 1/2 months). They do, however, wear face masks ubiquitously all the time, and shut all schools and govt offices and facilities since Jan 24, and heavily promoted work from home for everyone else. Taiwan also benefits from a universal single payor healthcare system, and HK has a publicly subsidized system which makes not only testing, but also health care in general relatively cheap and accessible.
I postponed any traveling to the USA due to the outbreaks there. I still find that their measures are very lackadaisical and the politicians are hypocritical and denunciatory of the experts. All cases who test positive really need to be isolated and removed from the community, even if they are 100% asymptomatic as they are still shedding the virus and infecting people in their community and their homes. Unless US does that, there will continue to be uncontained community spread. The contagion spreading through nursing homes and meat packing factories never should have happened.
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@Solitaire
America was totally unprepared for this on so many levels. From the nonexistent federal leadership to the lack of social cohesion and consensus to the economic inequality and healthcare access issues and, let’s not forget, a cultural understanding of freedom that often translates to entitlement. In the absence of a medical breakthrough that renders the disease a non-issue, I think this country will be hurting. If that occurs it will affect the whole world given America’s military presence and the dollar’s role as reserve currency. The next few months will be critical, IMO. What happens if the attempt to reopen backfires?
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@jefe
Thanks for the rundown.
Those numbers are great especially considering that Hong Kong has a border with the mainland.
Hong Kong’s population is roughly comparable to New Jersey’s but the COVID-19 numbers are not at all alike (over 126K confirmed, over 7800 dead).
It’s already disastrous and it’s not finished yet.
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“My statement, though casually stated, was of the latter form and can’t be refuted with a counterexample. Obviously, inventing a statement I didn’t make and refuting that is also faulty logic.”
Obviously your daddy bailed out on you before teaching you to read carefully. Your favorite poster’s Daddy, Xi, is an educated man who knows how to read carefully, so, no need for you to suspect that herr JOseph GROebbels will end up in re-education anytime soon. No refutation was intended, I was simply buttressing your claim about female led governments such as HK and Taiwan, both territories of the PRC duly recognized as such by all nations, and throwing a note of caution about hasty and propagandistic conclusions. Another territory of the PRC, not female led, did even better than the ROC and HK-SAR with 45 Confirmed cases, 39 Recovered and 0 Deaths. We are talking about Macao, if I wanted to contradict you I would have cited their superior performance. Being the nice guy I am I gave your ROC credit, hell, I would even have given Trump credit if he hadn’t f..cked up as usual. When it comes to fighting diseases I’m willing to join hands with the most atrocious human beings.
S Brob, forgive the informality, quit making gargantuan leaps of logic and accusing me of same.
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“The success in HK was due in no thanks to its female puppet chief executive, but rather more due to the pressure that citizens put on the government. through strikes and protests to force government’s hand, as well as higher trust in academic experts.”
This is news to me. I recall no protests since the outbreak of the epidemic. If you’re not lying as usual evidence of such protests would be appreciated. HK-SAR even arrested the leaders of the summer riots without much fanfare.
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@ Origin
“What happens if the attempt to reopen backfires?”
I can’t see how it won’t. We’re still averaging roughly 20,000 new cases a day and 1,500 to 2,000 deaths a day. Not one state has met the criteria to begin reopening, and yet they are barging ahead recklessly.
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I couldn’t resist to share this beautiful theme* dedicated to the health personnel all over the world who truly are our collective soldiers of peace in this battle against the Covid-19 pandemic. They are all our heroes wherever they are.
Listen, (https://youtu.be/7LcLqIHzNkY)
*The original version of this theme belongs to the British rock band “Queen”.
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One thing I’ve noticed over the past few weeks is the corporate media framing of the epidemic as saving lives vs. saving jobs/small businesses. Very little mention is made of the fact that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand is doing an exemplary job of attending to the medical and economic needs of her citizens.
According to a Common Dreams article from a week ago:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/27/coronavirus-effectively-eliminated-new-zealand-following-comprehensive-approach
Instead the major media outlets present their audiences with false choices of health vs. jobs. It is an echo of the false choice between the environment and the economy.
In reality, “all of the above” are possible. Prime Minister Ardern’s cool-headed approach showed what’s possible when you don’t reside in a kleptocratic gangster state.
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The numbers are even more stark now:
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Correction: I meant to write, “both/and” instead of “all of the above.
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Some of the comments floating around social media I find amusing
But they are also disturbing as well as they point towards violence as a solution during this pandemic.
There seems to be large swaths of the population. That are totally unhinged.
“The face mask will be rightly regarded as a symbol of obsequious obedience and grotesque compliance with arbitrary and ignorant authority.”
“The mask-regime is an anti-human globalist tool of compliance. Designed to whitewash our facial expressions in conjunction with social distancing, thus lowering our Emotional IQ and ability to interact with one another. Patriots who don’t blindly follow government decrees are now the ENEMY so sayeth the FCC licensed fake news reporter. Young man must be wanting to call down the thunder.”
‘A friend asked me today if I was nervous after seeing a federal court judge denied a church of 80 people the right to gather and worship together in full congregation, and in light of the possibility of being forced to be tested or vaccinated, and I replied I’m not nervous No I’m pissed. I’m seriously thinking I’m gonna end up fighting this shit and getting killed in the fight, but I’m starting to think I can accept that easier than I can watch this country die. I’m thinking I’d rather go out as an American than whatever comes after that”.
“The words “kiss my ass” come to mind. No test, no Gates vaccine, and they can stick their “New Normal” Rockefeller Foundation straight back where the good Lord split them.”
“These Global Communists are just angling for a fight.”
“So remember Kids, let them shoot first. Then it’s open season on watering the Tree of Liberty with a harvest of Tyrants.”
“Spirit of ’76”
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These nuts did kill someone. A black man, father of eight, for “disrespecting” a white women by telling her she needed to put on a mask.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michigan-security-guard-killed-police-investigating-if-it-was-over-n1199241?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma
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^^^ I may have assumed incorrectly that the women involved was white.
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Hong Kong to reopen schools, gyms, cinemas as coronavirus rules ease
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kong-to-reopen-schools-gyms-cinemas-as-coronavirus-rules-ease
I wish I could yell and scream at the governors in the US, ie,
– Isolate, all those who test positive in an isolation facility under professional supervision, NEVER quarantine at home. Positive cases, even asymptomatic ones who require no hospitalization or even medical intervention, need to be completely isolated from the community to prevent community spread as they are still shedding the virus and infecting the community. They should not be released in the community until they test negative twice at least 24 hours apart.
No exceptions to this rule should be allowed, even medical personnel who test positive.
– Contract Trace every single contact of a positive case for the past 14 days. Every single one of those contacts must be tested. These should receive priority for testing, not only the rich, powerful, celebrities.
– Quarantine all negative cases for at least 14 days, as well as contacts waiting to be tested. At the end of 14 days, test them again to make sure they are still negative.
Only exception: medical personnel providing service to positive cases. Of course they have been interacting with patients, but that is why they need the highest grade PPE and need to be tested often.
There should be no such thing as those in essential services contacting anyone in isolation. Essential service personnel can have interaction with quarantined persons only under strict social distancing, PPE, and hygiene.
– Test all new entrants to the country from overseas, and ideally those who enter from other regions of the country on planes, trains and buses, ie, those whose contacts we cannot trace because they came from outside. Isolate if positive, quarantine if negative. Release in community only if they test negative twice no less than 14 days later.
– Wear face masks in public and maintain hygiene and social distancing and check body temperature in public for every single other member in the community who has not been tested, and the rest after they complete quarantine or who have tested negative twice successively.
The cases will drop off fairly fast if they do this. This should pretty much stop the outbreaks in places like factories or work or social places.
Only when untraced community spread drops to zero for the 14-day incubation period can the social distancing be relaxed, and only in phases. Stay-at-home could definitely be relaxed if they would use proper procedures after they get test results. If untraced community spread develops again, then go back to more stringent rules.
In HK, we are only relaxing from groups of 4 to groups of 8. It still means, no church, wedding banquets or swimming pools for the time being. But, at the end of the week, we can visit librairies or museums as long as we keep our masks on. have our temperature checked, and each table is at least 1.5m apart. They might not allow to open the newspaper reading rooms, just the book checkout and return. People will follow the rules, because they know they know that untraced community spread means sickness and death.
Australia and New Zealand are forming a “travel bubble” between their two countries as long as cases and deaths are contained. HK will likely do this between Taiwan and Macau.
US looks hopeless. Have to wait for the vaccine.
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@gro jo
I started, at best, skimming your posts in this thread after you gave governments a blank check to self-interestedly manipulate information without regard for the consequences. So if you said I misunderstood what you posted I’ll take your word for it. My eye just caught you quoting me and bringing up Carrie Lam while saying I made broad generalization when I had literally listed the specific countries I was talking about. It seemed a lot like a (weak) refutation to me.
@Solitaire.
I also feel like premature reopening will backfire. It seems driven more by politics and economic concerns [of the wealthy] than the epidemiology of the outbreak.
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@ Origin
“I also feel like premature reopening will backfire. It seems driven more by politics and economic concerns [of the wealthy] than the epidemiology of the outbreak.”
I agree, and I would add that it also seems to be spurred on by these protesters and entitled right-wingers like the ones MJB quoted above or the armed militia members who congregated in the Michigan state capitol last week, even though recent surveys prove that they don’t reflect the opinions of the vast majority of Americans. I do believe those protesters are being used by the wealthy elite, but it’s unsettling to see otherwise rational governors cave to them, and disturbing to see them brandishing weapons in the gallery of the Michigan state senate, hovering above the legislators on the floor.
I just read the following article that says the White House is using “a ‘cubic model’ prepared by Trump adviser and economist Kevin Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers … [that] shows deaths dropping precipitously in May — and plummeting to zero by May 15, where they stay throughout the summer.” (emphases mine)
What the White House apparently isn’t using is a “draft government report [which] projects coronavirus cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day… [with] a sharp increase in both cases and deaths beginning about May 14.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-cheers-on-governors-even-as-they-ignore-white-house-coronavirus-guidelines-in-race-to-reopen/ar-BB13B6Rj?li=BBnb7Kz
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@ Jefe
“In HK, we are only relaxing from groups of 4 to groups of 8. It still means, no church, wedding banquets or swimming pools for the time being. But, at the end of the week, we can visit librairies or museums as long as we keep our masks on. have our temperature checked, and each table is at least 1.5m apart. They might not allow to open the newspaper reading rooms, just the book checkout and return.”
Thanks for those details. Our media is not doing a good job of explaining to the U.S. public what exactly is happening when other countries begin to ease restrictions.
For example, when Wuhan ended the full lockdown and let people return home who had been visiting right beforehand and gotten stuck there, our media just showed crowds of travelers with their suitcases and the fireworks display and made it seem like everything was wide open and totally back to normal. They didn’t explain who the travelers were, and to the casual observer it looked like residents were rushing off for short vacations to cure their cabin fever. But if I understood correctly from the international media I read at the time, even after the relaxation of the lockdown, Wuhan was still under stricter protocols than anywhere in the U.S.
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@Solitaire
Interesting. I’m sure Trump is going with the model that corresponds with what he’s hoping for regardless of which one is more scientifically sound. If the more dire predictions come to pass then lack of preparedness will characterize the response once again.
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Origin, I accept your backhanded apology in the spirit it was offered.
Why has jefe the liar refrained from providing the evidence for “…the pressure that citizens put on the government. through strikes and protests to force government’s hand…” during the epidemic?
Some people are addicted to lying.
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“I wish I could yell and scream at the governors in the US…”
hmm Don’t we all.
Most of the governors don’t really care about their state residents. They’ve bought into the false choice that pits state economies vs. state citizens health. Forgotten in that flimsy narrative is the fact that there is no economy without healthy, living, breathing citizens. Duh!
The governors that do care about their state residents are battling gross incompetence at the federal level, plus:
➤ gangsterism from the Trump administration which has been seizing supplies from the states after telling they were on their own.
➤ residents who think pandemic restrictions apply to others but not to them.
➤ pressure from business groups to make getting unemployment as difficult as possible so workers don’t have the option of staying safe at home.
➤ ramped up propaganda from right-wingers to have no restrictions at all. Some of these right wing groups mistake privilege for freedom. Perhaps being six feet under is the ultimate freedom?
➤ major budget shortfalls. Unlike the federal government, the states can’t print, mint or keystroke their own currency. Additionally, many states have balanced budget amendments in place as an extra constraint.
➤ renegade mayors and county officials who want to go their own way during this pandemic. I’m thinking specifically of county officials in Colorado and the mayor of Los Vegas who:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6856470/coronavirus-las-vegas-mayor-reopening/
➤ hungry residents straining the resources of food banks.
➤ fearful residents who are now hoarding everything from toilet paper to pork chops.
Right now, many US state governors are in the middle of a yell and scream fest.
Neoliberalism in ideology and practice over the past 40 years has reduced their ability to respond in an effective and humane manner to the needs of state residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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@ Origin
I also meant to thank you for drawing attention to some of the female leaders who have been doing an exemplary job in handling this crisis.
Another I’ve read about is London Breed, the African American mayor of San Francisco, who moved hard and fast to lock the city down. She hasn’t gotten anywhere as much media attention as Cuomo or DiBlasio, but she was taking the threat seriously and moving to protect her citizens while those two were still urging New Yorkers to go about their normal lives.
(Kind of an aside, but one casualty of the pandemic was Women’s History Month in March, and this year was going to be special due to the centennial of the 19th Amendment.)
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Hong Kongers weren’t joking:
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048548/caronavirus-thousands-hong-kong-hospital-workers
Meanwhile in the USA, months later:
@Solitaire
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/reopened-restaurant-tells-workers-dont-170717674.html
<
blockquote>
Texas restaurants that reopened at partial capacity last week have a choice to make: Whether or not their employees should wear masks.
One restaurant company landed on a decision that has some employees weighing their safety versus their jobs.
No face masks or face coverings of any kind.
…
That employee, who did not want to be identified publicly, expressed discomfort and was told to think about it—and then was removed from the schedule, the employee told CBS Dallas’ Brooke Rogers.
Another employee said some agreed to work because they were offered a 40-hour work week, but were told if they declined, they wouldn’t be eligible for rehire.
The employees said management also told her that face masks don’t complement the restaurant group’s style or level of hospitality.
<
blockquote>
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@Solitaire
I accidentally @’tted you above since I was going to respond in the same post then changed by mind. That makes two annoying derps in one post, lol.
Anyway, thanks for drawing attention to San Francisco’s mayor and the city’s response. Looking at the numbers, San Francisco – as a sizeable city – has done well to limit the disease’s toll.
@Afrofem
”
Forgotten in that flimsy narrative is the fact that there is no economy without healthy, living, breathing citizens. Duh!
”
Right! The existing neoliberal economic order has been placed in a classic catch-22 by the pandemic. Disruption seems assured either way but TPTB can only choose between limiting loss of life and causing more deaths than necessary. The choice should be obvious but reality is more like a dystopian version of a popular game show: “The Death Toll Is Right”.
Behind curtain #1, the system voluntarily reverts from its maximally exploitive status quo, a degree of social order is maintained, and some goodwill is earned. Behind curtain #2, the system doesn’t give an inch and catastrophically collapses when people die due to economic deprivation and plague, causing social unrest and politically strengthening the remaining working class. In their typically short sighted villainy they’ve chosen curtain #2, preferring to walk over hot coals on the way to the gallows instead of across the lawn on the way to hospice care.
The year 2019 was already one of discontent. Protests were everywhere. The ones in Chile were extensive and aimed sharply at that country’s neoliberal order. In the wake of the current crisis, particularly in countries with bad humanitarian responses to the pandemic, will people forget when their families were fed to COVID-19? I suspect that an even angrier world lies ahead.
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@Origin
You bet!
They not only threatened to strike. They actually did strike for several days (Feb 3-6), with widespread majority support from HK residents. They did not have enough PPE and with tens of thousands pouring in from the mainland daily, they feared for their lives. They remember many scores of hospital doctors and nurses dying in the SARS epidemic (2003).
Another fear is the historical tendency of many mainlanders who are refused medical care on the mainland to enter HK where they know they will not be refused service.
Another severe criticism of the administration was the failure to ensure residents had facemasks. Taiwan halted export of facemasks before the end of January and had a policy to guarantee that all Taiwan residents would have face masks to wear. HK residents were left high and dry.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam had initially refused to restrict border entry, but her administration finally buckled under days of hospital worker strikes, which threatened to collapse the heathcare system here just at the time an epidemic was unfolding. Since HK people feel that they have no control over the government’s unpopular decisions which endanger people’s lives, they feel that the only recourse is to protest and strike, and they come out en masse.
Regarding the culture of face masks in HK v. Texas, if a restaurant in HK did not arrange for all their workers to wear face masks, no customers would dare go to that restaurant. Every customer in HK pretty much demands that all restaurant workers, shop clerks, hair salon workers, etc. wear masks, or they will not patronize the establishment. Even with the relaxing of social distancing measures, that demand will not go away.
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This is kind of dark.
I think “Wesern Democracies” don’t have the discipline to do what it takes to stop the spread of the virus.
They will not quarantine asymptomatic people or take the steps many Asain countries have to stem the virus.
This is an unprecedented event in the sense that this is universal and the entire planet is affected so there is no place to look back in history to get a sense of how this will turn out.
To big to fail is based on the assumption that losses can be made up with productivity elsewhere if the institution is large enough; it just needs a little government cash infusion to prime the pump.
The planet runs on production/consumption modles with just in time delivery and limited inventory. That system will have to be reconfigured to match this new reality.
Other commodities like oil keep on pumping and now oil companies have to pay suppliers to take it away.
Many businesses make their money on volume with very slim margins like major airlines or your local restaurants.
Factories will have to be reconfigured to allow social distancing. Offices will simularly cut the number of cubicles in their office spaces.
Retail and hospitality are going to suffer. Airlines are going to go bankrupt because no one is going to want to sit in the middle seat.
The last recession governments were able to prime their economies to get them running again. But this is a different kind crises one that money can’t solve.
What happens when they open the economy back up and the second wave begins ? The economy will remain stalled.
The stock market hasn’t priced that in. In fact it currently doesn’t reflect the mass unemployment nor the major contraction of the GNP that the next quarter numbers will show.
The stimulus money will run out in about 90 days and if the economy doesn’t turn around the markets are going to tank.
The safety nets most governments have in place are not going to be able to handle the cost if those governments tax bases dissappear. We are talking about years before we can get to recovery.
I think this begins a depression greater then what are grandparents experienced. Historically wars are the way out of depressions.
All of this happens if “Western Democracies” don’t get a handle on the virus. And they won’t because their rule of law won’t allow it.
Constitutional protections meant to protect the individual will in this case allow for the virus to spread.
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@jefe
“Regarding the culture of face masks in HK v. Texas, if a restaurant in HK did not arrange for all their workers to wear face masks, no customers would dare go to that restaurant.”
That is so sensible. In Hong Kong the market demands protection which then protects the workers too. Hong Kong’s health care workers, who were striking for their safety, enjoyed the wider public’s solidarity while armed American protestors were agitating for “business as usual” during the pandemic. We’re just a few months into this and thousands are still dying every 24 hours.
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On April 29, I noted upthread that U.S. fatalities had passed the 60,000 mark.
Not even a full week later, another 10,000 had died and we blew past the 70,000 mark.
Even if the reopening doesn’t result in a surge of new cases and deaths, if we stay at the same plateau all summer we will be losing 40,000+ people each month.
This is unconscionable.
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@Solitaire
Just saw this on CNN
Two weeks of zero local infections: How Hong Kong contained its second wave of Covid-19
(https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/05/asia/hong-kong-coronavirus-recovery-intl-hnk/index.html)
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@Solitaire
I do believe that the social distancing rules, monitoring and required behaviour in public (eg, facemasks) are still much stricter than they are in the US.
Even though HK is relaxing social distancing, there are many things that people do in the US that they simply would not do here, even though we have never had lockdown and never forced closing of non-essential services (except for bars, gyms, beauty salons / massage parlours after a few cluster outbreaks happened in them. )
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@Michael Barker
South Korea and Taiwan are full fledged democracies with a good rule of law and they have done a good job of containing the virus.
I think the problem in these “Western Democracies” lies not in their rule of law, but in other ways, eg,
And it is obvious that Dr. Fauci is being muzzled by political correctness.
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https://news.yahoo.com/mutant-coronavirus-emerged-even-more-110046843.html
So there’s that. The virus is believed to have mutated into a more infectious form.
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Jeffe
“South Korea and Taiwan are full fledged democracies with a good rule of law and they have done a good job of containing the virus.”
The difference Is that in the U.S. quarantines are at home with very little inforcement particularly to asymptomatic carries.
If I understand you correctly people can be forced against their will into a State facility for quarantine in countries like Korea, Taiwan and HK.
In the U.S. I don’t think forcing people into quarantines is constitutionally legal.
Thats what I mean by the rule of law rooted in protecting individual rights which defines Western democracies.
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My apology to jefe for calling him a liar in this instance, like a broken clock, telling time twice a day, our friend jefe wasn’t lying about protests. I reject his claim that it was because of the protests that HK-SAR took the measures necessary to fight the disease. The attached pdf shows that other provinces in the PRC took similar measures without any protests so the conclusion of friend jefe is bulls8.
(https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200226-sitrep-37-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=2146841e_2)
page 2 shows that Jiangsu, with a population of 80,510,000 had 0 daily confirmed and suspected cases, 631 confirmed cumulative cases and 0 deaths as of 26 February 2020. All the hoopla about the ‘superiority’ of Taiwan, HK-SAR protests, female led countries or territories is just noise. Your daily derp brought to you by herr Joseph Groebbels, ‘daddy’ Xi’s number one son! 😉
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@Michael Barker
Sorry, but this is simply untrue. In fact, the US and state governments enforced mandatory isolation and quarantine orders during the 1918-19 Spanish Flu and those orders were never found to be unconstitutional.
The Federal government (through the CDC) has the authority to isolate and / or quarantine persons entering the USA from overseas and traveling between states. So, for example, the Federal government could shut traffic through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels between NY and NJ in order to control the spread of a disease.
Each state government has authority to isolate and quarantine within its borders. One can argue that stay-at-home orders are a type of quarantine.
A person who tests positive but asymptomatic is still shedding the virus, infecting other people putting them at risk of acute illness or death. That asymptomatic person could certainly be classified as “sick” with a contagious disease and the states and federal government have the authority to isolate that person.
https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html
The States and the Federal government have simply not been exercising their due authority. I don’t see how the argument of “rule of law” of “Western democracies” fits into this at all. Those places also adhere to a rule of law similar to those so-called “Western” democracies. The governments in the US at a federal level and at a state level as well as other countries DO have the authority; they simply chose not to exercise. And their choices ended up to produce the current results.
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@MB
They also can in the USA.
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Jefe
About the 1981 flu epidemic:
“The more restrictive methods of infection control issued by public health departments were quarantines and the isolation of the ill. These measures required a sacrifice of individual liberty for the societal good and therefore required a strong public health authority. Both the Illinois and New York State Health Departments ordered that patients must be quarantined until all clinical manifestations of the illness subsided. They held that the danger of the influenza epidemic was so grave that it was imperative to secure isolation for the patient (JAMA, 10/12/1918). The members of the APHA committee agreed in their report, saying that patients with influenza should to be kept in isolation. Because of the strain on facilities, only severe cases were to be hospitalized while mild influenza patients were to remain at home. The APHA also supported institutional quarantines to protect people from the outside world in establishments like asylums and colleges (JAMA, 12/21/1918). The use of institutional quarantines was applied to the many military training camps set up in the United States to prepare soldiers for war. These camps, with masses of men from throughout the country, were prime targets of huge influenza epidemics.”
So while the U.S. could do institutional quarantines they won’t.
And I believe that comes from this idea of due process, constitional protecting ect. In the U.s you can’t just grab citizens out of their homes and take them away like what China did. Especially white citizens.
‘Staying at home” in the U.S. isn’t 100% effective in isolating the virus.
I think while some Asia nations have “democracy” they are culturally different in how they think about their civic duties, trust of their State ect. Maybe their citizens are more focused on the many as opposed to Western cultures which focuses on the individual.
This is why I think containment in the U.S. won’t happen until after the virus plays itself out.
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@MB
I think your comment here belongs in this thread:
I believe that you most certainly can do that without so-called “due process” if the president or governor declares that there is a serious epidemic that is contagious, deadly and needs to be contained.
The US federal and state governments historically have had absolutely no problem to yank people out of their homes without “due process”. Soon after Chinese Exclusion Act was passed ethnic Chinese were forcibly removed from their homes and were either expelled, killed, or survived by congregating into Chinatowns. Native Americans have been forcibly removed from their homes for centuries, and still are today. Japanese Americans were yanked out of their homes and forced to live in concentration prison camps. ICE can invade private homes and yank people out of them and split families up. Even native born Americans can get deported. And blacks have been yanked out of their homes and removed from society for all sorts of arbitrary reasons for centuries.This happens all the time and no one bats an eye.
So, your argument about “due process” and “constitutional protection” is totally irrelevant here. The reason why the governments do not enforce isolation and quarantine has nothing to do with that.
Yeah, maybe as the coronavirus can also infect white people, so the government and the President won’t do what they need to do to contain the virus. But, they sure can make sure that more blacks and Latinos get sick and die first.
BTW, we were talking about HK, Taiwan and South Korea, not mainland PRC. They definitely do not have any concept of abiding by rule of law, so we cannot compare that to “western democracies”. Better if we don’t compare the CCP regime to any other.
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Here is some social media postings about quarantines. I think it shows how many U.S. citizens think.
“Did the elected officials of Ventura County California really say they are going to forcibly remove people who test positive for COVID19 from their homes if there is only 1 bathroom? If it were any other state, I would say thats a good way to start a civil war.”
“Orwell could not have written a better story about this.”
Another poster responded who had taken the time to read what Ventura county was offering. Maybe if this is done unilaterally across the U.S.we can get. Ahandle on the virus.
“Let’s talk about isolation. There is misinformation that that County of Ventura will take positive patients away from their families to isolate them. When someone is positive they are provided with guidelines by public health nurses. Here are the home isolation instructions: https://vcportal.ventura.org/covid19/docs/VCMC_Ambulatory_Instructions_Self-Isolation.pdf.
“If someone cannot safely isolate at home (perhaps they have an elderly person in the home or someone that has a vulnerable immune system) there are alternative options available. The County is not forcing people who are positive to isolate outside of their home. It’s an option if you need it.”
“The County is protecting vulnerable members of long term care facilities. A long term care facility is a skilled nursing or assisted living type facility. Members of these facilities who are positive are being cared for at the hospital even if they have mild symptoms and do not need hospital care to protect other residents of the long term care facility.”
“Isolation and quarantine are two ways public health authorities can contain the spread of a disease. Both are common in public health, and both aim to control exposure to infected or potentially infected persons. Isolation applies to persons who are known to have an illness, and quarantine applies to those who have been exposed to an illness but may or may not become ill. Here are the details if you have been exposed to someone with COVID-19: https://vcportal.ventura.org/co
vid19/docs/VCMC_Ambulatory_Instructions_COVID_Exposure.pdf.
“So to be clear contact tracing has been happening this entire time in response to COVID-19 in the County of Ventura. This is not a new effort. It’s simply following up with people that a positive person has been in contact with to make sure they are ok and not exposing others. Other counties stopped doing contact tracing because they did not have the capacity to continue. The Governor has asked counties throughout the state to increase contact tracing capacity to help with the road to reopening’
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Best face mask meme:
“We literally have to tell the All Lives Matter people that all lives matter”.
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@ Origin
“Disruption seems assured either way but TPTB can only choose between limiting loss of life and causing more deaths than necessary. The choice should be obvious but reality is more like a dystopian version of a popular game show: “The Death Toll Is Right”.”
Agreed. I read an essay from British political economist, Richard Murphy who explored the same stark choice the COVID-19 pandemic presents to The Powers That Be that you laid out: preserving people and jobs or propping up the fantasy wealth of the 1%.
The crux of Murphy’s argument is:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/05/05/people-and-jobs-or-wealth-the-government-has-to-decide-which-to-prioritise-and-there-is-only-one-right-answer/
The essay has fairly detailed in policy recommendations. Murphy also delves into the role of pension funds in financial capital, something he takes a dim view of in this article.
I agree that TPTB have already chosen curtain #2. They think they can survive the virus and any accompanying unrest from the proles. To them this is just a herd culling event. In their minds, they will live happily ever after and solve their labor problems with robots and AI.
Yet, in their fantasy world, they seem to have forgotten that without the proles, there is no economy and their money and power are worthless.
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@Afrofem
”
Yet, in their fantasy world, they seem to have forgotten that without the proles, there is no economy and their money and power are worthless.
”
Yes. Their money only has value because people are compelled to work for it. In truth, it can be created without limit with little fuss or effort and has no intrinsic value. The planet’s resources and workers’ blood, sweat, and tears imbue fiat money with value. It is anti-value and whenever it is created, by the those granted such powers, it seeks out actual value to attach to. This compels growth in productivity and/or consumption otherwise it attaches to preexisting value, like hungry ants to an earthworm’s carcass, and causes prices to rise.
Consistent with this money’s vacuous nature, debt is a primary means by which it is created. This can occur at the government level but private banks participate thanks to fractional reserve banking. Banks only have to keep a certain (small) percentage of deposits (“vault cash”) and can lend out the rest. [Thought note https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm which says: “As announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020. This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.”]
However, even if the bank lends out 90% of your deposit, you will not see any change in your bank statement. The money the bank owes you but doesn’t really have is reflected in your statement as being available to you. The bank has “divided” your deposit to multiply it like Jesus feeding the multitude. So if you deposited $1000, you’re still entitled to it while someone was loaned $900 [@10% reserve ratio]. If you believe them that your $1000 is safe, then money was created! The process is repeated when the $900 loan is exchanged for value and also ends up as a bank deposit. In this way your initial deposit spawns an entire family tree of new money that needs to be paid back with interest! And they told us that money didn’t grow on trees.
The financial system’s monetary wealth is fake. Its real wealth is its command of people and resources. Fiat money is a purpose-built tool in its hands. We don’t work to obtain valuable money; money puts us to work to obtain value for itself. At this point when the system has matured and globalized and has no challenger, the pandemic is a true arrow to the heart. It threatens to wrest control of the masses away from the financial system which previously was the primary bloodsucker. TPTB know this and want to reassert control but, as you rightly said, sending the people out to die to COVID-19 is also losing strategy.
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The ex-CDC boss, Dr. Tom Frieden, issues a warning, telling that the mark of 100 000 deaths (caused by COVID-19) will be surpassed for sure until the end of this month in the USA, and that this, “is just the beginning”.
Unfortunately, I think that similar trends will be seen in many other places, as this disease keeps spreading all over the world. The days ahead will be tough, very tough.
See https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/cdc-coronavirus-truths-trnd/index.html
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@munubantu
Unfortunately that estimate sounds reasonable. We’ve been seeing 2000 daily deaths reported quite frequently. We’re already at over 70,000 deaths so another 15 days at that rate will get us over 100,000. There are more than that many days left in May so there’s leeway for the grim milestone to be reached.
Yet the discussion in many parts of the country is about easing restrictions. It seems some officials have decided to “let it burn through” the population. Trump recently showed up mask-less to a mask factory while the song “Live and Let Die” was blaring in the background.
https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/idOVCCNU9Y7
Surreal.
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Why has this video disappeared on youtube?
“Did a Lab leak the Coronavirus Or was this a US bio-weapon to slow China’s economy”
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Grojo
YouTube sensors what they deem as “extreme views”. It has gotten worse since their affiliation with Google.
A lot of “citizen journalism” produced by Chinese citizens has been removed. Videos of Israeli’s oppressing Palestinians and politically sensitive material that challenges tgr mainstream narrative.
For awhile they were going after Bitcoin content creators who are mostly A political. But they would keep up videos promoting Bitcoin scams so it doesn’t always make sense.
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Both my tests for codvit-19 and the antibodie tests came back negative.
I think everyone should get tested. The more information the CDC receives the better their modeling will be.
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So if armed white protestors can march on Michigan’s Capital to intimidate people then armed black and Hispanic men can likewise go to the Capital to protect people.
(https://news.yahoo.com/armed-activists-escort-black-lawmaker-to-michigans-capitol-after-coronavirus-protest-attended-by-white-supremacists-184000180.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb)
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Wow, “Uncle Corona” doesn’t kid. It has already hit the White House,
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/08/politics/donald-trump-staffers-coronavirus/index.html
And the POTUS is angry,
As a side note we can see that Trump is not indifferent to the coronavirus, contrary to what his public demeanor seem to convey!
Yes, “Uncle Corona” doesn’t kid. It had already knocked out another politician who was dismissive of its powers, sending him to the ICU. Boris Johnson.
Right now, only bravo Bolsonaro has been able to evade its crippling grip!
“Uncle Corona”, please stop! Enough is enough!
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@ munubantu
“Uncle Corona”, please stop! Enough is enough!”
“Uncle Corona” is just getting started and no one is safe.
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Uncle?
How familiar?
Mind your mouth, lest I turn your blood into chunky soup and your lungs into a dirty sponge!
My Royal crowns are displayed all about and my name alludes to this fact, beyond doubt.
As I make your bodies my sprawling mansion, and vex your rulers with grave distraction, accept my majesty or face great sanction!
Yeah, I know it’s serious but one must still laugh!
Nobody is inherently safe indeed, including (or especially) the people who were downplaying it.
The more I think about it though, the more I see it as possibly the beginning of a forced correction away from an unsustainable way of life. Everything “normal” about the way civilization operates was storing up negative consequences which were waiting to be unleashed. I think most people expect changes to be gradual but some systems are non-linear and have feedback loops so a little change leads to a seemingly disproportionate cascade of events. Unc..”His Majesty” Corona is more than a “little change” but will have economic, social, and environmental impacts.
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I’m also just seeing that Katie Miller, who is Stephen Miller’s wife and V.P Pence’s spokesperson, has tested positive for the virus.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/katie-miller-pence-spokesperson-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/ar-BB13O6kF
It’s like it’s stalking the highest offices in the administration.
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Hmmm, 11 Secret Service COVID-19 cases, 23 recovered, 60 in self-quarantine.
The Secret Service is, among other things, responsible for presidential security.
https://news.yahoo.com/secret-service-coronavirus-cases-white-house-concerns-221444492.html
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So in Trump’s America these doomsday preppers who have been storing up cans of beans and ammunition are crying about staying home to stay safe. And claiming oppression and claiming victimhood.
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@ Origin
“…some systems are non-linear and have feedback loops so a little change leads to a seemingly disproportionate cascade of events.”
One such system is the national postal service. COVID-19 has affected the fortunes of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in ways that are still unfolding.
The USPS has been the target of privatizers since the early 2000s. In 2006, Congress passed a law that forced the USPS to pre-fund all retiree health costs seventy-five years into the future. This unprecedented legal demand turned the USPS from a profitable service to one that’s bled red ink for the past decade.
As of January 2020, the USPS was on the ropes financially and ready for Trump’s knock out punch. Then COVID-19 appeared and simultaneously had two major contradictory effects on the USPS:
COVID-19 devastated normal revenues for the USPS, which shrunk with the rest of the US economy.
COVID-19 also heightened the importance of the USPS as a universal and affordable service. According to a local news site:
Now people who rarely gave a second thought about the USPS are realizing its importance. There seems to be growing pressure on Congress to fund the USPS in future stimulus bills. Relief for the USPS was thwarted by Trump, the Repubs and corporate Dems in the first few stimulus bills. Trump went so far as to threaten a veto for any relief for the USPS in past bills.
There seems to be some momentum among a variety of groups, including advocates for the poor, seniors and rural populations to push Congress to include the USPS in the next rounds of stimulus bills.
They are being joined by postal union members, census advocates and voting rights advocates. Voting rights advocates are concerned that the demise of affordable voting by mail will prevent many voters from exercising their rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
So one event (COVID-19)—one change—may disrupt longstanding bi-partisan plans to privatize a public institution that was mandated in the US Constitution. We still don’t know which cascade of events will unfold in this struggle. It could go either way. Yet, prior to the pandemic, the privatization of the USPS seemed a done deal. Now the outcome is as uncertain as whether there will be toilet paper on store shelves tomorrow.
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@Afrofem
Interesting. In the context, “privatization” seems like such a tremendous act of sleight of hand too. Private corporations can already influence the legislative arm of government through the politicians they lobby and control. “Privatization” just expands their domain into those government institutions they can’t (yet) directly own, using the leverage they already have. It reflects the progressive gutting of any semblance of democracy and a transfer of power from “the people” to the profit-seeking boards of large corporations. The rituals of democracy continue unabated but the efficacy of citizen participation continually diminishes.
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I will make a contrarian argument, a green one.
Rather then privatize I would shut the US postal service down over a period of time.
We don’t really need it as information/bills can be sent or paid for online anyway.
More then half the mail one receives is junk mail which means 2 1/2 millions trees get cut down to produce it. If you did away with conventional mail that would save another 2 1/2 million trees roughly.
Trees help cool the planet.
Some Postal workers likely would get rehired by UPS, FEDEX and other carrier service. Those are good paying jobs.. Those that don’t could still receive there salaries.
The problem with privatization is that corperations have state protected monopolies.
In California we have privatized water districts that provide cheap water for Almond growers but the people who live in those communities don’t have running water.
State regulations keep smaller companies from competing which then allows the state to pay more then they need to for services.
Privitization, provided that competition for contracts is allowed, would reduce costs but the system is rigged in favor of large corperations with lobbyists ect.
Some state funded projects that are a complete waste of time and money are like California’s “speed” train which in reality is nothing more then another Amtrak line that very few people will use.
Far better to spend billions on water recovery and reclamation that would benefit all California residents and make California more sustainable since most of California is an irrigated desert.
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@ Michael Barker
Aspects of your “green” argument sound reasonable. Especially the junk mail = millions of trees connection.
The argument that, “We don’t really need it as information/bills can be sent or paid for online anyway” is a common misperception. That argument presumes that all Americans have easy access to universal broadband.
Unfortunately, universal broadband internet is still on the wishlist of millions of Americans. Whole sectors of the population have no access to the internet. Millions of Americans have never owned a computer and are digitally illiterate—–and not by choice.
Millions of citizens have struggled in small towns, rural counties, inner cities and impoverished suburbs to have broadband extended into their communities. Some communities, frustrated with the inaction of private telecoms have attemped to build their own. They have been constrained by repressive laws in many states that forbid local governments of any size to provide broadband. Lots of palms greased in statehouses for those miserable laws. And still no broadband.
The primary reason I support the USPS is its ubiquity. They are everywhere in this country and serve everyone equally (more or less). A writer in The American Conservative had this to say about the USPS:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-we-should-love-the-post-office/
Part 1 of 2
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@ Michael Barker
There are several other reasons why the bipartisan effort to destroy the USPS should raise alarm bells.
Diverse workforce
Vote by Mail
According to the article mentioned above: *”Trump’s attempts to starve the Postal Service come at a time when mail-in ballots in all states may be necessary to ensure that all voters can safely participate in the November presidential election.
Trump and other Republicans believe that high voter turnout decreases their electoral chances, and have acted accordingly.”*
Future Possibilities
Among other services the USPS could provide are low-cost banking and financial services. Postal banking was a part of the USPS until the 1960s. Other countries still have postal banking, including Japan. According to public banking advocate, Ellen Brown,
MJB, I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The USPS is part of our national commons—-every American has a stake in it and is served by it.
I believe is is far better to spend billions on USPS recovery and repurposing that would benefit all US residents. The USPS already has the trained workforce, the infrastructure and it is everywhere.
Part 2 of 2
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People literally complaining about not having the choice to catch a contagious disease.
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I don’t know what to say about this story, but it’s a strong reminder that, indeed, in the year 2020 (beautiful number ironically!) the human kind has entered a true dystopian world, the world of the novel coronavirus, where ancient demons prophesied by old writers* and sages come to the surface.
See, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/12/uk/uk-transport-worker-coronavirus-death-scli-intl-gbr/index.html
Note:
*Science fiction writers. Remember, for example, The Walking Dead series.
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@munubantu
Her job and prior condition gave her a high enough risk already she didn’t need to be spat on too. shakes head
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The French reported earlier in May that someone, who hadn’t traveled, was treated for COVID-19 in France on December 27.
If epicenter was Wuhan and there was some level of community spread in France in December, COVID-19 was on the move around the world fast. It also puts into perspective just how HARD who dropped the ball by stating, as late as January 14, that there was “no evidence” of human to human transmission. The virus was long gone while they were delaying acquiring this “evidence”.
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Oh, and NBC says there’s a report that phone location data suggests that a part of the Wuhan Virology Lab could have been closed from from October 7-24.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716
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“If epicenter was Wuhan and there was some level of community spread in France in December, COVID-19 was on the move around the world fast. It also puts into perspective just how HARD who dropped the ball by stating, as late as January 14, that there was “no evidence” of human to human transmission. The virus was long gone while they were delaying acquiring this “evidence”.”
Wow, you really are wedded to the idea that it all started in Wuhan, aren’t you? How the hell did WHO drop the ball when nobody had figured out that human to human transmission was possible until early January, when the ‘evil’ PRC informed them of their scientific studies?
How come you don’t blame the French for dropping the ball, since they only found the virus in France only recently?
Are you one of those ‘new age’ types who believe in magic and the ‘evil’ of modern science?
News flash, Wuhan was the place the virus was first detected, it may not be it’s point of origin. The virus that killed people in NYC had its origin in Europe, not China.(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html)
If you and the other ‘geniuses’ commenting here had waited for the scientists to do their job before drawing conclusions, you would have avoided writing the stupidities you wrote. You should be embarrassed.
The case of Elodie Clouvel seems to indicate that the virus is associated with the 7th World Military Games in Wuhan instead of wet markets in that city (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8291755/Did-European-athletes-catch-coronavirus-competing-World-Military-Games-Wuhan-OCTOBER.html). Unlike you and your fellow ‘geniuses’ I’m not inclined to draw conclusions one way or the other about the origin of the virus, that’s a job for the experts.
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Whatever, 50c. I just knew you would be triggered, like clockwork. We’ve been through this many times. That the outbreak in Wuhan, China was the first appearance of the novel coronavirus is the consensus view not something independently determined by anyone on this blog. The link you provided does not refute Wuhan as the epicenter. The world military games were held in Wuhan. The virus is believed to have traveled to Europe from China, were it mutated, and that strain then became the dominant one in NY thanks to transatlantic travel.
The Wuhan wet market was fingered as the epicenter of the outbreak within the city because the early official claim was that the virus was not spreading between humans (despite the contemporaneous concern of Chinese doctors behind the scenes who later sickened and died). If the virus strictly transmitted from animals to people then only a place like the wet market could sustain an outbreak. Closing the market would contain the threat and the world wouldn’t need to worry about the virus spreading outside China. Relax! I guess now that human contagion is common knowledge the latest “breakthrough” is that the virus was actually brought to China by Americans, Africans or Europeans? Any receipts?
It’s interesting that you accuse us “geniuses” of inventing fanciful things while simultaneously making assertions without a shred of supporting evidence. Again, this is your typical modus operandus. This is why I called you Joseph Groebbels. A quote (mis?)attributed to the German propagandist encouraged the strategy of obscuring one’s propaganda techniques by accusing your enemy of them even as you deploy them. I only respond to you to defend truth and reason against your attempts to obfuscate and muddy the waters.
WHO dropped the ball because they are the World Health Organization. They are the people collecting money from national governments to be the canary in the coalmine when it comes to emerging infectious diseases. So when the WHO told the world – in mid January 2020 – that there is “no evidence” of human-to-human transmission and that China has the virus “contained” so there was no need for travel restrictions, while COVID-19 was actually spreading all over the world since late 2019, that is stark and abject failure. That is a reasonable judgment as a simple matter of fact; “You had one job”.
Even if there was “no evidence” of P2P transmission (which is debatable) lack of evidence is not evidence of absence. The WHO was basically saying it was ignorant but behaved as if it had proof that there was NO human-to-human transmission. It didn’t encourage precautions against the worst case scenario but chided countries which ‘unhelpfully’ started travel restrictions earlier than WHO deemed necessary. It’s an indictment of the WHO that some countries which didn’t trust the organization ended up faring better than most. The Republic of China (aka Taiwan) is geographically close to mainland China and isn’t even allowed to join the WHO yet it has managed to keep the outbreak to 440 confirmed cases and 7 deaths so far. Skepticism was its shield.
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Origin, I like you. You are funnier than a barrel of monkeys. I enjoy our arguments so much, I feel compelled to return my 50 cents to the 50 cents army.
I refrained from rubbing the french info. in your face because it blows away all your claims, if you had not mentioned it I would have allowed you a shred of dignity by keeping silent, but since you had the brobdingnagian, gargantuan gall to try to use it to boost your absurd claims, I just had to throw my two cents in.
Miss Clouvel came down with the disease in October, two months before doctors in Wuhan began to recognize something was wrong, was she an habitué of Wuhan’s wet markets? I can’t answer that question and I suspect you can’t either. How do you account for the case of Mr. Amirouche Hammar who was nowhere near Wuhan? I know you can’t, having caught the jefe virus, you’ve become a reckless liar.
Now for your absurd claims about the WHO: ” WHO dropped the ball because they are the World Health Organization. They are the people collecting money from national governments to be the canary in the coalmine when it comes to emerging infectious diseases. So when the WHO told the world – in mid January 2020 – that there is “no evidence” of human-to-human transmission and that China has the virus “contained” so there was no need for travel restrictions, while COVID-19 was actually spreading all over the world since late 2019, that is stark and abject failure. That is a reasonable judgment as a simple matter of fact; “You had one job”.”
Did you really write this load of horse manure? Pathetic. It wasn’t the WHO’s job to investigate, they coordinate by working with the public health authorities in nations where, as in China and France, such authorities are competent, only in the third world are they called upon to do more due to the obvious fact that such nations lack the necessary infrastructure.
I don’t like kicking a guy when he is down, much, so I’ll stop here.
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@gro jo
Your sound and fury accomplishes little. I also tire of educating you and leading you through the process of thinking clearly. I’m not being paid for posting here, unlike you.
You suggested previously that cases of the disease can exist without detection but I guess that’s not possible in Wuhan. That city, where we know there was large outbreak which peaked before outbreaks elsewhere, could not have had early cases which were not detected. Our resident epidemiologist seems to be suggesting that France had such a hot epidemic by October 2019 that random French people brought the disease to Wuhan and then the disease took off in Wuhan but went on a vacation in France so that France’s outbreak would trail Wuhan’s. Yes, that is reasonable but the idea that a French athlete caught the disease in Wuhan is unthinkable! LOL, never change 50c.
It’s interesting because some of the earliest confirmed Wuhan cases have no known links to the wet market which suggested both human-to-human transmission and community spread.
https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/no-link-with-seafood-market-in-first-case-of-china-coronavirus-chinese-scientists-revealed/ar-BBZjD0I
COVID-19 would have to have been spreading in Wuhan before people got severely sick and started presenting to doctors. We already know it doesn’t give everyone severe illness and has an incubation period of a few days. There is no way going to Wuhan in late 2019 then coming down with COVID-19 refutes the idea that Wuhan is the epicenter of the outbreak. C’mon, 50c isn’t worth pretending to be stupid and humiliating yourself in this manner.
As for the WHO
https://www.who.int/about/what-we-do
<
blockquote>
*prepare for emergencies by identifying, mitigating and managing risks
[Fail. Didn’t appropriately identify the risk of human to human transmission; didn’t quickly mitigate the consequence of human-to-human transmission, which is global spread of the virus out of China as a result of human travel]
*prevent emergencies and support development of tools necessary during
outbreaks
[Failed in prevention. We have a global pandemic which they didn’t even officially declare until March 11, 2020 after months of the disease spreading out of China]
</blockquote
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By the way, more WHO politics:
https://news.yahoo.com/says-cannot-invite-taiwan-annual-211559546.html
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@ Origin
Of course the PRC doesn’t want Taiwan at the table.
Taiwan has handled the COVID-19 pandemic effectively. China becomes hysterical when Taiwan is treated like the sovereign country that it is by other sovereign countries.
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Origin a/k/a “superlatively brobdingnagian tool”, sbt, hereafter, you are confused as usual. You claim that I tried to refute that Wuhan is the origin of the virus, proof that you really do skim over what I write. You will do the same for this comment but I’m compelled to set you straight. I don’t know where the virus originates, I never pretended to such knowledge as the following quote clearly indicates: “News flash, Wuhan was the place the virus was first detected, it may not be it’s point of origin… Unlike you and your fellow ‘geniuses’ I’m not inclined to draw conclusions one way or the other about the origin of the virus, that’s a job for the experts.”
The only things I tried to make crystal clear are: 1) The PRC was first to detect. 2) They told the world about it almost as soon as they knew human to human transmission was a fact, not wild speculation. 3) The PRC is the most successful nation at handling the epidemic so far. 4) Praise for ROC, HK_SAR protests, female led nations, etc. is just whistling past the graveyard. You and the ‘gang’ are impressed by the ROC’s and HK-SAR’s numbers but not a peep from you about the even more impressive numbers of Macao-SAR and Jiangsu province. Why, is it because such facts burst your propaganda bubble?
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@gro jo
Nice list of CCP talking points you have there.
Of course they could have done better than threatening and muzzling the doctors who were themselves at risk and who knew firsthand that the coronavirus was spreading between people. The doctors were the canaries in the coalmine.
https://apnews.com/6f2e666485e9abae4bb112251eca77be
Public anger got too much triggering a strategic retreat and the throwing of a few small fries under the bus. The CCP is less bullheaded than you are in their defense.
@Afrofem
Indeed. Taiwan’s status is one of the weirdest political situations in the world right now. Everyone knows it’s an independent country in practice but everyone tiptoes around officially acknowledging it because of the PRC.
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“Nice list of CCP talking points you have there.”
Thanks. Now refute the four points I made.
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The Atlantic had a recent piece this week about the pandemic response in Hong Kong compared to the US (and a little bit about S Korea and Taiwan). It pretty much echoes everything I have been saying all along.
How Hong Kong Did It
With the government flailing, the city’s citizens decided to organize their own coronavirus response.
(https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/how-hong-kong-beating-coronavirus/611524/)
The Hong Kong government is still hopelessly inept and incompetent (worse than the Trump administration even) and deeply unpopular with over 80% disapproval rating (the approval rating of the Chief Executive herself has languished into single digit territory, compared to 40-45% for Trump). The residents have to defy their own government, and do their own community organization and information sharing to safeguard their own health.
There you have it —
Prior experience with epidemics coming out of the mainland and the CCP's attempts to cover it up.
Defying the CCP’s incessant gaslighting and false narrativesIgnoring the WHO (whom they decided early on was useless and spreading disinformation)
Outright severe condemnation of their own government’s response, resorting to strikes and protests to push the government’s hand and also grassroots community sharing of information and resources.LikeLiked by 1 person
Sorry, the summary didn’t print out correctly after submitting:
There you have it —
– Prior experience with epidemics coming out of the mainland and the CCP’s attempts to cover it up.
– Defying the CCP’s incessant gaslighting and false narratives
– Ignoring the WHO (whom they decided early on was useless and spreading disinformation)
– Outright severe condemnation of their own government’s response, resorting to strikes and protests to push the government’s hand and also grassroots community sharing of information and resources.
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jefe the liar is at it again. He uses a propaganda puff piece fromThe Atlantic to pretend that HK-SAR’s rioters are the heroes, the PRC and WHO the villains. BULLS8!
How do I know the Atlantic article is propaganda bulls8? Easy, the following quote is a dead giveaway: ” Prior experience with epidemics coming out of the mainland and the CCP’s attempts to cover it up.” Apparently, epidemics come out of the mainland, never, or hardly ever, the other way around! Enough said.
“…grassroots community sharing of information and resources.” Are you telling me that the rioters who where immolating people they disagreed with and pro-PRC gangs who beat up some of them, to a man, realized that an epidemic was afoot and both sides made peace and it has been solidarity forever in the wondrous land known as HK-SAR? Verily, the Chinese are a remarkable people!
Now I’m going to wait for The Atlantic to do articles on Macao-SAR and Jiangsu province, both with vastly superior performances than HK-SAR. I get the nagging feeling that I’ll have to wait a long time for said articles. jefe, why no protests over the arrest of Jimmy Lai and others, is it due to social distancing?
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Circa 3 weeks ago I commented on the worsening of the Covid-19 situation in in Singapore. See https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/#comment-437075
Recently I read an article in the CNN website that shows that that situation apparently remains complicated. See https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/14/asia/singapore-migrant-worker-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html
I would like to invite jefe, who resides nearby, to comment on this.- and how it relates to the situation in neighbor places like Hong-Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, etc, especially in a time when some of them want to loose lockdown measures.
Thanks in advance.
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@munubantu
Asia is a big place, saying Singapore is nearby to Hong Kong is like saying Jamaica is nearby to New York City. Thailand and Malaysia are not exactly neighbours to Hong Kong either (although they are neighbours to each other). Of course, I have been to all those places many times and have some friends in each of those places and know a little bit about them.
Having said that, each of them face their own pandemic issues that may not match the other countries. Singapore has a huge guest worker / foreign talent program which resulted in well over a million non-citizens living there, nearly 1/4 of the country. They range from finance professionals, IT analysts down to factory workers, construction and domestic workers. I know many citizens resent this as they feel they have to compete in the labour market with so many “foreigners”.
But, the labourers living in the dormitories were treated as out of sight, out of mind. But it is impossible to practice social and physical distancing in their dormitories, not unlike prisons or cruise ships. If one person in a crowded dormitory got infected, how do you get a thousand people in a tight space to quarantine each individual from another, when they all share sleeping, dining, bathing, toilet facilities? And outbreaks in the dormitories do spill out into the greater community, so this was a major oversight by the government.
But, it is not really so unlike other governments who treat certain sectors of their society as more expendable, and put much less effort in containing outbreaks in their communities. But the death rate in Singapore are still much lower than some other countries.
Thailand and Malaysia can seal their borders from each other and Singapore, or require any cross border travelers to go into quarantine. The causes of outbreaks in the other countries are due to separate reasons. Some of Malaysia’s outbreak is related to religious gatherings.
They are talking about creating a sort of travel bubble around HK to include the mainland, Macau and maybe Taiwan. I know they are doing some between Australia and New Zealand and Germany and Austria. Maybe they might do something like require all travelers to be tested before they leave, and tested when they arrive without having to do automatic quarantine. They could register contact information in case someone they had contact with tests positive.
Hong Kong had 23 days in a row without a single case of local community spread, then they found a case of a 66 yr old grandmother who had no history of overseas travel. Then her 5 year old granddaughter (asymptomatic). Then her 62 yr old husband (asymptomatic). They are testing every single resident in the buildings where the grandmother and the granddaughter lives, over a thousand people. The positive cases are removed from their homes and isolated in a separate facility and from each other.
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A bit of unsettling news for my dear friend sbt, a/k/a origin. 80,000 Americans died of the flu in the winter of 2018, the normal toll is between 12,000 to a high of 56,000. “Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who speculated that the large number of flu deaths in the US could have in fact been caused by COVID-19, but the US did not test for it at that time.” Could the excess deaths have been from covid-19 (https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/comment-page-3/)? You and your genius friends on this blog must know the answer, not being a ‘genius’, I’ll wait for the experts to do their thing. You might find this news of interest: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KELvvknOKSw).
Of course, it all could be Chinese propaganda, but I figure that ‘geniuses’ of your caliber can cut through the fog of propaganda an figure out the truth of the matter.
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The Abagond geniuses might be interested in reading the following post on a fascinating blog run by a retired Indian diplomat called Indian Punchline.
The gentleman had the following to say on the corona virus’s ancestry and how it might have ended up in Wuhan:
” Five top Chinese scientific organisations have collected the data 93 genome specimens of COVID-19 that have been published in a global database based on inputs from 12 countries on four different continents.
The research has shown that the Covid-19’s earliest “ancestor” is a virus known as mv1, which subsequently evolved into haplotypes H13 and H38. (A haplotype is a group of genes within an organism that was inherited together from a single parent.)
In turn, H13 and H38 evolved into a second-generation haplotype — H3 — which subsequently involved into H1 (Covid-19).
That is to say, in plain terms, Covid-19’s “father” is H3; its “grandparents” are H13 and H38; and, its “great grandfather” is mv1.
Now, although the virus that was discovered in the Wuhan seafood market (Covid-19) was of the H1 variety alright, only its “father” H3 has been spotted in Wuhan — and that too, NOT in the seafood market.
Importantly, the Covid-19’s “grandparents” — H13 and H38 — have never been spotted in Wuhan.
“This suggests that the H1 specimen was brought to the seafood market by some infected person, which sparked the epidemic. The gene sequence cannot lie.” (Ambassador Zhang)
Suffice to say, the original source of Covid-19’s spread is yet to be traced and the trail could lead to any direction. As of now, although Covid-19 was first discovered in Wuhan, its exact origin is yet to be determined.
Meanwhile, there are tell-tale signs. Thus, Ambassador Zhang recounted:
However, contemporary science and technology is well-equipped to trace the trail of Covid-19 and it is absolutely certain that “sooner or later, the day will come when everything that’s been concealed will be revealed.” (Ambassador Zhang) …
Clearly, the Chinese diplomat hinted that the trail of Covid-19 can and will be scientifically traced. Trump will have a serious problem if it transpires that Covid-19’s grandma, grandpa and great grandpa are actually domiciled in the US.”
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Origin, a/k/a Sbt, How come, according to Trump, NIH was already working on a vaccine on 1/11/2020?
“Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th — think of that — within hours of the virus’s genetic code being posted online. So, January 11th. Most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.”
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vaccine-development/)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoaaxRLOp10)
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Covid-19: The emerging divide between the elderly and the young
I watched and participated in a fiery debate in social media in Mozambique about the rational of closing economic and social life in a society for the sake of the elderly (sic).
Let’s begin with the context.
In Mozambique we are in the middle of the second phase of the emergency state. That emergency state was declared in the dawn of April and was supposed to take a month. Later it was extended to include the whole month of May.
Recently our President made a balance of this second month of the emergency state and he stated that it was not clear yet how things will go past May. He said it would depend on the behavior of the population until the end of the current month. Unfortunately I notice some tiredness in some sectors of the population regarding the measures taken until now. Those measures are relatively mild compared, for example, to our large neighbor, the Republic of South Africa, where an effective lockdown took a whole month, roughly during April, and later was partially relaxed. During the lockdown that country had some spontaneous popular manifestations against the restrictions of social and economic life. Despite the differences between Mozambique and South Africa, a growing number of voices are expressing skepticism here relative to the rationale of, for example, closing schools for months long, and indeed, indefinitely.
In social media I participated in a almost angry discussion about that. Somebody asked me: this disease only affects old people, right? those old people had already their chance in life and, anyway, are close to their deaths, and then why the younger generation is supposed to block its own advance, in schools, in the workplace, etc, because the elderly are fearing their deaths?
Another said: we the young are more than 98% of the population (?sic) aren’t we? then why we must stop everything because a vanishing minority is afraid of Covid-19, and which is not productive anymore?
I made my rebuttals but the whole discussion left a mark on me. Do these people not have a point? Fact is that in Mozambique more than half of the population is below 15 years old. The elderly are relatively rare. Is it correct to slow down significantly the pace of life because of them?
At this forum I don’t know how many commentators are below 50 years old but I bet not the majority. The question arises: how much our personal positions in the Covid-19 debate, are implicitly self-interested, even if we are not aware of that?
We can be tempted to play down these issues but if this pandemic remains for many more months – as appears to be the case – then we must expect those divisions to grow and even eventually explode. In Mozambique many young people remain unemployed even when they finished tertiary education. Many of them try to fend for themselves going to the informal or semi-formal sector which now is targeted for restriction or closure as a consequence of some measures taken because of Covid-19. How tenable is this?
I notice that in most discussions at this forum people see the attempts of the Trump administration to open up the economy as catering to the very rich bourgeoisie which wants to maintain their factories and businesses open. But is this the whole story? What about the barbershops and other small businesses that are also hit by the restrictions in social and economic life?
Can we have a balanced view on all this? Food for thought.
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@ Munubantu
Well, my first thought is that the perception of covid-19 only threatening the elderly, or even people over 50, is incorrect.
There is a higher death rate in the elderly population, and the older someone is, it seems the higher their likelihood of dying.
But it is killing younger people, too, including teenagers and 20-somethings. And now there is a serious new syndrome affecting children that appears to be linked to covid-19, which has resulted in some fatalities.
Young people may not be at as great a risk of death, but they certainly can catch the coronavirus and have a horrible time with weeks of severe illness. In my county, the majority of people (well over half) who have tested positive have been between the ages of 18 and 45.
I recently read reports about how the coronavirus seems to attack the inner lining of blood vessels, and how some young people who are sick with covid-19 are having strokes or throwing blood clots. For a 25-year-old person to have a major stroke is nothing to shrug off; they will need months if not years of rehabilitation and may never completely regain some functions.
The crucial thing to me about covid-19, which so many people seem to ignore, is that it is novel, brand new and actively mutating. We don’t really know anything much for certain about it yet. People keep making assumptions based on other illnesses like influenza or SARS, but these are just guesses. We don’t know if catching it gives someone immunity or how long the immunity might last. We don’t know if someone getting it a second or third time might not have a worse case with a stronger chance of death. We don’t know whether there are serious long-lasting consequences, like permanent damage to the lungs. We don’t know in what ways the virus might mutate over the next few months. There are too many unknowns not to take the threat very seriously.
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@Origin
.
I am not sure if you are familiar with the term “WuMao”, which is a common name you will find applied to these people. The characters 五毛 (50 cents) are pronounced “wu3 mao2” in Hanyu (Mandarin) Pinyin. Numbers refer to the tone, but they are normally dropped when typing it online.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wu%20Mao
In mid-April, there was a huge online brawl between Thailand and PRC Wumao, and Hong Kong and Taiwan got rolled on in it. In fact, it caused Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan to join hands to make fun of “WuMao”. There were so many memes ridiculing Wumao in mid-late April and it kept people entertained for a few weeks. In that case, the 50 cent campaign really backfired rather badly.
This might help explain some ways to recognize WuMao online (but I am sure you need no help in this).
6 THINGS to notice before battling Chinese Wumao – with lots of memes
(https://youtu.be/qkmhru7oYwc)
The contrast between the CCP intranet firewall and the “real” global internet could not be as stark as it is in HK. The Wumao have been a force for over 10 years, but they have only recently started using western social media platforms, even using VPNs to access the banned applications, to express themselves (as opposed to mostly policing what is discussed inside their borders).
This coronavirus has created a much wider platform to expand their presence globally, and now it is not just people in Hong Kong who have to put up with them all the time.
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Just when I was getting used to being called “Herr Joseph Groebbels”, “Xi Jinping’s ho-ho”, “a superlatively brobdingnagian tool”(sbt), “50c”, now I have to get used to “WuMao”.
My ‘feelings’ aren’t hurt by the name calling since I’m perfectly willing to use Origin’s creation against him. I’ve even labelled myself “‘daddy’ Xi’s number one son! 😉” in homage to the Charlie Chan films, so I can take a joke.
You, on the other hand, are a joke who takes himself seriously. Your personality fits the 6 rules on the video you shared with us much better than mine.
You’re the joker who claims that a bunch of incompetents who foolishly took over university buildings in 2019, thereby trapping themselves, who weren’t even competent to escape through the sewers and ended up surrendering to the HK-SAR police, managed to unite the whole territory, in opposition to its government, to avoid the devastation of covid-19! Some of the geniuses on this forum are willing to swallow your lies but I refuse to do so.
I asked you to comment on the arrest of Jimmy Lai and his friends several times but you have not said anything about such “repression”. Have you finally made your peace with the fact that HK-SAR is Chinese?
You are free to take up the challenge I threw at Origin’s feet:
“on Thu May 14th 2020 at 01:50:49
gro jo
“Nice list of CCP talking points you have there.”
Thanks. Now refute the four points I made.”
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@gro jo
I only respond so that naked propaganda is not left to stand without challenge. Once I’m satisfied I’ve accomplished that goal, my job is done. Why should I produce an itemized response to a bunch of assertions when I’ve already presented data that allows any sensible reader to independently evaluate those assertions? Remember, I’m not being paid. So I’ve long ceased responding to you for the sake of discussion because there is simply no way to have a genuine discussion with a puppet who would endorse treacherous government disinformation as a sovereign “right”. That was my “aha” moment.
@jefe
Thanks for reminding me of that term. Reading it made me realize I’d heard it before. I’d also seen a report about the meme battle. Some of the memes were amusing and it highlights what you said; the campaign backfired. I would NEVER have heard about Thai, Hong Konger, and Taiwanese netizens roasting CCP stooges if it weren’t for those selfsame stooges triggering a reaction.
Their handlers really should reevaluate their pay structure because flooding places where people are having genuine discussions with blatant propaganda and misinformation will only cause some people to fight back with the truth. This only draws more attention to topics that may have passed with only a cursory mention if it weren’t for WuMao zealotry. It’s counterproductive in the end (on the open internet).
The Wumao traits the person mentioned in the linked video are interesting:
They think others can’t bear criticism of our own countries so they “counterattack” with such criticisms.
They think we are brainwashed by the media.
They think independence movements/referenda are banned everywhere
They think everyone should be grateful to them ( or Chinese generally) for their role in the global economy [tourism, trade, etc].
They use acronyms we don’t understand
They have no brain or logic at all
Has anyone ever seen a wild WuMao?
LOL
Anyway, on to another topic, an additional aspect of the Caixin report I posted much earlier in the thread has gained additional support. Caixin had reported about a government order to destroy laboratory samples of the new coronavirus early in the Wuhan outbreak.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-confirms-that-it-destroyed-early-samples-of-new-coronavirus-2020-5
Imagine destroying laboratory samples of the spreading virus for “biosafety reasons” while you’re simultaneously threatening doctors – who risk getting infected – for warning each other to take precautions because the virus is spreading from person to person.
Your have just crossed over into the TwiLIEt zone.
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At end last bravo Jair Bolsonaro, <>the intrepid<>, decides to use a mask in a public event. Good news. Bravo, bravíssimo!
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/brazils-bolsonaro-denies-shielding-family-from-inquiries.phtml
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“@gro jo
I only respond so that naked propaganda is not left to stand without challenge.”
If that’s the case, you are doing a poor job. I came with a number of new claims that cast doubt on your “China didn’t warn you” How could Trump claim that the following?
“Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th — think of that — within hours of the virus’s genetic code being posted online. So, January 11th. Most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.”
The interesting thing about that claim is that January 11 is twelve days before the PRC shutdown Wuhan, yet, Trump and the US media were busy criticizing the PRC.
” nytimes.com
Scale of China’s Wuhan Shutdown Is Believed to Be Without Precedent
By Michael Levenson
5-7 minutes
In sealing off a city of 11 million people, China is trying to halt a coronavirus outbreak using a tactic with a complicated history of ethical concerns.
Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday. The Chinese government said it would cancel planes and trains leaving Wuhan, and suspend buses, subways and ferries within it.
Credit…Xiaolu Chu/Getty Images
In closing off Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people, China deployed on Thursday morning a centuries-old public health tactic to prevent the spread of infectious disease — this time, a mysterious respiratory infection caused by a coronavirus.
“It’s an unbelievable undertaking,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, adding that he had never heard of so many people being cordoned off as a disease-prevention measure.
Still, “people are going to get out,” he said. “It’s going to be leaky.”
By Thursday evening, China said it planned to extend the shutdown even further. Officials said they would impose travel restrictions on at least four other nearby cities — Huanggang, Ezhou, Chibi and Zhijiang — affecting millions more residents…”
I know I’m a vile ‘WuMao’ propagandist, but how can you ignore a White House press release and an article from the NYT, have ‘WuMaos’ infiltrated such august institutions?
Note that I’m not requiring you to deal with ambassador Zhang’s statement about the family tree of covid-19, since you are no more competent to evaluate his claim than I am.
How did you like the Global Times cartoon, my ‘WuMao’ bosses want ‘honest’ opinions.
“Herr Joseph Groebbels”, “Xi Jinping’s ho-ho”, “a superlatively brobdingnagian tool”(sbt), “50c”, ‘daddy’ Xi’s number one son signing off for now.
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“signing off for now”
Those are the most meaningful, most glorious four words Jo-sus ever uttered.
So simple, yet so profound, with such far-reaching implications for genuine conversation and the amount of scrolling.
We were struck with both plague and an army of trolls but, wearing a “corona of viruses” and battling persecution, Jo-sus has left us: a supreme gift.
He’ll have a second coming but, until then, he has my sincere gratitude.
@munubantu
Bolsonaro’s response has been truly unbelievable. He’s either saying the disease is overblown or that people will obviously die, while sacking health ministers. At the same time, the real crisis continues to grow in his country.
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https://www.kxly.com/i/radical-new-type-of-vaccine-being-developed-in-london/
Who said that the novel coronavirus will survive a counter-attack by the homo sapiens sapiens species?
Will it survive the year 2020?
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@Michael Barker
This might address that issue. It is not a matter of rule of law or constitution (they have the constitutional right to do so), but the fear of pushback from citizens.
The successful Asian coronavirus-fighting strategy America refuses to embrace
Other countries have had better results putting sick people into isolation instead of sending them home to potentially infect their family.
(https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21238456/centralized-isolation-coronavirus-hong-kong-korea)
This is why US R0 stubbornly stays around 1.0 in the USA (outside of NY and NJ) but it drops to 0.4 or 0.3 in many Asian countries as well as New Zealand.
Asia’s policy: Isolate in a dedicated facility
Would it be worth it to cut the lockdown to merely a few weeks if the people were willing to do isolation and quarantines away from home in a monitored facility and staff? It would save trillions of dollars, reduce the length of the Stay-at-home orders, and knock cases down to single digits in a matter of weeks. It would also save tens of thousands of lives.
And the states do have the power to do this. And given all the empty dormitories and hotels in the USA, they have the space too. Isn’t it worth it?
Now, the number to isolate in HK is so low that ALL of them are done in hospital isolation wards, even if they never show any symptoms. Taiwan’s were always low, so they did that from the very beginning.
Until the US has the protocol to isolate the positive, trace all their contacts, and quarantine the negatives or those waiting to be tested, I really don’t see any progress in the USA until there is a vaccine. R0 will stay at or above 1.0, not drop to 0.3.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/18/asia/china-world-health-assembly-investigation-intl-hnk/index.html
It seems that some concerns that have been coming out in discussions in this forum, about the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, now will be elevated to international organisations. Wow! This is becoming interesting!
Who looses? Hummm…
Who wins? Mankind!
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@ Munubantu
Some more thoughts on your questions:
“I notice that in most discussions at this forum people see the attempts of the Trump administration to open up the economy as catering to the very rich bourgeoisie which wants to maintain their factories and businesses open. But is this the whole story? What about the barbershops and other small businesses that are also hit by the restrictions in social and economic life?”
I think many of the USians here believe the small businesses are also being pushed to reopen by the government because of the interests of the wealthy. Many small businesses have at least one or two employees besides the business owners, and these employees are eligible for unemployment benefits as long as the place where they work is shuttered due to the pandemic. The owners of these small businesses are also eligible for certain types of financial assistance during the economic lockdown. But then the question arises of where the money will come from. One way the government could quickly raise revenues is to pass new taxes on the very wealthy. For instance, the government could levy a temporary emergency tax on stock market transactions as was done in the 1970s. The very rich bourgeoisie does not want this to happen. They would rather see people risk their lives at occupations where the probability of transmitting the coronavirus is high — like barbershops — instead of sacrificing a tiny fraction of their immense wealth to help their fellow citizens stay safe at home.
“The elderly are relatively rare. Is it correct to slow down significantly the pace of life because of them?”
The pace of life might significantly slow down anyway due to widespread illness. Look at what is happening in our meat-packing industry right now. Those facilities never closed down because they are classified as essential businesses, and now hundreds of workers are sick with the coronavirus. They have to be quarantined for at least 14 days, and many will need even longer before they are well enough to go back to work. Some plants had to close down not just to do a deep cleaning but because they didn’t have enough healthy workers left to do the work, and now no one else wants to fill those vacant jobs for fear of getting sick. I don’t know the average age of the workers in the meat-packing industry, but the vast majority must be younger than 65, and I would guess that most are under 50.
Schools are always a major vector of contagious disease. The coronavirus doesn’t appear to cause severe illness in most children and teens, but they are able to spread it easily to others. One of the big fears about reopening the schools is that children will infect each other and then also infect adults, which will cause a rapid spread of illness in both the schools and the larger community. Here some of the earliest deaths were of teachers and principals who caught covid-19 before the schools closed down, many of them in their 30s or 40s.
Doctors and other medical workers also tend to be at high risk of catching covid-19. Again, some of them have died, but it isn’t just the deaths that impact the hospitals. When multiple doctors, nurses, lab technicians, etc., are sick and under quarantine, there are fewer workers able to treat patients and keep the hospitals running.
“if this pandemic remains for many more months – as appears to be the case – then we must expect those divisions to grow and even eventually explode.”
If Mozambique can contain the coronavirus now, you should be able to reduce the total number of months that your economy is shut down. The USA is not a good example to go by because we are doing a terrible job of mitigating and containing the virus, and we are probably going to have an explosion of new outbreaks before the end of the summer.
If Mozambique can continue to stay the course for a little while longer, you will probably be starting to carefully lift restrictions at the same time that the USA will most likely be reimposing them due to our careless haste.
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More on New York v. Hong Kong:
How masks helped Hong Kong control the coronavirus
New research shows that universal mask-wearing may help slow the spread of Covid-19.
(https://www.vox.com/2020/5/18/21262273/coronavirus-hong-kong-masks-deaths-new-york)
But in order to do that, the entire population had to openly outright defy executive orders. If this is not a form of protest to save lives, I don’t know what is.
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This CNN video on msn’s website illustrates what HK does with every single arrival into the airport. Not one single arrival is allowed into the community. All positive cases must remain in the isolation wards in hospitals until they test negative two successive days in a row, and are not allowed to return home even if they are not symptomatic. Only those who test negative may perform their mandatory quarantine at home, and they must submit daily temperature readings, and wear a wristband that does not allow them to leave their front door. Quarantine violators are fined, and repeat violators may be jailed.
Can the rest of the world do this?
The benefit:
We have had zero community-based infections on 27 days of the past 4 weeks and zero imported cases on about half of those days. Restaurants and bars have reopened under physical distancing rules, as have librairies, gyms, cinemas, etc. Government offices are fully open now. Universities and upper secondary schools will open back up next week, also with physical distancing rules. The metro system and buses are running on regular schedule, and are quite full. Everyone will wear masks (ie, you cannot eat popcorn at the cinema). Everyone will have their temperature taken when they enter a building or a shop. Hand sanitizers abound and must be provided for use for every customer.
You must be a HK resident with a HK ID card to enter at all. So, for the time being, no non-resident foreign nationals (eg, tourists or business travellers) are allowed to enter.
Is this the future of international travel with Covid-19?
(https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/peopleandplaces/is-this-the-future-of-international-travel-with-covid-19/vi-BB149kn9)
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@ jefe
Regarding the good examples of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the ways to deal with this pandemic and the reluctance of the Western world to follow them, I have asking myself if this could not come from the old habit of thinking that “real truths come from us first” and “others must follow us”.
Think if instead of Hong Kong or Taiwan the example were set by Sweden or Australia. Would the Western countries had any difficulty to follow those “good examples”? I don’t think so.
It is true that part of the blame should be with the World Health Organisation (WHO) because they made some errors of judgement along the way, from December 2019 until today. And their misjudgments were followed by many countries. For example they maintained for long that it was not good to use face masks unless you were ill. It comes out the truth was the opposite. This error has caused indirectly the death of many thousand people worldwide, because it facilitated for weeks the spread of the disease.
But the “good examples” were there from beginning, for everybody to see and draw conclusions. So, there is something else at play besides the mistakes of WHO.
The West, and indeed the world as a whole, must learn to be a little more humble and draw lessons from others experiences.
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“It is true that part of the blame should be with the World Health Organisation (WHO) because they made some errors of judgement along the way, from December 2019 until today. And their misjudgments were followed by many countries. For example they maintained for long that it was not good to use face masks unless you were ill. It comes out the truth was the opposite. This error has caused indirectly the death of many thousand people worldwide, because it facilitated for weeks the spread of the disease.”
Your claim is a distortion of the WHO’s position. You leave out a crucial fact, the limited supply of masks. It would have been foolish to recommend that everyone wear masks in December when solid evidence for human to human transmission was still unknown. It wasn’t until the beginning of January that such knowledge was provided by the PRC and broadcast worldwide by the WHO. Had the public been told to wear masks in December, panic would have been the result. Strange that you and your friends ignore the concept of “Herd Immunity” since it would be a better explanation for the lack of action on the part of US and European leaders.
“Think if instead of Hong Kong or Taiwan the example were set by Sweden or Australia.” Hilarious, Sweden did set an example, it called for doing nothing out of the ordinary and letting the disease, like the devil, take the hindmost.
“This CNN video on msn’s website illustrates what HK does with every single arrival into the airport. Not one single arrival is allowed into the community. All positive cases must remain in the isolation wards in hospitals until they test negative two successive days in a row, and are not allowed to return home even if they are not symptomatic. Only those who test negative may perform their mandatory quarantine at home, and they must submit daily temperature readings, and wear a wristband that does not allow them to leave their front door. Quarantine violators are fined, and repeat violators may be jailed.”
Hmm, since when did the summer rioters acquire the right and capacity to quarantine, fine and jail repeat violators? How come our HK “independentista”, señor jefe, is such ‘fan’ of the HK-SAR police? Not so long ago, friend jefe denounced them as tools of HK-SAR ‘police state”!
“You must be a HK resident with a HK ID card to enter at all. So, for the time being, no non-resident foreign nationals (eg, tourists or business travellers) are allowed to enter.”
How racist. What about the poor Africans who will be discriminated against?
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@ gro jo
What are you claiming here exactly?
… limited supply of masks …
… human to human transmission was still unknown … ???
Anyway.
If or when the need of masks were established their mass production would have began or the conditions therefor been created. This is my believe.
Ventilators are also in short supply therefore you begin to make more of them. This the solution.
In hindsight, the downplaying of the need of masks for the general population cannot honestly be seen as having been smart.
It’s about saving human lives, remember?
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ERRATA: instead of “believe” should be “belief”
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Who has done a better job saving human lives, the PRC or its detractors? The PRC is the undisputed champion based on this criterion, no matter all the nonsense written on this forum. Scroll up to my comment “on Sat Apr 4th 2020 at 20:48:23
gro jo” and click on the last link to find a timeline for the disease in China. You might find the following facts of use: “page 2 shows that Jiangsu, with a population of 80,510,000 had 0 daily confirmed and suspected cases, 631 confirmed cumulative cases and 0 deaths as of 26 February 2020…Another territory of the PRC, not female led, did even better than the ROC and HK-SAR with 45 Confirmed cases, 39 Recovered and 0 Deaths.”
“What are you claiming here exactly?
… limited supply of masks …
… human to human transmission was still unknown … ???”
Masks are still in short supply, I’m surprised this is news to you.
Ask for human to human transmission, that fact wasn’t known until the beginning of January, not December. The timeline in the youtube video referenced above will provide you with more definite dates.
The following Trump quote indicates that the USA knew of the virus on or before 1/11/2020.
“Scientists at the NIH began developing the first vaccine candidate on January 11th — think of that — within hours of the virus’s genetic code being posted online. So, January 11th. Most people never even heard what was going on January 11th. And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against.”
“Anyway.
If or when the need of masks were established their mass production would have began or the conditions therefor been created. This is my believe.
Ventilators are also in short supply therefore you begin to make more of them. This the solution.
In hindsight, the downplaying of the need of masks for the general population cannot honestly be seen as having been smart.”
If that’s your opinion, you need to explain why all these things are still in short supply. It’s well and good to pontificate, producing stuff is harder and takes time. The conversation here has been that the virus should have been identified instantaneously and the equipment to combat it should have been produced even faster than that. It’s madness and childish nonsense.
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“Ask(sic) for human to human transmission, that fact wasn’t known until the beginning of January, not December. The timeline in the youtube video referenced above will provide you with more definite dates.”
Should be:
“As for human to human transmission, that fact wasn’t known until the beginning of January, not December. The timeline in the youtube video referenced above will provide you with more definite dates.”
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@ gro jo
My observations were not about the People’s Republic of China but about the WHO.
What I said is that they made some mistakes as far as back December 2019. Mistakes are human and I don’t think ill of them. And some mistakes were induced from a limited knowledge that Chinese authorities seem to had at that time about the disease (this question about human to human transmission, for example). WHO depended obviously of the data they received from China about what was happening there.
But regarding masks I think they could have abstained themselves to say that masks were not needed for the general populations (except when ill).
Masks are now produced everywhere. Come to Maputo and you’ll see masks from every color and color-combinations you can think of. More than two thirds are made locally and our Ministry of Health enacted guidelines for their production and proper use. This could have began earlier in my opinion. This WHO “mistake” didn’t affect my country specifically (because the epidemic came late) but affected the first countries which were hit after China (Italy, Spain, etc)
I notice that have you strong views about the position of China in the context of this pandemic.
We must respectfully agree to disagree about the interpretation of some details of the past events of the development of this pandemic. It’s yet unfolding!
Peace!
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“My observations were not about the People’s Republic of China but about the WHO.”
Where have I indicated otherwise? The WHO didn’t make a mistake, the disease was first identified in China. Have you looked at the timeline Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich provided? If you haven’t, you are simply making claims based on unrealistic expectations. The disease had to be identified and its infection potential determined before anything could be done about it. As for the availability of masks, they were in short supply. Medical staff in New York city had to resort to using garbage bags because they couldn’t find any. This article says that 68 countries resorted to restricting exports. (https://www.ohscanada.com/canada-facing-major-medical-gear-shortage-68-countries-restrict-exports/). I’m happy for your country that it is awash in the necessary supplies, in other places, scarcity reigned as late as the date of the article (4/3/2020).
“What I said is that they made some mistakes as far as back December 2019. Mistakes are human and I don’t think ill of them. And some mistakes were induced from a limited knowledge that Chinese authorities seem to had at that time about the disease (this question about human to human transmission, for example). WHO depended obviously of the data they received from China about what was happening there.”
Would you care to divulge the nature of the mistakes the WHO made, specifically regarding human to human transmission? In late December nobody knew what they were dealing with. Apparently, you didn’t look at the timeline provided in the video I recommended, maybe if reduced to cartoon form it will be easier for you to follow: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5BZ09iNdvo)
I hope you’re not making the absurd claim that they should have known what nobody knew or could have known until a proper investigation was undertaken by competent scientific researchers.
“We must respectfully agree to disagree about the interpretation of some details of the past events of the development of this pandemic. It’s yet unfolding!
Peace!”
What is it we’re supposed to agree to disagree on? Either information was available to determine that the disease could be transmitted to another person or it wasn’t by the end of December. If you have evidence that such information existed I’d like to read it. Peace.
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It’s likely that Chinese officials knew about human to human transmission in early January at the latest when they were busy muzzling and threatening doctors and ordering labs to destroy samples, as Caixin had reported months ago [I’d posted it up-thread].
The CCP had apologized for the death of one of the doctors (Li Wenliang) who succumbed to the disease after being arrested and forced to withdraw statements he made to his colleagues about the risks of the virus. They also recently admitted to ordering destruction of samples held by “unauthorized labs” for ostensible “biosafety reasons”. Therefore the Caixin report has been corroborated by the CCP in its essential facts.
Since the destruction of lab samples for “biosafety reasons” and the muzzling of unprotected doctors who were concerned about THEIR “biosafety” were about contemporaneous one has to wonder how those can be reconciled. If officials ordered samples destroyed because they were concerned the virus was dangerous, even a lab setting, why the F were they also muzzling the doctors instead of acknowledging their concerns and early taking steps to mitigate the risks in the hospital setting? Shouldn’t the “biosafety” concern be even higher in the much less controlled hospital setting?
A reasonable way to reconcile this apparent contradiction is that it was a “coverup” not “concern”. If a coverup is assumed then the dual actions of ordering independent labs to destroy virus samples and muzzling doctors who’re “spreading rumors” (sarc) that the disease is infectious are completely harmonious. They both serve the goal of hiding information. If you’re doing your best to ensure there is “no clear evidence” there certainly will be NO CLEAR EVIDENCE of h2h transmission. Fast forward to January 14, 2020 and you’ll find the WHO telling the world that.
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So far, 116 countries have backed Australia’s initial call for an independent probe into how the novel coronavirus ended up in the human population and spread. African countries joined an initial 62 to bump the total.
The latest list of countries now backing the probe:
Albania, Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan,
Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Djibouti
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana,
Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan,
Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Monaco,
Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Paraguay,
Peru, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation,
San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
All EU members
The African group
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/62-nations-back-australias-push-for-a-covid19-inquiry/news-story/d09e8b4ef61da22f34c258212f74adf6
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“It’s likely that Chinese officials knew about human to human transmission in early January at the latest when they were busy muzzling and threatening doctors and ordering labs to destroy samples, as Caixin had reported months ago [I’d posted it up-thread].”
It is certain that sbt a/k/a Origin is an idiot.
It is a known fact that Chinese officials knew that human to human transmission was a fact by mid-January, hence their decision to quarantine a city and province starting on the 23rd of January.
We already had that discussion ”
on Sun Apr 5th 2020 at 19:15:43
gro jo”. You were speculating then and you are speculating now. Where’s your evidence?
“If you’re doing your best to ensure there is “no clear evidence” there certainly will be NO CLEAR EVIDENCE of h2h transmission. Fast forward to January 14, 2020 and you’ll find the WHO telling the world that.”
Lucky for you since that permits you to continue to lie and claim that the only reason no ‘evidence’ will be found is not because it never existed in the first place but because Evil Xi is ‘hiding’ it. Morons like you still claim that Saddam’s ‘nuclear arsenal’ will be found any day now.
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Time magazine compared the timeline of Taiwan’s response to the coronavirus pandemic versus the messaging from both the PRC’s CDC and the WHO.
Taiwan Says It Tried to Warn the World About Coronavirus. Here’s What It Really Knew and When
(https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/)
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What the article ‘proves’ is that Taiwan will do everything it can to pretend to be a nation instead of a Chinese province, with the help of the USA.
“With Taiwan in the spotlight, TIME spoke with health officials, politicians and analysts to unpack what the island of 23 million knew in the critical early days of the pandemic when it initiated a quick response that helped it keep its infection rate among the lowest in the world.”
Ok, now where’s the article on Jiangsu Province with 51 confirmed cases and zero deaths as of Monday, according to the latest data released by the Jiangsu provincial government website? Taiwan has 440 confirmed cases and seven deaths, according to Taiwan’s public health authority. How about Macao with 45 confirmed cases, 44 recovered and 0 death? the populations of these three Chinese territories are:
1) Jiangsu Province, 80.4 million (2018)
2) Macao-SAR, 631,636 (2018)
3) Taiwan, 23.78 million (2018)
The claim that Taiwan stands out due to its performance is pure propaganda.
Now for the myth that ‘democratic’ officials in Taiwan heard rumors from Wuhan and heroically took action and warned a WHO, in thrall to the PRC, of the danger. Where did our heroes really get their information from?
“Lo, an infectious disease expert, looked at the images of laboratory reports and doctors’ messages and suspected something else, something new. “But whether the source was reliable or … indicated the correct pathogen [couldn’t] be proved just from reading that,” he says. So he instructed his colleague to get in touch with counterparts in Beijing and the WHO through the International Health Regulations mechanism, a WHO framework of exchange between countries, to ask for more information.” So, Taiwan and the PRC work together as far as disease prevention goes. Taiwan found out about the disease the same way Jaingsu, Macao-SAR and HK-SAR did, and ended up with comparable results.
“Taiwan doesn’t have a seat at the WHO due to objections from Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the island. This exclusion, Taiwan says, is dangerous for public health. The WHO, which is governed by its member states and so does not have authority over membership, says it has been sharing information related to the pandemic with Taiwan. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has homed in on the status of its ally as it attacks the relationship between the WHO and China.”
This is the gist of this scandal, a health crisis being used for political score settling. señor jefe being an HK ‘independentista’ is expected to make the most of this nonsense, however, the resolution passed by WHA will review the WHO-coordinated COVID-19 response at the appropriate moment with an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation process to review experiences gained and lessons learned, which is also a routine practice for the WHO, as it did for post-epidemic evaluations of the H1N1 response and Ebola.
The USA, Australia backed resolution to seat Taiwan went nowhere. You’ll get them next year jefe, don’t despair. 🙂
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Jilin province in NE China is put into lockdown, together with some new measures in adjacent Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces.
Over 100 Million in China’s Northeast Face Renewed Lockdown
(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-18/over-100-million-in-china-s-northeast-thrown-back-under-lockdown)
At least 25 million people in China are under enhanced coronavirus lockdowns after an outbreak of 34 cases in a province next to Russia
(https://www.businessinsider.com/china-restarts-lockdown-measures-jilin-after-34-new-coronavirus-cases-2020-5)
I suppose this seeding of outbreaks came mostly from Russia.
I read in places that the deportations from the US has led to seeding of the coronavirus in Latin America. Anyone have a good analysis of that?
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Why the U.S. food supply chain can’t handle the pandemic.
“Dairy Farmers of America, for example, now controls 30 percent of all raw milk in the United States. (I wrote about consolidation in the dairy industry for the Monthly here). In the meat industry, roughly 50 factories process 98 percent of the nation’s beef. The same holds for pork: Following industry consolidation in the late 1980s and 1990s, the portion of U.S. hogs slaughtered in massive, million-head capacity plants rose from 38 percent to 88 percent in just two decades.”
“If you pull out one little thing in that specialized, centralized, consolidated chain, then everything crashes,” said Mary Hendrickson, a rural sociology professor at University of Missouri. “Now we have an animal welfare catastrophe, an environmental catastrophe, a farmer catastrophe, and a worker catastrophe altogether, and we can trace a lot of this back to the pursuit of efficiency.”
Ahh the efficiencies of capitalism lol
https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/turns-out-letting-efficient-monopolies-control-our-food-supply-was-a-terrible-idea/
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https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/procedures
Just kinda vamping off alberto m./munubantu on the other thread, gotta account for a legion of doom scenario, a cabal of deep state actors from competing, even, governments would make the best spy novel plot if ya ask me, and yes i realize noone did. Substitute [your word here] for therapy in the linked article!
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My mom had this lion from mattell; she worked on the ass’y line? You pull the string, it roars and said ooh i scared myself?
But like scraping reddit (this site etc.) — they do it by input too ie voice etc off your phone? But the ai of google search is quite useful from the inside, you can kinda train it? Also how fb (android) seriously trains in on on 100’s of friends, group s, pages, etc + ads. Ie what it thinks you wanna see sorry bout taking so much bandwidth lately but leave me at home for a few days with a cable modem and enough food to last….
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@ Munubantu
When I saw the following article (link below), I thought of your question about barbershops.
Two hair stylists in one shop have exposed at least 140 customers by working while they were sick. My understanding is that at first neither person thought they had covid-19 and didn’t get tested until after exposing the customers over the course of a week. This town just allowed barbershops and hair salons to reopen less than a month ago.
“The announcement came just days after city officials announced plans to relax even more distancing requirements and about a week after the health department started seeing an influx of new travel-related infections.”
I’ve read in other articles the clarification that “travel-related” here means travel to larger cities in the same state, not international travel.
I’m concerned that this may be only the beginning of an increase in new cases as the USA continues to relax distancing measures and reopen businesses prematurely.
In the article, the director of the health department warns:
“We can’t make this a regular habit or our capability as a community [to trace potential infections] will be strained and we will have to re-evaluate what things look like going forward.”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/a-second-great-clips-hairstylist-in-springfield-mo-tests-positive-for-covid-19-symptoms/article_61bd12c0-18e4-5ce1-a9c9-53488ff747c3.html
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@ Solitaire
Thanks for your abundant information about the unfolding of Covid-19 in USA.
As I said before, I look at other societies which are in the front line of the Covid-19 pandemic as a source of learning. Good or bad experiences that they have passed or are passing through, give useful insights for us. I hope to be able to use all these data to convince my fellow citizens about what we should do now to avoid the future that we surely don’t want to go into.
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In the Australian interview below with a scientist working on a COVID-19 vaccine (having worked on ebola, influenza, and animal SARS vaccines) he is asked about the possible origins of the virus. It is refreshing to see a scientist who is working in the field not disingenuously assure the public that the virus could NEVER have escaped from a lab. Anyone who spends a little time browsing research papers will see that chimeric viruses, which combine genetic material from multiple viruses, are regularly created in virology labs. The virus which causes COVID-19 was even synthetically recreated in a lab already (late Feb 2020).
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.21.959817v1
However, if virology research created a global plague that destroyed the economy and directly killed hundreds of thousands worldwide you can be certain that would have implications for funding. Controls would likely be tightened and some experiments may even be made illegal. Concerns about an “accidental pandemic” by a very infectious pathogen was what led to a temporary ban on gain-of-function research under the Obama administration. So if we had an actual instance of an accidental pandemic the voices calling for a ban on certain research would be bolstered, threatening the funding of many scientists who have been asked to opine on whether that could have happened.
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Video link:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiyTrJehvbU)
The quotes below are from the video description.
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@ Origin
(emphasis added)
I beg to differ.
Controls can be tightened in one place and loosened in another.
Why do you think that an worldwide control of human population grow is not being achieved despite the rising burden that it puts on natural resources (It’s not the only reason of said burden for sure, being the “way of life” another reason)?
I’m afraid that something deep is escaping your power of analysis: humans are competing with each other, both as individuals and also as groups. They oft cooperate too, but competition is inescapable.
You can decide to limit the grow of the population in your nation but who will assure you that others will do the same. Maybe you’ll become weaker than your neighbors in the near future because your numbers are becoming smaller in relative terms.
In the same line of reasoning: you can decide to limit certain forms or lines of research in Biology (or indeed any other domain) but who’ll assure you that in doing that you are letting others pass through you? Remember what happened to research in “animal and human cloning“? And some derivations thereof like the idea of creating and using staminal cells, etc. Some countries – including the USA – opted to restrict them in various forms, but some others (it comes to my mind South Korea and China, but I’m not 100% sure, maybe others too) did not.
You can, as a nation, restrict yourself, but you’ll never have a guarantee that your competitors will do the same.
Recently the President of the USA got his country out of certain environmentally driven restrictions on industrial activity of some countries (carbon emissions, etc) thinking that direct competitors like China, India, etc were making use of the situation to gain some advantage at expense of the USA. Was he right or wrong I don’t know, but theoretically it seems that the possibility of that confrontation was always there.
The research can make a pause temporarily but will resume after a while. There is no way to get the genie in the bottle again.
And molecular Biology is only the beginning of our troubles. Nano-engineering will be even worse when it comes to Frankenstein-like possibilities derived from its advances!
For good or bad, Nature or God gave the human species the capability to pierce into the building blocks of matter (molecules, atoms, fundamental particles, you name it!) and therefore, the capability to restructure its fabric at its intimate core. This is what we, humans, are doing in a crescendo! Let’s only hope that we can somehow remain wise enough to make the right choices and do the right things.
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ERRATA:
In my last comment where is:
“in doing that you are letting others pass through you?”
should be
“in doing that you are not letting others pass through you?”
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@munubantu
“I beg to differ.
Controls can be tightened in one place and loosened in another.”
IMO, there is no way virology research won’t take heat if it caused a deadly pandemic. There will be political pressure, increased bureaucratic oversight and some of the research will probably go underground (classified military applications). Think nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment technology; the latter causes controversy – even war – even when countries claim to be doing it only for “peaceful” energy generation.
Anyway, the world is long past wisdom on these matters. Only consequences await. Perhaps nature was looking for something on which to express its wrath. So it created power-hungry humans and gave them rope.
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6xVdyhyVWc)
What a gem!!! Watch what is said at minute 1:12…
I truly believe that our mental health is as important as our physical health! (sic)
Jesus, uncle Corona, now is getting a free pass! (temporary, I hope)
Humans are not totally rational!
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Update
Covid-19 pandemic; situation in Mozambique
This is only a short version compared to the last update.
We are in the middle of a seasonal transition. Now higher temperatures are slowly being replaced by cooler ones. Specially at night.
No good news.
Yesterday the country registered two milestones.
One. The first death due to the disease. A teenager – 13 years old – with underlying health conditions.
Two. The number of positive cases now exceeds 200. This is roughly 2.4% of the tests carried so far.
But what is most worrisome is that the more alert attitude most folks held in the first month of the emergency state now is being replaced by “I’ve nothing to do with this. This is a problem of the guys who belong the the circle of cases” . In the last two weeks one can clearly see more people and cars at the street. And the sight of persons without a face mask is increasing day by day. Only at public closed spaces things are taken seriously.
But in the meantime the number of new daily cases is now larger than it was one month ago.
I don’t get it. It seems that humans aren’t that smart after all. What are we doing?
The last recourse will be if the government steps its oversight of our daily life, giving the police clear powers to intervene and force individuals to obey the rules of the emergency state. And to extend this state for at least one more month. Our window of hope is closing.
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@ Munubantu
Mozambique has had a second death?
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@ Solitaire
Yes. This time was an adult.
The good new is that the emergency state will be extended for one month more.
The President spoke to the nation and in his arguments for the continuation of the emergency state he recognized that the behavior of many of us should change if we wanted to have any chance to avoid the worst. He hinted to more involvement of the police in the enforcement of some of the restrictive measures of the emergency state.
Let’s see of what will come from all of that.
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@ Munubantu
I’m glad to hear it’s being extended. I hope you and yours will steer clear of “Uncle Corona.”
I’m curious about your opinion of Director Rosa Marlene. I don’t know much about her but saw a photo of her wearing her mask while giving a press conference, which impressed me. Too many public officials in the USA take off the mask when they deliver their remarks, which sets a bad example.
In my county, it was announced that in the last week there have been more new cases than in the whole month of April, when we were still locked down. It is too soon to know if this definitely means a new surge in infections, but it does not bode well.
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@ Solitaire
Rosa Marlene is a doctor by profession and is now the head of the National Department for Health within the Ministry of Health in Mozambique.
She is responsible for coordinating the response of the government against the novel coronavirus in the country. She is also the main public official in the daily brief that the state is giving to the citizens about the pandemic. This daily brief is broadcast by the diverse television stations operating in the country.
It is true that during those press conferences she, as well as other people in the room – except the sign language translator (I don’t know why!?) – wares a face mask. This is also the new normal for officials at all levels of government or business. They all ware masks during public events, even in open spaces. And they try to respect the rules about social distancing as well.
My understanding about how these rules are being practiced in other countries is that in many of them public figures act in this way. The exceptions – like the USA and Brazil – stand out because they are “not normal” these days. Those exceptions reflect some type political conflict that mirrors in a defiant behavior from some politicians who want to send some kind of message. They are exceptions, not the rule, as I said.
If we have a problem right now – a small one but clearly growing – with the spread of this disease in Mozambique, it is not because the higher echelons of the government are not doing their part. It is more because some sectors of the populace are beginning to show some tiredness with the new rules and restrictions determined by the emergency state and ultimately, by the disease itself.
@ protests in USA
Do you think that the protests that in the last days are agitating your country will contribute to a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the USA in general? Small increase? Big increase?
I notice that the man who was killed by the police agent had recently become jobless apparently because of the pandemic. Somehow the disease was a trigger of the whole story because it was probably because of it that he was using fake money, what attracted the attention of the police and, ultimately in a mix of lack of luck from his part and tendency of abuse by the police, sealed his fate.
The looting itself seems to be a mix of fury because of the killing and opportunism by many who wanted to vent their anger not only because of the killing but also of the recent restrictions in their daily lives (people become nervous when locked, I think! like other animals!) and because much of the financial resources they enjoyed a few months ago, had evaporated during the lockdowns, etc. So the solution was to loot!
So Covid-19 is shaking the society upside down in ways we could not expect!
P.S.:
Do you see a connection between our recent dialogs on Covid-19 and how different social groups react, and what I say above?
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Munubantu,
Generally speaking it does seem that those who opposed wearing masks and mandated stay at home orders are more concerned about property damage then they are about the murder of George Floyd.
I do think that its possible that these protests could spark a second wave because you can’t really social distance during a protest.
I went to eat last night at a burger place that remained opened even though curfew orders had been given.
Outside police and fire engines raced by and there were helicopters flying around. Definitely a sense of anarchy.
Yet inside people were wearing face masks and social distancing with two people holding onto some loot they had stolen.
So despite the chaos people at the burger place were acting orderly.
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@ Munubantu
Thank you for answering my question about Rosa Marlene and the other information about Mozambique that you shared.
“except the sign language translator (I don’t know why!?)”
I don’t know for sure, but I can guess two possible reasons based on American Sign Language (ASL).
1) Some interpreters not only sign but simultaneously mouth the speaker’s words in a pronounced manner for people who rely on lip-reading.
2) Those interpreters who don’t mouth the words often are very fluent in sign (usually hearing children of deaf parents), and they use not just their hands but their entire upper body, including their facial expressions. In ASL, a frown or smile or a wry twist of the mouth can change the meaning of a sign. I don’t know if this is true with the sign language used in Mozambique, but I think it is likely.
More here about the difficulties that masks pose to people with hearing loss:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/05/deaf-masks-lip-reading-coronavirus.html
And about face masks designed to help lip readers:
https://www.hsdc.org/accessible-deaf-friendly-face-mask/
“My understanding about how these rules are being practiced in other countries is that in many of them public figures act in this way. The exceptions – like the USA and Brazil – stand out because they are ‘not normal’ these days.”
Yes, I would agree this is the case. Also, within the USA, there’s variance even from state to state. Some regional leaders wear the masks; others do not. Some states or cities require masks to be worn inside stores and businesses; others do not.
“If we have a problem right now – a small one but clearly growing – with the spread of this disease in Mozambique, it is not because the higher echelons of the government are not doing their part. It is more because some sectors of the populace are beginning to show some tiredness with the new rules and restrictions determined by the emergency state and ultimately, by the disease itself.”
It’s difficult to keep up the fight against an invisible enemy. I do understand why people are growing tired. It’s so hard to measure progress against the enemy when fighting this disease, especially because when it’s done right and a country avoids a major outbreak, then the restrictions look like an overeaction — as the epidemiologists have been telling us.
I’m going to split my reply into three parts due to the number of internet links….
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Part 2
“Do you think that the protests that in the last days are agitating your country will contribute to a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the USA in general?”
I’m afraid that they will. The protests are mostly outdoors, but even outside there’s a risk of spreading infection, especially where many people are not observing social distancing. Chanting and shouting also spreads the droplets through which covid-19 is most easily transmitted. I had just been reading a couple weeks ago that scientists believe many of the early “super-spreader” events happened in large outdoor venues, like the Mardi Gras parades here and in Europe.
I actually was already worried about this and was searching online Saturday for articles about the potential of the protests to contribute to a resurgence in new infections. I only found a few, but it indicated some people are already thinking about this possibility, including some of the organizers:
https://time.com/5844932/minneapolis-protests-coronavirus-masks/
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-30/us-cities-fear-protests-may-fuel-new-wave-of-virus-outbreaks
“Small increase? Big increase?”
I don’t know, but it’s worrisome because many places were already starting to see a rise in cases before the protests began. In the quote above, the increase in covid-19 deaths isn’t related to the protests because of the lag time between infection and death.
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Part 3
“I notice that the man who was killed by the police agent had recently become jobless apparently because of the pandemic. Somehow the disease was a trigger of the whole story because it was probably because of it that he was using fake money, what attracted the attention of the police and, ultimately in a mix of lack of luck from his part and tendency of abuse by the police, sealed his fate.”
I’m going to have to take issue with this to a degree. Most people who use counterfeit money don’t realize it is counterfeit. The store owner where George Floyd tried to use the money has even said that.
The fake money gets into the cash stream, and ordinary people often can’t tell the difference. The counterfeiters have gotten so good that stores use special pens or ultraviolet light to test paper money. The bills also have watermarks to look for, but most ordinary people (including myself) don’t bother to check their cash or don’t know they can — or if they do check, they still might not be able to identify a well-done counterfeit by those subtle differences.
https://www.itestcash.com/blogs/news/how-to-identify-counterfeit-bills
Unless we find out otherwise, I have no reason to believe George Floyd was knowingly trying to pass fake money.
“The looting itself seems to be a mix of fury because of the killing and opportunism by many who wanted to vent their anger not only because of the killing but also of the recent restrictions in their daily lives (people become nervous when locked, I think! like other animals!) and because much of the financial resources they enjoyed a few months ago, had evaporated during the lockdowns, etc. So the solution was to loot!
So Covid-19 is shaking the society upside down in ways we could not expect!
P.S.:
Do you see a connection between our recent dialogs on Covid-19 and how different social groups react, and what I say above?”
I see what you’re saying, but I’m afraid I don’t entirely agree. This is nothing new. I was born in the 1960s, and the USA of my childhood was filled with protests, riots, looting, burning cities, police brutally beating protesters, National Guardsmen shooting protesters, and assassinations (including Martin Luther King). We didn’t need a pandemic, a lockdown, or Depression-level unemployment rates for that unrest to happen.
I thought this was a very powerful video. The comments are also worth a read. The two older men in this video (both younger than myself) have seen these types of protests before, most likely going back to 1992 for the oldest man:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Mufaa6/status/1266939792358551554
I want to make it clear that I don’t mean to come down on any particular side by posting this video. I firmly support the right to peacefully demonstrate, and while I’m a pacifist, I don’t consider vandalism and destruction of property to be violence per se.
Note that the 31-year-old man says that he marched four years ago, and he tells the 16-year-old “in ten years you’re going to be right here” in the same type of protest. If I’m understanding him correctly, he’s talking about how these police killings keep happening and the demonstrations aren’t changing anything.
And when he says, “Putting yourself in harm’s way is not the way,” I don’t think he’s only referring to rioting and looting but any public protest. Protesters in multiple cities are reporting that the demonstrations were peaceful until the police turned violent. Anyone who tries to exercise their constitutional right for peaceful public protest at this moment is putting themself in harm’s way due to state-sanctioned police violence. And he’s also saying all these years of demonstrations aren’t sparking the kind of systemic change we need.
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@ Solitaire
I have a suspicion that mobile.twitter.com does not readily embed on this forum. I tried using a mobile.twitter.com link on the Open Thread and ended up with a link, but no tweet embedding. That is a shame.
Looks like a Twitter glitch.
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@ Afrofem
It didn’t embed, but the link is working on my end. Does it not work on yours?
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@ Solitaire
The link works fine. I just wish it embedded like the Twitter.com links, showing the original tweet.
Oh well.
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@ Afrofem
I understand. But I get the feeling Abagond prefers not to have a lot of embeds based on how he has us do the YouTube links.
If I knew how to keep the NYT links from embedding, I would do so about 95% of the time.
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Ok i finally got my comment posted in the right thread. I’m getting senial.
Munubantu,
“The looting itself seems to be a mix of fury because of the killing and opportunism by many who wanted to vent their anger not only because of the killing but also of the recent restrictions in their daily lives (people become nervous when locked, I think! like other animals!) and because much of the financial resources they enjoyed a few months ago, had evaporated during the lockdowns, etc”
I am going to disagree somewhat with Solitaire.
This uprising is mostly driven by American youth. Add the unemployed, activists and thats a lot of people in the streets.
Young people have been impacted by school closures, some of their employment as well as places they congregate restricted.
Here in L.A. the skate parks were closed but that didn’t keep skaters from climbing over the fences and skating anyway. The city reacted by using trucks to dump sand in the skate areas to make them unusable.
The skaters, like worker bees, moved the sand out and dumped it at the entrance to the skate park to block future dump trucks and police acces.
So youth already had an anti authortarian streak within themselves.
They were told that sheltering in and school closures would keep them safe from the pandemic. But since the majority of the infected were older then to them it was just “old people” who got it.
Then this event happens and the opportunity to go into the streets to protest is just to great to pass up.
If the virus does come back in a second wave I just don’t see young people complying.
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https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/1/21275115/police-violence-coronavirus-response-trust-contact-tracers-effects
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Regarding State violence:
Peaceful people getting lit up by National Gaurdmen while sitting on their front porch. These were pepper balls shot from a rifle not paintball guns that use compressed air. You can see the muzzle flashes in the footage.
Elsewhere NYPD “heros” run over protestors.
Curfews are excuses for State violence.
(https://youtu.be/35Cr8BlPxU4)
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@ MJB
I don’t deny that covid-19 is playing a part in driving the current unrest, but I don’t think it’s the type of major instigator (yet) that Munubantu and I have been discussing. Based on his previous comments, I don’t think he means kids smashing windows because they haven’t been allowed to skateboard.
I’m sure some of the looters have been looting, as Munubantu says, “because much of the financial resources they enjoyed a few months ago, had evaporated during the lockdowns, etc. So the solution was to loot!” But first of all, whenever there have been riots in the USA previously, that’s happened as well: some poor people always seize their opportunity. Secondly, right now far too many of the looters appear to be spoiled white kids out for kicks, not poor people desperate to feed their families.
I feel like the Occupy protests a few years ago were more grounded in economic unrest than this current protest, which is more about racial injustice and police brutality. And I disagree with Munubantu’s conclusion that “Covid-19 is shaking the society upside down in ways we could not expect!” vis-a-vis the demonstrations (not in general) because so far nothing that has happened in these protests seems very unexpected or unusual to me except Trump’s unhinged response.
The USA may yet see widespread unrest, riots, and looting driven by economic instability caused by covid-19, but I don’t think this right now is it.
I believe it’s possible we might actually get some positive changes from this current protest, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve gotten my hopes dashed too many times before.
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What has worked within the PRC domestically for years is being exposed bare face when they try to push their propaganda overseas. Soon the whole world will learn to recognize the “Wumao”.
Coronavirus: Inside the pro-China network targeting the US, Hong Kong and an exiled tycoon
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-52657434
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@ Solitaire
Your observation is well accepted.
I think you are right in observing that many people aren’t unable to distinguish true from counterfeit money and therefore I was wrong in concluding that George Floyd was somehow knowingly using fake money. We can reasonably doubt that. Therefore, it was also incorrect from me, to see the Covid-19 pandemic as the trigger of the recent sequence of events. A contributor probably, but not the trigger.
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ERRATA: …aren’t able…
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@ Jefe
There’s a situation where I live that I’m wondering how it would be handled in Hong Kong (or anywhere else in Asia).
A grocery store employee has tested positive for covid-19. This is not a mom-and-pop store; it is 60,000 square feet with over 100 employees; I would estimate at least 25 working on the floor during any given shift.
How would the authorities determine which employees had enough contact with the infected person that they should be quarantined? In a situation like this one, how many employees would generally end up needing to be quarantined? How would the authorities determine which customers might have been exposed?
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@Solitaire,
I would have to make an educated guess on this, as I am not sure this exact situation has happened in HK. The closest thing might be cluster outbreaks we had at bars or places of worship or wedding banquets.
I think it would be something like this:
The employee who tested positive would immediately be sent to an isolation ward in a hospital away from his/her family and would not be released until after testing negative twice in a row at least 24 hours apart, even if this person never develops symptoms. This might require weeks of hospitalization, even if the person does not feel sick.
Who is a contact might be a bit subjective, but it would likely include any other person who came within 1.5m of the employee within the prior 14 days. Anyone determined to be a contact would be subject to mandatory testing and quarantined until tested, and remain in strictly-enforced quarantine for 14 days after testing negative. This can be at home if the living situation can accommodate it, otherwise they will be sent to a quarantine camp. Those testing positive would go to an isolation ward in a hospital (again, regardless of whether they exhibit symptoms or not).
The store would be shut down for 14 days and be thoroughly disinfected by persons in protective gear. It could be reopened after that period and be staffed by the employees who tested negative and who have completed their quarantine.
It is likely that all 25 employees working the same shift would be treated as a contact to be tested and quarantined, and if the employee worked different shifts with other employees, they should be tested too, as well as any customer they had contact with within 1.5m and any friend, family member, neighbour or other outside person they contacted in the past 14 days. It would not be unusual that a single positive case could trigger a testing and 14-day quarantine of a few hundred people and identifying a few positive cases along the way who would have to remanded to an isolation ward in a hospital and have their contacts traced and tested.
Some contacts may be missed. This is hard to avoid.
In the cluster outbreaks we had in HK, it did trigger hundreds of tests and mandatory quarantine, and identified a few more positive cases along the way.
A single positive case in Seoul last month triggered a batch of testing and quarantine for several thousands of people, as he had spent time in bars, discos and nightclubs while asymptomatically shedding the virus.
Having said that, the rate of testing in HK is lower than NY, NJ and many other US states. It is a very targeted procedure. Over 99% of the rest of the people would go about their daily lives with a face mask, observing hygiene and following whatever social distancing rules applied at the time. There has never been a complete shutdown or shelter-in-place here. The shutdown would be limited to the establishments involved.
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^ It looks like that employer perhaps had not been practicing adequate social distancing rules at the workplace, eg,
require that all employees stay in the same shift as possible. That would immediately reduce potential contacts from 100 to 25. The workplace could be re-arranged to limit contact between persons, say, only allowing groups of 5 other employees to come within 6 ft of any other given employee.
reduce the number of people who interface directly with customers. If there were only, say, 5 employees who interact with customers on a given shift, and the employee who tested positive was not a customer interfacing employee, then by definition, the customers would not be contacts.
Social distancing is not so much about keeping 6 ft apart (that is only the physical distancing aspect of social distancing). It is about reformulating the processes to reduce the number, scale and intensity of social gathering and contact. If you contact only 20 people instead of 100, then you have reduced the potential to spread. Or if you contact once an hour instead of once a minute, then that is also a reduction.
I hope all employees were wearing face masks at all times, and hand sanitizers were available freely throughout the workplace. Any lapse in that may require the scope of contacts to be increased.
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@ Jefe
Thank you for the detailed reply. This is what happened here.
The grocery store did not shut down, not even one day.
The time between the employee’s last shift at the store and the public announcement was over a week. It isn’t clear when exactly the employee tested positive or when the store management found out about the positive result.
After the store found out about the positive result, management hired a third-party vendor to perform deep cleaning and disinfection of the station where that employee worked and common areas like bathrooms and the employee break room, but not the entire store.
Neither the store nor the health department will say what station the employee worked at or which days the employee worked before the day of their last shift.
The health department told the store that none of the other employees needed to be quarantined. It’s unclear if any of those employees have been tested, but since it wasn’t announced that they had been, it seems unlikely.
It is unclear what type of contact tracing, if any, is being done to locate customers of the store who might have come into contact with the infected employee.
The employees are required to wear masks at work, but I’ve witnessed many instances of improper use, such as pulling the masks down to talk or yawn.
A new development this week is the health department stated that some of the newest cases are associated with popular venues, but they won’t name the establishments “to avoid causing panic.”
The department says they are confident about their ability to trace contacts without identifying the venues. But they don’t say how they plan to do this. I know they aren’t using cell phone data like in South Korea.
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@solitaire,
You can now clearly see why the coronavirus still spreads almost unchecked in the community in the US and it does not happen here.
The way that the US officials conduct the the effort to contain the coronavirus spread in the community will cause panic instead of preventing it.
By naming the bars or houses of worship in HK which had cluster outbreaks, the public accepted that they needed to be shut down and people voluntarily showed up to get tested. As such, the cluster outbreaks cause no panic as 99.9% of the public can go about their daily business with the confidence that any outbreak is being contained. After 14 days, everything is fully back to normal, including the establishments that were shut down.
Not so in the US. I don’t see that level of confidence.
In Seoul, all of the establishments where the coronavirus positive patient visited were named publicly and everyone who went to those establishments were asked to come forward and get tested. Those establishment were shut down. One positive case resulted in many thousands of tests and quarantines.
Is there any way to inform the local officials in your area that they are causing panic, not preventing it? that they are allowing the pandemic to spread, not contain it?
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@ Jefe
“Is there any way to inform the local officials in your area that they are causing panic, not preventing it? that they are allowing the pandemic to spread, not contain it?”
I suppose I could call the county health department and tell them that, or even lodge a formal complaint. Maybe I will, but I can’t see what good it will do because they’ve already been questioned by the press and their response is to say they’re following CDC guidelines and upholding HIPAA.
I’m also pretty sure they don’t have enough tests to do that level of testing.
“The way that the US officials conduct the the effort to contain the coronavirus spread in the community will cause panic instead of preventing it.”
Eventually, perhaps. But where I live, at the moment there would probably be more of an uproar if the county tried to shut those places down for 2 weeks. Public sentiment is very strong towards resuming business as usual.
Also, it really isn’t US officials at this point. Everyone here is doing things differently down to the county level.
The federal government told the state governors, “It’s up to you.” Many of the governors told the city and county officials, “It’s up to you.” In some locales, those officials are saying, “It’s up to each individual to decide how best to protect themselves and their families.”
My county health deparrtment is saying that affected businesses have to choose for themselves whether to come forward publicly. A couple counties over, their health department is identifying affected businesses and publishing which days and shifts infected employees worked for the two weeks prior to symptoms or testing positive.
No one is doing the same thing. It’s a clusterfcuk.
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The virus was unofficially acknowledged in China elsewhere than in Wuhan at least since fall-2019.
There are also some leaks/speculations that it could be designed — also as a race-targeting weapon or otherwise — as early as in 2015 in a mode of a Sino-American joing project.
Personally I have seen cases of strange acute ‘atypical’ pneumonia in mainland Russia as early as in 2016, wtih schools and cities quarantined.
Currently, there are perhaps six different types of the virus on the loose around the world.
In short, there is not enough prove to the statement that the viruse had really come from Wuhan.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
(emphasis added)
Uau!!!
This is a very strong statement! A true atom bomb made up of words!
The current wisdom is that the virus appeared first in human populations in China, and from there spread to the rest of the world.
Now you suggest that maybe the virus developed somewhere else and maybe another “invisible” player could have created it!
This is strong indeed!
Some of thinkers/commentators in this blog will not take your words so easily. I remember that even the naming of this virus is disputed in some circles.
Is the 3rd World War already under way?
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@munubantu
Russian and Chinese propaganda = America released COVID-19 on purpose.
That would be quite the own goal since America is now the hardest hit country with 2.1 million cases and 117k deaths.
Frankly, I am open to evidence – even circumstantial – but insinuation is not evidence. If there is not sufficient evidence the virus originated in the city with the earliest confirmed large outbreak then one must imagine that the available evidence for another epicenter is even weaker.
Anyway, I was coming here to post this link.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/beijing-wholesale-market-temporarily-shut-new-covid-19-cases-12832006
America has also seen spikes in infections as lockdowns eased in some states. I guess it’s fatigue but even though the virus has fallen out of the news a bit, it is still with us.
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https://nltimes.nl/2020/06/12/shocking-nearly-recovered-covid-19-health-issues-months-later
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@ Origin
Thanks for sharing that link. COVID-19 is a different bug altogether with lingering effects.
Yet, there are still plenty of people who don’t take the virus seriously.
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@ Origin
@ Afrofem
Just speculating – I’m totally a layman in health related issues – but it apparently shows that the spectrum from asymptomatic to severe ill carriers of the virus has no line telling two groups apart but more likely a continuum whereby at one extremity we have the almost purely asymptomatic and at the other end the totally fragile, and many other possibilities in between.
How severely are the lungs affected (destroyed?) can be the variable changing across the spectrum. Probably correlated to age and how healthy were the individuals before becoming infected.
Just a speculation.
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@ munubantu
Your “continuum” hypothesis is worth considering. Especially when you realize that the primary objective of the virus is to spread and replicate. Asymtomatic carriers/transmission certainly furthers that objective.
Attacking the most vulnerable—“the totally fragile”—also helps the virus move from one host to another. Persons with co-morbidities like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, compromised immune systems and impaired lung function are less able to fight the virus. They provide launch pads to other hosts.
I’m not sure about Mozambique, but large swathes of the US population are in poor health even in the best of times. According to a University of North Carolina study:
https://www.unc.edu/posts/2018/11/28/only-12-percent-of-american-adults-are-metabolically-healthy-carolina-study-finds/
The US public health system is underfunded and in tatters. Americans lack a national health program. Nearly all US healthcare is for-profit and priced out of the reach of many Americans.
I could go on about high fat, high salt, high sugar diets devoid of vegetables or fiber Americans favor, but you get the picture. Or sleep deprivation. Lack of exercise. Chemical pollution of the water, air and soil of the USA. Constant stress.
There are many factors as to why COVID-19 is doing such damage in the US and that is before we talk about political bungling at the highest levels of government.
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@munubantu
The current wisdom is that the virus appeared first in human populations in China, and from there spread to the rest of the world.
Now you suggest that maybe the virus developed somewhere else and maybe another “invisible” player could have created it!
This is strong indeed!
Some of thinkers/commentators in this blog will not take your words so easily. I remember that even the naming of this virus is disputed in some circles.
Is the 3rd World War already under way?
Well, here is an article of Chinese-American joint venture dedicated to virus construction. This one is dated by 2015.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
But, as Origin said, this could be a touch of Russian propaganda, too. I was not present there standing by those bat lovers.
What I have however experienced in person are the facts that:
No later than in 2017 there already have been cases of ‘strange’ lung infection epidemics in NW Russia with lockdown of schoold transferred into distant education mode, and I have experienced what is now described as one of 6 subtypes of COVID virus.
As early as in October 2019 my Chinese friends warned me about ‘strange’ infections when I was in mainlaind China.
Therefore, the ‘official’ data doesn’t match the fact. To answer your question — yes, according to POV of some players, the WWW III has already been unleashed.One of the players who has declared it sees it as a war between ‘new social classes’, e.g. ‘corporatocracy’ VS ‘financist’.
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@ Afrofem
“Persons with co-morbidities like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, compromised immune systems and impaired lung function are less able to fight the virus. They provide launch pads to other hosts.”
(Fair warning: This is going to probably border on a rant.)
One thing I’m finding immensely frustrating is the slogan coming from the back-to-normal-posthaste crowd of “Protect the vulnerable, and let the rest of us get on with our lives.” But when asked what they mean by “protect the vulnerable,” they start talking about keeping assisted living centers and nursing homes locked down. There seems to be no recognition of the fact that many of the vulnerable walk among them every day. That “the vulnerable” can be of any age. That “the vulnerable” go to school or work right alongside them.
I’m hearing a lot of talk about reopening schools, from pre-K to the universities, with absolutely no discussion of how to protect the vulnerable. What about students who have asthma? We have a virtual epidemic of childhood asthma in this country, and the numbers skew higher for communities of color. What contingencies are we setting up for those students? Or for students who have a parent or other family member in their household who is high-risk?
How are we protecting the diabetics? the cancer survivors? recipients of organ transplants? people with hypertension or other cardiovascular issues? The answer is, we aren’t.
Either these pundits (and the average joes who parrot them) think everyone with a pre-existing condition is an invalid in a nursing home, or they know better but just don’t care. Collateral damage? Acceptable losses? Is that what they’re really thinking privately to themselves???
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@ Solitaire
Agreed. 87.8 percent of the US population is vulnerable/”fragile” in one way or the other.
I just hope the survivors of the pandemic remember the ruling class figures who thought their loved ones were expendable. The core question is “acceptable losses” for whom?
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“Collateral damage? Acceptable losses? Is that what they’re really thinking privately to themselves???”
Yes. I said something similar in another thread at the beginning of this whole thing. When privileged people that don’t recognize how well off they actually are weigh a 10% chance of death against a life spent locked up in their home without social interaction or a means of income to acquire more stuff and recreation… they would rather let evolution run it’s course than live a joyless existence.
They won’t articulate it like that though… they’ll go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to rationalize getting “back to normal”. But, at the end of the day, I think most people fear change more than death and the prospect of society fundamentally changing and essentially resetting the game of life for them is just too much to accept.
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@ Open Minded Observer
So is “protect the vulnerable” just part of the mental gymnastics? Is that why the PTB don’t bother explaining exactly how that’s going to happen, and why the average joes who parrot the phrase don’t appear to ever think about the vulnerable who aren’t in residential facilities?
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@Solitaire
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. “The vulnerable” are simply a nameless, faceless “other” in their minds. At most, it’s their parents or grandparents that aren’t necessarily a part of their daily lives anyway but I honestly doubt many think that deeply .
But honestly, there’s a “survival of the fittest” pragmatism to the thought process too. These, largely Republican, people are always about “winning” and power and selfishness and all of those drivers that allow them to assign much less value to their fellow human beings.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-brazil-killing-young-developing-world/2020/05/22/f76d83e8-99e9-11ea-ad79-eef7cd734641_story.html
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U.S. health officials quitting due to burnout, politicizing of the pandemic, and death threats:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/us/health-officials-threats-coronavirus/index.html
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n Florida the average age of infection dropped from 60 to 37 years of age. That said 83% of people who died there were over 65.
I think the lower age is the result of more testing and means the beginnings of herd immunity. The majority of deaths are still over 65 and that should mean that for the general population Codvit is still dangerous but not necessarily life threatening.
In California we are still wearing masks but we are opening up with social distancing. The number of infections are climbing here again but hospital beds that are available still remains stable.
It seems the protests has not produced large spikes so we shall see.
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IIRC there was a reference up-thread saying that more than 50% of the population would need to get COVID-19 for there to be herd immunity. That’s 100s of millions of Americans. 100 times the current confirmed 2.43 million cases would be 243 million but if the deaths increased by the same proportion we’ll have 120k * 100 = 12 million deaths by that point.
Infection rate are going up once more and hospitals in some cities (eg. Houston) are getting stressed again. America has just recorded the highest one day increase in cases ever.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/24/americans-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-increase
The South has become the COVID-19 hotspot now and some NE states have implemented mandatory quarantine for people coming from Florida and other hotspots.
I’ve heard arguments that life must go on and the disease must run its course but many are resisting means of mitigation that are not that onerous (eg. wearing masks). The disruption to society as a result of many people getting sick at once would be immense even if most don’t die, and the risk of dying – even from unrelated causes – goes up as healthcare services are burdened.
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We still don’t know if having covid-19 even confers immunity, whether permanent or temporary, and if the latter how long the immunity lasts. There have been educated guesses and rough estimates, but no one really knows yet.
and
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/without-a-vaccine-herd-immunity-wont-save-us/
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@ Origin
Agreed.
In my country the government didn’t opt for a lockdown but for an emergency state where partial or total restrictions were imposed to some activities. For example restaurants can receive clients but only if social distance measures are respected. But bars were closed. And schools as well as churches and places dedicated to cult too. A shift work regime was imposed in all public institutions to reduce to a minimum the number of public servants being side by side in their offices. And above all, a vigorous campaign was carried out to convince people to stay at home as long as possible, to ware masks when in public, wash or hygienize hands oft, etc.
Except for the services that were forced to close I don’t see that this way of life can be difficult to follow, and therefore, I don’t get when people manifest discomfort and sound as if we should go out of it as soon as possible. I think some people don’t know what real problems are, and are unable to evaluate and compare in abstract different situations (before they are fully in!). It’s a pity!
@ Solitaire
I find very curious the coincidence that at the same moment that I see the last comments at this thread, at home I follow debates of issues related to herd immunity and what somebody dubbed in discussions in our social media networks as the way forward in the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning that we must go past the time when we thought it could be possible to stop the spread of the disease and, therefore, we should look at the days ahead living inside it!.*
A local doctor asks if we were not too busy trying to follow what the developed nations were doing (and in doing so, showing a ‘dependence mentality’) trying to stop a natural spread and if we should not instead open up the schools immediately so that our children would catch that virus ‘en masse’ and neutralize it rapidly, building in the process the needed herd immunity.
He argued also that Europeans were too old and this was the reason they were dying in large numbers. We, Africans, were much younger and therefore should not care that much.*
The issue let me curious about the real impacts this pandemic is having in the different corners of the world and as a numbers lover I went to the webpage worldometers.info/coronavirus and copied its data to an Excel spreadsheet to make some calculations and figure out if the differences were so great as some people pretend they are.
In the cited webpage we have some relevant numbers per country, like:
To obtain significant results I restricted myself to countries where the number of tests were already at tens of thousands. The data pertains to June, 22th 2020.
My focus was the ratio between number of deaths and number of cases. This is the best proxy of the fatality rate** of this disease we can have, until widespread seroprevalence surveys are carried out in many countries. The question is: how different is the fatality rate in different countries and regions?
Below are a sample of the results.
A. Europe:
Portugal = 3.9%
France = 18.5%
Netherlands = 12.3%
Sweden = 8.7%
United Kingdom = 14.0%
Italy = 14.5%
Spain = 9.6%
Russia = 1.4%
B. Americas:
USA = 5.1%
Canada = 8.3%
Brazil = 4.6%
Mexico = 12.2%
Argentina = 2.3%
Cuba = 3.7%
C. Asia:
China = 5.6%
Hong Kong = 0.4%
Taiwan = 1.6%
South Coreia = 2.3%
Japan = 5.3%
India = 3.2%
Philippines = 3.8%
Saudi Arabia = 0.8%
D. Oceania:
Australia = 1.4%
New Zealand = 1.5%
Indonesia = 5.3%
E. Africa:
Mozambique = 0.7%
South Africa = 2.0%
Nigeria = 2.5%
Ethiopia = 1.6%
Ghana = 0.6%
Kenya = 2.6%
Uganda = 0.0%
Madagascar = 0.9%
Mauritius = 2.9%
Botswana = 1.1%
Eswatini = 0.9%
Egypt = 4.0%
Algeria = 7.1%
Morocco = 2.1%
Tunisia = 4.3%
The numbers allow us to draw some preliminary conclusions.
First: it’s obvious that there is some partial clustering around different regions.
Second: Europe tends to have a higher incidence of deaths. Russia is a significant outlier.
Third: Africa has at least two different clusters that roughly corresponds to North and South of the Sahara respectively. The region South of the Sahara tends to have the lower incidence of deaths, but Oceania is similar, with exception of Indonesia. The region North of the Sahara is similar to Asia.
Fourth: The Americas are below Europe and above Africa.
Fifth: The ratio in the different regions varies from as low as below 1 and as high as close to 20 percent.
So it seems that truly, Africans die in lower numbers, when infected, than Europeans, what, probably reflects their different age pyramid. But the differences should not be exaggerated and the danger of death by the novel coronavirus is high for them, nevertheless. Therefore, I would suggest to my fellow citizens to remain on the alert regarding this disease, because to let it spread wildly will only create a lot of suffering.
Better be wise than foolish!
*Those positions are not shared by our health care authorities and by the majority of our health professionals. These professionals are trying to contain the spread of the disease as far and long as they can to prevent a overrun of our health care system and the suffering of the population.
**The true fatality rate represents the ratio of all deaths provoked by the disease and all the infected (registered as well as not registered). It’s not exactly the same as the numbers calculated above, where only registered cases and deaths are taken in account. Therefore the numbers listed above are only a proxy of the true fatality rates.
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In Texas the numbers are skyrocketing exponentially. The Republican Governor of Texas has put the lives of Black Americans in jeopardy. The Governor sacrificed human life for the economy. The Federal government by orders from Covid 45 (Trump) will be pulling out funds for testing. When America gets the flu, Black Americans get pneumonia. Governor Gregg Abbot is an imbecile.
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The Trump administration as well as the Governor of Texas, Gregg Abbot are committing “Democide” death by the government. Trump has removed federal aid for testing in Texas, and there are now no more hospital beds left in Houston, Texas, the state of Texas will soon be on lock down.
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@ Mary
I agree. This counts as democide, as mass murder.
From the democide post:
More:
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https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-reopen-maryland-co-founder-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-20200626-v4tbkkzitbcuxhjwdhx7vfvef4-story.html
It’s funny that he called the virus “capricious” when he went out of his way to catch it and succeeded. It’s not like he took precautions and caught it anyway.
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@Mary
The US response has been so terrible that few countries compare. If Bolsonaro (of Brazil) didn’t exist there wouldn’t be much close competition. In terms of a botched response to an emergency, it’s Trump’s Katrina on an even larger scale.
(Saying that reminded me that it’s Hurricane Season and many of the Southern states where COVID-19 is surging now are prone to the storms. One can only hope people won’t have to evacuate to shelters in the midst of this …)
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“But it later came out that Mao did not care – that the Communist Party had to force him to change course! So Rummel now counts it as democide.”
Ok, how did they find out that “Mao did not care”?
“that the Communist Party had to force him to change course!”
So much for the claim that it’s a dictatorship.
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Well, this is scary.
Some covid-19 patients in Britain have developed new-onset altered mental status “including brain inflammation, psychosis, and dementia-like symptoms.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/87273
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@ Solitaire
Since covid-19 can affect the sense of taste or smell, it is not surprising that it might have more serious effects on the brain.
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And to add to Solitaire’s post:
This is the disease that so many people are taking lightly.
It’s like a slow-motion disaster movie, IMO.
We’re still in the part where the persons who insist that the available science demands caution are seen as alarmist.
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@ Origin
Agree with your analogy … but I saw another good one recently that suggests we’re trapped in a time travel movie where the person from the future keeps coming back to try to fix 2020, but every change messes up something else.
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@Solitaire
2020 has certainly been eventful up to the halfway mark.
Anyway, another study on SARS-Cov2’s potential versatility.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200630155745.htm
Whether it’s happening in naturally acquired infections is not 100% clear but the virus has the ability to directly attack cardiac cells.
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Covid-19: Evidence of effects on ‘many organ systems’, long-term damage
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/420116/covid-19-evidence-of-effects-on-many-organ-systems-long-term-damage
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Update
Covid-19 pandemic; situation in Mozambique
The month of June was bad and the prospects regarding the control of the spread of Covid-19 in the country are now quite disturbing.
The numbers of positive cases is now standing at 903 (data from July, 1st) from 30,273 tests carried out since the beginning of the epidemic in May.
This is 3.6 higher than the number of cases registered until June, 1st. This rate of grow is quite high and should give our national authorities matter to think about. Something is failing in the awareness campaigns carried out so far. Something must change.
The ratio between the number of positive cases and the total of tests is about 3.0%. This is higher than one month ago (was about 2.3%) and testifies of the spread of the disease in the population.
A relative good new is that the extra mortality caused by this disease remains low. With 6 deaths only, the mortality rate is approximately 0.7%.
Following the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, our health authorities declared in the beginning of June that at least in two cities, namely Nampula (the 3rd larger urban center in the country,by population) and Pemba, the epidemic has already evolved to the community transmission status. For the rest of the country we remain at the level of discrete chains of the transmission (a lower status than community transmission).
A first epidemiological survey was carried out in the city of Nampula (using blood tests; serological tests) targeting slightly more than 6,200 individuals. The results show that approximately 4.8% of the city is (was) positive (that city has around 800 thousand people).
The survey gives already some hints regarding the distribution of the disease by occupational strata of the urban society. In the first place – meaning, worst hit – are the class of vendors (mostly informal or semi-formal) then health care workers followed by the people working in the transportation sector.
Last Sunday our President announced the continuation of the state of emergency for one month more (July). He made a balance of our path so far and said that schools will open during the current month in a phased way, although restrictions for other sectors remain. The Ministry of Health will monitor closely the process. Even then, I see this development as worrisome, given the current rates of growth of the epidemic. It appears that some lobbies pressuring for a wider reopening of the economic activities are behind this decision. I see this as a fundamental mistake and I estimate that if the current trends remain unabated until the end of this year we can reach more than 1 million registered cases with more than 8 thousand deaths. I ask myself if our epidemiologists haven’t shown this to our President.
I notice that most people I know, are not as worried as I am, and always they point to other countries saying that we are in a good position, so why bother. For example our large neighbor, the Republic of South Africa, has registered until yesterday, 159,333 cases, a much larger number than ours for sure. But the problem is that it seems that we are in the same road of growth of the epidemic as them, but only four to six months behind them. And in merely two months from now our health care services will be overburdened if current trends prevail. This, most people don’t seem to grasp.
We should try keep this disease from spread. This should be our goal. Or at least try to reduce considerably the current rates of its spread.
At it is, I’m not optimist anymore. From now on it’s each one by him(her)self. Only individual discipline will save each one of us. It’s time to tighten the appropriate measures governing the lifestyle inside my household.
Probably I’ll not write new updates related to the epidemic of the novel coronavirus in Mozambique. I’m done.
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ERRATA:
Must be:
“since the beginning of the epidemic in March.”
instead of:
“since the beginning of the epidemic in May.”
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Herman Cain, I don’t know how many remember him, but he spoke proudly about attending the Trump Tulsa rally without a mask. Recall that the guy is 74 and is in the high-risk age group.
Well, he’s hospitalized with coronavirus now.
This may sound weird, but my relationship with this virus is getting complicated. I think I detect the slight beginnings of a crush ❤ lol.
Seriously though, it’s kind of refreshing to see the consequences of stupidity and the peddling of arrogant ignorance strike with such rapidity. I’m tired of the post-fact discourse and the endless spin. It turns out that you can’t gaslight a disease and it doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not. By turning medical advice into a political issue, these imbeciles have used their platform and visibility to encourage thousands of Americans to put themselves at risk. It is irresponsible and disgusting and they deserve whatever consequences that follow, AFAIC.
There are reports that people who took CV seriously actually made a difference.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/01/health/covid-19-staying-home-saved-lives-wellness/index.html
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@ Munubantu
“Probably I’ll not write new updates related to the epidemic of the novel coronavirus in Mozambique. I’m done.”
I respect your right to make this decision, but I hope you will reconsider. I find your updates very interesting and valuable, and I’m sure that I’m not alone.
It’s one thing to read in the news about Africa’s experience with the coronavirus (and most articles here about the pandemic do look at Africa as a whole, not focusing on specific nations except for sometimes South Africa). It’s a completely different thing to read a firsthand account from someone we all know, in a country that rarely receives any press attention in the USA.
“I notice that most people I know, are not as worried as I am, and always they point to other countries saying that we are in a good position, so why bother.”
If you have not done so already, you might point out that in February there were only 15 cases in the USA and most people here thought we were in a very good position compared to China or Italy, so why bother. Now the virus is raging out of control and we have over 100,000 dead. It did not have to be this way, if we had only followed the path of those nations who did a much better job of containment — which we didn’t do partly because we weren’t worried until it was too late.
“Something is failing in the awareness campaigns carried out so far. Something must change.”
&
“This, most people don’t seem to grasp.”
I think one of the huge hurdles with public perception is the lag time of this disease. If people went to a party or bar or concert and got exposed to covid-19, and the next day many began feeling very sick, and in the next couple of days some were admitted to the hospital, and before the end of the week some of them had died, I think it would be much clearer to most of the population how dangerous this virus is.
Instead, it moves much more slowly. The scientists say it can take up to two weeks after exposure for someone to even start feeling sick. It can take another week or more before some of these people become ill enough to be hospitalized. If they are sick enough to be put on a ventilator, the average time they are on it is about 7 to 10 days. It would not be unusual for a sick person to live for a month or more before finally succumbing to the disease. Therefore the death rate also lags well behind the date of infection.
This means that the consequences of reopening, relaxing social distancing, and so forth are not quickly evident. And we as humans have trouble getting our heads around that.
Even when someone knows there is a long lag time, it is difficult to stay cautious when the current numbers look good. For example:
My state began reopening at the start of May, so for about two months now, various businesses have been opening back up and many government-mandated precautions have been lifted.
Back in early May, those of us who were cautious and skeptical said to each other, “Well, we should know in two weeks.” Because that’s the number we kept hearing from the medical professionals.
Instead, two weeks later, things looked fairly good. We weren’t having a steep decline in cases, but neither were they rising. We continued like this pretty much the entire month of May, at a plateau for the number of new cases and with the death rate actually decreasing.
And I have to admit, by the end of May, I began to wonder if I was being too cautious. I badly needed a haircut, and now the beauty salons were open again. I needed to get my eyeglasses tightened and readjusted. I was overdue for my dental checkup. I had cancelled a trip to my hometown in March due to the lockdown, and I really wanted to go see my family. Maybe I was being too afraid. The statistics were much better than I had anticipated they would be. Other people were going out and doing these types of things.
But I decided to wait a little longer, and by mid-June the numbers were starting to get worse, and now they are sky-rocketing. Those numbers reflect what was really happening in my state at the end of May, how rapidly the virus was spreading after everything opened up. But back during late May, we didn’t know it was that bad.
The lag time makes it very difficult to correctly estimate risks unless someone is constantly keeping that factor in mind and not making decisions based on the current status of the statistics — which is something humans just aren’t hard-wired to do.
“At it is, I’m not optimist anymore.”
I fully understand. I do remain somewhat optimistic that we may develop an effective vaccine soon enough to make a difference.
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Here’s another suggestion by a scientist that the virus’ emergence could have been shepherded by the human hand.
https://www.minervanett.no/corona/the-most-logical-explanation-is-that-it-comes-from-a-laboratory/361860
Excerpts:
The crux of his argument is that it is highly unlikely that a virus which was primarily infecting animals in nature would have picked up so many stable genetic mutations that just happen to make it extremely effective at sickening humans [and also capable of infecting pet dogs and cats, and lions and tigers in zoos and mink in farms: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html%5D while remaining rare/undetectable in the wild. SARS-Cov-2 is super-infectious, was discovered in humans first, and primarily infects animals that are in contact with humans. According to Sørensen, if you claim some other animal passed it to humans you have the burden of proof. I agree at this point.
IMO, the political and scientific ramifications prevents this line of inquiry from being dispassionately pursued. That’s understandable, because it would mean that the CCP’s virology researchers unleashed a deadly plague on mankind (possibly accidentally) and covered it up.
I think that a positive outcome of openly discussing the virus’ possible lab origin would be that it would probably get people to take it more seriously. In the beginning, authorities were trying to reduce panic but they worked on that so hard that the public has swung in the direction of complacency. If people really understood that this thing has human cells directly in its crosshairs perhaps we’d see a higher level of respect for it.
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The CDC link above is broken because I didn’t put a space before the square bracket and it got incorporated into the URL. If you click the link, take the square bracket off the end (in the address bar) and it should work.
As for the vaccine stuff, I tend to be skeptical of initial reports. IMO, much of the optimism is for the benefit of the stock market and the economy. Every step in vaccine development is reported on as if it means that an effective vaccine will be available soon. Even after a major breakthrough such as antibody production being triggered by a vaccine, the vaccine still has to be tested to ensure that it is safe and actually prevents infection.
For example, there was this report in April:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/covid-19-vaccine-protects-monkeys-new-coronavirus-chinese-biotech-reports
Now I’m seeing a report from May that additional data throws the above into doubt:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/05/16/did-the-oxford-covid-vaccine-work-in-monkeys-not-really/#44e4a5e13c71
So it’s not nearly the amazing breakthrough it was initially claimed to be. It’s good that the monkeys did not experience ADE (wherein the disease gets worse as a result of the vaccination attempt) but there’s still a possibility ADE could be triggered in humans. IIRC, experience with SARS also showed that the concentration of antibodies was relevant to whether ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) was triggered with ADE being more likely at lower levels.
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Meanwhile the FDA is saying that a COVID-19 vaccine must be at least 50% more effective that a placebo to be approved.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/FDA-will-require-a-covid-19-vaccine-be-at-least-15377623.php
Is it just me or does that seem like a pretty low bar? Basically, you get the vaccine and it’s a coin flip as to whether you will get less sick when exposed to the virus. That’s considered good enough? If you were told that a vaccine had such mediocre effectiveness, would you be comfortable resuming “like as normal” after getting it or would you still go out less and wear a mask?
IMO, there is a legitimate concern about politicization of vaccine approval.
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@ Origin
“IMO, much of the optimism is for the benefit of the stock market and the economy. Every step in vaccine development is reported on as if it means that an effective vaccine will be available soon.”
Oh, I definitely agree. By using the wording “soon enough to make a difference” I was intentionally avoiding putting a timeline to it. I’ve been very skeptical about the pronunciations that we will have a safe and effective vaccine by the end of this year, and I’ve been upset that the press is just parroting this line without question.
I suppose it depends on which movie we’re stuck in. Do the valiant scientists save humanity in the nick of time with their breakthrough vaccine (roll credits)? Or does the vaccine turn people into brain-eating zombies at the halfway mark? Hold tight to your popcorn as this rollercoaster of suspense barrels its way to a city near you.
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@Solitaire
Yeah, I got it. I wasn’t really rebutting you, just sort of riffing off what you said to express my thoughts on it.
Of course, there could be a breakthrough. Bright minds the world over are working on the problem and there are real economic incentives – on multiple levels – to solve it. However HIV has shown that a clever virus can resist money, motivation, time, and scientific expertise.
I’m in “I’ll believe it when I see it” mode and I’ll have a microscope at the ready to read the print.
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Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is Donald Trump Junior’s girlfriend and a Trump campaign official has tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the South Dakota rally.
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@ Origin
I’ve been skeptical of the human-created virus theory, although never fully ruling it out. The interview you linked to does bring up some intriguing points. If he’s correct, this could explain why covid-19 acts so different and attacks multiple organ systems, not just the respiratory. It could have been designed that way.
I’m not ready to say the coronavirus isn’t present in wild animals, though. Just because we’re not seeing it now doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I don’t think anyone’s spending a lot of time trying to track the virus in the wild right now. And IIRC it took considerable time before scientists figured out HIV had jumped from chimpanzees to humans. It wasn’t like chimps were suddenly dying left and right.
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@Solitaire
“I’m not ready to say the coronavirus isn’t present in wild animals, though. Just because we’re not seeing it now doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
I think his points are twofold:
1) The virus has several mutations not found in any other coronavirus that make it particularly good at infecting human cells. It seems unlikely that it would randomly gain those particular stable mutations while it was infecting an animal population.
2) Since it is as infectious as it is, it is a mystery that it hasn’t been found in the wild.Therefore if someone claims it comes from some unknown creature it is their burden to find it. He doesn’t see why that perspective should be privileged when there is no evidence.
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Rudy Gobert – an NBA player who famously touched all the mics in a conference room as a way of mocking the coronavirus only to be diagnosed with it later – still hasn’t fully regained his sense of smell after being diagnosed in March.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/rudy-gobert-says-he-hasnt-fully-recovered-his-sense-of-smell-after-the-coronavirus/ar-BB164CDY
There is another story suggesting that the senses could take a while to return or fail to fully recover for some people.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/some-covid-patients-wont-recover-taste-smell-study-finds
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The science around this novel coronavirus is evolving.
Until now I’ve heard that children do not become sick when contracting the virus, but can transmit to other people, including other children and adults.
Now I see somebody citing a body of new knowledge disputing that wisdom.
This is not a small thing. Until now I’ve been against the reopening of schools in my own country because I fear that that will lead to an acceleration in the rates of transmission which are already high right now.
See the argument of an USA senator and an unconvincing reaction of Dr Faucci regarding the issue.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR7r0gG0rjQ)
Where is the truth?
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The novel coronavirus was circulating in Brazil already in November, 2019, researchers found. See,
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200701/SARS-CoV-2-circulating-in-Brazil-back-in-November-2019.aspx
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-03/COVID-19-virus-found-in-November-sewage-water-samples-in-Brazil-RORhEVcqYw/index.html
Probably this explains why when the counting of the “cases” in this country initiated, rapidly exploded. It’s not just Bolsonaro fault! The microscopic devil was already there spreading, months before the first official notification!
After France and Italy this is again another place outside China where this virus was circulating back in November, last year.
Is this not something that should press all of us to reconsider our certainties about the true origins (place? time?) of this virus??
Huh, and the commentator Dus’khor Dechen cited possible earlier traces of it in Russia in 2016, “Personally I have seen cases of strange acute ‘atypical’ pneumonia in mainland Russia as early as in 2016, wtih schools and cities quarantined.” ( see the message, https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/?unapproved=451993&moderation-hash=713ec67b4e8869d8e1eb0a4a5b16768e#comment-445500 )
For somebody of my age, who watched the whole HIV/AIDS story beginning in the 80’s and pointing to the USA as the source of the disease, at first, and later evolving to finally (?) pointing to some place in Central Africa, it is interesting to wait and see how this quest of origin will end up for the novel coronavirus.
I’ve seen some comments touching this issue above at this thread but frankly now I’m beginning to wonder where the truth lays.
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It’s a good thing that France, Italy and Brazil are being so transparent. Will Chinese authorities also tell us if the Sars-CoV-2 virus was circulating in Wuhan’s sewage before they reported their first sick people?
It would be interesting to compare apples to apples.
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@ Munubantu
I think the jury’s still out:
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/trending/more-than-300-children-texas-day-cares-test-positive-covid-19-juvenile-cases-spike-report/CLBL7LSAJZG2BGLYHNH4XFYWYI/
https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/coronavirus-cases-jump-among-children-in-florida/
(cont.)
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https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2020/jun/29/covid-19-cases-spike-tennessee-department-chi/526452/
<
blockquote>As summer camps debated whether and how to operate during the coronavirus pandemic this spring, Kanakuk Kamps, a prominent network of Christian sports camps in Missouri, announced that its five overnight camps would open to over 20,000 kids starting May 30….
On Wednesday [July 1], parents were notified by email that one of the camps, known as K-2, was shutting down…. 41 campers, counselors and staff members had tested positive for COVID-19….
“In some ways, especially the day camp scenario is kind of a dry run for school,” [Dr. David] Cennimo [an infectious disease expert at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School] said. “And if we’re not able to pull off day camps, I don’t know how we open schools.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/keeping-covid-19-outside-summer-camps-near-impossible-challenge-n1232916
Also, a couple things that may lend perspective about the video:
⚬The senator, Rand Paul, is an ultra-libertarian who in 2015 argued that parents should not be required to vaccinate their children.
⚬Dr. Fauci didn’t really have a good chance to fully respond to Rand Paul because of time constraints. You may have noticed that Fauci begins by asking the chairperson to be allowed a little time for a reply. The reason is because Paul used up the entire 5-minute allotment (and then some) posing his question. If he had really wanted an answer, he would have kept his question short. What he actually wanted was to get all those studies he cited into the congressional record of the hearing without allowing Fauci time for a detailed response.
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@ Solitaire
Thanks for your comment.
I’m very interested in this topic as you can understand.
One of the specialists mentioned by the senator (see the video-clip in my message above) is Dr Joshua Sharfstein.
I searched for any of Sharfstein’s ideas or contributions to this topic and I found this, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/coronavirus-schools.html
Reading this article doesn’t support what senator Rand Paul said in his intervention.
The authors of said article presented a more nuanced view of the process of reopening of schools. They are in favor of reopening of schools but alert of the precautions needed to carry out such process while minimizing potential problems related to the spread of Covid-19.
I’m glad that the government of Mozambique seems to follow a similar approach in its move to reopen schools.
So, reopen yes, but be ultra-cautious in the process!
Personally, I would like to see the reopening of schools in Mozambique to wait until next year, but let’s see if with appropriate cautionary measures it can be done immediately without an acceleration of the spread of Covid-19 in the community.
One positive thing about that government, in the way they are handling this pandemic, is that they are open to walk back from certain measures if things do not work as they predicted.
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This is scary!
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/coronavirus-airborne-transmission-letter/index.html
This “microscopic devil” is haunting us in many different ways.
An extra reason why wearing face masks should be mandatory! To prevent the virus coming from the mouth or nose of an infected person to easily float through the air and potentially infect others!
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Brazil’s leader, Jair Bolsonaro, who really hasn’t been taking the disease seriously, recently tested positive.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-positive-coronavirus-intl/index.html
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@ Origin
Yes.
In the lusosphere (Portuguese officially speaking countries) we were closely following the latest developments of Bolsonaro’s health.
One can say that he invited the disease to himself, but I hope he will be able to overcome it and become more serious in the future in dealing with it, at personnel and social level.
But I’m not very optimistic and the case of the British Primer Minister who also was firstly dismissive of the disease and later got it himself, makes me been cautious at this point. Boris Johnson retained essentially the same policies vis a vis this epidemic as he had before. He tends to give more weight to the economy when it comes to deal with the impacts of Covid-19.
Probably Bolsonaro will do the same, in case he survives the disease. But maybe he will understand that real people of flesh and bones are suffering because of this disease.
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@munubantu
Yes, I agree that Bolsonaro seems very bullheaded and unlikely to change.
In fact, I just saw this news report on what he did AFTER he was diagnosed with the disease:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-press-covid-19-intl/index.html
@Solitaire
Many were warning about Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to managing the disease and the outcome is just as they expected. Furthermore, their economy is contracting anyway as people die in excess. The same thing is happening here in America where the rush to reopen has resulted in a surge of cases and hospitalizations in our most populated states.
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And now we have this,
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/asia/kazakhstan-pneumonia-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html
Are we ready?
It seems frankly that parts of East Eurasia have become in the last decades a breeding ground of new (or old?) kinds of acute pneumonia with the capability to wrought havoc to humans.
I hope that this time the World Health Organisation (WHO), Kazakhstan and neighbor countries will be able to effectively control the spread of this new disease.
These news lend credit to what commentator Dus’khor Dechen said at this thread above, namely
( see the message, https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/?unapproved=451993&moderation-hash=713ec67b4e8869d8e1eb0a4a5b16768e#comment-445500 )
What is that we don’t know yet regarding this part of the world?
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Oh great… /sarc
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-brain-damage/a-54111054
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The numbers are exponentially growing in Texas. White people are having temper tantrums because they are asked to wear mask. These ignorant, selfish people don’t care about infecting or making someone else sick that could be fatal to someone else. The numbers are climbing in Florida and Disney World is opening up. In Houston, Texas the hospitals are overrun and Texas is starting to look like New York back in March. When school children will be forced to return in August, there will be sick children and teachers. The Black community will be greatly affected and it will be fatal.
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Opening up schools is a grave mistake. It’s unrealistic to expect young children to be conscious about wearing mask and social distancing. Children and teachers will get infected and take these infections to their families. I am hoping parents will keep their children home and teachers will not return to classrooms.
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After 137,402 deaths from COVID-19, Trump finally wears a mask 😷
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Forcing schools to open in a pandemic is child abuse.
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First confirmed case of transmission before birth, in Texas:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-transmitted-womb.amp
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@ Mary Burrell
I have read in several places that according to federal data, nearly one-third of public school teachers are 50+, putting them in the high-risk age group.
Adding in private schools (whose numbers of 50+ teachers are even higher, over 35 percent), the estimate is that half a million teachers are 50 or older.
This number does not include teachers under 50 who are medically vulnerable, nor does it include post-secondary instructors and professors.
The people pushing a full return to school keep talking about the emotional and social impacts of isolation on the children, but how will they be impacted if they go back to school and their teachers start to die?
This quote is from a recent article about three Arizona teachers who got sick with the coronavirus this summer, one of whom passed away:
https://amp.azcentral.com/amp/5405651002
FYI for those who don’t read the full article, the teacher who died was Hispanic; her full name was Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd. She was 61 years old and had asthma. She taught first grade.
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@ Origin
This is true, but the article pointed out that Sweden’s economy also took a hit because so many other nations were in lockdown. Sweden isn’t entirely self-sufficient and their economy isn’t self-contained. Their supply chains broke down on all stages of production, distribution, and trade.
This was not a factor I had anticipated, although in retrospect it seems like a no-brainer. In the modern global economy, very few nations (if any) can keep up and running at full capacity on their own.
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@ Mary Burrell
I saw somewhere (wish I could remember the source) that Trump and the Repubs want to re-open schools for two reasons:
❍ to force parents back to work. In some states, parents with children at home from school qualify for unemployement benefits.
❍ to make things seem “normal” before the November elections, increasing the likelihood of Trump’s numbers surging ahead in September and October.
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With regards to in person schools? They’re saying cubicles? Could you imagine being a 7th grade boy masked up all day? And how bout lunch and recess?
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“Há males que vêm por bem.”
This proverb in Portuguese language, that can be translated to “There are evils that come for good”, came to my mind when reading the following article about the news in the field of development of vaccines for Covid-19.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/17/americas/brazil-covid-19-vaccine-trials-intl/index.html
The bad part is known for months: Brazil has one of the highest level of infection by the novel coronavirus in the world.
The good part is: Brazil offers the best conditions worldwide for testing new vaccines, namely, a community level transmission of the disease with high infection rate and a very good scientific, technical and logistical infrastructure to support the testing process by local or foreign companies.
With the conditions offered by Brazil many researchers hope to reduce the time needed to carry out the testing, process the results and begin deploying the vaccine in human communities around the world. Probably they will need only until the end of this year to reach the last step.
I’m optimistic: this virus will not likely survive one year from now.
Let’s wait and see.
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A vaccine may not be possible because of the very short time that antibodies are retained in the body after exposure to SARS-Cov2.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/With-coronavirus-antibodies-fading-fast-focus-15414533.php
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This virus may be here to stay and the general nonchalance of the public (esp. in many parts of the USA) will ensure that we have A LOT of it very quickly. Infection rates are accelerating with reports that the world started adding 1 million new cases in under 100 hours a few days ago. As the article below reminds us, it took 3 months to reach 1 million cases in the early days.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/covid-19-world-records-one-million-cases-in-100-hours-12943092
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Oh, and on the question of whether schools matter, I saw this a few days ago.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains
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@ Origin
You seem too pessimistic to me regarding the issue of vaccines (vaccines efficacy). I think otherwise.
Remember that it was said a few months ago that vaccine development would take at minimum 18 months? Now it seems that it will last not that long. At least for a few of the candidates.
The whole knowledge of the behavior of the human body regarding this new pathogen is in the making, so let’s be a little more optimistic.
Anyway, even if the best option comes out to last only 3 months (individual immunity), this is only a parameter that must be used to define a more encompassing strategy to defeat the virus. A vaccine can be a tool, other bio-chemical products (in development too) can be used to help cure or eliminate the virus from the human body, and rules of social behavior can be also a part of the strategy. The goal must be to eliminate the virus from a given society.
As far as I know, this virus can reside inside the human body (the human body is a replicating machine for the virus), outside of it, in all kinds of surfaces, and in some other animal species (also, replicating machines of the virus).
If we have something that blocks the replication of the virus in humans and animals, even if only for a month (=aka a vaccine), the virus will be gone, because in inanimate objects it will last spontaneously even less. So it will be eliminated in that particular society.
A worldwide strategy must then be coordinated to make this not the success of a particular society but a global one. It can be difficult as the initial spread of the virus showed, but it is not impossible given the necessary political good will.
I’m sure the history of some other dangerous pathogens which do not plague humans anymore, is probably similar to that.
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Covid-19 numbers – absolute versus relative figures
President Trump has been heavily criticized because he claimed several times that the large numbers of USA Covid-19 cases – larger than any other country on earth – were due mainly to the extensive testing carried out in the country, that it is far ahead of others. See, for example following link https://www.wpri.com/health/coronavirus/trump-argues-high-covid-19-cases-due-to-testing-experts-largely-disagree/
Recently the leader of Iran claimed that the number of infections in the country were much larger than normally assumed by many people. The registered cases were at 273,788 (July 19th, 2020) but the real figure of individuals who have been infected at some point could be more likely circa 25 million. See the link https://time.com/5868597/iran-coronavirus-deaths-infections-spike/
I brought these two examples too reflect a little bit on the proper way to use numbers to convey an adequate image of the deep and seriousness of the spread and evolution of this disease in a given society and make international (or regional, inside a country) comparisons.
I think that when the pandemic was in its infancy, absolute numbers derived from the cases taken from actual tests could give us such picture, but as it evolved (we are already 6 to 7 months of spread in some places or at least 4 to 5 in others) I think relative figures (proportions) can become more adequate because the number of cases detected by actual direct testing tends to lag far behind the real spread of Covid-19. Even in a country like the USA, were a strong testing machine is in place, the real number of people who were infected at some point can be up to 10 times higher according to some sources. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/25/coronavirus-cases-10-times-larger/
One curious implication of this discrepancy between total positive tested cases and real cases out there, is that if in a given day you test 20,000 individuals you can find, let’s say, 1,000 new cases, but if you tested half that number, the new positive cases would be likely half that. And this is because you have until the beginning of that day tested only a fraction of the total, and there are out there many more untested positive cases to be uncovered. The number of new cases you uncovered in that day will be proportional to the total tests you are able to carry out. In that sense President Trump is right. The USA has many more cases than other countries also because it has tested much more than others. Obviously one cannot derive from this reasoning, that the situation in the USA is similar to, let’s say Rwanda, were they have made far less tests and registered also far less cases. A more apt comparison would use relative figures and confirm that Rwanda is, indeed, in a better shape than the USA, right now. But I’ll come to that later.
Some have suggested to use relative numbers like the number of positives per million inhabitants per country. It is a good idea, but if two countries have approximately the same number of people, but one is testing twice the other, in case the prevalence of the disease is similar, than it is clear that the one testing more will uncover per day more cases than the other.
I think rates of positivity, number of positives divided by number of cases, give a better way of comparison, at least if the level of testing is already large enough to be statistically significant (let’s say on the order of tens of thousands).
To end my argument I will compare data from Mozambique and South Africa.
South Africa is testing strongly in the last weeks and its position worldwide has moved to the 5th in the number of registered cases (July, 19th, 2020). A day before it was at the 6th position. The country has approximately 60 million people. See the website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
Data from July, 19th:
Total tests: 2,422,741
Total positive cases: 350,879
Data from July, 20th:
Total tests: 2,471,747
Total positive cases: 364,328
The rates of positivity derived from the total numbers of July, 20th is 14.7%.
The number of tests carried between 19th and 20th July was 49,006 and the number of positive cases uncovered was 13,449. If we used the numbers of that day only (daily differences) the positivity rate would be even worst, 27.4%!
Positivity rates give us a measure of the deep of spread of the disease in that country. They are in trouble, serious trouble! (The herd immunity worshipers would say that they are closer than many others, to achieve the required minimum of infected individuals to achieve that immunity!)
The total number of infected in South Africa perhaps is close to 27,4% multiplied by 60 million. The result is close to 16 million. I think that is a maximum value. The real number is probably less. Anyway, this number gives some credence to the value advanced by the leader of Iran for his country.
Mozambique is testing in the last weeks better than in March or April but far behind some other African countries like Ghana, Kenya or Rwanda which are testing 5 to 10 times more. Its position worldwide is 132nd in the number of registered cases (July, 19th, 2020). The country has approximately 30 million people.
Data from July, 18th:
Total tests: 45,189
Total positive cases: 1,435
Data from July, 19th:
Total tests: 45,556
Total positive cases: 1,491
The rates of positivity derived from the total numbers of July, 19th is 3.3%. Compared to South Africa it can be said that Mozambique has one fifth less prevalence of Covid-19 (using totals). Notice that must people would compare the total of cases of both countries and ignore the fact that South Africa has carried out much more tests. They would say that South Africa has 244 times more cases than Mozambique. This kind of comparison is clearly unfair.
The number of tests carried out between 18th and 19th July was 367 (on average in the last 2 weeks they have carried out 1000 test daily; the daily numbers vary substantially in Mozambique) and the number of positive cases uncovered was 56. If we used the numbers of that day only the positivity rate would be, 15.3%! A better approximation would be a weekly average but I will not go there in this exercise. Then the total number of infected individuals maybe is somewhere close to 4,5 million. Again this is probably larger than the reality. A epidemiological survey carried out in the supposedly more infected Province of Nampula, gave a maximum of 4.8% (data from June). Using, let’s say 4% for the whole country now, the number of infected (individuals who became infected at some point in time) the absolute number of infected would be closer to 1.2 million.
To finish: I conclude that the use of relative numbers gives a better idea where each society stands in the Covid-19 race! Absolute numbers are somehow deceiving in that regard.
P.S.:
1) In Mozambique people are strongly aware of the fact that our large neighbor, the Republic of South Africa, is a real problem of influx of the pandemic of Covid-19 to Mozambique. In the last round of tests a significant part of the positives were, indeed, Mozambicans returning to their homeland from South Africa. At least one third, some sources say. I’m only sorry that many people don’t seem to realize that we may be heading for the same situation as them. Unless we take the required measures of control of the spread of the epidemic in our territory.
2) Relative figures have a limit in their proper use because Covid-19 is ongoing and in some countries is not yet reached every corner of said countries, and therefore the values obtained multiplying those proportions with the total population can give values higher than reality.
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@munubuntu
“You seem too pessimistic to me regarding the issue of vaccines (vaccines efficacy). I think otherwise.”
I’m not thinking of things so much in terms of pessimism vs optimism. There is just “what is” and how one chooses to engage with “what is”.
IMO, it is rather unlikely that the virus will be eliminated in the short term (say by the end of this year). That would be unprecedented. Furthermore, I don’t recall hearing that it would be a year and a half before there were vaccine candidates. Rather, that was the time-frame suggested for the earliest wide availability of a proven effective vaccine. We’re more than halfway through 2020 and the virus really started getting international attention in January. Assuming things go well, the initial estimate may prove correct.
Also, you are right that there are gaps in knowledge but those gaps will serve to impede development of medical defenses against the virus. You don’t need knowledge to NOT have an effective vaccine or treatment. Lack of knowledge and the absence of treatments is the default state. However, there is also the possibility that some of the knowledge gained will reveal the virus to be more resistant to attack, demanding further research. Indeed, an antibody response with limited duration would fall into that category.
However, I don’t view the changes that may ensue as a result of virus being with us as wholly “bad”. Its appearance has caused there to be greater public awareness of hygiene, for example. It has caused employers to be less insistent on people coming in to work physically when much of their work can be done remotely. It has disrupted the “grind” of the economic paradigm and given people time to reflect while challenging governments to provide a safety net in a world with growing inequality. It’s discipline, as if the planet said, “You’re all grounded, go to your rooms!”
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Trump isn’t lying. You’ll have fewer “cases” if you don’t test for infections or if you have such centralized control of the data that you can effectively censor it. That definitely complicates comparisons between countries. However, comparing the USA now to the USA in the past, it would seem that infection rates really have gone up in the most populated states of California, Texas and Florida. This was also backed up by an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
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BTW, in a weirdly relevant simultaneous event, large portions of China are flooding catastrophically right now; the worst in decades (affecting 27 of 31 provinces of the vast country). The rains just won’t stop and rivers in the Yangtze basin are swelling and challenging dams and flood defenses.
The last time I checked the river at Wuhan had a water level of 28m above sea level while the city is an average of 23m above sea level. You read that right. Only flood defenses at the banks are keeping the water at bay…while more rain is in the forecast upstream.
Of course, Wuhan is now renowned as the first city to be truly crippled by COVID-19. What a rough year for the people of Wuhan! However I’m also seeing that the extensive flooding in China – in addition to disrupting the lives of residents – may also negatively impact the global supply of medical equipment at a time when the world really needs PPE, etc.
The year 2020 just keeps giving. The question for me is whether this year is a glitch or an inflection point. Will things bounce back to “the way they were” or will we find ourselves on a different trajectory with more frequent extreme weather alongside everything else. I guess only time will tell.
Flood info:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3093713/global-warming-and-illegal-land-reclamation-add-severe-floods
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Meanwhile the Horn of Africa is getting hit by a plague of locust.
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@abagond
We could probably fill a whole thread with 2020’s craziness.
It’s looking to be a rather active hurricane season too, based on number of named storms so far. T.S Gonzalo just formed in the Atlantic making it the earliest 7th named storm ever, beating Gert from 2005 by a couple days. Fay in 2020 was also the earliest 6th named storm beating Franklin, also from 2005.
So far, 2005 boasts the greatest number of earliest named storms including the earliest 11th storm which was the infamous Katrina and the earliest 22nd storm which was Wilma. Wilma also broke the record for lowest central pressure and fastest rate of intensification back then (previous record-holder in both categories was the very destructive Hurricane Gilbert from 1988).
In 2005 they ran out of names and started using Greek letters. So far this season is tracking a bit ahead of 2005 in terms of how early storms powerful enough to be named are forming. There have been no major hurricanes (category 3+) in 2020 yet but the season doesn’t peak until late August to September. (The first major hurricane of 2005 was very early: Dennis peaked at category 4 and achieved major hurricane status on July 7.)
Anyway Florida and Texas, which are under the COVID-19 gun, are also hurricane prone. In fact, there’s a weak tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico right now which forecasters say could strengthen in the coming days. Evacuations to crowded shelters in these states wouldn’t be ideal with COVID-19 at large. It’s probably a good time to have masks, sanitizers, etc. on hand in case the weather decides to become a factor and people end up in close quarters.
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COVID-19 is seeing a resurgence in Australia with the epicenter in the state of Victoria where the city of Melbourne is.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFIIjjxNXVU)
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I found the overview given by the official at the beginning of the video instructive. In the past 24 hours (ending on Jul 22) Australia saw 502 new cases of COVID-19. That is a record, beating the previous record of 496 new cases in 24 hours that was set on March 28. However Australia had reported only 2 new cases on June 9. So the infection rate ramped back up quickly, in just about 6 weeks.
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When one plays with death…
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/30/politics/herman-cain-dies-coronavirus/index.html
one can die!
Maybe others will pay more attention to this disease after this…
In any case I am sorry and hoped his case would have a different outcome.
Running for President of the USA, as a Black and republican, he left a mark of himself in American life.
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@munubuntu
I was just about to post that update.
I had mentioned previously that Mr. Cain had posted on twitter, proudly, about attending Trump’s Tulsa rally without a mask and without social distancing. He is 74 and survived a serious battle with cancer so he could be considered to be in the high risk group. Trump’s lack of leadership has really made the country’s epidemic worse, not just in terms of a deficient official response, but the way in which his rhetoric has dissuaded some people from taking reasonable steps to reduce their risk.
A veteran from Ohio, who was just 37, also contracted COVID-19 and died after being vocal about dismissing the threat of the disease on social media.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/17/covid-19-ohio-veteran-37-refused-wear-mask-died/5457283002/
Some people just can’t believe that the virus exists and that it’s potentially life-threatening simply because it hasn’t affected them personally. I wonder if this inability to see how the plight of others could apply to oneself is related to a lack of empathy. If so, this is a case where the self-centered person puts himself at risk by failing to identify with others in order to heed the warnings. Trump, as president, has used his platform to foster this attitude in people who may have actually followed sound advice had it been given instead.
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Another thing I found interesting – and may have mentioned here or in another thread – is the possibility of temperature spikes caused by a reduction in certain forms of pollution due to the downturn in industrial activity (factories, shipping, airplane flights, car use) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Basically, anytime reduction in pollution gives us clearer skies it also means that light from the sun is able to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently. In other words, our “normal” levels of aerosol pollution have dimmed the earth so reducing those levels after having raised greenhouse gas concentrations compounds the warming trend – and quickly.
Well, just anecdotally, high temperature records have been falling in various places this year. Norway’s Svalbard – an archipelago about 650 miles from the North Pole and the northernmost year-round settlement – hit a record high of 73.4F (23C) in July 2020. According to the link below, the temperature in Svalbard only once surpassed 20C and that was back in 1979 (21.3C)
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/hottest-ever-day-recorded-in-arctic-svalbard/
In Arctic Siberia, wildfires have been raging and they’ve been experiencing high summer temperatures as well. The town of Verhoyansk (inside the Arctic circle) recorded a record high temperature of 38C (100.4F). According to the aljazeera link below, the temperatures in the region this year are 5C (~9F) above the the average and a degree warmer than the previous warmest Junes (which were 2018 and 2019).
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/siberian-arctic-experiences-record-high-temperatures-200707154226427.html
Even some of the places we expect to be hot have gotten hotter this year. Baghdad (Iraq) smashed its previous high temperature by achieving a record 125.2C (51.8C) on Tuesday. The previous record was 123.8, set in 2015. The rest of the Middle East was baking as well with records falling in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria according to the Washington Post.
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So Sweden’s numbers have steadly declined over the last couple of weeks while the rest of Europe has been spiking again.
I think whats happened is that all the people that were going to die if infected did and thats why it has leveled off.
Their approach just caused people to die sooner and the rest of Europe is now catching up.
Berlin also had a huge rally in opposition to State restrictions regarding the virus. CNN says that most were right wing and neo nazi but in looking at the pictures there were tens of thousands of people there so I think it was broader then that.
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-which-never-had-lockdown-sees-covid-19-cases-plummet-rest-europe-suffers-spike-1521626
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@ Origin
“I wonder if this inability to see how the plight of others could apply to oneself is related to a lack of empathy. If so, this is a case where the self-centered person puts himself at risk by failing to identify with others in order to heed the warnings.”
I agree lack of empathy may explain some of the illogical (and anti-social) behavior on the part of large swaths of the American population. However , I think, belief and ideology also play a large part in the failure of some Americans to take COVID-19 seriously.
The most vocal in their rejection of masking and distancing tend to be:
↪︎ White supremacist
↪︎ highly religious
↪︎ poorly educated
↪︎ low information
In the wake of social unrest centered around colleges and universities in the 1960s, the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations worked to limit access to higher education for the majority of Americans. According to cultural historian, H. Bruce Franklin, professor emeritus of Rutgers University, they were motivated by what they saw as, ” contempt for moral, legal, and intellectual standards” in American universities.
In 1970, Roger Freeman, an educational advisor to Pres. Nixon went to far as to declare:
http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue6/franklin.html
Just to make sure they did not leave anyone behind, they also started the process of defunding K-12 education. That defunding project continues to the present day.
How does that tie in with COVID-19? One purpose of a good education is to teach critical thinking skills. Without those skills, a person has a more difficult time discerning fact from fiction or opinion from fact. They may realize they are reading, viewing or hearing false information, but lack the research and thinking skills to sift through the information they encounter.
Or they may go into epistemic closure in their search for truth. In essence, they create and live in an closed mental and ideological bubble. If a news outlet does not align with their worldview, it must be false. They are unwilling to go beyond their bubbles.
https://www.sheilakennedy.net/2016/05/what-the-hell-is-epistemic-closure/
There are now two generations of Americans who have been trained like seals to regard anything coming from the corporate press as a “hoax”. Trump and the right wing media then exploit those lack of skills to cover their own inaction or crimes.
A narrow focus on religion can create the same conditions. Mental bubbles and unwillingness to research or entertain other viewpoints. That large beach religious service in San Diego CA last week (no masking or distancing) is one example of that type of bubble in action.
When I was in college, a visiting professor gave a lecture on aspects of the Christian bible he considered fiction. Before he was shouted down by the campus “god squad”, he made this comment: “To be a Christian can be a beautiful thing, but you must always be a thinking Christian.”
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@Afrofem
Interesting points.
Re Sweden
Sweden, with about 10.23 million people and 5747 deaths at last check, has a death rate of 561 per million. Their very close neighbor, Norway, has had 256 deaths in their population of 5.23 million [~49 per million]. If Norway had Sweden’s death rate almost 3000 Norwegians would have died already.
Norway had 60 new cases on Aug 4, while Sweden had 590 on the same day. So Sweden’s cases may be falling relative to its own historical data but it is still WAY ahead of its rather culturally similar neighbor. Aug 4 was also one of Norway’s worst days in recent times [Norway last had about 60 cases per day back in April]. So a little spike in Norway and it’s still nowhere near Sweden while Sweden is in a bit of a lull compared to early July. So what has Sweden gained?
8.6% GDP drop in the 2nd quarter instead of Germany’s 10.1% with Germany having 111 deaths/million to Sweden’s 561? Worth it? I’m not seeing the significant upside to Sweden’s laissez-faire approach. It seems more like a cautionary tale that, even without lockdowns, the economy will still contract and many more people die.
https://wkzo.com/news/articles/2020/aug/05/record-drop-in-swedish-gdp-is-still-better-than-most-of-europe/1046351/
The sad thing is that in America we had lockdowns then failed to follow up with the needed public health interventions. So we get the top-tier economic contraction [34.3% GDP decline] AND Sweden-like death rates [~484 per million]. Yippee!
?
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/georgia-school-reopening-photo-paulding-county
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/06/school-coronavirus-outbreak-mississippi/
There is no way this ends well.
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@Solitaire
I was going to post this in open thread, but thought it would be better suited here as a post is set up for it.
“I’m pretty much at the opposite end from conspiracy theorist — I want to shake everyone I see without a mask on and yell “Are you trying to kill us all?!?!”–I understand. I am not one of those “Not going to wear a mask” types. I decided early on that I would wear one particularly for those who are fearful of the virus. I wanted to be considerate despite my ideas about the virus.
Here are my takes:
It is man made and was released unto the population.
It is not real considering it has the same symptoms as every other cold, flu, etc.
What the heck is going on?!
I alternate daily as this whole situation is a hot mess.
Per your link regarding the situation at schools, it was to be expected. There is no clear plan in place to stop COVID from spreading in those environments. The school in my area gave us the options of homeschooling or return to traditional. They were to meet and notify parents of the plan. They presented no detailed plan that would ensure kids safety. They have met three times since then and still no real plan in place. I don’t really get the pressure to send them back. Especially pressure with no plan.
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@ Sharina
“I decided early on that I would wear one particularly for those who are fearful of the virus. I wanted to be considerate despite my ideas about the virus.”
Thank you! I wish others had your level of consideration and empathy.
“It is man made and was released unto the population.”
Very possible. I don’t know how much you’ve read of this very long thread, but that theory keeps coming up. I have to say, though, if it is man-made, that scares me even more.
“It is not real considering it has the same symptoms as every other cold, flu, etc.
What the heck is going on?!”
My take: There are over 200 viruses that cause the common cold, and they all produce almost exactly the same symptoms. Because most of those symptoms are actually caused by the immune system’s response to any invading virus. So it makes sense that the coronavirus would also have these symptoms.
https://theconversation.com/what-the-flu-does-to-your-body-and-why-it-makes-you-feel-so-awful-91530
But the coronavirus actually is doing some unusual things to a certain percentage of patients, some of which has been linked to on this thread. Inflammation of blood vessels and formation of clots, for example, are not typical symptoms of the average cold.
“The school in my area gave us the options of homeschooling or return to traditional.”
Am I remembering correctly that you’ve done homeschooling in the past? Have you made any decisions yet for what to do this fall?
“I don’t really get the pressure to send them back. Especially pressure with no plan.”
It makes no sense. It’s a sure-fire way to fuel rapid community spread.
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I dunno if it was man made or not.
My opinion is that these kinds of viruses were being studied and this one escaped.
I don’t think it’s as deadly for the general population as was first thought. People over 65 and people with preexisting conditions are at risk.
The virus is spreading into younger populations but the majority don’t need hospitalization so hospitals are not being overwhelmed.
I don’t think the virus is going away. I think humans will have to adapt a partial immunity to it the same way people
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I think humans will have to adapt a partial immunity to it the same way people evolved resistance to the flu.
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@ Michael Barker
(emphasis added)
If we combine these two postulates, a conclusion emerges, namely, that from now on people will have to learn that 65 years is kind a new limit for average human lifespan.
Gone will be the days when every human could dream realistically (? You can dream realistically? Can’t you?) to reach a old age! Wow! Let’s enter the Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) !
This will take generations. Natural selection that ends up building those kind of adaptations by removing “defective” variants of alleles*, needs multiple generations to have a noticeable effect in a population, specially a large one as it is the human population worldwide today.
In the meantime, forget to live to a very old age!
*I mean the alleles which are not helpful to withstand this particular virus, whatever their function in the body.
P.S.:
In Mozambique two important things happened in the last weeks:
* The government delayed the reopening of schools. It made also dependent of very stringent hygienic conditions. Given the often dire hygienic situation in many of our schools in the periphery of large urban centers and in the rural areas, I don’t see a reopening process taking place soon, unless those rules are overturned in practice (= don’t see, don’t tell)
* The emergency state is maintained, probably for the next three to four months (Our constitution allows a declaration of a emergency state for only 30 days, extensible three times in a row). But a gradual reopening of activities in diverse areas, is foreseen.
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@Solitaire
I will read through the comments to see others views. I feel a bit comforted knowing that I don’t sound entirely crazy. Several movies have been put out years prior regarding some mass pandemic, so it was little surprise when one finally hit for me. The pandemic comes at an opportune time and is one that greatly benefits those in charge. Big companies and our lovely politicians are banking from this.
Thank you for the link. It was very informative and gave me a bit more insight into why the symptoms are so similar. We often joke at work about us having or already had it. I t might be time I take it more seriously.
Yes, we have in the past. This fall we will be returning to homeschooling structure. I hate it because I have a teenager now and she wants to be near her friends, but I also realize that kids are kids. They want to interact. There is no real safety measure that can stop that. My son doesn’t care about school due to their lack of ability to challenge him. Homeschooling for him with me would present more of a challenge due to my expectations. It may help him to return to traditional schooling more structured.
I actually wonder if there is some incentive to go back. If there is a benefit to pushing these kids back into that mess.
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@Michael Barker
“My opinion is that these kinds of viruses were being studied and this one escaped.”–This is very possible. I just wonder where it escaped from. I am not quick to point the finger at China just yet. I think this is the US baby.
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Kids going back to school and teachers and staff in schools and parents of children who are vectors for the virus is a scary. It’s a Catch-22 for teachers especially those who have underlying health issues. They could lose their benefit and pensions if they don’t return to work.
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@ Munubantu
I saw this Global North article and thought of Mozambique:
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/08/06/Kenya-coronavirus-informal-economy-mama-mbogas
How is the informal economic sector faring in Mozambique?
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@ Sharina
“I actually wonder if there is some incentive to go back. If there is a benefit to pushing these kids back into that mess.”
I mean, there are tons of potential benefits for kids being back in school, but to me the question is, do they outweigh the current health risks?
Afrofem had a more cynical view here, which is most likely accurate:
I’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing over how the kids are going to fall behind in their education, and I’ve also heard some educators point out that kids can always catch up later but you can’t if you’re dead.
I keep thinking about how my father missed close to four years of elementary school for health reasons. He managed to catch up again. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t optimal, but it’s possible.
And how many kids in other parts of the world have had their education interrupted due to wars? Many of which the U.S. seems to always have a hand in . . . .
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@Mary Burrell
You bring up a really good point. I never considered the possibility that teachers would lose pensions and benefits. I thought it would just be virtual. A way to allow them to work while keeping them safe.
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@ Sharina
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-07-15-teachers-at-high-risk-for-covid-19-face-a-terrible-choice-your-job-or-your-health
https://www.wwno.org/post/new-orleans-teacher-says-she-was-fired-criticizing-her-school-s-reopening-plan
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@Solitaire
Very true and because there is no real plan and no real understanding of COVID, then they shouldn’t rush to throw kids into that. Especially small children you are not clear what is going on.
“And how many kids in other parts of the world have had their education interrupted due to wars? Many of which the U.S. seems to always have a hand in . . . .”—This is a really good point. They all seemed to manage and even surpass us despite their massive loss at the hand of the USA. This also brings me back to what you stated about your father and it brings to mind that many Americans have been conditioned. We don’t know struggle and it becomes easy to accept defeat when you have had little to fight for. I could be off base, but every time I think about past generations and those that are in countries without easy access to things, I am reminded that we don’t know struggle.
Thank you for that gem from Afrofem and
@Afrofem thanks for that insight.
“❍ to force parents back to work.”–In my state there are parents and a great deal of individual who have simply lost their jobs. Some got sick due to COVID and had no more time off to use. The jobs let them go putting them in positions of remaining unemployment. I have also ran into a few individuals who were fired as a result of not responding to notifications of return. This is very anecdotal so not sure it holds much weight in the discussion.
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@ Sharina
“This also brings me back to what you stated about your father and it brings to mind that many Americans have been conditioned. We don’t know struggle and it becomes easy to accept defeat when you have had little to fight for. I could be off base, but every time I think about past generations and those that are in countries without easy access to things, I am reminded that we don’t know struggle.”
I agree with you to an extent, but I also think it has to do with current generations not always being aware of the hardships and struggles that past generations went through. For example, we as a society had already forgotten many details of what happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic, and therefore people like Rush Limbaugh were able to falsely claim that no one wore masks, the schools and churches didn’t shut down, and restaurants, bars, and theaters weren’t closed under public health orders.
I also think changed expectations play a role, and sometimes those have been positive changes. For instance, except for when my father was hospitalized, there was no good reason he couldn’t have kept going to school.
Why he didn’t: His family was too poor to buy him a wheelchair. But later on the Shriners sent him home from the hospital with a loaner. He still didn’t go back to school because the building wasn’t wheelchair-accessible, there was a general societal expectation that crippled children should stay home out of the public eye, and there was no sense that public schools had any obligation to serve homebound children.
All of that has changed since the mid-1940s. Public school buildings have to be accessible, they have to accept disabled children in the classroom, they have to make reasonable efforts to provide education to homebound children. And although it can still be difficult for a poor family to get a wheelchair, there are public programs like Medicaid which make it much more likely. These are all very good advances.
But those raised expectations can prevent us from realizing kids can prevail over difficult circumstances. We’ve put so much emphasis on the importance of going to school that now there are parents freaking out that their kids are going to miss critical developmental windows, like if they don’t learn fractions when they’re eight or nine, they’ll never be able to get it. Or that they will be stunted socially forever if they miss a year of being around their classmates.
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@ Afrofem
The informal sector suffered the most because of the Covid-19 pandemic until now. In that regard there is probably not much difference between Mozambique and Kenya.
I cannot give you a detailed picture but I’ll try to list here some of my impressions of what I can see in the Great Maputo area. For other urban centers of the country the reality is not much different.
1.
I see 3 occupational strata in this sector: the street vendors, both in the periphery and the center of the city; the vendors in formal popular markets; the people working in the “light” transportation sector (we have a “army” of vans crisscrossing the urban space from early morning until night, every working day). All these strata involve many thousands of people. Those people reside mainly in the periphery of the city, but the country remains a “society in transition”, and by that I mean that the social classes are not yet totally consolidated and the space of sliding between the classes is there. For example, is not uncommon to see that a woman, mother, eventually single, working as a vendor in a market, is able to educate her 5 children to become doctors or engineers. This is possible by individual effort and discipline but also because the access to education is not yet closed for poor families. I hope this will remain so, but I’m a bit skeptical on that regard.
2.
The first global measures of our government to limit the spread of Covid-19 were taken in early April. Those measures define what they called an “emergency state” and remain in operation until today. They included the closure of all schools, churches/mosques, bars, public gatherings for any reason, etc. The part that affected the informal sector was the prohibition of commerce at streets and some restrictions in the number of vendors inside public markets (social distancing guidelines) and in transportation vehicles (which were always super-full before Covid-19!). It’s clear that many people loose suddenly their livelihood. But I must recognize that because the Mozambican state never opted for a full lockdown, differently of some other countries in Africa, a space for functioning of the informal sector remained, even if constrained.
3.
In the last two months the “emergency state” has been gradually relieved (not officially but in practice!) and I see gradually more and more street vendors coming back to their businesses. I understand that, but I would like that the Mozambican state were more forceful in the monitoring of the use of masks by anybody in a public activity and the respect of social distance everywhere. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening consistently.
I hope to have given some insights in the situation of the informal sector in Mozambique, specially in urban areas and in today’s context of Covid-19.
If I have something to say later, that I have missed now, I’ll add it in another message.
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@ Solitaire
You make a very good point and it requires some pondering on my part.
However, when you mention “I also think it has to do with current generations not always being aware of the hardships and struggles that past generations went through.” I have to say I agree and am very guilty of this. Until COVID I was not aware of the 1918 influenza pandemic let alone the damage it had done or the struggles many endured.
I guess it is fair to say my perception is a little one sided. When I say we don’t know struggle I also consider the response to the pandemic. For example, people buying up products with no regard for others and people saying “I don’t know what we will do without toilet paper.” Granted we have been privileged, but I was taken back by how many could not find or think of solutions in the event toilet paper became unavailable. One situation sticks out as it was one I had to have a long talk with my peer to get over. I had a client who spent sessions going on about how she could not survive without hand sanitizer and toilet paper. It bothered me how self absorbed she was. Oh I might still have baggage with that situation 😔
If clarity is needed let me know. I am not sure I put what I am trying to day into words clearly.
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@ Sharina
“Until COVID I was not aware of the 1918 influenza pandemic let alone the damage it had done or the struggles many endured.”
I’m guilty as well. I was aware of it and knew some things, like the influenza being more deadly than the war itself, but recently I’ve learned a lot more details about what happened back then.
“When I say we don’t know struggle I also consider the response to the pandemic. For example, people buying up products with no regard for others and people saying ‘I don’t know what we will do without toilet paper.’ Granted we have been privileged, but I was taken back by how many could not find or think of solutions in the event toilet paper became unavailable.”
You definitely have a point there. I don’t disagree with you, as I said earlier; I just think there are a couple other facets to it besides not knowing struggle.
But, yes, you are right that a lot of people are whining about things our recent ancestors would have known how to cope with (Sears catalog, anyone?). We aren’t being asked to sacrifice to the degree that people had to during past crises, and yet we’re acting like it’s too much to handle.
It isn’t just Americans. I remember back in March stumbling across an internet discussion among Australians about how people were hoarding toilet paper and the stores’ shelves were empty. I believe it happened elsewhere, too.
Hoarding like that is a fairly typical response to crisis because it gives people a sense of control over an unknown, stressful, evolving situation. It makes them feel somewhat prepared.
As to the disregard for others when buying up products, that’s appalling behavior, yes, but it happened in past generations, too. Again, it’s just that we don’t know about those details. We learn about the heroic sacrifices but not the selfish people or the slackers. Yet there’s a reason that during past wars or pandemics or economic depressions, there would be posters put up exhorting citizens to do their duty. You don’t need posters like that if everyone is behaving well already.
Sometimes they behaved far worse than we’ve done so far, like herding the Japanese Americans into internment camps.
“One situation sticks out as it was one I had to have a long talk with my peer to get over. I had a client who spent sessions going on about how she could not survive without hand sanitizer and toilet paper. It bothered me how self absorbed she was.”
Yeah, I can understand that. It’s similar to people obsessing over not being able to go to their hair stylist or get their nails done, even saying, “I can’t let my husband see me like that” when, y’know, people are dying without being able to have their husband at their bedside.
Without knowing the client, I can’t say anything for certain about that individual, but some people do have a tendency to overfixate on small matters because the larger crisis is too much emotionally for them to confront head-on. It could be a coping mechanism, a safe way to express larger fears.
Or she could just be a selfish person who is like this in life about everything, and that facet of her personality is simply more noticeable right now during the stressful time we’re all experiencing.
She’s not indicative of everyone. Thousands of people have been sewing cloth masks for donation. Small distilleries have learned how to produce hand sanitizer for local hospitals. People have been making grocery runs for their elderly neighbors.
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@Solitaire
“recently I’ve learned a lot more details about what happened back then.”- Do you feel that the response then and now are the same? As in how seriously people took influenza vs COVID. Governmental response to it etc.
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@ Sharina
“Do you feel that the response then and now are the same? As in how seriously people took influenza vs COVID.
Governmental response to it etc.”
My short answer is I don’t feel I know enough to say for sure, but there certainly are similarities. It seems in both cases, some people and some government entities took it more seriously than others, and both times there was backlash.
Origin noted some of the similarities upthread:
And he linked to this article about how Philadelphia held a huge military parade against the advice of health officials, which resulted in thousands of people falling ill:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/03/18/you-can-thank-military-parade-social-distancing.html
(To be cont. — breaking this reply into parts due to the number of links.)
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2 of 5
I found the following quote in another article about the Philadelphia parade. It sounds very similar to what certain people are saying now:
To put that quote in context, the big parade was on Sept. 28 and people began getting sick during the next couple days. When this Inquirer editorial appeared on Oct. 5, about 2600 Philadelphians had already died of the influenza, in less than a week.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/philadelphia-threw-wwi-parade-gave-thousands-onlookers-flu-180970372/
There have been a number of recent articles like this one, comparing Philadelphia’s experience to St. Louis, which shut down quickly and had significantly fewer deaths:
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-how-st-louis-vs-philadelphia-treated-1918-flu-pandemic-2020-4
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3 of 5
There doesn’t appear to have been a coordinated response by the federal government in 1918, similar to how Trump refused to declare a national lockdown and won’t issue a national mask requirement.
In fact, as Origin noted in his comment, in 1918 the federal government appears to have initially covered up the influenza outbreak because of the war.
The USA was one of several warring nations which tried to deny the flu outbreak was happening or to downplay its severity. That led to inaction which simply allowed the virus to spread unchecked:
https://www.history.com/news/1918-pandemic-spanish-flu-censorship
The soldiers also spread the flu to different parts of the USA as they were moved to different bases, went home on leave, etc.
Like now, some LEOs refused to enforce the ordinances:
https://crosscut.com/2020/07/mask-wars-1918-flu-pandemic
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4 of 5
There was some public resistance to the mask ordinances, including organized opposition by a group in San Francisco:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Mask_League_of_San_Francisco
This next article has a lot of interesting details about local attempts at enforcement of health regulations:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/08/03/anti-mask-sentiment-goes-back-100-years-to-spanish-flu-pandemic/
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5 of 5
Finally, this is a really interesting website about the 1918 pandemic:
https://www.influenzaarchive.org
On the right side of the home page, there is the heading “50 U.S. Cities & Their Stories”. I found that skimming over even a couple of those articles can give a good sense of the different attitudes people had back then, the push and pull between supporters and opponents of locking down, the discrepancy between those who took the pandemic seriously and those who didn’t.
Here’s a taste:
https://www.influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-dallas.html
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I missed earlier this comment upthread by Afrofem, which has information about Seattle’s response to the 1918 epidemic, including an image of an appeal to the public not to grumble about the restrictions:
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@ Solitaire
Your series of comments brings to mind a conversation I had with a friend some years ago. We were talking about “the future”.
On one hand we were laughing about past predictions and how they stacked up to current reality. 1960s notions of flying cars, world peace, household robots and four hour work weeks seemed both quaint and ridiculous in the early 2000s.
On the other hand, we were speculating about real changes that would bewilder, delight and terrify a Rip Van Winkle from 1900. No animals on the streets, men and women in pants or shorts in public and no hats. No milk, coal and ice delivery on a daily basis. Telephones (with computers and cameras) that people carry around in their pockets.
Then my friend said something I have never forgotten. “Technology may change, but human nature will remain the same”, he said.
Reading about the fierce resistance to life saving measures during the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the today’s COVID-19 Pandemic, I think of his words quite often. There will always be people who make selfish and ill-considered decisions based on ideology. There will be people who go above and beyond to help others also based on ideology.
Disasters and Pandemics tend heighten both selfishness and altruism. Human nature remains the same.
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Wow, people, now we have got a vaccine.
Earlier than imagined!
Bring that champagne please! Let’s celebrate!
Humanity 1 – Novel Coronavirus 0.
We won that fight!
This an Eureka moment…
… no, a Sputnik moment!
Again!
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@ munubantu
Thank you for sharing your observations on the effects of COVID-19 on Mozambique’s informal economy.
Over the next few days, I will share my observations with you about daily life in Seattle. People are still in “lock down” mode, but there are some changes from the beginning of the Pandemic, that are both frustrating and delightful.
I will add more detail later….
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@ Afrofem
A few web based articles about the impact of Covid-19 on the informal economy in Mozambique. There is some depth in those analyses.
https://www.theigc.org/blog/mozambiques-response-to-covid-19-challenges-and-questions/
https://clubofmozambique.com/news/covid-19-ngo-accuses-mozambican-government-of-economic-exclusion-162515/
https://moztrabalha.co.mz/pt-pt/noticias/vendors-out-of-options-due-to-negative-of-the-covid19-pandemic-on-the-informal-sector/
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@ Afrofem
“Disasters and Pandemics tend heighten both selfishness and altruism. Human nature remains the same.”
Very true. My examples and quotes were weighted more heavily towards the selfish/clueless side, but only because of the discussion Sharina and I were having. I wanted to highlight examples of the people back then being as stubbornly wrong-headed as now. There were also many acts of altruism during that time. Quite a few doctors and nurses died of the influenza because of their relentless dedication to their patients, to name one.
I think if anything separates us from them, it’s the enormous advances made in medicine and biomedical research in the last one hundred years. Technology has brought us many fascinating gadgets, but I think it could be argued that it’s the scientific leap in medicine which has had the most impact on our lives.
In 1918, they really had no clue what they were up against. No one had ever seen a virus; they’re too small to be seen under a regular microscope. It was not until the 1930s that the 1918 influenza virus was identified and could be examined physically.
One of the measures that some municipalities took to fight the influenza was to drain and clean the city pipes — because that often worked to stop cholera outbreaks. They didn’t know it was useless against the flu.
We are so far ahead of them in scientific technology and medical knowledge, yet it’s not enough to keep bad actors from making selfish decisions that led to hospital staff having to use trash bags as surgical gowns. The ignorant, the power-hungry, and the narcissists still have the ability to make everything go to hell in a handbasket.
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@munubantu
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coronavirus: 749,000 and $100000000000000…
humanity: 0
Can’t give a zero score to a virus that has already wreaked so much havoc, lol.
Anyway, I would definitely not be the first person in line for Russia’s vaccine unless there is more transparency. I strongly suspect it hasn’t been proven safe and effective yet because Vladimir has cut short the testing process. However I suppose one way to “test” it is just to approve it and hope all goes well. I can’t say I don’t share that hope. The alternative isn’t pleasant.
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The Sputnik vaccine, from what I understand, has not passed Phase III trials, so no one knows yet if it is safe and effective on a mass scale. If it turns out not to be, then it will make it that much harder to get people to take the legit vaccines that come out later, which in turn will make the coronavirus that much harder to fight. It seems like a reckless PR stunt.
I would not trust the Sputnik vaccine one bit, not until it does in fact pass Phase III trials. Putin controls the media in Russia, so the vaccine might seem to work in Russia when in fact it does not.
Nor would I trust any vaccine that comes out in the US before the November election. The timing would be too fishy.
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@ munubantu
A snapshot of life in Seattle during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Details, details, details…
COVID-19 is like a background noise that won’t go away. Sometimes it gets loud, other times it drops to manageable levels, but it is still there disrupting daily life on many levels.
Shortages
There are still crazy unexplained shortages of various goods at grocery stores. People are still hoarding toilet paper, paper towels, isopropyl alcohol and all manner of cleaning supplies, from gloves and sponges to bleach and ammonia. Supplies of rice are back to normal, but bean supplies lag behind. Black-eyed peas are the most difficult to find. Imported goods like cheeses, olives, olive oil and organic tomatoes from Europe are up 30 percent or more. Asian goods like oils, sauces, canned vegetables and noodles are more expensive too.
There is a national coin shortage in the USA. Stores will give out change, but will not exchange coins for paper currency. Even banks and credit unions are stingy with their coins. Reading online, the consensus is that with businesses that collect coins from the public, such as bars, restaurants and coffee shops closed by the Pandemic, the normal flow of coins has been reduced.
Masks
Most people on the streets wear masks and masks indoors are pretty universal. Most public places have signs stating no entry without a mask. A sizable minority of people wear their masks improperly, covering their mouths but not their noses. I sometimes wonder if they are lackadaisical or just misinformed.
Nearly all stores, banks and public offices have erected plexiglass barriers in front of desks, checkout stands, counters and workstations. Some restaurants have reopened with limited indoor seating. A few clever owners have hung plastic shower curtains between booths and tables to limit the spread of droplets.
Restaurants
Restaurants have reopened. Outdoor seating is available, but limited to couples and four tops—-widely spaced for social distancing. The city is working with restaurants to make more outdoor seating available. One multi-ethnic neighborhood in the South End got the city to close half a block of a side street to create a community outdoor dining space. According to the South Seattle Emerald site:
20200814_203559.jpg
20200814_203429.jpg
Festivals
July and August are outdoor festival season in Seattle. This year some festival organizers got creative and turned to alternatives like the “Festival In A Box” concept. One festival created the boxes and distributed them to a long line of cars. The boxes contained, ”all sorts of donated goodies for families including art supplies, sports equipment like basketballs, footballs and soccer balls, masks, hand sanitizers and gardening starts. In addition, each family received a [$40] gift certificate for Safeway [grocery store]. […] Families also received a link for a Zoom soccer clinic hosted by the Seattle Sounders FC.
[…] Other organizations donated sports equipment, art supplies and, in cooperation with the housing authority, people could get free COVID testing earlier in the day before the distribution of boxes started.”
Tourists
One effect of the pandemic is a major global reduction in tourism. I live in a neighborhood with several tourist attractions. Generally in summer, tour buses and throngs of tourists clog the streets. There are also “pub crawls” and mini-festivals that make parking a nightmare year round. Thanks to the Pandemic, those events have gone virtual or postponed until 2021.
While I feel for the people who depend on tourist for their livelihoods, I don’t miss the tourists. That is just me being a curmudgeon. The neighborhood feels like a normal urban neighborhood right now.
Neighbors
Some of my neighbors have gotten creative with the social distancing restrictions. Some hold gatherings where they sit in a large spaced circle with a fire pit in the middle. They drink and and talk into the night like this. One group of neighbors puts up a large projection screen in the front yard some nights. They will project older movies like Blues Brothers or Nine to Five. They also sit in widely spaced chairs and drink, eat and whoop it up a bit during the movie. Thankfully, the noise only lasts a few hours.
Public Transportation
The city bus and train system are not collecting fares. Passengers have to board from the back and sit in widely spaced seats. The buses are down to a fraction of their normal riders, even during “rush hour”. Some of the drivers have griped about the homeless sleeping on the buses at night, but that is an ongoing situation. Where else are they supposed to go on a cold, rainy night?
Munubantu, this is just my perspective. People around me are still sticking close to home.
Black and Latinx communities are most likely to get infected and die in King County and Washington State. We tend to be frontline urban workers or work in the agricultural sector. Both employment sectors do not have work at home options.
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The Patio images that did not show up in the last comment:
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@ Afrofem
When it comes to shortage-prone products, are you seeing unusual brands at your stores?
Last week I grabbed the only brand of paper towels left on the shelf. I’d never heard of it, but I figured it was a store brand. Looked at it more closely at home, and all the writing on the package was in Spanish first, with English below in smaller type. Turns out it’s from Panama!
For months, I’ve been seeing imported brands of ramen on the shelves that before would have only been carried by specialty Asian grocers.
And there are all kinds of new hand sanitizers, ranging from Chinese brands to new local start-ups.
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Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre = Always something new out of Africa!
(https://apnews.com/bcbbea9a87e5fb2c75611f4da65d4a06)
(https://aims.ac.rw/2020/06/02/aims-rwanda-alumni-uses-science-and-technology-to-combat-covid19-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo/)
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@ Solitaire
I have seen plenty of off-brands lately, but none with packaging in Spanish.
Either people are hoarding more than I imagined or the stores are sourcing for the cheapest products they can get for increased profits.
Likely both.
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@ gro jo
Thanks for sharing those links.
Not too surprising considering the deep history of math and science in Africa.
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@ Afrofem
Perhaps I’m giving the stores too much credit, but I thought it was more that they’re trying to get scarce products from wherever possible. I remember one of the local chains saying they were trying to expand the number of distributors they work with.
The local stores were actually doing better with paper products until a couple weeks ago. Never fully stocked like normal times, but still you could pretty much count on finding what brand you wanted in the pack size you wanted. I’m not sure why there’s a sudden shortage again.
I haven’t seen Purell or GermX since early March except for the open bottles in use at the checkout stations, but like I said, I’m seeing some interesting alternatives for sale, including one being made in a town about an hour’s drive away.
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@ Afrofem
You’re welcome.
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Gym rats have gone underground lol
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/08/11/900895704/secret-gyms-and-the-economics-of-prohibition
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Update on the virus in the L.A. area.
Overall people wear masks. The infection rate is high here but it is infecting younger people who don’t need hospitalization so hospital beds are still available.
Restaurants have moved tables outside and set up canopies. Some cities have closed a traffic lane and put in cememt barriers so as to allow restaurants to set up tables and chairs. Nail shops similarly are doing pedicures ourltside.
In working class and poorer neighborhoods barbershops have put up drapes and say they are closed but are cutting hair. These areas there are less businesses enforcing masks.
I have seen city workers doing street repairs not wearing masks.
The richer the area then more people wear masks and local cities have their own mask mandates.
It seems people are tiring of the rigity and are taking local vacation ect. Traffic has picked up in the city even though stay at home orders are technically still in place. So people are trying to get back to normalcy while taking precautions.
Contractors are busy as people are doing home improvement since they are working from home.
I am busier now then I was at this time last year. And that seems to hold true across the board for people in the trades.
On the other hand my friend who owns a print shop says his business is down 70% and he had to let his workers go. It just him and his mom and dad.
I am particularly careful at the protests. I’m masked up and try to keep.my distance.
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We’ve been hearing suggestions for the last several months but apparently the first case of COVID-19 reinfection has been confirmed (Hong Kong).
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-confirmed-case-reinfection.html
The article also mentioned that he had mild symptoms the first time but was asymptomatic the second time (he tested positive during airport screening). So they believe that the immune response to the first illness may have moderated the 2nd infection to make it less severe.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/29/europe/berlin-protest-coronavirus-police-grm-intl/index.html
If someday in the future the history of the novel coronavirus pandemic is written I would like to know if the explanation of much imbecile behavior recorded during those years of pandemic would be there in plain text. Because I don’t understand, right now.
Again and again we must watch people somewhere behaving like fools or suicides.
In my country from time to time we witness cholera outbreaks in some localized areas and a pattern of behavior that is normally intertwined with such outbreaks, namely, personnel from the Ministry of Health goes there to prevent the outbreak, after receiving credible information about a few cases at the site, but then they are received with sometimes deadly threats because somebody disseminated the idea that they came, indeed, to spread the disease! And it is not easy to dispel those lies and disinformation, and in the same time to deal with the real problem in the ground.
I always thought that those irrational behavior could happen only in a developing society, where large swaths of the population are not yet sufficiently educated to understand certain natural phenomena properly. But now, after seeing repeatedly the same irrationality in so-called developed societies, I don’t know what to think anymore!
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@ Munubantu
“I always thought that those irrational behavior could happen only in a developing society, where large swaths of the population are not yet sufficiently educated to understand certain natural phenomena properly. But now, after seeing repeatedly the same irrationality in so-called developed societies, I don’t know what to think anymore!”
But consider: isn’t racism an irrational belief? One that modern science increasingly is proving to be based on an incorrect understanding of natural phenomena (i.e., genetics and evolution)? Yet how many so-called developed societies not only cling to this irrational belief but are even built upon a foundation of racism?
Here are a couple articles you might find interesting about some theories concerning human irrationality:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/25/18291925/human-rationality-science-justin-smith
(https://medium.com/@hauser.kris/should-society-regulate-the-irrationality-of-human-nature-321c5e25a3fb)
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Origin, a “superlatively brobdingnagian tool”, took me to task for pointing out the obvious several months ago: “Origin posted a link about a Dr. who was punished for talking out of turn. I pointed out to that “superlatively brobdingnagian tool” that people gossiping about an epidemic isn’t the same as doing something about it, but being a tool, he just didn’t get it. Dr. “superlatively brobdingnagian tool” thinks it’s a good idea to yell fire in a crowded room, sane folks disagree.”
It turns out that Trump was operating on the same principle.
“According to excerpts from Woodward’s new book Rage, Trump told the journalist as early as in February that the virus was “deadly stuff.” And despite knowing of its highly contagious and deadly nature, Trump had publicly said the opposite, insisting the virus would go away, according to US media outlets including The New York Times.”
Trump’s motivation was to prevent panic of the stock market kind: “What “panic” was Trump speaking about? He was primarily concerned with containing a stock market selloff before the bailout of Wall Street had been prepared. Furthermore, with workers in factories increasingly uneasy about the spread of the disease, he was afraid of mass working class walkouts, such as those that ultimately led to the closure of the US auto plants in March.
Instead of alerting the public to what it knew in January, the government set to work preparing for an eruption of the pandemic, not through measures to contain the disease, but through the largest bailout of major corporations in world history, which was prepared in silence, with the public unaware.
When it became clear that lockdowns were unavoidable after the markets went into freefall in February and March, the government was ready with a $6 trillion bailout, passed in record time. Then, with the bailout secured, it began the campaign to herd millions of workers into the factories and children into the schools.”
What did the ‘freedom loving’ people of the USA get in return? 200,000 dead Americans and counting, a lousy $1,200 ‘stimulus’ and the comforting notion that it’s all China’s fault. Enough said!
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@gro jo
As soon as I saw the word “brogdingnagian” I had in mind to stop reading. You’re clearly still smarting but, as you can see, the thread has moved on from discussing your husband Xi. Nonetheless, I deigned to spare a few seconds to peruse your ramblings and they’re as pointless as I suspected it would be.
I said this way back on Mon Apr 6th 2020 at 10:11:49 in this very thread in response to a post by Afrofem:
I knew that they were both doing the same darned thing from way back then so I don’t know why you’re coming at me now as if I should be educated by your most recent diatribe. I was way ahead of you!
Anyway, thank you for sparing me the need to look for the thread. The link in “Recent comments” was convenient. 🙂
This is what I really came here to talk about; info on the AstraZeneca vaccine trial that was paused:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/patient-who-prompted-vaccine-trial-pause-developed-severe-neurological-symptoms-1.5099757
So yeah, safety hurdle.
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@ Origin
I just came across an article on TeleSUR-English about clinical trials for their COVID-19 vaccine,Soberana 01 [Sovereign 01]. According to the article:
https://www.telesurenglish.net//news/Cubas-COVID-19-Vaccine-to-Benefit-Latin-America-PAHO-Says-20200909-0008.html
Not only will the Cuban people benefit from the vaccine, the Cuban government plans to share the vaccine with other Latin American nations. This is in stark contrast to COVID-19 vaccine funding, development and likely distribution in the USA.
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“@gro jo
As soon as I saw the word “brogdingnagian” I had in mind to stop reading. You’re clearly still smarting but, as you can see, the thread has moved on from discussing your husband Xi.”
That’s nice, however, I waited for the moment when your husband Trump would reveal his and the system he serve’s true nature. You gave him a pass by blaming the CPC. The Chinese saved the lives of their people, being Trump’s ho-ho, it’s only natural that you’d try the old “a plague on both their houses” trick. Nice try but the blood of 200,000 Americans drip from your boy’s hands. Trump cared more about saving the wealth of the class of speculators than saving lives. You should be embarrassed for having shilled for that psychopath. What am I saying? It’s obvious that you are just as much of a psychopath as evidenced by your lack of remorse for lying.
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@gro jo
Where did I give Trump “a pass” anywhere? I literally just referred to my own April post which was also calling attention to Trump’s role in covering up and mismanaging the outbreak. You were the one indemnifying Xi by saying governments have the right to cover up vital information regardless of the consequences. So why are you coming here now to lecture me about the Trump coverup which has been in the news recently? I never claimed that kind of thing was OK. If YOU were consistent and not just a hypocritical Xi bootlicker you’d be fine with Trump’s actions!
You’re a blatant liar who is desperately trying to create a strawman. In fact your response to that April post – when I wasn’t even talking to you – was an attempt to put words about Putin into my mouth while trying to imply that Putin wasn’t covering up anything and neither was Trump/Xi. [Yes, you argued both that there was no coverup and ALSO that coverups are a sovereign right.]
Even back then I objected to your dishonesty and confronted you about it to which Afrofem also replied on “Mon Apr 6th 2020 at 16:24:58”:
I guess it is as they say, a leopard cannot change its spots. You now reappear after your latest Wumao training to try to twist things to seem as if I was praising Trump’s COVID-19 response and should be embarrassed by the latest revelations. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth as I was completely against such politically self-serving coverups which would ultimately prove to be detrimental to the whole world. Thankfully, the truth is recorded in the comments history which we can’t edit.
You may not have much of a brain for logic, consistency, or truth but you’re certainly good at wasting other people’s time. Because it’s rather difficult to allow someone to LIE about what you said or the positions you held without setting the record straight. So congrats on being a massive waste of time and space…and a “superlatively brobdingnagian tool”.
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@Afrofem
Thanks for that information about the Cuban vaccine research. I don’t doubt that Cuba would be willing to share an effective vaccine.
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Origin, a/k/a sbt, why are you hiding behind Afrofem’s skirt? I revisited this subject to ram Trump’s words down your throat. When this conversation started, you were claiming that the CPC was solely responsible for this mess, in light of the facts, you saw fit to make a ‘diplomatic’ retreat with some bs about how both Trump and Xi being guilty but with the latter deserving the lion’s share of the guilt! Like all courtiers, the facts of the matter are mere unpleasant distractions to be dealt with with an avalanche of bs.
Being the ‘honest’ man you surely are not, you didn’t even try to refute the timeline Nathan “It’s ok to love China” Rich came up with. I provided the link to his video and dared you and your friends to come up with one of your own where you can ‘prove’ the CPC cover up you claimed. After six month, it’s still crickets chirping.
Sbt, let me give you a hand by pointing you to Ms. Jennifer “Falun Gong” Zeng’s timeline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As-yMMqO_2U). She agrees with you that the CPC is guilty. You resonate with her view, it might be easier for you to follow her argument.
Sbt, have you read “The Prince” by Niccolò Machiavelli?
This bit of stupidity indicates that you haven’t: “You were the one indemnifying Xi by saying governments have the right to cover up vital information regardless of the consequences. So why are you coming here now to lecture me about the Trump coverup which has been in the news recently? I never claimed that kind of thing was OK. If YOU were consistent and not just a hypocritical Xi bootlicker you’d be fine with Trump’s actions!
As a prince, it was Trump’s right to lie to you since you are a subject.That’s politics 101 of the realist not the bs (sbt) kind. Deal with it. Woodward and other operators in the US system knew that Trump was lying and they went along with it since they all defend the system Trump leads at the moment. So much for ‘democracy’, the ‘free press’, etc.
Trump and Xi were successful. Trump saved Wall Street and Xi saved China’s main street. Trump lied, people died.
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Origin, a/k/a sbt, this link might educate you, maybe not, on the so-called CPC ‘cover-up’, as well as the traditional mistreatment of Americans at the hands of their government.
Note, my ignorant “superlatively brobdingnagian tool”, that Trump was told by Xi that coronavirus was deadly and airborne before February 7 but your boyfriend sat on this info. for over a month. An ignoramus like you should learn modesty and keep quiet, but, hey, this is America where every idiot is free to babble on about things above their pay grade.
TRUMP LIED. PEOPLE DIED.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Nr3aaOHvY)
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Look at the ‘disaster’ caused by the CPC’s ‘disgusting’, ‘totalitarian’ quarantine policy. Revolting and inhuman! 😉
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot4LwLDiRHE)
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You have been thoroughly discredited Wumao. Anyone who wants to know what you’re about need only read the thread from the top.
I have not defended Trump’s handling of the coronavirus so pretending that I have done so is both dishonest and entirely on brand for you. The fact that you persist in making that claim despite evidence to the contrary proves you aren’t worth my time because you’re a barefaced liar. Clearly you’ve been well taught in Wumao school to simply repeat falsehoods without shame: Propaganda 101.
Furthermore, most of the discussion about the CCP’s handling of the virus is due to YOU being unable to shut up about it necessitating corrections when you try to post propaganda here. Indeed, your latest attempt to commandeer the thread is a case in point. Xi’s coverup is old news from December->January and we have moved on.
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Origin, a/k/a sbt, you are going to seed. I’m not accusing you of ‘defending’ Trump by saying he’s a great guy, you’re to subtle for that. You defended him by removing the focus from him with a bogus indictment of the one leader in the world who mastered the danger by taking firm action. If your inept idol had done the same, the US death toll wouldn’t have been as high as it is.
You can’t even use an ‘expert’ such as Jennifer “Falun Gong” Zeng’s indictment of the CPC to come up with a timeline.
As a wumao, I’m addicted to facts.
“Furthermore, most of the discussion about the CCP’s handling of the virus is due to YOU being unable to shut up about it necessitating corrections when you try to post propaganda here.” Amusing, please correct the following facts.
– Wuhan is able to gather large crowds such as the pool party I linked to.
– The death toll in the USA is at least ten times that of the PRC
– No nation on earth has dealt with the crisis more successfully.
I’ll shut up when you’ve ‘corrected’ my propaganda. I’ll give you a week to do so. I won’t write a single word on this subject until 9/18/2020. After that date I’ll come back to have a last laugh at your expense.
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Oh gro jo,
I haven’t worn a skirt in years…LMAO!!!
I still have some hanging in the closet…waiting for the Goodwill bin once COVID-19 is history.
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Major thankies for the article post. Keep writing.
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I guess that cholera coverup situation didn’t end Dr. Tedros’ 2017 bid for the WHO top job after all! It turns out that someone with relevant experience covering up epidemics was in charge of the WHO in 2020 in time for the COVID-19 pandemic. He was more than willing to tweet and endorse The People’s Republic of China’s official obfuscation [no evidence of human-to-human transmission] without doing due diligence despite warnings from other entities.
It’s really something else that, Taiwan (aka ROC), the country that has been denied membership in the WHO due to political pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PROC), has had one of the best COVID-19 outcomes with 7 dead in a population of 23 million. Trump puts wealth before health and Xi puts land-grabbing before well-being. I guess everyone has their red line.
[And no, Taiwan was never part of the PROC. It’s more reasonable to say that Mainland China was was part of the ROC.]
One could reasonably suspect that the PROC wasn’t particularly concerned with keeping the pandemic virus confined to the lands it controls. Consequently, despite the hard work of its propaganda army, negative public opinion of President Xi has increased across a few countries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/
Furthermore, it seems Mr. Gostin’s concerns were prescient because the WHO’s shortcomings have made it plausible for Trump to use it as a scapegoat by overemphasizing its role in his own botching of the USA’s COVID-19 response. Other international organizations are also being undermined by hypocritical conditions that run contrary to their stated goals. For example the PROC (“China”), which has forced labor camps in both Xinjiang and Tibet, has been appointed to the UN’s Human Rights Council Panel.
[And yes, I’m just triggering our resident Wumao to work for that 50c! Absent fitty’s desire to keep the spotlight on the PROC, I’d never have made this post. At the end of the day, the USA appears to be the capital of COVID-19 at this time because Wuhan’s draconian containment measures are not tenable here while American society lacks the unified purpose of the Taiwanese, preferring to politicize infection control.]
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“And yes, I’m just triggering our resident Wumao to work for that 50c! Absent fitty’s desire to keep the spotlight on the PROC, I’d never have made this post.”
You’re such a tease. You do protest too much, I knew you loved our flame war as much as I do.
Wow, I’m impressed, you went back to 2017 to come up with an accusation by a guy shilling for a rival no less! I won’t impugn your honesty since I consider it nonexistent. Since you did all this hard work, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d care to divulge the denouement of such accusation?
In your book, an accusation is as good as a conviction, I require evidence to go to the next step. At least you are consistent. You used the same witch hunting ‘logic’ to conclude that the CPC, Xi, the PRC are guilty of spreading coronavirus worldwide.
I have no evidence that you are in the pay of Falun Gong, so I’ll refrain from accusing you of shilling for them, most likely, you are some kind of right wing nut babbling nonsense.
“It’s really something else that, Taiwan (aka ROC), the country that has been denied membership in the WHO due to political pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PROC), has had one of the best COVID-19 outcomes with 7 dead in a population of 23 million. Trump puts wealth before health and Xi puts land-grabbing before well-being. I guess everyone has their red line.”
ROC’s “COVID-19 outcomes” aren’t so impressive compared to the PROC’s other, much larger territories such as Jiangsu Province, 80.4 million population, 51 infections and 0 deaths. Yes, ROC is a Chinese territory duly recognized as such by the USA under Trump. You were correct, in part, when you wrote: “[And no, Taiwan was never part of the PROC. It’s more reasonable to say that Mainland China was was part of the ROC.] ” What you omitted was the fact that the CPC liquidated the KMT on the mainland and would have finished them off on Taiwan as well but for the protection of the US navy. Now that the PROC has attained military parity, if not superiority in the South China Sea, it’s not at all clear that the USA will risk WWIII for the sake of the ROC. “US warns China against Taiwan attack, stresses US ‘ambiguity’
Senior official stresses amphibious landings difficult, but also repeats US calls for Taiwan to boost defence spending…national security adviser Robert O’Brien warned China on Wednesday against any attempt to retake Taiwan by force, saying amphibious landings were notoriously difficult and there was a lot of ambiguity about how the US would respond…O’Brien repeated US calls for Taiwan to spend more on its own defence and to carry out military reforms to make clear to China the risks of attempting an invasion.
“You can’t just spend 1 percent of your GDP [gross domestic product], which the Taiwanese have been doing – 1.2 percent – on defence, and hope to deter a China that’s been engaged in the most massive military build up in 70 years,” he said. Taiwan needed to “turn themselves into a porcupine” militarily, he said, adding: “Lions generally don’t like to eat porcupines.”
On Tuesday, the senior US defence official for East Asia called Taiwan’s plan to boost defence spending by $1.4bn next year insufficient.
He said it needed to invest in capabilities including more coastal defence cruise missiles, naval mines, fast-attack craft, mobile artillery and advanced surveillance assets.
Taiwan’s military has launched aircraft to intercept Chinese planes more than twice as often so far in 2020 as the whole of last year, the island’s defence ministry said earlier this week.”
This statement from a US official doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement of the ROC’s security. I read it as: I’ll sell you all the newfangled weapons our armorers make, but, basically, you’re on your own. What was the reaction of president Tsai Ing-wen?
“Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday (Oct 10) called for “meaningful talks” with China and appealed for de-escalation of military tensions, but the overture was swiftly rebuffed by Beijing.” She got the message from Robert O’Brien/Trump loud and clear. Xi is feeling sadistic toward her so he ignores her plea.
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Notes on the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique
Today we have passed a very significant and grim milestone. We became part of the countries with more than 10,000 registered cases of COVID-19.
(10,001 to be precise)
With 153,915 tests performed, positive cases correspond to 6.5%.
But in the 2102 tests processed in the last 24 hours, 157 were positive, which gives a positive rate in the last samples, of the order of 7.5%.
As for the mortality caused by this disease, it remains at the same level as it had been since April. About 0.7% of the detected positive cases were converted into deaths.
So goes the epidemic.
P.S.:
In my last update regarding this topic at the end of June. See https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/#comment-450478 we had by comparison:
Total number of tests: 30,273
Total number of cases: 903
Total number of deaths: 6
Therefore we had an increase of the order of 10,001 : 903 = 11 times in approximately 3 months and 10 days!
And this about the registered cases! The real number of cases out there is probably much higher.
The only good thing is that our population being young is showing a strong resilience vis a vis this disease and only 71 persons have died (registered cases).
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Notes on the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique (cont.)
Now we have entered the phase where somebody told you that an individual you know personally was infected by the disease, even if you are not yet a direct “contact”.
And the country is opening up anyway.
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Came across this comment from another blog I follow:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/10/countries-that-have-had-covid-19-success.html#comment-3440869
After a small bout of bitter laughter, I thought about how the USA has failed the COVID-19 stress test with multiple weak links exposed.
✔︎ weak institutions
✔︎✔︎ stupid politicians
✔︎ sclerotic bureaucracies
✔︎✔︎✔︎ religious nutcases [could have added another 3 ✔︎ to this category]
✔︎ institutional groupthink
✔︎✔︎✔︎ authoritarian tendencies [while certain parts of the population blather on about the “freedom” to go without masks]
COVID-19 turned a spotlight on lots of dark areas that people ignored while they were distracted with work, sports and nightly trips to the corner bar.
Not pretty at all.
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Since our Wumao keeps blathering about China everywhere, I’ll just to link to my response to his claims about what I believe about America’s “freedom” and the pandemic. This way relevant matters are at least tied together.
Our Wumao must remember that he’s being paid and I’m not. So I encounter his diatribes incidentally and respond if I can be bothered.
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Right! Didn’t you initiate this round?
“And yes, I’m just triggering our resident Wumao to work for that 50c! Absent fitty’s desire to keep the spotlight on the PROC, I’d never have made this post.”
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A brand new timeline from your friend and mine Nathan “it’s ok to love china” Rich. Please feel free to debunk it.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGusf4_1tc)
gro” it’s ok to respect china” jo. 🙂
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Part deux of Nathan “it’s ok to love china” Rich’s timeline. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTTm7QQ_Yww)
gro” it’s ok to respect china” jo. 🙂
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Going by Worldometer’s figures, on October 30, the United States logged in 101,461 new cases. On October 29, there were 91,834 new cases.
Going by numbers from several sources, including Johns Hopkins, last week we had a total 500,000 new cases of the coronavirus.
To put that in perspective, it took three months to reach the first 500,000 mark.
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Another troubling development:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/07/europe/mink-covid-19-denmark-update-intl/index.html
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@Solitaire
I just returned here to post that before seeing that you had it covered. As the virus continues to mutate we’re seeing more clinically significant forms arise. This coronavirus family could end up being with us like a flu, always changing and producing new epidemics over time.
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@ Origin
Very true.
Also, people like Biff who believe only the U.S. economy is hurting should take note that Denmark is destroying every last mink in the country. This will devastate the farmers who raised the minks, and there’s already talk that it may end the mink industry in Denmark for good. (I’m not a big fan of the fur industry, but still the point needs to be made.)
Because of the mink situation, northern Denmark has been placed under a very strict lockdown.
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https://theconversation.com/europes-second-wave-is-worse-than-the-first-what-went-so-wrong-and-what-can-it-learn-from-countries-like-vietnam-147907
Like it happened circa 100 years ago, the second wave of the pandemic will be (is being) more severe (deadly) than the first one. Numbers don’t lie!
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A few thoughts about vaccines against the novel coronavirus:
The first vaccine that I’m aware of, was the Sputnik V developed in Russia. It was announced earlier August this year.
At the time of its announcement, the usability of that vaccine was questioned by foreign governments and health authorities because the number of tests carried out to assure its safety and efficacy, were deemed insufficient. Now, when a new wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is hitting many countries in the Northern Hemisphere and Russia in particular, is the existence of that vaccine already making a difference in reducing the impact of the disease? Or not?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/russia-s-claim-successful-covid-19-vaccine-doesn-t-pass-smell-test-critics-say
The Chinese developed also a few vaccine candidates, a few months ago, and one of them is being tested in Brazil. Recently, however, the death of one of the volunteers subjected to the vaccine raised doubts about its safety. After a brief pause those tests resumed. Other vaccines are also being tested in large scale in China (PR) itself, although some countries remain also skeptical of the whole procedure leading to their creation and testing.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/11/12/933956247/china-is-inoculating-thousands-with-unapproved-covid-19-vaccines-why
-3. Recently a USA-German firm announced its own vaccine candidate. It claims 90% efficacy and negligible side effects. It is a creation by the firm pfizer.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against
The announcement was not preceded by a peer review of the technical work leading to its creation and more data should come from the scientific community to assure that it’s not a “fake vaccine”. Not being an expert myself I was wondering how they came to the “certainty” of the number 90%. Apparently the number of testers, the ones taking the vaccine and others taking a placebo, was not so large to assure a statistical “certainty”. Only a few tens of thousands…. Given the ample range of conditions where this virus manifests a ample range of different behaviors, one would expect that a larger sample was needed to extract useful conclusions. Anyway, the researchers certainly know better what they are doing..
The announcement was made in the midst of the explosive political situation lived by American society at the moment. Trump wanted the announcement to be made earlier (before elections) but by some “miracle” it happened a little later. Difficult not smell some politics mixed with this timing. Anyway, it’s one of the best “not suspected” vaccines appearing these days.
There are hurdles related to its effective deployment (deep freeze temperatures needed!).
-4. Another “not suspected” vaccine is Moderna.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54902908
It’s said tho have an efficacy above 94%. Better than the pfizer vaccine. And doesn’t require so deep freeze temperatures to be kept before deployment. A better candidate, or so it appears.
But again, why it was announced “pos-Trump”? Politics of vaccines again?
And in this environment of competition of who comes first with the novel coronavirus vaccine it can be easy to market pipe dreams for a while.
-5. There are other vaccines in development besides the ones referred above.
One good thing is that the time of development of most of those candidates seemed to have been significantly compressed. This a testimony of how humanity as a whole became scared to death because of the novel coronavirus! One should remind that for most contagious diseases, a cure normally comes before a vaccine. This time the opposite is occurring. And a vaccine is a better tool to control the current pandemic than a possible cure.
But for the renewed optimism coming from all these developments some questions remain for the time to answer. One of them is: how long a vaccine against this microbe, once taken, will protect people?
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People, check this out. New Zealand has got this thing so well in hand that they’re able to do genomic testing to verify who gave the virus to whom:
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300159539/covid19-neighbour-caught-coronavirus-from-aut-student-testing-confirms
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@ Solitaire
Kind of memory… or molecular traces… in the material composing the virus.
Quite interesting!
And scary! Because it hints at a strong evidence of mutations occurring in the virus, which at some point can give birth to more dangerous variants of it!
May God help us!
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@ Munubantu
Well, this isn’t an entirely new development. All the way back in the spring, mutations in the genome were how scientists could tell the virus came to New York from Europe instead of directly from China. If I understand the science correctly, coronaviruses as a group tend to mutate frequently. Most of those mutations are benign, but you’re absolutely correct that we have to worry about mutations that could strengthen the disease’s power against us.
What amazed me is that New Zealand is able to trace the path of the disease with such laser-like precision.
Compare that to what’s currently happening in the USA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/12/covid-social-gatherings/
Where I live, the contact tracers have gotten so backlogged that they are weeks behind. They aren’t managing to reach close contacts of known positive cases until after two weeks or more, which is past the point that those individuals should have done their 14-day quarantine. Therefore the contact tracers’ work is virtually useless at this point.
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Oh snap! more embarrassing news for SBT/Origin, Bannon and friends’ pathetic whore! I wish him better luck next time he plays at being an epidemiologist.
” newsmax.com
China Promotes Study Claiming Coronavirus Found in Italy Before Wuhan
By Theodore Bunker |
2 minutes
Chinese officials have been promoting a new study that claims the coronavirus could have been spreading undetected in Italy months before it was first found in Wuhan, The New York Post reports.
The National Cancer Institute (INT) in Milan found that a portion of volunteers in a lung cancer screening trial that took place between September 2019 and March 2020 were found to have coronavirus antibodies. The first patient to test positive for the coronavirus in Italy was identified in late February.
“This once again shows that tracing the virus’s source is a complex scientific question that should be left to scientists,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, according to the Times of London. “[It] is a developing process that can involve multiple countries.”
Giovanni Apolone, one of the study’s co-authors, told Reuters that the study shows some of the antibodies were present in the first week of October, meaning they must have been infected in September.
“This is the main finding: people with no symptoms not only were positive after the serological tests but had also antibodies able to kill the virus,” Apolone said. “It means that the new coronavirus can circulate among the population for long and with a low rate of lethality not because it is disappearing but only to surge again.”
© 2020 Newsmax. All rights reserved.”
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@ gro jo
Quoting over 500 words of copyrighted material is not fair use. Comment deleted.
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Abagond,
Too bad you didn’t allow unfair use of copyrighted material. SBT/Origin might have learned some facts instead of the fanciful bs he’s been peddling for months. Maybe not, given how thick he is.
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Objective information about the virus’s origin. Like AIDS, it was around much longer than when it jumped from animals to humans. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwziZ5ayrFY)
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Coronavirus antibodies detected in USA as early as 12/13/2019.
“The coronavirus was present in the U.S. weeks earlier than scientists and public health officials previously thought, and before cases in China were publicly identified, according to a new government study published Monday.
The virus and the illness that it causes, COVID-19, were first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, but it wasn’t until about Jan. 20 that the first confirmed COVID-19 case, from a traveler returning from China, was found in the U.S.
However, new findings published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases suggest that the coronavirus, known officially as SARS-CoV-2, had infected people in the U.S. even earlier.
“SARS-CoV-2 infections may have been present in the U.S. in December 2019, earlier than previously recognized,” the authors said.
This discovery adds to evidence that the virus was quietly spreading around the world before health officials and the public were aware, disrupting previous thinking of how the illness first emerged and how it has since evolved. It also shows the virus’s presence in U.S. communities likely didn’t start with the first case identified case in January.
Researchers came to this conclusion after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from residents in nine states. They found evidence of coronavirus antibodies in 106 out of 7,389 blood donations. The CDC analyzed the blood collected between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17.” (https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/01/940395651/coronavirus-was-in-u-s-weeks-earlier-than-previously-known-study-says).
This news is distressing and embarrassing for the ‘faith based’ epidemiologists hanging out on this blog. Down with superstitions. Let the scientists do their thing.
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An Australian COVID-19 vaccine trial was halted after it made people test positive for HIV. They say it’s a false positive. Even so, it’d kind of suck if it weren’t discovered. Can you imagine testing +ve for HIV and thinking you have contracted the virus which causes AIDS when, unbeknownst to you, it’s because you took a COVID-19 jab?
lol.
That wouldn’t be pleasant.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia/australia-cancels-local-covid-19-vaccine-development-due-to-hiv-false-positives-idUSKBN28K39A
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@ Origin
Even more strange: why did they come with the idea of testing those people for HIV? Did they tested for anything else too? For what?
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@munubantu
That’s a very good question and I wondered about it too.
Maybe it’s a standard part of the trial protocol? Or could they have suspected such an outcome for this particular vaccine and so were on the lookout? Perhaps they had HIV +ve people as part of the trial and they tested everyone throughout the process. In that case, they would have been surprised to see everyone start testing positive. I don’t know though, I’m just speculating.
There were reports early on that there are aspects of the COVID-19 spike protein that resemble HIV, allowing it to attack certain immune cells. Could the body produce antibodies in response to the SARS-Cov2 virus that mirror the response to HIV thus fooling some tests? If so, false HIV positives wouldn’t be specific to a certain vaccine. However, I didn’t get the impression that this was a general concern that was on everyone’s radar.
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So COVID-19 has shown up in WILD mink in Utah, in the vicinity of mink farms.
https://archive.is/Y0R43
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COVID-19 seems to jump species with ease having infected captive or domesticated canines and felines as well. So could wild animals in North America conceivably become reservoirs for SARS-Cov2? Could it pass around among them, mutate, and then transfer back to humans in a different form in the future?
There’s the possibility that COVID-19’s descendants will be with us for the long haul just like we keep getting different forms of influenza. IIRC, one of the suggested advantages of WHO’s naming scheme is that they can easily designate a COVID-20, COVID-21 etc.
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Talking about mutations, there were reports of a new variant in London that could be more infectious (but not more severe).
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-britain-variant-idUSKBN28P158
This leads me to a concern about vaccines that sits in the back of my mind. However, I’m not 100% sure it’s an actual possibility.
Other coronaviruses have exhibited a phenomenon called Antibody Dependent Enhancement that results in a more severe disease if certain amounts of antibodies are already present when the virus infects the person. I know it sounds counterintuitive but it happened and it was an obstacle to creating vaccines for 2003’s SARS. A disease called dengue [said: deng-geh] does this too, causing a nasty hemorrhagic fever due to ADE.
My pathological thought is whether a future mutation of SARS-Cov2 could develop such an ability, immediately putting vaccinated people at higher risk of a severe disease due to that strain. I hope it’s either impossible, incredibly unlikely, or somehow accounted for by the existing vaccine designs. But yeah, it crossed my mind.
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https://deadline.com/2020/12/garcetti-countywide-emergency-order-los-angeles-ground-zero-covid-19-pandemic-1234658796/
“Los Angeles is now the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is the most infected county of the most infected state in the most infected country in the world.”
One in twenty people within L.A. county are positive.
So how did this happen in a place where some of the most restrictive Codvid measures were implemented by both the major and the governor ?
Well people are simply defying the lock down orders and the police are refusing to enforce them.
So restaurants, hair and nail salons ect remain open despite the fact that they have been ordered closed.
The health department can’t keep up with enforcement.
The other part is that the majority of infections come from multi family households with poor access to health care.
So by the time those that get sick see a doctor the virus has taken a good hold.
If you have good health care and test positive then you are given the medications needed to nip it in the bud without getting too sick.
Both of the in home health care workers who take care of my mom tested positive but have no symptoms and are asymptomatic.
My daughter is currently taking care of my mom. My mom hasn’t been tested but my daughter monitors her temperature everyday.
There are long lines at clinics that give free testing.
The ICU floors are currently full but my wife says they are manageable where she works.
I am lucky so far in not getting it considering I am interacting with up to 30 different people every day.
I stay masked up with N95’s and keep washing my hands. I keep my distance from people not wearing masks.
If possible get N95’s. Cloth masks don’t offer you much protection.
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MJB, I’m hoping your mom didn’t get it from her caregivers.
It’s turned into quite the plague in major population centers.
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More info on the new COVID-19 strain in SE England:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/boris-johnson-calls-crisis-meeting-to-discuss-response-to-new-covid-strain
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More COVID-19 mutation news, this time from South Africa:
https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/national/severe-covid-19-variant-detected-in-south-africa/ar-BB1c3bGW
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I remembered a little nugget about the Spanish flu when I read about that strain in South Africa that could be sickening younger people.
https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence
The article goes on to attribute the spike in deaths among younger, otherwise healthy people during the Spanish flu’s 2nd wave to a “cytokine explosion” due to an overly robust immune response.
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My mom is scheduled to be tested next week.
My wife came home today and says it’s no longer manageable. Olive View county hospital in the San Fernando valley has run out of beds. This has led to triage where patients over 80 are sent home. A lot of patients between the ages of 50 and 60.
L.A. now has the most restrictive lock down orders of any city in the U.S. Yet people are going about their lives ignoring the stay at home orders.
A local church near me has a drive through nativity scene. The city of Montrose is lit up for Christmas and tonight it was full of people enjoying the atmosphere. Businesses are refusing to close and the public gladly support them.
There is a petion to recall the governor and its likely to get the needed 1.5 million signatures.
Corporations have benefited greatly from the lockdowns because they are allowed to stay open. What bothers people is companies like Pet Co can remain open but your local dog groomer can’t.
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@ Michael Barker
I wish well for you and your family. Through all this stress in these difficult times, we all need to remain firm. I only hope that this ordeal soon will be over.
The behavior of humans everywhere is telling us that we really don’t fully understand our deep true nature. I’ve been there before, being puzzled when in the early nineties, as the AIDS epidemic was beginning to grow in my corner of the world and I saw people trying not to acknowledge the situation and adjust their behavior, but instead, behaving as if everything was “normal” in attitudes regarding sex.
@ all
It’s Christmas time and before the lines become congested I wish, “Merry Christmas” for everybody on this blog.
Besides my own extended family my thoughts are with the thousands of my fellow citizens that at this time are fleeing the inhuman and cruel war that it is imposed on them in the northern part of the country. After the discovery of vast riches at our shores – natural gas – came the war! This is the price we are paying for just trying to live as… humans!
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Season greetings to you as well Munubantu.
I hope you and your loved ones have a safe and prosperous year.
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Interesting caveat pertaining to all the vaccine trials:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccine-immunity-e-idUSKBN28I0OK
The part in bold is saying that many the clinical trials of the vaccines haven’t been designed to test whether the person who got the shot can transmit the virus just whether it stops them from getting very sick.
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Aljazeera is reporting that Italy has discovered a patient infected with the new COVID-19 strain that was also found in the UK. It’s not too surprising considering that the new strain must have emerged some time before it became news. It’s probably all over Europe already.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/20/countries-close-border-to-britain-as-new-covid-variant-surges
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Just for some perspective: there are tens of thousands of genetic variants of what we call SARS COV 2. This latest one in the UK is making more news because it is theoretically more rapidly spread. Regional outbreak + common strain is anecdotal though and does not necessarily prove this strain is more dangerous. Better to be cautious, of course. But, it’s also to be expected that a regional outbreak would consist largely of a similar mutation.
The truly scary part is that the more we keep allowing the virus to live in new hosts, the more mutations will arise. It only stands to reason that given enough time and sufficient volume of hosts, a random mutation will emerge which lacks the identifying markers we’ve developed vaccines for. Granted, that may also be named SARS COV 3 and cause a disease we label COVID-21, but, it would be better to limit the scope of the spread.
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Just a couple months ago, people like Biff were lauding Sweden as a “herd immunity” success story.
Now Sweden is in the midst of a devastating surge and the hospitals are reaching capacity:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/20/as-covid-death-toll-soars-ever-higher-sweden-wonders-who-to-blame
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In the original post, Abagond noted the death counts for the deadliest worldwide epidemics since 1960.
The global fatality count for covid-19 has now surpassed all those except for HIV/AIDS (and that is a special case because the AIDS epidemic has been steadily ongoing for decades, unlike the other epidemics on the list).
The death count in the U.S. alone has surpassed the last three entries on the list combined.
The CDC estimate for U.S. fatalities from the 1918 influenza is 675,000. Right now we are at about 325,000 deaths from covid-19, close to half that.
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@ Solitaire
To make fair comparisons between the different surges one must also adjust for total population (yes biff said that!). What do you find if you do that to compare the influenza epidemic of the last century and the current the novel surge? To make things simpler make the math only for the USA.
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… the current novel coronavirus surge…
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@ Munubantu
Good point, but then shouldn’t we also factor in the advances in medical science and public health between 1918 and now? Many high-risk individuals — including Donald Trump — have survived the coronavirus because of supplemental oxygen therapy, which was only in its infancy in 1918, not yet very effective or widely available:
https://www.aarc.org/nn18-how-1918-flu-pandemic-helped-shape-respiratory-care/
We also have far better PPE, drugs, sanitation, etc., etc.
It is a reasonable hypothesis that the 1918 epidemic would not have been nearly as deadly if they had been operating at the same level of medical expertise as we are now.
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“It [the 1918 influenza] would be as if today, with our present population, more than 1,400,000 people were to die in a sudden outbreak for which there was no explanation and no known cure.”
https://www.acep.org/how-we-serve/sections/disaster-medicine/news/april-2018/1918-influenza-pandemic-a-united-states-timeline/
The 1.4 million number is similar to early predictions last spring of how many Americans would die if we didn’t undertake any public health mitigation efforts (like lockdowns):
“In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.”
Click to access Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
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@Open Minded Observer
The potentially increased rate of transmission is what makes the variant which may have originated in the UK interesting. I wouldn’t say it’s that expected that it displaces the imported variant – which would’ve had a head start – in a few months. The fact that it began to become more frequent is fascinating. They’re saying it grew to account for 60% of London’s infections.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/12/20/netherlands-bans-flights-uk-over-new-covid-19-variant/3983857001/
It seems that the preferential transmission is why they think it’s more infectious. Right now they’re not saying it causes severe illness at a higher rate. However if it spreads more efficiently it could cause more total deaths just by infecting more people.
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@Munubantu
“compare the influenza epidemic of the last century and the current the novel surge?”
Comparing the mortality of all strains of influenza over the last 100 years vs. all strains of coronavirus would be a lot of data crunching. Other than the original and current SARS along with MERS, I think most coronaviruses have been rather mild. Both of those are fairly recent. To me, that indicates we have more lethal coronavirus variants ahead.
As far as population adjusted for particularly deadly strains, I’ve read estimates of 2% for 1918 H1N1, .03% for 1968 H3N2 and 1%-3% for 2009 H1N1. As opposed to > 9% for 2003 SARS CoV, >30% for 2012 MERS CoV and 1%-3% for 2019 SARS CoV 2. So, at least at first glance, “bad” coronavirus strains look more deadly than “bad” influenza strains.
But, of course, those approximations are influenced by so many factors as Solitaire mentioned. Plus, global vaccination will slow CoV’s ability to replicate, mutate and adapt. So, when combined with new vaccine delivery technology that can also be adapted to new variants quickly, this could be the last CoV epidemic we see for a while. <- I thought I’d end with optimism this time.
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This is what I was alluding to before:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220307311
There’s more info in the very detailed paper including a review of ADE in SARS and MERS as well as the potential for ADE in the related SARS-Cov2 which causes COVID-19.
Another paper questions whether some of the severe cases in China could result from those people having been exposed to SARS, for example, thus becoming more vulnerable to SARS-Cov2 in a manner similar to the dengue example above. [I only see a publicly available abstract though, no full text]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32092539/
That’s exactly the kind of stuff I was thinking about in a previous post. Looking deeper into what scientists have published didn’t put me at ease but makes me wonder whether the concern could be valid. Could mass-vaccinations be mass-priming individuals to be more susceptible to severe illness from a FUTURE coronavirus variant? Do we know for a fact that this isn’t a possibility?
In some ways this is uncharted territory because there has never been a vaccine for a human coronavirus before now, AFAIK, yet we’ve had several approved in record time.
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@Origin
Your post immediately made me think of the news stories back in the Spring of kids experiencing “multisystem inflammatory syndrome”. That led me to this article that you might be interested in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7431129/
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@ Origin
I believe I found the link to the full article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102551/
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@Open Minded Observer
Yesterday I had read about a child who had died of COVID-19 related “multisystem inflammatory syndrome” (MIS-C) in California. When I saw your post I thought, at first, that you were referring to that until I read more carefully and realized you were talking about events from earlier in the year. But yeah, it’s still going on.
This is a Los Angeles Times article from the 9th of December.
https://archive.is/cQXRX
And this is the LA Times from yesterday (21st) talking about the growing number of MIS-C cases in California.
https://archive.is/9s7lP
This disease is still mysterious in some ways.
@Solitaire
Thanks for tracking down the full text! Sometimes it’s a bit squirreled away even when it’s publicly available.
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A few days ago I posted about an Australian vaccine trial that induced false HIV positive tests. Now I stumbled on this article from October warning that the method used to deliver some COVID-19 vaccines could increase the risk of HIV infection.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32156-5/fulltext
The information in the Lancet article above is not a trivial concern, IMO. It is especially relevant in places that already have a high HIV infection rate where COVID-19 vaccines may also be introduced.
I think it makes sense to do due diligence despite our being socially conditioned to accept COVID-19 vaccines unquestioningly It is a medical procedure after all, and a newly developed one at that.
Furthermore,
[rant enabled]
I think official desperation to save the current economic order is motivating the rapid development COVID-19 vaccines even more than public health concerns. Call me a cynic, but we know some officials advocated for a “herd immunity” strategy which basically involved encouraging mass infection while allowing business as usual. We also know that various officials lied about masks being useless back when they didn’t want the public to hoard them; now we’re often being required to wear them. Finally, look at the months it took congress to cough up a measly $600 check to Americans while they crammed the huge bill with all their pet giveaways. Those with power want to save the SYSTEM because they occupy a favorable position in it; they care much less about PEOPLE except insofar as those people are useful cogs in the machine.
[rant disabled]
Anyway, from my research, the recently approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines do not employ the adenovirus vector technique mentioned in the Lancet article but a novel “mRNA” approach [First human coronavirus vaccines and first mRNA vaccines]. However, the COVID-19 vaccine by Astrazeneca uses the adenovirus vector approach and so the article would apply to it.
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OK, last post for now, lol.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55410065
COVID-19 decided it had to touch every continent before the year ended, lol. Earlier in the year people were joking that COVID was the real life version of a game called “Plague Inc.” in which the goal is to play as a virus trying to infect the whole world.
BTW, I remember learning that Antarctica existed as a kid and was so intrigued. Combine America’s lower 48 with Mexico and that’s about how big it is. In other words, HUGE.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/multimedia/fall11/antarctica-US.html
It was not always frozen either, but was once rather warm and teeming with life.
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Interview with Laurie Garrett (on MSNBC’s Chris Hayes) about the UK strain, whether it is more infectious, and whether existing vaccines could still protect against it.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUMMRDyzNv0)
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She’s a science writer rather than a scientist, BTW, but she has written a lot about potential pandemics and pointed me to some information I wasn’t aware of.
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Some more info on the UK strain:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-24/new-virus-strain-s-transmissibility-to-cause-more-deaths-study
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Also, the South African strain that was mentioned earlier – which was said to be sickening younger people at a higher rate, has also shown up in the UK.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/23/uk-to-widen-covid-lockdowns-as-new-strain-from-south-africa-found
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Opinions from an executive of the German company which partnered with Pfizer to make one of the COVID-19 vaccines.
https://news.yahoo.com/covid-coronavirus-outbreaks-with-us-10-years-142138691.html
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Update:
My mom so far has avoided contracting the virus.
The in home heralth care workers who got the virus have tested negative and have returned to taking care of my mom. One had mild flu like symptoms for a few days and the other said they had a head ache for a day.
Locally 11,000 people in L.A. county have died from the virus. One in 17 have the virus or had it. One in five who are tested, test positive.
Still long lines to get tested at “free” clinics.
Two of my employees have gotten the virus and a sub contractor was honest enough to tell me to keep my distance as he was still shedding the virus.
People here still are not taking it very seriously. You would never know we are in a pandemic as everyone is out. People are wearing masks though.
The lockdowns here are not working because the public isn’t really afraid of the virus anymore.
My wife is getting fatigued from working the ICU floor. Code blues happen throughout the day.
Mostly people from multi generational homes with poor access to health care that get to the doctor too late.
She had one outlier 50 year old white male, non smoker. no pre-existing conditions code blueed twice in one day.
I think for the very few who are younger and have a bad time or die there might be a genetic disposition that makes them particularly vernable.
I use paper clips to draw the strings tighter on my mask so that it’s as airtight as possible.
N95’s are now plentiful and cost a dollar a piece now.
I am surrounded by the virus, fingers crossed I haven’t gotten sick yet.
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Update:
My mom so far has avoided contracting the virus.
The in home heralth care workers who got the virus have tested negative and have returned to taking care of my mom. One had mild flu like symptoms for a few days and the other said they had a head ache for a day.
Locally 11,000 people in L.A. county have died from the virus. One in 17 have the virus or had it. One in five who are tested, test positive.
Still long lines to get tested at “free” clinics.
Two of my employees have gotten the virus and a sub contractor was honest enough to tell me to keep my distance as he was still shedding the virus.
People here still are not taking it very seriously. You would never know we are in a pandemic as everyone is out. People are wearing masks though.
The lockdowns here are not working because the public isn’t really afraid of the virus anymore.
My wife is getting fatigued from working the ICU floor. Code blues happen throughout the day.
Mostly people from multi generational homes with poor access to health care that get to the doctor too late.
She had one outlier 50 year old white male, non smoker. no pre-existing conditions code blueed twice in one day.
I think for the very few who are younger and have a bad time or die there might be a genetic disposition that makes them particularly vernable.
I use paper clips to draw the strings tighter on my mask so that it’s as airtight as possible.
N95’s are now plentiful and cost a dollar a piece now.
I am surrounded by the virus, fingers crossed I haven’t gotten sick yet.
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Another thing to pay attention too is handling cash.
This week three banks in my area were closed because people who work in them contracted the virus. It is likely they contracted the virus through handling cash.
When one of their employees comes down with the virus they close the bank, have it professionally sanitized and test the rest of their employees.
Since I handle a lot of cash I now disinfect it by spraying it with Isopropyl alcohol while having the cash laid out on a towel.
I had originally washed the money in the laundry but that takes away the security features and then ATM machines won’t accept it. It also caused the cash to roll up and wrinkle and it made the cash feel to much like paper.
American money has wire in it as a security feature so don’t put it in the microwave as it might catch on fire. This was a problem in Korea. People were returning charred money to the bank.
It’s a bad day when your money catches on fire lol
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Another perspective on the vaccine brouhaha:
https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1353330538292121602
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@ Afrofem
Bill Gates can be a bad person (not that I think so, at this point in time) but the problem raised by aforementioned article and similar ones, remind me that being independent for at least 50 years the African nations (approximately 50) should already have developed their research institutions to match the challenges of the times.
As an African citizen I’m really pissed of that that is not happening at all or is happening at a very low tempo. Gone are the times when many people would assume that Africans could not learn and develop those areas of human knowledge like natural science, engineering, etc. But today it’s clear that the human potential is there. Even ready to be exported to so-called developed societies. So the culprit is the social organization in our societies where oft foreign knowledge is seen as the only path to solve problems and domestic cadres are shoved aside when difficult problems arise.
Let me put it this way (politically totally incorrect sentence!): if Whites have colonized us and our forefathers for so long, it’s not a shame that after our independence we go after them for help in whatever matter?
I would expect us going proudly and if necessary “alone”, towards our own destiny.
The solution: we must choose our leaders better.
Probably that will happen anyway, because the competition between African nations will make leaders in each one of them try to do better domestically to remain competitive vis-a-vis their neighbors. Until now those leaders seem to “compete” only against their fellow citizens in the grab of domestic resources and social positions.
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@ munubantu
*”…the problem raised by aforementioned article and similar ones, remind me that being independent for at least 50 years the African nations… should already have developed their research institutions to match the challenges of the times.
For years I pondered that question, too. Why weren’t African nations with their vast natural resources and incredibly smart people further ahead in research and development, infrastructure and living standards?
Then I became aware of mechanisms like international debt, neocolonialism, political destabilization and regime change to stifle independent development in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Similar mechanisms are utilized in “internal colonies” of the USA like Black communities, Latinx barrios and Native American reservations.
Citizens in various African countries have repeatedly chosen “better leaders” in the past half century only to have those leaders bribed or seduced, overthrown by foreign financed “rebel” groups or assassinated if they refuse to betray their people. Patrice Lumumba, first president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo comes to mind.
There are people (individuals, corporations and governments) in the Global North who feel they—not the Africans themselves— should be in control of African resources in perpetuity. They foster a climate of constant chaos on the ground to maintain unfettered access to African resources and maintain political control.
One example of this is the current situation in Camaroon. The country is endowed with large tracts of arable land, fresh water, oil and gas plus a variety of minerals.
There the French-speaking majority is attacking the English-speaking minority. The Francophone majority is led by US and French backed Paul Biya. Biya’s backers have suppressed information about the conflict in Western media and stifled international humanitarian relief from the UN and other bodies.
If the Cameroonian conflict is mentioned at all, US media chalks it up to “tribal conflicts” and moves on to another story.
Munubantu, to me a good deal of Africa’s lack of developement has more to do with outside interference and less to do with ‘good governance’.
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“I would not trust the Sputnik vaccine one bit, not until it does in fact pass Phase III trials. Putin controls the media in Russia, so the vaccine might seem to work in Russia when in fact it does not.”
Abagond, distrust no more: (https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-combining-the-oxford-vaccine-with-russias-sputnik-v-could-make-it-more-effective-152873)
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@ munubantu
Another article discussing the corrosive influence of outside interference in African societies, this time in the critical sector of agriculture:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/gates-foundations-green-revolution-africa-agribusiness-wins-small-scale-farmers-lose
Note: I’ve been reading articles by Ann Garrison for years, in different media outlets. She is a careful and incisive reporter. Garrison is not given to hyperbole or fearmongering.
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The same white folks saying the virus was a hoax, jumping in line getting the vaccine before the people of communities most vulnerable to the virus.
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The same folks who feel entitled and don’t want to wear mask, jumping in line to get the vaccine.
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@ gro jo
Thanks.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/uk-coronavirus-variant-develops-vaccine-evading-mutation/ar-BB1dkjfN
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“The variant, called B.1.1.7, was first identified in the U.K. in September 2020 and has since spread around the world, Live Science previously reported. This variant is more contagious than earlier versions of the coronavirus.”
Hmm, would it be seemly to say “UK lied, people died”? No, that kind of bs should apply only to China and Russia, I wonder why?
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It’s racist to call it the UK variant.
Let’s call it COVID-Sep-2020.
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“It’s racist to call it the UK variant.
Let’s call it COVID-Sep-2020.”
No problemo. Is that pseudo word racist?
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@gro jo
Assuming the very sovereign, monarchic and post-Brexit UK did lie, what’s it to you?
Isn’t that the amoral global sty you vociferously advocated for a few months ago?
gro jo:
Or does the right to lie or obfuscate in one’s own perceived self-interest only apply to China and the USA?
I wonder why?
Though, being as fair-minded as I am, I must admit the possibility that was there a change of heart based on principle rather than CCP-felating convenience.
Do I dare imagine that gro jo found Jesus !?
Imagine I shall, but I wouldn’t even bet the value of Xingtai’s bottled air on it, lol!
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Origin,
Your capacity for selective reading never fails to amaze. How are the following statements in contradiction?
“As a sovereign nation the PRC is not obliged to report anything to anyone, so any talk of ‘coverups’, ‘under-reporting’ is just talk. Like the USA, the PRC will release what information it deems in its interest. ”
“Hmm, would it be seemly to say “UK lied, people died”? No, that kind of bs should apply only to China and Russia, I wonder why?”
I was making the same point I made many moons ago: Governments are reacting to the disease, a sane person would expect them to miss changes when dealing with new outbreaks. China, UK and SA were reacting to the disease so all claims that they lied and people died is bs. As sovereign states, they have the absolute right to determine what gets reported. If you know better, I’m all ears.
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@gro jo
lol
I knew I would have lost the pittance…
I guess you don’t care much about global cooperation on health or the WHO
[
unless it’s praising the CCP for saying the coronavirus isn’t transmissible human-to-human while whistle-blowing doctors are getting mortally sick from having contracted it from patients…
Well, at least some face-saving is occurring:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1202103.shtml
]
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The AstraZeneca vaccine is less effective against the B.1.351 variant, which is found most commonly in South Africa.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astrazeneca-varian-idUSKBN2A60SH
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Last year, in midst of the pandemic, I thought that in less than a year the challenges put by this new virus would be over at the dawn of 2021. It has waked in us the strongest will and best efforts to fight it.
Now, I’m not sure anymore. In the last months, new vaccines are being created rapidly, putting in our hands a powerful arsenal of weapons to combat this enemy. But the virus is developing new camouflages almost every month, evading our best efforts, in each turn. This war is far from over and humans will suffer many more casualties before the victory. And unfortunately, some of us do not have the required discipline or will to help the rest of us in keeping this “good fight” (i.e., they are not wearing masks, not keeping social distance, etc). It’s a pity!
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And this is a real game changer against Covid-19. See links below.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/tel-aviv-hospital-cures-29-of-30-covid-19-patients-in-days-it-says-658024
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/coronavirus/1612515689-reports-coronavirus-medicine-developed-in-israel-96-effective
Echoing a journalist who commented about that breakthrough in Portuguese television, I ask “why all this frenzy about getting a vaccine and not enough effort for the cure? does it help those people already sick of the virus?”
About cures, I remember that Madagascar told everybody last year, that they had developed a cure too. Has anybody paid attention? Or it was risky to give credit to those “untrustworthy Africans”? Not even a little attention was given to that possibility.
Maybe somebody wants to retain the monopoly of “The Cure***”? (big pharmaceutical companies). This is a perverse world!
***AIDS has no cure until now. Why? Because the knowledge of a receipt for a cure is not yet been developed or… somebody wants to maintain an immense reservoir of sick people in order to turn them into clients ready to pay forever for drugs which do not cure but only maintain their lives in a limbo (not cured, not dead yet!). Food for thought!
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“@gro jo
lol
I knew I would have lost the pittance…
I guess you don’t care much about global cooperation on health or the WHO”.
Yawn.
You are now reading Global Times! My job is done, with more information, maybe you won’t sound so ignorant.
Let me try, for the last time, to explain the national sovereignty concept: “National sovereignty legal definition of National sovereignty
[Search domain legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/National+sovereignty] (https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/National+sovereignty)
Sovereignty The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.”
I’m sure you could have found the definition on your own, being a blowhard, doing so would have prevented you from grandstanding as some kind of moralist.
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Origin, as a first class epidemiologist, what’s your opinion of the investigation the WHO carried out in China regarding the origin of covid-19? I recall you were pretty sure the source would be found in China.
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“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John, 8:32
After a long period of all kinds of speculations about the origins of the new coronavirus, I think we are approaching the truth.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/14/health/who-mission-china-intl/index.html
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“After a long period of all kinds of speculations about the origins of the new coronavirus, I think we are approaching the truth.”
Can you be more specific?
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@ gro jo
There are several aspects of the truth that we expect to come out.
For example the hypothesis that the virus could have jumped to human populations elsewhere than in Wuhan, becomes less likely to be true after it’s discovered that several variants of the virus were spotted there by the WHO mission. Several variants there means that this virus had more time there to replicate and occasionally create said variants. As far I know nowhere else is similar scenario to be found. Also the moment when that jump happened must be shifted further into the past. Certainly was not in December, 2019.
I must said nevertheless that the blame put by some on the Chinese government for not acting earlier seem to me exaggerated, and the hypothesis that ‘humans created it in a lab in Wuhan’ seems now less likely to be true.
We, humans, must learn to live with this kind of setback like the one we are currently on (the pandemic). This is one of the prices to pay for being alive. This is not a perfect world (for us)!
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“There are several aspects of the truth that we expect to come out.
For example the hypothesis that the virus could have jumped to human populations elsewhere than in Wuhan, becomes less likely to be true after it’s discovered that several variants of the virus were spotted there by the WHO mission.”
That would be true only if several variants were found only in or around Wuhan and a clear case made that all other variants are later mutations of these variants. I don’t believe that’s the conclusion.
When will the WHO take similar investigations in Italy, France and the USA, where indications of the virus’s presence before 12/2019 exists?
(https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201115/covid_19_circulated_in_italy_earlier_than_thought) (https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2020/12/01/study-suggests-covid-19-was-in-the-us-weeks-earlier-than-thought-before-first-public-cases-in-china/?sh=73ca60e64bf8) (https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/covid-19-probably-circulating-france-november-2019-study-finds/)
It would be prudent to hold off on conclusions about covid-19’s origin.
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The opinions of Peter Daszak WHO (animal/environment group) lead investigator on this NYT article: (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html) should make anyone think twice before deciding that you’re getting the truth from the media.
What follows is a 477 words,2734 characters, excerpt of the conversation on his Twitter account: “See new Tweets
Conversation
Peter Daszak
@PeterDaszak
This was NOT my experience on @WHO
mission. As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust & openness w/ my China counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways.
A medical worker at the hotel where members of the World Health Organization team stayed in Wuhan, China.
On W.H.O. Trip, China Refused to Hand Over Important Data
The information could be key to determining how and when the outbreak started, and to learning how to prevent future pandemics.
nytimes.com
6:27 AM · Feb 13, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
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Peter Daszak
@PeterDaszak
·
Feb 13
Replying to
@PeterDaszak
New data included env. & animal carcass testing, names of suppliers to Huanan Market, analyses of excess mortality in Hubei, range of covid-like symptoms for months prior, sequence data linked to early cases & site visits w/ unvetted live Q&A etc. All in report coming soon!
Dr. Wanda, CFA
@8BB8B8
·
Feb 13
Replying to
@PeterDaszak
and
@WHO
CCP must have some pee tape level blackmail on you.
Parsley Snow
@Parsley004
·
Feb 13
What’s your background and do you understand what he is talking abt?
if carlin is still alive..
@nreweel
·
Feb 13
She’s a doctor in a country who still can’t agree on wearing masks n is leading the world in covid cases n deaths. No surprise.
leftist political discourse understander
@silvercorpusa
·
Feb 13
Not even a medical doctor lmao. A financial analyst.
Sport Hooligan
@myaya80085
·
Feb 13
The only self declared honorary financial analyst in history
Face with tears of joy
Face with tears of joy
Image
Jane
@JaneWilliams_0
·
Feb 13
Replying to
@PeterDaszak
and
@WHO
Did the mission get access to the bio labs in Wuhan?
RRDaNerd
@raythenerd
·
Feb 13
They did. Not only did China give the WHO experts access to the virology lab in Wuhan, they also granted NBC journalists a visit back in August:
Inside the Chinese lab central to the search for the coronavirus’ origin
The institute is the focus of speculation and conspiracy theories — some emanating from the White House — about whether the virus leaked from the facility.
nbcnews.com
Jane
@JaneWilliams_0
·
Feb 13
This article raises a number of loose ends though. For such huge ramifications there does still appear to be a lack of depth presented to citizens about these visits. A 5 hr tour including a lab visit? That sounds more like a school visit than an investigation.
RRDaNerd
@raythenerd
·
Feb 13
Well I’m sure the journalists were more eager and capable than you and me of digging into the depths and finding valuable information. Given all the hatred and resentment against China, who doesn’t want to uncover China’s “dirty secrets” if there was any?”
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More information coming from the WHO recent mission to China.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/21/china/who-covid-19-origins-intl/index.html
More questions than answers, but some eye-opening assertions.
(emphasis added)
(emphasis added)
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Are the emphases yours or the authors of the articles? If they are yours, please state why you emphasize them? I hope you’re not confusing plausible with proven? Your first quote seems to imply that the Chinese are hiding something, if so, what do you think they are hiding and from whom are they hiding it (whatever it is)?
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Is the world prepared for the Manaus variant of the chinese virus?
It is more contagious
It infects people who had the chinese virus
It seems to infect vaccinated people
It might be more deadly
Masks and social distancing might not be effective against it [empirical evidence]
It might not be affected by the drugs that were effective in early treatment of the chinese virus (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, azithromycin, zinc, etc) [empirical evidence]
Press F for respect (for the world)
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@ Alberto Monteiro
Scary stuff!
This is one of the reasons why humans as a species must do whatever they can to get rid globally of this virus, as fast as possible!
Laissez faire policies vis-a-vis this virus, anywhere in the world are dangerous for everybody elsewhere. This is the question!
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I’m afraid that, with the chance that the virus will keep having mutations, the only way to kill the virus will be to define some day as “Everybody gets infected day”. Then everybody goes out, kiss each other, sneeze on each other. Then 5% will die because the health system will collapse. And the virus would die.
“et le combat cessa faute de combattants”
(and the fight stops, for lack of warriors)
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/et_le_combat_cessa_faute_de_combattants
But who is going to be responsabile for 400 million deaths?
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BTW, while some people despair, some people see this as an opportunity:
https://libertymaniacs.com/products/the-venn-of-dystopia-graphic-t-shirt
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@Alberto
Regarding your “Everybody gets infected day”… that’s honestly no different than everyone getting infected over years. Each and every one of those people would be a unique host inside which various mutations would occur. So, everyone gets infected on day 1 but, they would also need to isolate until 100% of their uniquely mutating virus version had been eradicated within them or else they’d simply go out and begin spreading again. Some of those variants are bound to be completely new and likely even SARS-COV3 or something.
Simply put, with simplified numbers… a virus cell enters a person(host) and leverages the host’s cells to make copies of itself. Each cycle this happens allows for mutations to occur and the mutated copies make copies of themselves. In a vaccinated person, the immune system reacts quickly to stop the cycle early before the host gets severely ill and before too many copies/variants have a chance to exist. In an un-vaccinated person, or person who’s immune system hasn’t seen the variant before, the cycles continue for weeks while the host spreads a variety of virus to others.
Most mutations are either so severe that the new copy fails to thrive or are not distinct enough to matter and the same immune reactions work against them like the original. However, infecting everyone seriously increases the number of virus production factories(A.K.A. people) running around generating mutations and would dramatically increase the odds of a significant variant emerging.
In the end, your plan is solid and evolution would do what evolution does… Some, if not all, susceptible hosts would die off and those that survive would be stronger and better adapted for it. Our big brains leveraging science in a self-centered quest to prolong our inevitable extinction is part of what makes us so special though.
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” on Sun Apr 12th 2020 at 19:36:45
Solitaire
“The root of the problem is that these governments don’t value their citizens, the racism flows from that fact”
Wow. That’s a new twist to victim-blaming, or at least one I haven’t heard before.”
Silly. Watch this video showing how little the people in charge in Africa care about their citizens. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbCfmVtenlE)
Until Africans start to standup for their people they will be mistreated.
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@ Grojo
Sigh. As I already explained before, I wasn’t denying that this happens. I was objecting to your blaming the victim and thereby absolving the Chinese of their racism. You’re basically saying that bullies can be bullies as long as the victims don’t stand up to them and that there’s no reason for others to criticize the bullies for their bullying.
Was it the fault of African nations that once again the state-sponsored New Year’s program had Chinese dancers performing in blackface? African nations have objected to this before; their leaders and diplomats haven’t remained silent. Yet here it is happening again. Where is the racism flowing from?
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It flows from not standing up for themselves and forcing the poor bastard who, for reasons known to him, tried to ‘lecture’ the Chinese bosses, to abjectly apologize to them after a quiet word from the higher ups.
Lecturing doesn’t work, entering into businesslike relationships, i.e. not having a hand out for the requisite bribe, would go a long way in fixing the problem. Shutting down businesses that cater to Chinese only clients in African countries would help.
The anger of the lady who upbraided Wode Maya for speaking out is all to typical. As they say in Haiti, only a fool allows someone to take advantage of him, only a bigger fool refrains from doing so when the opportunity presents itself.
“Was it the fault of African nations that once again the state-sponsored New Year’s program had Chinese dancers performing in blackface? African nations have objected to this before; their leaders and diplomats haven’t remained silent. Yet here it is happening again. Where is the racism flowing from?”
So, I should just take your word for this, evidence, please? Lecturing doesn’t do anything, taking away licenses, boycotting manufacturers who sponsor things that are offensive would be better.
“I was objecting to your blaming the victim and thereby absolving the Chinese of their racism. You’re basically saying that bullies can be bullies as long as the victims don’t stand up to them and that there’s no reason for others to criticize the bullies for their bullying.”
Nonsense. Bullies stop being bullies when they get a kick in the ass. You’re back at your mind reading act again, unfortunately, you are bad at it. The Chinese approach to Australia’s racism toward them by letting the Aussies know that they can guzzle their wine instead of exporting it to China had Morrison singing a more dulcet tune, until Africans can do likewise they’ll get no respect. What you were really objecting to was Africans standing on their feet instead of their knees begging for a little bit of kindness. Being a ‘good’ white liberal, you can’t imagine them being other than submissive. You strike me as a modern day Olympe de Gouges, full of sympathy for the ‘poor’ slaves but not when they rise up. “Gouges did not approve of violent revolution, and published l’Esclavage des Noirs with a preface in 1792, arguing that the slaves and the free people who responded to the horrors of slavery with “barbaric and atrocious torture” in turn justified the behavior of the tyrants. In Paris, Gouges was accused by the mayor of Paris of having incited the insurrection in Saint-Domingue with the play.[9] When it was staged again in December 1792 a riot erupted in Paris. [10]”
The way I see it, Africans shouldn’t wait for the Chinese to ‘fix’ themselves.
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@ Gro Jo
“only a bigger fool refrains from doing so when the opportunity presents itself.”
That’s a common sentiment among individuals with Cluster B personality disorders. Make of that what you will.
“So, I should just take your word for this, evidence, please?”
How did you miss it? It was all over the news. You know how to use Google.
“Nonsense. Bullies stop being bullies when they get a kick in the ass.”
Unless the kick in the ass prompts the bullies to retaliate even harder.
“The Chinese approach to Australia’s racism toward them by letting the Aussies know that they can guzzle their wine instead of exporting it to China had Morrison singing a more dulcet tune, until Africans can do likewise they’ll get no respect.”
How many African nations are currently in an economic position to approach China in this manner?
“What you were really objecting to was Africans standing on their feet instead of their knees begging for a little bit of kindness. Being a ‘good’ white liberal, you can’t imagine them being other than submissive. You strike me as a modern day Olympe de Gouges, full of sympathy for the ‘poor’ slaves but not when they rise up.”
Bad mind reading on your part. I was objecting to your claim that racism is caused by African leaders neglecting to protect their people. That’s it.
I’m not the only person here who has taken issue with your “might makes right” attitude. Origin and Afrofem both have recently as well.
And objecting to your attitude doesn’t mean that I want to see Africans on their knees. I would love to see not only China but all the American and European corporations kicked the hell off of the continent, with African nations deriving all the benefits of the many resources currently being exploited by non-African nations.
“Gouges did not approve of violent revolution, and published l’Esclavage des Noirs with a preface in 1792, arguing that the slaves and the free people who responded to the horrors of slavery with “barbaric and atrocious torture” in turn justified the behavior of the tyrants.”
Something I have never argued, nor do I believe.
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“How did you miss it? It was all over the news. You know how to use Google.”
I guess that means you’ve got nothing. I’m not surprised.
“That’s a common sentiment among individuals with Cluster B personality disorders. Make of that what you will.”
Or people aware that ‘love’ doesn’t conquer all.
“Unless the kick in the ass prompts the bullies to retaliate even harder.”
How? They need African mineral resources, what are they going to do, invade Africa, so that Europeans can arm the Africans to bleed the Chinese white? The Chinese aren’t stupid.
“I’m not the only person here who has taken issue with your “might makes right” attitude. Origin and Afrofem both have recently as well.”
You are all wrong. I’m happy to set you right. Might always makes right. Show me a counterexample and I’ll take you seriously.
“And objecting to your attitude doesn’t mean that I want to see Africans on their knees. I would love to see not only China but all the American and European corporations kicked the hell off of the continent, with African nations deriving all the benefits of the many resources currently being exploited by non-African nations
We both know that’s not going to happen anytime soon and isn’t even rational. What are Africans going to do with resources they don’t have the capital or techniques to develop? Your ‘sympathy’ is purely verbal, the only thing it’s good for is to make you feel good about yourself.
“Something I have never argued, nor do I believe.”
That’s your story and you should stick to it.
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@ Gro Jo
“I guess that means you’ve got nothing. I’m not surprised.”
You would rather make a baseless jab than bother to do a quick search:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lunar-newyear-china-gala-idUSKBN2AC0BK
https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/racism-and-the-belt-and-road-in-cctvs-spring-festival-gala/
“Or people aware that ‘love’ doesn’t conquer all.”
It has nothing to do with love and everything to do with how sociopathic behavior harms communities. Trump is an excellent example. He was in it solely to take advantage of fools for his personal aggrandizement, and in the process he’s driven the country to ruin.
“Might always makes right. Show me a counterexample and I’ll take you seriously.”
Are you kidding?? European nations and their white colonies used their might to tear Africans away from their homes, forced them to work as slave labor, beat them, raped them, mutilated them, killed them. Was that right? Was it morally and ethically justifiable because the whites had the might to do it?
That’s one example. Need I provide more? Do you even read this blog?!
“Your ‘sympathy’ is purely verbal”
Christ, at least I have sympathy. Talk to me when you grow a conscience.
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Reading on social media about violence perpetrated against Asian-Americans. This is very disturbing and horrible. Double masking and social distancing. The Governor has lifted mask mandates and opened up the state 100 percent. This is dangerous and stupid. Made appointment to get vaccinated. And even after vaccination I will continue to wear mask and social distance.
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“Are you kidding?? European nations and their white colonies used their might to tear Africans away from their homes, forced them to work as slave labor, beat them, raped them, mutilated them, killed them. Was that right? Was it morally and ethically justifiable because the whites had the might to do it?
That’s one example. Need I provide more? Do you even read this blog?!”
African elites were totally innocent in this process? It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that Europeans were able to directly control Africa. What did all the ‘sympathy’ of people like Olympe and you change? It wasn’t until Europeans began to tear each other apart that Africa got a break. Hitler (bless his racist heart) and Tojo did more to free the African and Asian continents from the domination of European empires than all the do-gooders combined. So, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ intentions don’t matter in the scheme of things. Might makes right.
“Trump is an excellent example. He was in it solely to take advantage of fools for his personal aggrandizement, and in the process he’s driven the country to ruin.”
This is a joke, right? Trump ruined nothing, he wasn’t able to get anything done. His ‘coup’ was a sad joke. Aside from stuffing the pockets of his rich friends, he was prevented from making any serious changes, hell, he was censored by Twitter!
“Christ, at least I have sympathy. Talk to me when you grow a conscience.”
I’m happy for you.
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I read both links you provided and I failed to notice where African governments protested the depiction of Africans as you claimed in this paragraph. “Was it the fault of African nations that once again the state-sponsored New Year’s program had Chinese dancers performing in blackface? African nations have objected to this before; their leaders and diplomats haven’t remained silent. Yet here it is happening again. Where is the racism flowing from?”
It was in bad taste for the Chinese to black up, but to claim it was blackface is nonsense. Where were the gigantic red lips and exaggerated facial features of traditional blackface meant to humiliate?
You might find this story instructive. It is about Africans in China confronting Chinese people about their biases. (https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2017/11/01/photgrapher-racially-charged-wuhan-photo-exhibit-apologizes-after-meeting-beijing)
Instead of only collecting the rubbish in Western media, this Global Times (yeah,yeah, I know, it’s a “commie” rag) article might give you a more nuanced view of how to combat racist stereotypes in China. Note that the fact of racist discrimination is clearly acknowledged (https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1054216.shtml).
Weaned on cheap and stupid anti-communist propaganda, you probably are more comfortable with the bs the Western media feeds you since it’s meant to make you feel ‘morally’ superior. Africans don’t the luxury of luxuriating in such nonsense. Like Prometheus, they are in China to ‘steal’ the Chinese fire of economic development the way the Chinese did.
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@ Gro Jo
“African elites were totally innocent in this process?”
Changing the goalposts. You asked for an example, I gave you one. The complicity of a few African elites doesn’t somehow make chattel slavery right.
“It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that Europeans were able to directly control Africa.”
And many historians believe the detrimental effects of the forced diaspora enabled Europeans to take control. Those African elites above were very short-sighted.
“Hitler (bless his racist heart) and Tojo did more to free the African and Asian continents from the domination of European empires than all the do-gooders combined.”
That’s an interesting take on things. Have any sources to back up this interpretation?
“So, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ intentions don’t matter in the scheme of things. Might makes right.”
Yeah, I’m not seeing where you proved this. Hitler’s intentions were to take back Germany’s colonies in Africa that were lost in WW1. Considering that the Nazis massacred black French troops and promulgated anti-black propaganda, I doubt they were planning anything else in Africa but an extension of the Holocaust. The Germans already had practice with genocide in southwest Africa; they’d just be picking up where they left off.
Also, where exactly did you prove that might makes right as it pertains to my example, the slave trade?
“This is a joke, right? Trump ruined nothing”
500,000+ dead and counting.
“I read both links you provided and I failed to notice where African governments protested the depiction of Africans as you claimed in this paragraph.”
I thought I had read they did so both this year and in 2018. But it was almost a month ago that I was reading heavily about the topic. I’ve done a little digging and I can’t find what I thought I remembered. I believe I must have been thinking about comments like this one:
“The first time it’s a mistake and the second time a choice,” Gyude Moore, Liberia’s former minister of public works, wrote on Twitter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/02/11/cctv-gala-blackface-chunwan/
Which is admittedly not the same thing as an official objection from current governments or diplomats. My mistake.
“It was in bad taste for the Chinese to black up, but to claim it was blackface is nonsense. Where were the gigantic red lips and exaggerated facial features of traditional blackface meant to humiliate?”
So you’re okay with the fake tribal outfits and facial paint? And the brown costumes meant to represent bare skin? What about the fake giant buttocks from 2018?
🔹🔹🔹🔹
In conclusion…. I’m sorry you are so bored that you dug up a comment of mine from months ago to argue with, in the process entirely missing (or wilfully misinterpreting) my original point.
While I have sympathy for the bored state in which you find yourself — the lockdowns, restrictions, and social distancing are taxing almost everyone’s ability to keep their brains occupied — I don’t have much more patience for your attempts to draw me into a long and contentious argument over a minor disagreement from almost a year ago. And while I do recall how this argument originally was linked to the post’s subject (the coronavirus), at this point it’s gone waaay off topic.
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“In conclusion…. I’m sorry you are so bored that you dug up a comment of mine from months ago to argue with, in the process entirely missing (or wilfully misinterpreting) my original point.
While I have sympathy for the bored state in which you find yourself — the lockdowns, restrictions, and social distancing are taxing almost everyone’s ability to keep their brains occupied — I don’t have much more patience for your attempts to draw me into a long and contentious argument over a minor disagreement from almost a year ago. And while I do recall how this argument originally was linked to the post’s subject (the coronavirus), at this point it’s gone waaay off topic.”
Can’t finish what you started? You should have resisted the desire to show off your ‘moral’ superiority. By the way, it was you and your friends who went off topic last year in a failed attempt to bait me.
“Changing the goalposts. You asked for an example, I gave you one. The complicity of a few African elites doesn’t somehow make chattel slavery right.”
The current discussion was about the complicity of African officialdom, so I fail to see how pointing out the complicity of Africans in the slave trade is changing goalposts. A number of Africans and their children made their peace with slavery in the Americas. A fourth of the slaves in St-Domingue were owned by people of African ancestry. Montiero bragged about his half black, slave owning ancestor in the Black Brazil thread. (https://abagond.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/black-brazil/#comments). One of the greatest fighters for the freedom of Blacks, Toussaint Louverture, is reputed to have owned slaves. Given these facts, you can’t get very far with a purely moral take on the actions of human beings.
“Which is admittedly not the same thing as an official objection from current governments or diplomats. My mistake.”
To err is human.
“That’s an interesting take on things. Have any sources to back up this interpretation?”
Don’t need sources since the aftermath of WWll loudly makes my case. Seeing the Japanese mistreat the Brits, French, Dutch, etc. robbed the latter of fheir aura of invincibility. As for what Hitler would have done, that’s irrelevant since he never got very far in Africa, but irreparable damage to the French and British. How the hell could the Brits keep up the pretense of imperial when they were reduced to rations after the war? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Later)
“So you’re okay with the fake tribal outfits and facial paint? And the brown costumes meant to represent bare skin? What about the fake giant buttocks from 2018?”
Grasping at straws aren’t you? Blacks don’t have dark skins or large buttocks? As I’ve said, such display, like most caricatures, is in bad taste nothing more.
Strange how you remain silent on the work of Ms. Samantha Sibanda and the serious way Global Times reported on her activity. I guess if you can’t turn something into a blanket condemnation of China it is of no interest.
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Abagond, what did you do to my comment?
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@ Gro Jo
“Can’t finish what you started?”
No, I’m pointing out that it’s way off topic. Also, I’ve told you before I don’t enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing, and I feel like that’s what’s happening here. You’re dragging in multiple side topics, like Hitler and British rations and Toussaint Louverture, going off on a series of tangents which are even less related to the topic of this post.
“By the way, it was you and your friends who went off topic last year in a failed attempt to bait me.”
You have a bit of a persecution complex.
“The current discussion was about the complicity of African officialdom, so I fail to see how pointing out the complicity of Africans in the slave trade is changing goalposts.”
Because the particular challenge you gave me was to provide an example where might doesn’t equal right. I don’t see how their complicity — or that of the black slaveowners — proves me wrong.
Is slavery right or not?
Is it right to force someone else to work for you without pay?
And to beat them bloody if you aren’t satisfied with their work?
And to sell their children away from them?
Does the might to do these things make it right to do them?
“As for what Hitler would have done, that’s irrelevant since he never got very far in Africa”
Since you’re arguing that might makes right, then your example of Hitler doesn’t stand up because he failed in what he set forth to do concerning Africa.
And if might always makes right, then if Hitler had succeeded, would you be arguing that whatever atrocities he unleashed on Africa were right?
“Grasping at straws aren’t you?”
I was describing exactly what other people were complaining about. I suppose you consider all the Native American sports mascots to simply be in bad taste, too? Then that’s your opinion. I don’t agree.
“Strange how you remain silent on the work of Ms. Samantha Sibanda and the serious way Global Times reported on her activity. I guess if you can’t turn something into a blanket condemnation of China it is of no interest.”
What was there to say? She’s doing good work, and it’s good they reported on it, but it didn’t pertain to the particular incidents I brought up concerning the Lunar New Year’s performances. Has there been any apology for that?
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“No, I’m pointing out that it’s way off topic. Also, I’ve told you before I don’t enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing, and I feel like that’s what’s happening here. You’re dragging in multiple side topics, like Hitler and British rations and Toussaint Louverture, going off on a series of tangents which are even less related to the topic of this post.”
No, the topic is the same, moral judgements are useless since they don’t change anything by themselves, they only give the moralizer a good opinion of him/herself. Change occurs when a force is applied to an object. The Japanese and German empires attacking the old established empires sent them into tailspins that allowed nationalist forces in the colonial nations to get rid of their exploiters, something that moral condemnation could never do.
“You have a bit of a persecution complex.”
Just telling it like it is.
“Is slavery right or not?”
Do you condemn Athenian and U.S. democracy because they were founded on slavery? The average Westerner doesn’t, they see it as a good that was made possible by an evil.
“Is it right to force someone else to work for you without pay?
And to beat them bloody if you aren’t satisfied with their work?
And to sell their children away from them?
Does the might to do these things make it right to do them?”
Why does “pay” make it ok to make someone work for you? Since you have the power to beat someone bloody and or sell their children, would it be better to do so for fun rather than profit? As I see it, the evil lies in the fact that you have such power, not in how or why you use it. Yes might makes right, it always has.
“Since you’re arguing that might makes right, then your example of Hitler doesn’t stand up because he failed in what he set forth to do concerning Africa.
And if might always makes right, then if Hitler had succeeded, would you be arguing that whatever atrocities he unleashed on Africa were right?”
Power is objective, intentions are subjective. Hitler didn’t have the power to execute his plan to enslave the whites of Eastern Europe the way the Brits, French and others lorded it over Africans and others. He did the subject peoples a huge favor by bankrupting the old empires. History is rich with ironies.
“I was describing exactly what other people were complaining about. I suppose you consider all the Native American sports mascots to simply be in bad taste, too? Then that’s your opinion. I don’t agree.”
I’m not losing sleep over it since I have no control over mascots. The only way to change such things is to oppose them with countervailing force. Isn’t that what the protests are about? That’s what Ms. Sibanda is doing in China, if African governments backed her effort I suspect progress would be swift. Once again Might makes right, if you won’t or can’t fight you suffer.
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“What was there to say? She’s doing good work, and it’s good they reported on it, but it didn’t pertain to the particular incidents I brought up concerning the Lunar New Year’s performances. Has there been any apology for that?”
Who do you want them to apologize to, the Africans who didn’t seem all that upset or to the Western media who made a mountain out of a molehill? Funny how people who committed the worst crimes against Blacks appoint themselves their ‘protector’. I suspect an ulterior motive.
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@ gro jo
No recent comment from you in either the moderation queue, spam filter or trash.
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This is the comment I was asking about: (on Tue Mar 16th 2021 at 14:16:37
gro jo). When I pressed post, it disappeared with no indication where it went.
Anyway, to conclude my debate with Solitaire, morality is something only the powerful can make a claim to the weak have no choice but to suffer and protest.
“Are you kidding?? European nations and their white colonies used their might to tear Africans away from their homes, forced them to work as slave labor, beat them, raped them, mutilated them, killed them. Was that right? Was it morally and ethically justifiable because the whites had the might to do it?”
This a one sided view, Africans have resisted such predations with some successes. (https://www.africanexponent.com/post/8503-the-untold-story-of-african-resistance-against-the-slave-trade)
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Yesterday (2021-03-26) I was watching a brazilian news show, “Opinião no Ar”, and the guest (sorry, I forgot his name) said something very scary.
We are mass-vaccinating the population at the peak of the Manaus variant of the chinese virus infection. Which means we are increasing the chance that we will apply vaccination to people already infected, with lots of virus hijacking body cells to produce more viruses. Which means we are artificially selecting a much deadlier sub-variant of the virus, one that will be resistant to the vaccines.
I really hope he were wrong.
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“I really hope he were wrong.”
When you elect a right wing moron as president, the inability to face reality is all you’re left with.
You wrote the following: “I’m afraid that, with the chance that the virus will keep having mutations, the only way to kill the virus will be to define some day as “Everybody gets infected day”. Then everybody goes out, kiss each other, sneeze on each other. Then 5% will die because the health system will collapse. And the virus would die.
“et le combat cessa faute de combattants”
(and the fight stops, for lack of warriors)
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/et_le_combat_cessa_faute_de_combattants
But who is going to be responsabile for 400 million deaths?”
Are you now worried that you and your loved ones might be counted among The “faute de combattants”?
I see they brought back Lula, what do you think of that fact and will you vote for him as the savior of Brazil?
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The anti-China morons on this blog should get down on their knees and pray because Xi wasn’t as stupid as Bolsonaro, if he had, the death toll would be, at least, ten times what it is.
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@gro jo https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/war-in-north-africa/war-in-north-africa/
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brutal-genocide-colonial-africa-finally-gets-its-deserved-recognition-180957073/
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sorry off topic, i just got my pfizer shot #1 yesterday, it didn’t hurt or make me sick (yet)
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Thanks for the links. If you think they refute my argument you are wrong. The defeat of Rommel came at a cost to the British, they had to cough up the imperial loot they accumulated over centuries to get US help. When WWll ended they were just a little island nation off the coast of Europe. The Hereros were massacred because they didn’t know how to play one colonial power off another. The Tasmanians didn’t fare better under the British/Australians. Worrying about being off topic is on this thread is like worrying about the barn yard door being open after the horses bolted.
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Double masking and half vaccinated, waiting to get second dose April 14th. First dose made me sleepy and exhausted for two days. Other than that I was fine.
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The WHO report on the origin of the virus can be downloaded here: (https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the-virus)
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@gro jo:
Do you trust the numbers the fascist government of China released about the death toll of the chinese virus? Even the number from democracies are very doubtful, they may be wrong by a factor of 2 or 3.
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I trust all numbers from everybody up until they are revised. I’m in no position to come up with my numbers and arguing about numbers is as useful as arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin.
Do you trust the fascist Bolsonaro to reach herd immunity if so, how high a body count are you comfortable with?
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@gro jo no i’m saying the germans were not a liberating force for africa, north or other wise
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@v8driver, who said they were? My argument is that in trying and failing to take over from the British, the Germans fatally weakened the latter and made their hold on their colonies untenable. The national liberation of colonies was an unintended consequence of the war.
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Interesting article about how Senegal’s recent experience with containing Ebola helped strengthen that nation’s response to Covid-19:
https://www.vox.com/22397842/senegal-covid-19-pandemic-playbook
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People in India dying by the thousands and fools in America still don’t want to be vaccinated.
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Over a month and not one comment on the official WHO report? Where have all the “Wuhan Virus” pests gone? Has the cash dried up for pushing this bs since Trump was ‘canceled’ by the electorate?
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@gro jo
Maybe the marketing of those thoughts has ended but, I was at an event over the weekend where the majority of folks still referred to COVID19 with various Asian-related names. Some don’t believe it was deliberately invented by the Chinese but, it was pretty clearly their “common knowledge” that it originated there.
The fact people care is so odd to me… does anyone believe the virus is sentient enough to choose which host it mutates in much less where that host is located geographically? Show me a coronavirus that can read a map and I’ll show you the new apex predator on planet Earth.
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@ gro jo
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but today, the most important question regarding the novel coronavirus is the emergence of its mutated variants, like the one in India, which have the potential to change the game – homo sapiens sapiens against novel coronavirus – in favor of the latter. At least for a while…
The rest are… almost like side issues.
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@ Open Minded Observer
Wow!
The vaccination process must be already quite advanced in your place.
If you don’t mind, I would ask,
— how many people were there;
— were they wearing masks or practicizing the ‘old’ social distance protocol;
— were they bringing with them hand sanitizers;
— …
Ah, I waked! I was dreaming back in the year 2020! Old memories…
By the way, I would like to invite the main contributors of this thread, to reflect on “The Covid-19 pandemic, one year later, 2021: facts and challenges”. A small crop of topics:
— comparison of May/2021 versus May/2020, a few statistics;
— how much the vaccination process has already gone at local or planetary level;
— human egoism and altruism as displayed in the context of the pandemic;
— we, the survivors of this pandemic, what do we think when we look back at those 365 past days, which events we will remember forever, what about the friends, acquaintances and family members we lost to the disease;
— it was a bad dream coming to an end… have we learnt a few important lessons about life?
— the immediate future pos-Covis-19?
I end here.
Please, reflections and contributions.
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Post Scriptum:
Have you all noticed that one of the main contributors of this thread it’s been missing for a few months now.?
His name is…
I hope the guy is alive and well. A treasure of knowledge about Asian and Native American issues… etc.
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“@ gro jo
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but today, the most important question regarding the novel coronavirus is the emergence of its mutated variants, like the one in India, which have the potential to change the game – homo sapiens sapiens against novel coronavirus – in favor of the latter. At least for a while…
The rest are… almost like side issues.”
Nonsense. The most important question is why India, the USA and others treated the disease as a problem for China alone and were quite happy to see them tackle it alone. I remember the glee expressed by western media about how quarantining wouldn’t work, and how India would be the pharmacy of the world. All these claims turned out to be nonsense. The “Wuhan Virus” lie is still being pushed by the Indian media, so I’m not the only one who failed to change the subject. You might find this delirious bit by my favorite Indian bs artist, the attractive Palki Sharma, instructive: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kRyu2qoHQE)
“Post Scriptum:
Have you all noticed that one of the main contributors of this thread it’s been missing for a few months now.?
His name is…(jefe, maybe? I figure either the Chinese secret police disappeared him or he’s gone underground.)
I hope the guy is alive and well. A treasure of knowledge about Asian and Native American issues… etc.(speak for yourself. He was a lying pest.)”
“@gro jo
Maybe the marketing of those thoughts has ended but, I was at an event over the weekend where the majority of folks still referred to COVID19 with various Asian-related names. Some don’t believe it was deliberately invented by the Chinese but, it was pretty clearly their “common knowledge” that it originated there. (Seems to me that the people who pushed that narrative can claim mission accomplished.)
The fact people care is so odd to me… does anyone believe the virus is sentient enough to choose which host it mutates in much less where that host is located geographically? Show me a coronavirus that can read a map and I’ll show you the new apex predator on planet Earth. (It’s obvious that you are a gentleman and scholar)”
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The WHO proudly told us in January 2020 that there was no evidence the virus could transmit from HUMAN to HUMAN. They made such a potentially disarming statement without first obtaining the positive evidence that would have allowed them to rule out that very dire capability. However the virus has since traveled to virtually every country and killed millions so it’s fairly obvious that they were wrong to downplay the potential danger early on. That’s quite a monumental failure from the world’s HEALTH watchdog.
But now that WHO has rubber-stamped the zoonotic theory without having obtained incontrovertible evidence supporting it, I suppose everyone is once again supposed to naively buy those pronouncements?
LOL.
Herr gro jo-ker, shouldn’t awaken reasonable people from their peaceful slumber to respond to sycophancy, interrupting their repose in their freedom of thought derived from their lack of fanatical allegiance to any political entity.
Here’s an excerpt from WHO’s report where they address the lab escape theory.
Sounds familiar?
We know from experience that when the WHO says there’s “no evidence” it doesn’t mean they’ve carefully discounted a possibility, it simply means that there are gaps in their knowledge. IOW, they don’t fn know so the question remains open.
Bottom Line #1:
To this point, nobody has identified the original reservoir of any sufficiently close relative of SARS-CoV-2 among any population of wild animal.
Bottom Line #2: The outbreak started in Wuhan where there is a virology lab that was doing research on coronaviruses to make them more capable of infecting humans (gain-of-function).
The argument is no more closed respecting the virus’ origin than it was closed regarding the virus’ ability to transmit between humans when WHO suggested in January 2020 there was “no evidence” of such transmission evidently because Chinese officials had made “no report” of it. So forgive me for not leaving my brain at the door just because WHO wrote “no evidence” and “extremely unlikely” in a PDF document.
BTW, you have to laugh at so many people experiencing Pavlovian loss of bowel control if SARS-CoV-2 is ever geo-tagged as the Wuhan or Chinese virus even while the media has been gleefully discussing the Brazilian, South African, UK, and Indian variants. You have to admit, that is very effective shaping of the narrative.
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It’s actually another masterwork of narrative shaping that the lab escape theory has received so little genuine inquiry.
[TBH, this state of affairs is probably at least partially accidental and is related to Trump’s attempts to blame China in a self-serving bid to avoid responsibility for America’s pandemic response failures. This resulted in a reflexive backlash from liberals and the mainstream media which then rendered anything vaguely resembling Trump’s pronouncements verboten.]
Living next a gas plant and suddenly smelling the overwhelming stench of gas would likely lead you to immediately suspect a leak at the facility. If someone suggested that a passing truck, unrelated to the facility, was actually the source of the odor but they were unable to produce any evidence it existed, you’d likely remain unconvinced. Wuhan has a “gas plant” and nobody nobody has caught the “truck” on cctv or a mobile phone.
I think the state of affairs is nicely outlined by a science writer (who has worked for Nature and NYT) named Nicholas Wade. I probably should say “outlined” because the article is very long but he takes a careful look at the issues.
[Note: I haven’t read the article to completion yet but found the treatment, so far, compelling enough to post.]
https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038
Intro:
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@munubantu
“The vaccination process must be already quite advanced in your place.”
A little over half the population.
“If you don’t mind, I would ask,…”
<50 people, all vaccinated (even those who previously had COVID), no masking, outdoors…
I’ve also had occasion to attend indoor youth sporting events ~100 people, 50/50 vaccinated, all masked… crowds there are less overtly racist in their naming of the virus but, I don’t know a single person that doesn’t assume the outbreak originated in China. Some have conspiracy theories about intentional release and other assume natural course of events while still others assume nefarious origin of virus creation combined with unintentional release.
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@Origin
“BTW, you have to laugh at so many people experiencing Pavlovian loss of bowel control”
Could you imagine the reaction of those folks in Michigan who stormed their capital (and probably the US one as well) if the press started reporting on a “Michigan variant” evolved due to the number of human incubators running around maskless and scared of nanobots in the vaccine?
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@gro jo
“It’s obvious that you are a gentleman and scholar”
Meh…
To be clear, I don’t disagree that the “outbreak” likely began in Wuhan. Although, there may be evidence that the virus (or variations of it) were popping up prior to that. Which, to me, indicates a pandemic was inevitable.
I also don’t discount that labs around the World may have been researching coronavirus mutations. Possibly for nefarious reasons and also to predict future evolution in order to prepare for it. When you have something as common as coronaviruses incubating in millions of humans globally and you’ve already had SARS and MERS, the eventuality of another becomes obvious. So, might that research have been in the Wuhan lab? Sure. Might that research have escaped? Possibly. Might a similar mutation have originated naturally and coincidentally? Sure, why not? If the scientists were doing their job correctly and accurately predicting likely evolution, it’s conceivable.
In the end, people and governments do all kinds of things in the name of science. Let’s face it, we tested nuclear bombs and Large Hadron Colliders before we knew what might happen. So it’s also possible some foreign power deliberately started a pandemic near a lab in Wuhan that was known to be conducting similar research in order to push a narrative that might simultaneously damage China’s economy and discredit them on the World stage. Just because that’s the stuff movies are made of doesn’t make it impossible. Insanely reckless and somewhat less likely but, we live in a world where governments have experimented on their own citizens so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.
I do know one thing for certain: No matter what, the virus doesn’t care. Viruses gonna virus and they don’t need our help.
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@ Origin
“BTW, you have to laugh at so many people experiencing Pavlovian loss of bowel control if SARS-CoV-2 is ever geo-tagged as the Wuhan or Chinese virus even while the media has been gleefully discussing the Brazilian, South African, UK, and Indian variants.”
I have to admit I’ve used those names for the variants on occasion, but I’m starting to see problems inherent in using geographical terms.
First, these mutations have the ability to arise spontaneously in different parts of the world. I’ve been reading that scientists strongly suspect B.1.1.7 (the so-called UK variant) arose separately in at least one of the West Coast hotspots here. Using the name of the place where the mutation was first detected obscures the fact that the same mutation can happen again independently, anywhere and any time.
Second, I’m already seeing people make mistaken and biased assumptions about the mutations due to the geographical names. For example, just last week someone insisted to me that the mutations are “a Third World problem, something that can’t happen here because we have better sanitation, and those mutations won’t come here unless we let those people cross our borders.” This was a second-year med student.
The insistence by the press on using the geographical terms for the variants of concern is just going to lead to more stupid biased illogic, which ultimately hampers efforts to contain the virus.
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“We know from experience that when the WHO says there’s “no evidence” it doesn’t mean they’ve carefully discounted a possibility, it simply means that there are gaps in their knowledge. IOW, they don’t fn know so the question remains open.
Bottom Line #1:
To this point, nobody has identified the original reservoir of any sufficiently close relative of SARS-CoV-2 among any population of wild animal.
Bottom Line #2: The outbreak started in Wuhan where there is a virology lab that was doing research on coronaviruses to make them more capable of infecting humans (gain-of-function).
The argument is no more closed respecting the virus’ origin than it was closed regarding the virus’ ability to transmit between humans when WHO suggested in January 2020 there was “no evidence” of such transmission evidently because Chinese officials had made “no report” of it. So forgive me for not leaving my brain at the door just because WHO wrote “no evidence” and “extremely unlikely” in a PDF document.
BTW, you have to laugh at so many people experiencing Pavlovian loss of bowel control if SARS-CoV-2 is ever geo-tagged as the Wuhan or Chinese virus even while the media has been gleefully discussing the Brazilian, South African, UK, and Indian variants. You have to admit, that is effective shaping of the narrative.”
This is deep coming from the keyboard of my favorite “sbt”. I experience no Pavlovian or any other kind of loss of bowel control when I hear “Wuhan virus”.
I like the way you clearly list the lack of information regarding the source of the “Wuhan virus”.
I hoped you’d drag Nicholas Wade into the conversation because that allows me to throw Ron Unz’s analysis of said article. Like you, Mr. Unz was impressed with Wade’s article but felt obliged to point out one missing hypothesis that the Chinese have been pushing from the start. A biological attack on China by the USA. He ascribes that action to ‘rogue’ elements of the deep state. An apt description of the Trump regime er, administration, in my opinion. I suspected as much when I pointed out how similar the whole thing was to Jack London’s 1910 story: “The unparalleled Invasion”.
I’m not saying that hypothesis is proven, only that it’s as good as the Wuhan lab leak. Being a fair minded dude, I have no doubt you will look at that aspect and come back here with your ‘expert’ opinion.
I’ll excerpt the salient part of Mr. Unz’s argument for the delicate types who don’t wish to be exposed to the extreme racism of Unz’s website.
“Exactly the same glaring omission is found in Wade’s 11,000 word article. Taken together, Lemoine, Baker, and Wade have produced a large collection of high-quality articles on the origins of the global Covid-19 epidemic, but nowhere among their 54,000 words is there even a hint that the virus might possibly have had its origins in America’s well-documented and lavishly funded biowarfare program. For several years, our newspapers have proclaimed that we are now locked into a new Cold War against China, with some risk that it might turn hot. But the obvious possible implications of the sudden, potentially-devastating outbreak of a dangerous viral epidemic in our leading international adversary remains unmentionable, too explosive even to dismissed or ridiculed, let alone carefully considered…Although the coronavirus is only moderately lethal, apparently having a fatality rate of 1% or less, it is extremely contagious, including during an extended pre-symptomatic period and also among asymptomatic carriers. Thus, portions of the US and Europe are now suffering heavy casualties, while the policies adopted to control the spread have devastated their national economies. The virus is unlikely to kill more than a small sliver of our population, but we have seen to our dismay how a major outbreak can so easily wreck our entire economic life.
But with the horrific consequences of our own later governmental inaction being obvious, elements within our intelligence agencies have sought to demonstrate that they were not the ones asleep at the switch. Earlier this month, an ABC News story cited four separate government sources to reveal that as far back as late November, a special medical intelligence unit within our Defense Intelligence Agency had produced a report warning that an out-of-control disease epidemic was occurring in the Wuhan area of China, and widely distributed that document throughout the top ranks of our government, warning that steps should be taken to protect US forces based in Asia. After the story aired, a Pentagon spokesman officially denied the existence of that November report, while various other top level government and intelligence officials refused to comment. But a few days later, Israeli television mentioned that in November American intelligence had indeed shared such a report on the Wuhan disease outbreak with its NATO and Israeli allies, thus seeming to independently confirm the complete accuracy of the original ABC News story and its several government sources.”
(https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-truth-and-the-whole-truth-on-the-origins-of-covid-19/)
Abagond, I’ve counted the number of words in the quote, it is 783, I think that’s below your word count quotation rule.
If the ABC News story is true, how did US intelligence agencies know about “an out-of-control disease epidemic was occurring in the Wuhan area of China” before the Chinese?
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“In the end, people and governments do all kinds of things in the name of science. Let’s face it, we tested nuclear bombs and Large Hadron Colliders before we knew what might happen. So it’s also possible some foreign power deliberately started a pandemic near a lab in Wuhan that was known to be conducting similar research in order to push a narrative that might simultaneously damage China’s economy and discredit them on the World stage. Just because that’s the stuff movies are made of doesn’t make it impossible. Insanely reckless and somewhat less likely but, we live in a world where governments have experimented on their own citizens so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.
I do know one thing for certain: No matter what, the virus doesn’t care. Viruses gonna virus and they don’t need our help.”
Brilliant. You are a gentleman and scholar.
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While Origin researches the possibility that the “Wuhan virus” was created by the USA, I’ll share these historical facts with this blog:
1) (https://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-cia-lsd-experiments). US citizens, white ones , were the guinea pigs.
2) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States#Biological_warfare_and_disease/pathogen_experiments)
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@ Origin
Recently some discussions have been taking place regarding the origin of the novel coronavirus and the possible involvement of USA and its scientific and research institutions in it.
I re-read your interesting comment one year ago touching these issues, https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/#comment-437358 , and I would like to know if the concerns you expressed there remain, namely:
On a further note, I sense that you remain a believer that the virus could have come from a lab leak. But then, would you join senator Rand Paul who recently has asked repeatedly the Dr Anthony Fauci about the possible role the institution he led, could have played, even if indirectly, in the emergence of the “not yet finished” Covid-19 pandemic?
If the Wuhan lab leak origin hypotheses turns out to be true and the backward pointing link to the USA also, this would be the ultimate irony because it would signal that a society that has allowed in a not so distant past a despised class of its citizens to be subjected to “scientific experiments” in Tuskegee (see, https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/the-tuskegee-experiment/) ultimately finds itself funding and helping a junior partner overseas to create a monster which once out of the bottle, would walk the whole Earth, wreaking havoc everywhere, and coming back to haunt it. As they say: “it is chicken coming home to roost”
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Origin, The money tap is flowing again for your brand of ‘research’. Tell me, how are you and the boys and gals at Langley, fort Detrick and other spook haunts going to ‘determine’ where covid-19 came from when the best experts in the world have not been able to do so?
(https://news.google.com/search?q=biden%2C%20covid-19%20origin&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen)
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The “Lab leak” is Steve Bannon, Falun Gong bs. (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/31/wuha-m31.html)
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An expert debunking of Nicholas Wade’s bs. (https://medika.life/debunking-nicholas-wades-origin-of-covid-conspiracy-theory/).
Our boy Origin was real ‘impressed’ with Wade’s nonsense. I ask myself, why do I bother trying to educate the naïfs on this blog? I know, it’s a dirty job, Abagond won’t do it, so I have to.
Who is Wade? For a presumably ‘woke’ character, Origin should have been aware of Wade’s ‘scientific’ racism: (https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/05/28/troublesome-sources-nicholas-wade%E2%80%99s-embrace-scientific-racism).
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I can tell gro jo-ker was quick study at wumao propaganda school. Instead of debating the facts – when they are incontrovertible – Groebbels likes to try to deflect by bringing up unrelated matters to impugn the character or credibility of any sources of uncomfortable information.
I’ll award a score of 2 out of 5 Mao Famines for that real-world application.
Knowledge of the theory was ably demonstrated but the performance was a bit too “on the nose”. The tactic is employed too frequently by this particular disinfo intern and is wielded with all the subtlety of hippopotamus in an inflatable pool.
Furthermore Pinocchijo behaves as if his credibility, that of Chinese state media and of the WHO – who told us there was no evidence the now raging pandemic virus transmits between humans – is beyond reproach leaving the shill wide open to reverse application of the same tactic.
(In the limit, it’s not like it’s difficult to find an article online saying Xi Jinping is an evil Uighur-exterminating maniac…which should end any argument in favor of China if the wumao’s simple-minded approach were to be uniformly applied.)
Anyway:
The World Health Organization, WHO (from Virus Origins Report):
Nicholas Wade (from article linked previously):
That SARS-COV-2 is not a particularly close evolutionary relative of any virus found in nature seems quite a bit like a scientific consensus to me.
[It’s not like a lawn turns purple the moment an alleged racist calls me and tells me that the men who were mowing the lawn said it was green. Wade is just a reporter after all.]
So if our resident Chinese-funded genius has some independent research to the contrary probably it should be published so it can be peer reviewed.
Until then I am going to need a theory for why a coronavirus for which no sufficiently close natural progenitor is known suddenly appeared – well-adapted to infecting humans – and caused a pandemic which was centered in a city which has a virology lab that was doing genetic research on coronaviruses.
Hmm… I wonder which possibility, that’s consistent with what we know, could account for this?
Oh, I know!
One of the captive soup-destined bats at Wuhan’s market was a genetic engineer and vengefully threw together a virulent infectious agent that’s effective against humans, quickly, when it realized it was going to be eaten!
Curse you Pierre de Furbat!
LOL!
Francis Bacon:
Elvis Pressley:
I’m patient for truth, and unmoved as ever by desperate rants.
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By the way, a few posts I made back in May 2020 are just as relevant today after certain emails were released due to a FOIA request.
Here’s the new info from the emails:
https://news.yahoo.com/researcher-tied-wuhan-lab-thanked-201433387.html
The bolded comment by Fauci was in April 2020 but it is openly admitted now, in 2021, that scientists have NOT produced that chain of virus mutations that naturally caused SARS-Cov-2 across species from animal to human.
But that’s not even the reason I quoted the article; I was particularly interested in Daszak’s interest in quashing the Lab Leak Theory when he has ties to the Wuhan lab. The emails reveal that we was very appreciative that Fauci told everyone to look elsewhere for the virus’ origins.
Fauci’s role in restarting gain-of-function research after the Obama administration moratorium, and Daszak’s role as a facilitator were the focus of my posts in May 2020. Even back then, Daszak was appearing in the media dismissing the the possibility of a lab leak of an engineered virus without disclosing his connection to the Wuhan facility.
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Above, I meant to say: “that WOULD HAVE naturally caused SARS-Cov-2…”.
Anyway, these were the posts in May 2020 pertaining to Daszak and Fauci:
This was about a newsweek article about Fauci’s support for gain-of-function research and Daszak’s involvement.
This was a followup to the post above in which I noted that Daszak was on NPR decrying “conspiracy theories” about the virus’ lab origin WITHOUT disclosing his intimate connection to research that was happening at the Wuhan Virology Institute.
If the SARS-Cov-2 virus did originate in the Wuhan lab, the truth has enemies on BOTH sides of the Pacific ocean.
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“If the SARS-Cov-2 virus did originate in the Wuhan lab, the truth has enemies on BOTH sides of the Pacific ocean.”
You’re not sure where SARS-Cov-2 virus originated? Isn’t that a bit of a climb down from your precarious perch? You sounded a lot more certain last month when you wrote the following: “Living next a gas plant and suddenly smelling the overwhelming stench of gas would likely lead you to immediately suspect a leak at the facility. If someone suggested that a passing truck, unrelated to the facility, was actually the source of the odor but they were unable to produce any evidence it existed, you’d likely remain unconvinced. Wuhan has a “gas plant” and nobody nobody has caught the “truck” on cctv or a mobile phone.”
Since you’re going to question the honesty of Daszak and Fauci, world renowned experts in their fields based on the words of little Nicky Wade, I have the right to point out that he’s no expert and he’s a man who wrote a book that the ‘woke’ tribe on this blog would find objectionable. Like you, I’m not averse to a little character assassination.
According to the Wuhan lab leak hoax, the leadership of China is so deathly afraid of public opinion that they would engage in a massive coverup, allowing the people responsible for that disaster to go on their merry way unpunished. People have been executed for taking a few millions in bribes, so, the idea that people who caused trillions in damage not being held responsible is ridiculous. It’s my understanding that the Chinese leadership adheres to Voltaire’s quip about English admirals: “In this country it’s a good thing to kill an admiral now and then to encourage the others.”
I’d love to hear how you and your spook friends are going to determine where the virus came from, how it got to Italy in October 2019, months before it was found in China. “Italy sewage study suggests COVID-19 was there in December 2019…Scientists in Italy have found traces of the new coronavirus in wastewater collected from Milan and Turin in December 2019 – suggesting COVID-19 was already circulating in northern Italy before China reported the first cases.”
It’s just as plausible that it originated in the USA or one of the myriad US labs all over the world.
“Elvis Pressley:
Pretty dumb quote, the sun goes away every night.
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Glad to be fully vaccinated. I am still going to wear mask. We are still in the pandemic.
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@ Mary
Same here.
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https://www.newsweek.com/china-state-media-says-country-must-prepare-nuclear-war-us-after-biden-asks-covid-probe-1596568
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v8, did you read the Global Times editorial? Here it is.
” globaltimes.cn
Cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the US: more nuclear missiles and warheads
Global Times
2 minutes
Cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the US: more nuclear missiles and warheads
A formation of Dongfeng-41 intercontinental strategic nuclear missiles takes part in a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, capital of China, October 1, 2019. Photo: Xinhua
A formation of Dongfeng-41 intercontinental strategic nuclear missiles takes part in a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, capital of China, October 1, 2019. Photo: Xinhua
As the US strategic containment of Chinas has increasingly intensified, I would like to remind again that we have plenty of urgent tasks, but among the most important ones is to rapidly increase the number of commissioned nuclear warheads, and the DF-41s, the strategic missiles that are capable to strike long-range and have high-survivability, in the Chinese arsenal. This is the cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the US.
We must be prepared for an intense showdown between China and the US. In that scenario, a large number of Dongfeng-41, and JL-2 and JL-3 (both intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missile) will form the pillar of our strategic will. The number of China’s nuclear warheads must reach the quantity that makes US elites shiver should they entertain the idea of engaging in a military confrontation with China.
On this basis, we can calmly and actively manage divergences with Washington to avoid a minor incident sparking a war. US hostility toward China is burning. We must use our strength, and consequences that Washington cannot afford to bear if it takes risky moves, to keep them sober.
The author is editor-in-chief of the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn”
In other words, if you want peace, prepare for war. To tickle the latinist in Abagond. “Si vis pacem, para bellum”
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Wow it’s starting to feel like a giant political cartoon like they used to draw back in the 1860’s! “Saber-rattling!”
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The difference being that the “West” no longer has a monopoly on technology, military or civilian. “Saber-rattling!” will result in the destruction of both sides.
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@all and that’s what the mm mmm mmmm i’m talkin about almost everything everyone around here buys is chinese there is no anti-anyone overt racism or violence here and like what? ok that’s great i know the model number of the MIRV in bound are freaking kidding me gro jo i never thought about hurting you on a real tip
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“v8driver
@all and that’s what the mm mmm mmmm i’m talkin about almost everything everyone around here buys is chinese there is no anti-anyone overt racism or violence here and like what? ok that’s great i know the model number of the MIRV in bound are freaking kidding me gro jo i never thought about hurting you on a real tip”
Whaaa!? Are you high again? What the f.. are you on about?
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“More Taiwan residents come to mainland for COVID-19 shots
Doses ‘safer, more convenient’ than those offered in US
By Fan Anqi and Wan Lin Published: Jun 08, 2021 10:23 PM “. How ironic in light of the praise heaped on Taiwan’s female leader on this blog. (“Even ignoring credible reports that Chinese doctors were being muzzled from December and that Taiwan was warning about human to human transmission, this does not compute.” (Origin)
“By December 31, Taiwan had already launched a protocol to address the emerging epidemic and started monitoring persons arriving from Wuhan with checks for fever and other flu-like symptoms. Any arrival with symptoms were promptly separated and subjected to tests for seasonal flu, SARS and MERS.” (jefe)
“So, Taiwan launched their epidemic control (formulated after the 2003 SARS epidemic) protocol weeks before anything was done in Wuhan, and way before WHO raised any signals. Since Taiwan was excluded from the WHO, they did not feel obligated to follow their recommendations. Conversely, WHO completely disregarded anything discussed or discovered in Taiwan. The world is poorer for it.” (jefe)
“Taiwan also moved into pandemic prevention mode too, even faster than HK. And the government there made sure that everyone had enough face masks and even ordered all factories to stop exporting any overseas during February and March” (jefe)
“@ Origin
Of course the PRC doesn’t want Taiwan at the table.
Taiwan has handled the COVID-19 pandemic effectively. China becomes hysterical when Taiwan is treated like the sovereign country that it is by other sovereign countries.” (Afrofem)
“It’s really something else that, Taiwan (aka ROC), the country that has been denied membership in the WHO due to political pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PROC), has had one of the best COVID-19 outcomes with 7 dead in a population of 23 million. Trump puts wealth before health and Xi puts land-grabbing before well-being. I guess everyone has their red line.” (Origin)
“Republic of China’s Tsai Ing-wen leads the field in COVID-19 containment despite being geographically close to Xi’s pestilence-exporting mainland.” (Origin)) My conclusion on 5/4/2020 seems wise in light of recent developments: “The final verdict on the crisis will be several years in the future.”
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News, comic relief, from BBC (Big Bad China) News courtesy of Nathan (“It’s ok to love China”) Rich. Enjoy.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVWyzTo5njY)
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Origin, pull your head out of your butt and learn some real science, instead of ‘little Nicky’ Wade bs: (https://zenodo.org/record/5075888#.YOYP4xNKhTY)
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https://www.npr.org/2021/07/15/1016436749/who-chief-wuhan-lab-covid-19-origin-premature-tedros
So it seems as if my assessment of the previous WHO report which claimed there’s “no evidence” that the pandemic started due to a lab leak is correct.
For if it were the case that the WHO had information on which to POSITIVELY assert that the virus DID NOT originate from the virology lab in Wuhan they wouldn’t be now asking China for “more transparency” and saying that it was premature to rule out a lab leak.
Good thing I have a brain unlike most Wumaos whose craniums seem to be entirely filled with the excess sewage that China hasn’t dumped into the South China Sea.
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A quote attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer:
As the truth about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus passes through the phases, it will also gradually grow strong enough to fight for itself because – at the final stage, when a truth is self-evident – no defenders are needed.
Eventually one is able to safely ignore the “flat-earthers” as they shout into an indifferent void …
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I recently came across an article (actually a pair of articles) that dealt with how the pandemic is changing aspects of our society. In this case, how many people view time and what that might mean going forward.
The author, Charles Mudede, argues that pre-pandemic, most people in our culture experienced time as something centered around work. He describes it this way:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/03/15/55858247/what-a-year-of-lockdown-tells-us-about-the-nature-of-human-time
*The uncompensated would include parents or grandparents who care for young children in the home and caregivers of the sick and the old.
In the second article, Mudede contends that:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/07/16/59143204/there-is-a-shortage-of-labor-because-people-want-their-time-back
While the corporate media has regaled us with tales of rises in domestic violence, loneliness-induced suicides and parents who need copious amounts of alcohol to deal with being at home with their kids, there has been a whole other side of this pandemic’s effects on the social fabric.
Many people have been given plenty of time to think about their lives. Freed from the hustle and bustle of work-centered time and losing themselves in distractions like live or televised sports and the neighborhood bar, some people reviewed their lives and decided they wanted to spend their time differently. They want to spend their time in ways that are meaningful to them.
Part 1 of 2
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Part 2 of 2
Some people have spent the pandemic getting more education or job training. Others have or are planning to make a career switch. Some people are letting employers know they prefer to stay remote. Others are seeking more time flexibility in their jobs.
In the “…People Want Their Time Back” article, Mudede presents an Axios survey graph that explores why people are not in a hurry to take the (mostly low-wage service jobs) that are facing labor shortages.
Nearly three-quarters of the survey’s small pool of respondents aren’t the mooching slackers that dominate rightwing propaganda against COVID-19 government benefits.
They are ordinary people who want a life that is not dominated by work. They want a “time-being” that leaves time for their interests and their humanity.
Mudede concludes that the current we-must-cut-their-benefits-to-force-them-back-to-work propaganda, as well as, the rush to re-open schools is rooted in
“The fear that instructs all resistance to the radical reduction of the working week has nothing to do with the loss of productivity and everything to do with the real danger of the wage-earning classes experiencing other modes of going through time.”
◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎
I often hear and read people who talk about returning “to normal”. In my opinion, this pandemic is akin to a war. The disruptions of COVID-19 will have lasting impacts on the lives of many people and on our society. There will be no “returning to normal”.
We are entering a new normal.
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“Eventually one is able to safely ignore the “flat-earthers” as they shout into an indifferent void …”
An apt description of your cranium.
“https://www.npr.org/2021/07/15/1016436749/who-chief-wuhan-lab-covid-19-origin-premature-tedros
So it seems as if my assessment of the previous WHO report which claimed there’s “no evidence” that the pandemic started due to a lab leak is correct.”
Really Origin, did you and your spook friends unearth the ‘truth’? If you did please be good enough to share it with us. What’s up with the “So it seems…” are you or are you not correct?
My, my, what a turn around on your part in the assessment of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus! are you the same bozo who wrote the following?
“I guess that cholera coverup situation didn’t end Dr. Tedros’ 2017 bid for the WHO top job after all! It turns out that someone with relevant experience covering up epidemics was in charge of the WHO in 2020 in time for the COVID-19 pandemic. He was more than willing to tweet and endorse The People’s Republic of China’s official obfuscation [no evidence of human-to-human transmission] without doing due diligence despite warnings from other entities.”
I like you Origin, you are such transparent bs artist. Like all international civil servants, the good doctor is susceptible to pressure from powerful nations. China and its friends will soon apply their own pressure on the good doctor (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228963.shtml). His statement means nothing until the W.H.O. withdraws its report based on compelling new evidence. Being a Steve Bannon whore, you’re forced to grasp at straw since the bs claim you want to push is firmly repulsed by science. By the way, the report claimed a lab leak was unlikely given the evidence they had. Do you have new evidence that would require revision of that claim?
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@gro jo
Your desperation is hilarious!
I can barely make sense of that diatribe!
I swear, China has technology to remove “shame neurons” from Wumaos’ rudimentary central nervous systems.
Calling me a bs artist when you’ve been nothing but a naked propagandist in this thread for over a year? LOL. I can barely breathe and it’s not because of COVID, lmao.
There has been no turnaround in my assessment of Dr. Tedros. The relevant matter is the credibility of the authority YOU’RE appealing to. In case you forgot, YOU were the one who triumphantly brought up the previous WHO report. However, unlike you, I’m interested in truth so I’d ACTUALLY READ the report already and knew that – despite the stated conclusion that there was “no evidence” for a lab leak – the contents of the report did not actually dispel the possibility. Now – lo and behold – the head of the WHO himself is saying that the question of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still open and is requesting more complete data from China. This obviously undermines the status of the previous report as the “final world” on the virus’ origins that you were presenting it as when YOU resurrected the issue with this post: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/the-coronavirus/comment-page-1/#comment-536243
THAT is the point go slo!
Duhh!!
If you can’t see that you’re slower than I thought … which would be quite a feat.
joseph groebels said:
<
blockquote>
Like all international civil servants, the good doctor is susceptible to pressure from powerful nations. China and its friends will soon apply their own pressure on the good doctor
<
blockquote>
Then if you believe that to be so, could it be that you’ve just exposed YOURSELF for the BS artist that you are? Because when YOU appeal to the WHO in this thread you’re not doing so on the basis that the organization’s principals are subject to political manipulation by powerful governments but with the implication that its leadership is somehow neutral and above the fray. In fact if I had made a statement such as you made above you’d have accused me of Trumpian undermining of the global health institution. But apparently you never had a genuine belief in the WHO’s independence.
So was China and its friends “applying their own pressure” when the WHO announced back in January 2020 that there was “no evidence” of human to human transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus even as healthcare workers were contracting it and getting sick in China? Was China and its friends “applying their own pressure” when the WHO previously announced that there was “no evidence” the virus originated from the lab while the report did not actually present evidence rule out that possibility. Why were you presenting the WHO’s declarations as the truth of the gospel when you were aware all along that political manipulation of the WHO occurs behind the scenes? It can’t for BS propaganda reasons can it? Certainly not…you’re too holy for that! lol
Bannon? How does Bannon enter the picture? Bannon has been out of the news since Trump got jealous of the attention he was getting and dismissed him as an advisor. You know more about what Bannon is saying than I do! Did he say the sky is blue too? Or that the Earth is a oblate spheroid? Give us more Bannonology since you’re the subject-matter expert here!
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@Afrofem
So many changes are happening in the wake of the pandemic. I’ve often suggested that our trajectory was not sustainable for various reasons. But if you subject an already unstable situation a serious shock is it likely to rebound right back to the previous state?
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“Then if you believe that to be so, could it be that you’ve just exposed YOURSELF for the BS artist that you are? Because when YOU appeal to the WHO in this thread you’re not doing so on the basis that the organization’s principals are subject to political manipulation by powerful governments but with the implication that its leadership is somehow neutral and above the fray.”
You are silly beyond belief. I never pretended that the WHO was ‘neutral’ or above the fray, you only pretend to believe such nonsense because you wish to deceive.
The WHO, like all other UN agencies, is acutely susceptible to political pressure from members of the Security Council. As for the origin of the virus, I remain agnostic, for all I know, you might be its origin, Origin. I trust the scientists, of all nationalities, who have devoted their time to find where the virus came from. Not being a Bannon whore, I’m under no obligation to jump to conclusions. You were quite happy maligning the good doctor Tedros when he stood by the finding of the report that the Bannon/Falun Gong lab leak was far fetched, under pressure from the US and its friends, the good doctor has thrown them a bone without repudiating the conclusion that the lab leak is nonsense. Like a good cur, you are happy to gnaw on that bone.
Why are you not defending the ‘awesome’ work your friend, “little Nicky Wade” did? Is it because people who know more about biology have shown him up for the amateur he is?
As far as I’m concerned, the virus has 3 possible origins.
1) A biological weapon attack against China by the USA. The US has a long history of such attacks starting with infected blankets for Indians to M K Ultra and other experiments on American civilians. Maybe, you an Steve read Jack London’s 1910 short story, “The unparalleled invasion” and decided to try it for real. I’M NOT SAYING THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED, just something to consider.
2) Natural origin. Like the flu and chicken, some kind of animal not yet identified passed it on to humans. In that case, you, Steve, “little Nicky”, et al. should shut the hell up and let the adults work in peace.
3) Lab leak. The experts are in agreement. This is Steve Bannon, Falun Gong, “little Nicky Wade” bs.
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@ Origin
“…our trajectory was not sustainable…”
No one knew that better than the Donor Class that directed politicians of both parties to prolong the
agony“trajectory” of ordinary working people. Now a microscopic virus is unleashing a tidal wave of change.We are now at the point when the water recedes from shore before thundering back as 20 meter waves.
The next 5 to 10 years will be most interesting.
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Another article from NPR.org illustrated Mudede’s point. The article:
“Low Pay, No Benefits, Rude Customers: Restaurant Workers Quit At Record Rate”.
The article described how the virus and shutdowns affected food service workers:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1016081936/low-pay-no-benefits-rude-customers-restaurant-workers-quit-at-record-rate
Then there is the wage issue. Lamar Cornett was a worker interviewed for this story. He described the current worker response to low wages in food service this way:
This article resonated with me because I spent a few years in my twenties working in restaurants, both front of the house (server, bartender, hostess) and back of the house (prep and line cook, assistant kitchen manager). I know only too well the time stresses and paltry pay that come with food service jobs.
For the past half century, a lot of restaurant owners have run ‘lean’ operations. They squeezed whatever fat out of the business they could and left their workers to gnaw on bones. It is past time for that state of affairs to end.
If any group of workers deserves a new sense “time-being” or higher wages, it would be food service workers.
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Origin, did you catch this? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnb2Yxri6eY), it kind of reminds me of our back and forth on this blog. Liar!
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NEWSFLASH: WUHAN LAB ‘LEAKED’ VIRUS 20,000 YEARS AGO!
(https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-coronavirus-epidemic-east-asia-dna-covid)
Those crazy time traveling commies.
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Afrofem, the whole system is based on squeezing the worker and squeezing the whole planet’s ecology so that a small minority can become almost inconceivably wealthy. The culture that is promoted – through religion (protestant) and the corporate media, gives this greedy pursuit an almost impenetrable facade of “morality”.
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Anyway, regarding the virus, I had criticized the WHO “origins” report on the basis of its contents but I didn’t even realize at the time that there were issues of provenance as well.
If you “CTRL + F” or use your brower’s “Find in Page” function while on this page and type in “Daszak” (without the quotes) you’ll see a few instances where I mention this fellow.
The first case was a quote from a newsweek article where his was identified as the person whose company (Ecohealth Alliance) received a contract from the US government’s NIH/NIAID (associated with Fauci) to do coronavirus gain-of-function research (in Wuhan). This occurred after the Obama-era moratorium on such research was lifted.
Following that I mentioned him again when I noticed that he was cited as an “expert” in an NPR article in which he expressed displeasure about all the “lab leak” talk. This was a quote attributed to him:
I then lamented the fact that the NPR article DID NOT DISCLOSE the fact that he was intimately involved with research at the VERY LAB that was at the center of the “conspiracies”. Clearly he would have a vested interest in downplaying the possibility that his work could have helped cause the pandemic.
I mentioned Mr. Daszak more recently after Anthony Fauci’s emails were released after a FOIA request. He was caught thanking Fauci for downplaying the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan. Here’s an excerpt from that article (not posting too many links to avoid moderation):
Since then the first WHO virus origins report, which the director general has – by now – implied was insufficient, had promoted a natural zoonotic origin for the virus even though it had said that the virus was “evolutionarily distant” from its closest known relatives in nature. The fact that the conclusion did not fit the evidence presented was suspicious to me and I had commented on that at the time.
But do you pick up on where I am going now and what I recently learned?
Yes, our friend Peter Daszak was on the original WHO team which was “investigating” the virus’ origins. Indeed, it’s the same Daszak whose company was involved with US tax-payer funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9653613/British-doctor-Peter-Daszak-worked-Wuhan-scientists-secret-plan-stop-lab-leak-theory.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9710875/Peter-Daszak-removed-COVID-commission-following-bombshell-conflict-report.html
This was not a conflict of interest folks.
Nothing to see here!
I tell you, my initial belief was that the “lab leak” should not be dismissed prematurely given that the lab was located in the ground zero city and was known to be doing relevant research. However in the many months since then my neutrality has evaporated.
Now – given lack of a suitable genetic trail for SARS-CoV-2 in nature and the totality of the circumstantial evidence including the actions of the parties involved – it seems MOST likely that we are dealing with the escape of an experimental franken-virus and the subsequent coverup. IMO, if the US govt. weren’t involved it would be unhesitatingly demonizing China and if China weren’t ground zero it would be blasting the USA without reservation. Fortunately, there’s a lot of blame to go around and every tribe of deceptive angel has benefited from this.
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Just to ground matters, here’s a description of Peter Dazak’s US gov’t funded research from the horse’s mouth at the NIH’s site:
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304
Budget start date: 24-July-2019
Amount spent over 2019: $661,980
Excerpt:
As you can see, it’s research on the same kind of virus which later caused the pandemic. The “spillover” they’re talking about is the possibility of the virus infecting another specie. Whenever they speak of the “S protein” that’s what we’ve come to know as the coronavirus “spike protein”. The bolded section makes it very clear they would be delving into the virus’ genetics using “infectious clones” and that they would be performing “infection experiments”.
The quote below is from the newsweek article I referred to months ago that explained how another virus was allowed to mutate in a lab just by repeated infections.
Those are “infection experiments” but “infectious clones” are even more high tech. They allow the virus to be examined and manipulated (or edited) directly at the genetic level.
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“After passing the virus through 10 ferrets, Fouchier noticed that a ferret in an adjacent cage became ill, even though the two hadn’t come into contact with one another. That showed that the virus was transmissible in ferrets—and, by implication, in humans.”
First it was bats, now ferrets, next it will be turtles all the way down. “..by implication, in humans.” Well, that settles it, I nominate Dr. professor Origin for an Ig Nobel prize.
“I tell you, my initial belief was that the “lab leak” should not be dismissed prematurely given that the lab was located in the ground zero city and was known to be doing relevant research. However in the many months since then my neutrality has evaporated.”
No sh*t Sherlock how does your “ferret” tale buttress your leak claim? To show a link between your lab leak and Fouchier/Daszak you’d have to show that they were the only ones doing such experiments and that they passed the knowledge on to Wuhan lab.
China is claiming that such work was done at fort Detrick and “…the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, led by well-known US coronavirus expert Ralph Baric.”
As a seeker of the truth you are obliged to look at all the evidence, not cherry pick what you feel makes your case.
By the way, experts did evaluate the lab leak claim and rejected it. The WHO is asking for “raw data” not just from the Wuhan lab but all labs in the area. The Chinese told them to go jump in a lake, since what they are asking sounds like a fishing expedition instead of a scientific inquiry. Your ‘research brings nothing new to this issue, try harder.
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Well, one thing I know for sure is that it didn’t start in 2019 – I remember the similar illnesses striking people in Russia in 2017 and 2018 (cough, weakness, children and teenagers’ pneumonias that were hard to cure, gallopping temperature and loss of smell after cure) and not just in Wuhan — when I was in China in 2019 my friends warned me against ‘strange disease’ before the December.
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There are many flu-like illnesses. Right now we’re speaking specifically about the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, which was first detected in 2019 hence the designation COVID-19 for the disease it causes.
They have that virus, they have its genetic code, and they haven’t been able to link it to known viruses in nature closely enough to have found the evolutionary chain of mutations that produced it. (Of course, there are existing viruses in the same general family which they had collected and were running experiments on in the Wuhan lab.)
@Pinnochijo
You’re welcome to jump in a lake too!
It’s not news that China has been less than transparent about what happened at the lab and that the WHO has been rather compliant. Heck, I just noted that the previous “origins” report involved the guy who is implicated in the research that could have caused the pandemic. Also, let’s not forget about the whole “no evidence of human to human transmission” while doctors were getting sick and dying in China.
But be sure to invest that 50 cents you earned for using your “inside connections” to confirm that the obfuscation will continue.
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Dr. professor Origin, you’ve polluted the lake so I won’t join you. “inside connections”!!!? Since when did reading the Global Times on the internet qualify as “inside connections”? You need to connect the dots to make your bats, ferrets, human nonsense stick, even you must see that. It’s bats, ferrets and turtles all the way down. Infinite regression is a b_tch.
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Such verbal diarrhea … be less gastronomically adventurous and stick to the bat soup next time wumao.
That way you’ll likely avoid the runs going forward.
Lucky for you, we now know people do not catch COVID from soup contrary to the lies they were telling on the Huanan seafood market early on.
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“Dr. professor Origin”
Proof positive you barely understand anything I type.
You’re only triggered whenever it doesn’t appear to flatter China.
Comprehending sarcasm also seems totally beyond you
(like I’d think enemy-fire fodder such as yourself would have any actual inside knowledge).
One thing is true though: I’m in complete awe of your total lack of shame!
And that is an actual complement.
If I ever went crazy and decided to sell my soul for 50 cents I’d want to be as loud and proud and unremorseful.
Take a bow.
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Lets try it simple
viruses exist
co vid 19 emerged first in china
due to current global air travel
it quickly spread globally
once it started spreading
due to it high contagion rate
as well as its newness i.e the novel coronavirus
there was no preparedness nor vaccine
as well as massive public resistance
to the concept as well as the authority of science
in regards to this issue
it seems the white populations see a direct conflict
with any requirement to restrain one’s self
in relation to general public welfare
such as shutting down a wasteful and destructively polluting economy
staying home more
mildly socially separating a few feet and
temporally wearing a cloth mask over your mouth and nose around others
is something worth fighting and even killing over.
never mind taking a vaccine to prevent people getting sick
I don’t know it just seems to me the same people who have a problem with this virus
are racist white people
However global developments like this will ultimately
lead us to confront and resolve our differences
or go extinct.
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This has nothing to do with racism.
Virology research that was taking place in Wuhan was funded by the US govt. via Dr. Fauci’s NIAID.
It’s the same kind of research that was banned by our N-word president until the moratorium was reversed in 2017 under the Trump administration.
(Many scientists were warning about the risks of “gain-of-function” research years ago.)
Anyone interpreting my interest in how COVID arose as some sort of hatred of Chinese people has not been following.
I gotta hand it to the CCP and it’s propagandists like though.
They have some people feeling that wanting to get to the bottom of this (so it doesn’t happen again) is “racism”.
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The fact that the Chinese lab in Wuhan was doing work for AMERICA
(and even the guy, Fauci, leading the response to the outbreak in America is implicated in supporting that work)
is a major reason why I think there is NEVER going to be any genuine and conclusive inquiry into what occurred.
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It’s all grandstanding.
IMO, both major powers and involved on some level and they know it.
If I were China’s government, I’d also be irritated with America politicizing the virus under Trump especially given how it likely arose cooperatively.
But the distraction that the politics represents allows those who may be the real culprits
(i.e the scientists doing virus amplification research that is dangerous on a global level)
to escape unexamined.
That is the real shame …
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This article is from 2013 when the moratorium on “gain-of-function” research was in the offing
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2013/03/scientists-seek-ethics-review-h5n1-gain-function-research
That was in response to the ferret infection experiments I had mentioned before.
Some scientists considered that research too risky given the non-zero possibility of viral escape of pathogens that would’ve been made more dangerous than their naturally occurring counterparts.
If this actually happened to give us COVID-19, the ethical question would definitely need revisiting.
But the political theater will probably ensure that we don’t even get an actual admission much less more stringent regulation of such research.
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Anyway, given that COVID-19 is now unfettered and mutating among the human population in unpredictable ways perhaps the whole issue is moot …
Probably we definitely won’t do this again, anyway, because this is the only time it’ll need to happen to cook our goose.
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The wumao, gro jo, has been intent on making this all about completely indemnifying China, necessitating repeated rhetorical swats.
But this is not about China, per se, anymore than Chernobyl is about the USSR.
Nuclear accidents will be possible wherever nuclear facilities exist.
Indeed, meltdowns have happened, more recently, in Japan after the earthquake near Fukushima.
The real topic is global “scientism”: doing things that probably shouldn’t be done for the sake of “knowledge”.
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[Did the Japanese place name trigger the censor?]
[Please delete the essentially duplicate post, abagond]
The wumao, gro jo, has been intent on making this all about completely indemnifying China, necessitating repeated rhetorical swats.
But this is not about China, per se, anymore than Chernobyl is about the USSR.
Nuclear accidents will be possible wherever nuclear facilities exist.
Indeed, meltdowns have happened, more recently, in Japan after the earthquake in 2011.
The real topic is global “scientism”: doing things that probably shouldn’t be done for the sake of “knowledge”.
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So it appears this virus is going to mutate to the entire Greek alphabet until it breaks through the vaccine. People need to do the right thing and get vaccinated, wear mask, social distance. I have no sympathy these anti vaccine, and anti maskers, who get sick and die. If these individuals don’t want to be vaccinated and wear mask, they don’t deserve to take up hospital beds in ICU units. If they think the virus is a hoax, then stay home. My sympathies go out to young children and immunosuppressed people, who can’t be immunized.
I have no sympathy or prayers or thoughts for Right Wing Conservative talk show host who succumb to the virus. The best thing for these type of individuals is to leave the planet, they spread disinformation and propaganda and lies. These red state Governors such as DeSantis aka Death DeSantis, in Florida, and Gregg Abbot in Texas are executioners with blood on their hands.
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I am ready to take a booster. I never thought I would live to see the day when there are so many people doing stupid things and dying on the dumb hill of own the liberals. People ingesting pills for livestock and horses thinking it will cure the virus, instead of getting the vaccine and wearing mask, and social distancing.
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Texas and Florida are the epicenters for Covid. The fighting in school board meetings across the country, to fight mask mandates that escalate into mob violence is insane. The whole country is insane and we are on the brink of losing our democracy and slipping into Fascism thanks to the death cult party of GQP/GOP. And our planet is in peril and there is no recovery. All the hospitals are full and health care professionals are exhausted and at their wits end.
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“The real topic is global “scientism”: doing things that probably shouldn’t be done for the sake of “knowledge”.”
Like all fools, Dr. professor Origin, phd in bs-ology is certain about things that people with greater knowledge and resources are unable to determine. I keep pointing out to the moron that speculations about Wuhan lab are just that. For all we know, the lab leak, if it happened, could have been at fort Detrick or UNC. Until Dr. professor Origin, phd in bs-ology can show proof of a lab leak anywhere on earth connected with the virus, his comments are nothing more than the ravings of an anti-scientism fanatic. Dr. professor Origin, phd in bs-ology, your tin foil hat is wrapped on too tightly.
“The wumao, gro jo, has been intent on making this all about completely indemnifying China, necessitating repeated rhetorical swats.”
The wumao, gro jo has been all about antagonizing you and countering your stupidities for fun. Somebody has to appreciate your clown show.
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@ Mary Burrell
I agree with everything you said. Every time I read about your idiot governor in the news, I think of you and hope you are managing to stay safe in that madhouse.
I’m also angry at the CDC for reversing course in May on social distancing and wearing masks. It’s like no one there knows a damn thing about crowd psychology, if they really thought only vaccinated people would stop wearing masks.
Apparently the CDC also believed many municipalities, national store chains, etc. would choose to continue the mandates awhile longer instead of what we saw, the sudden rush to open everything up and go back to normal.
The CDC’s decision went against everything they had been saying up to that point about needing to continue with multiple types of mitigation until most people had been vaccinated and as a safeguard against the new mutated variants.
I realize the right-wing anti-maskers are fueling this new surge, but I also feel like the CDC opened the floodgates for it because once all those restrictions had been lifted, it was going to be ten times harder to get any mandates put back in place.
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“Lets try it simple
viruses exist
co vid 19 emerged first in china”
Too simple. The question is did it originate in China? That’s a question for scientists to determine, if possible.
“Spanish flu, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or the 1918 influenza pandemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was March 1918 in Kansas, United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in April. Two years later, nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected in four successive waves. Estimates of deaths range from 17.4 million to 100 million, with an accepted general range of 25-50 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
The name “Spanish flu” is a misnomer,[6] rooted in historical othering of infectious disease origin, which is now avoided.”
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Last night I came across an article from early May in which the author criticized fully vaccinated people who were still taking extra precautions and were concerned about opening everything up too quickly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberals-covid-19-science-denial-lockdown/618780
This sentence leapt out:
Someone forgot that Cassandra’s predictions were always right. Her curse was never to be believed when she tried to warn others.
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@Origin
”There are many flu-like illnesses. Right now we’re speaking specifically about the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, which was first detected in 2019 hence the designation COVID-19 for the disease it causes”
True, but the virus is just a one of many other viruses and their appearence is not related to Wuhan or China or human activities exclusively.
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lot of comments but i still like simple
Texas and Florida
two of america’s very racist states ,surprise surprise
so American virial scientists in collaboration with Chinese virial scientists
where experimenting and
maybe they should not have been doing some of the experiments
they did
and a accident may have happen in the lab in china
and tat maybe how we got this virus
got it.
”
I realize the right-wing anti-maskers are fueling this new surge, but I also feel like the CDC opened the floodgates for it because once all those restrictions had been lifted, it was going to be ten times harder to get any mandates put back in place.”
complex but not hard to simplify
the cdc shouldn’t been perfect dang nab them
if its was’t for racist white people not wanting to accept that
we are all in this together i.e.
in this temporary instance of a global pandemic
we have to all follow simple temporary minor health and safety precautions
while out in public
you know what I think it is
all my life and especially now
i sense a covert secret pattern of social behavior and communication that allows white people to unjustly and unfairly dominate the world as they currently do with the seemly unwilling cooperation of all other people.
Its big and mysterious meaning there is a lot and I don’t know ,a lot.
recently a white guy harrassed me in a way ,with the cooperation of a least one black female that I guess I was supposed to think he had magic powers
sorta mystical or spiritual gaslighting ,hey what a combination
anyway
I became a atheist before I knew what atheism technically was and I am still extremely proud that am atheist
and I was extremely proud and confident of my atheism through over twenty years of poverty and homelessness
now I have risen economically
and it was because some the same lies at the core of American chistainty
have run there course with me
and its the smallest things ,just like a ah virus
well not that small more like insignificant or inconsequential
until just like the a actual virus
its becomes a matter of life and death
yeah the consequences of insisting or a big lie for hundreds if not thousands of years
whats the biggest lie you can possibly tell?
how about
that a old white man created everything including himself
because this is the only possible explanation to everything
no you can not say
you don’t know ,will surely never know and you don’t care
and you also must have a explanation for every thing
and to enforce this barbaric need for dominance
you must believe this or mainly men supported by their women
will fight and kill or enslave you
and if you lose a fight well the winner is right esp if white against black male against female.
speaking of which i have no children’s maybe its because its difficult to find a ashiest african american female in my socioeconomic level.
but my apologies for rambling and I have not even mentioned
Afghanistan
oh yeah different blog post
guess Ill go there to express my views on those barbarians.
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@Mbeti
Since the cases of similar and/or related diseseases were seen outside of China and before December 2019, it’s hard to explain it just by a fact of cooperation between ‘American virial scientists with Chinese virial scientists’.
‘A simple explanation’ does not equal ‘a good explanation’ or ‘a reliable explanation’. And even if there is an explanation to everything — which I doubt, because ‘a mind cannot explain oneself’ or because of infinate reality vs finate ‘person’ — some explanations require a total thought reframing to be understood.
This has nothing to do with theism or atheism, though.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6xob5X0YHw)
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Second attempt. A prayer that saved Sakya from disease [in Tibetan].
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6xob5X0YHw&t=164s)
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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/29/business/supply-chain-workers/index.html
A sober reflection about the impacts of Covid-19 on commerce in a worldly scale.
Wow, this bug has being with us already more than twenty months!
Damn the virus!
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COVID-19 spending reveals American politicians true priorities. Out of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP), some state and cities are diverting funds to pay for prisons, police, jails and surveillance.
According to a recent article in Black Agenda Report,
https://www.blackagendareport.com/covid-funds-spent-police-and-prisons
Meanwhile, some state and local politicians have been dragging their feet when it comes to distributing the $46 billion allocated to renter and landlord assistance.
According to a Finger Lakes Times (NY State) article linked to by BAR:
https://www.fltimes.com/pandemic-rental-assistance-program-lags-wit…f-dollars-unspent/article_37ff4da9-8910-5ce7-b85f-ad747c4164bc.html
[note: the original article has since been sent down the memory hole. I’m quoting from a pdf I downloaded.]
Police and prisons instead of a roof over ordinary people’s heads.
Local and national media talk about renters fearing eviction and landlords desperate for income, but they are mum about the role of politicians in this crisis.
They are literally sitting on piles of cash while Americans who should be kept afloat are sinking.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/21/europe/europe-lockdown-protests-violence-intl/index.html
A quickly developing problem is how to navigate the new environment where there are vaccinated as well as unvaccinated people in most societies. Which rules to follow?
In my opinion, the coronavirus pandemic will be controlled once and for all in the day we have both, the vaccine and the cure/treatment
Regarding the cure it seems to be in its infancy.
And unfortunately the today’s generation of vaccines seems to require new intakes once in a few months. The situation is not exactly as good as most of us dreamed. A wider and wider pandemic fatigue is setting in, even in the most disciplined societies (Australia, PR China, etc). The need to vaccinate people several times will create a new version of that fatigue, whereby some people will quit the “vaccination bus” at some point. And to make things worse, vaccination rates are very slim in most of the poorer world, opening the gates to the appearance of new variants in the near future.
What are your thoughts?
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@ Munubantu
I’m not at all surprised that the covid-19 vaccines wear off over time. Well before the vaccines were rolled out, I had been reading epidemiologists, virologists, and immunologists who cautioned that this would likely be the case due to the nature of the virus. They said it would be more like the flu vaccines, lasting less than a year, rather than something like the polio vaccine which provides protection for decades.
I am immensely discouraged over the insular and provincial focus that seems to reign pretty much everywhere. As you pointed out, the virus can mutate anywhere on the planet and then quickly spread all over the world. We have seen this happen multiple times now.
It has occurred to me that if the nations in the developed world took a more global approach, we could have reduced our immediate need for boosters. If we had gotten, say, 90% of our populations vaccinated quickly and continued to stringently practice other mitigation techniques like masking and social distancing, we could have drastically reduced our transmission rates.
And that would have put the developed nations in a position where only our most vulnerable populations would need the boosters, while the rest could have postponed getting the boosters for awhile and instead focused on delivering vaccines to the developing nations.
This would be for the common good of everyone as it would reduce the chances of bad mutations arising. But no — First World folks are more concerned with getting back to their pubs or going to Disneyland. Very few people seem to understand the larger implications.
I’m afraid of what’s going to happen in the States when the federal government decides to stop paying for the vaccines and booster shots. As you know, we are about the only developed nation that does not have universal, government-subsidized health care. During this pandemic, the federal government has taken the unusual step of providing the shots free to everyone. But with the realization that booster shots are likely to be necessary every six months, how long will the government be willing to foot the bill? This won’t be an issue for places like Canada where socialized medicine is already well-established. But it will be interesting to see what happens in the USA.
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