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Covid Your Mouth When You Sneeze (Corona Virus/Covid-19 # 2)


Mlle. Zabzie

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5 hours ago, Mudguard said:

So do you have any actual reporting from a reputable news organization that shows that China is falsifying their data regarding the coronavirus outbreak?  If so, please provide a link.  Or are you just making up conspiracy theories that have as much validity as conspiracies like the US holding aliens in Roswell?

Did I not already mention, in the post you are quoting and in previous quotes, the articles of Amy Qin in the New York Times?  I've got more, including some links to official Chinese sources for some of the things I mentioned, but I guess you are not interested.  Maybe if you tell me what exactly I have said that you doubt or challenge, I could give you more.

But the bottom line is that I don't think information released by oppressive dictatorships is reliable.  Now that the virus has spread internationally, I think we should be paying more attention to the data from relatively open societies, where it is actually possible for citizens to check the claims of the government. 

And I was disagreeing with the claim that the data from relatively open societies confirms the data from the oppressive dictatorship.  There has been no such confirmation, for all the reasons I gave.

Of course there has been a fair amount of information leaking out of China suggesting that the situation is not as China claims it is.  But of course, none of this information is "official" or "reputable" or "established" or "verifiable".   The Chinese government makes sure of that.  In many cases, the people releasing such information have been made to disappear by the Chinese government. 

Also, calling me a "conspiracy theorist" is never an argument.  It is merely an insult.  Why does my doubt of the self-serving claims of an oppressive dictatorship make you so angry, anyway?

Will you also call me a "conspiracy theorist" if I doubt the claim of North Korea that they have yet to see a single case of the novel coronavirus?

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3 hours ago, Toth said:

No doubt about that. My thought process however was more that from an outsider that we should treat any incoming flights from the US as if coming from Italy or Iran.

They should, but I think they won't until its too late. There's way too much personal and business travel to/from the US for most countries to want to take the economic pain of slowing things down too much.

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6 hours ago, Mudguard said:

So do you have any actual reporting from a reputable news organization that shows that China is falsifying their data regarding the coronavirus outbreak?  If so, please provide a link.  Or are you just making up conspiracy theories that have as much validity as conspiracies like the US holding aliens in Roswell?

The numbers in non-Hubei regions in China are pretty heartening. 990 cases in the Anhui province, 984 recovered, 6 deaths -- a 0.6% CFR.  Guangdong, 1352 cases, 1256 recoveries, 7 deaths -- .5% CFR. This idea that South Korea will see a massive surge of deaths that will push their CFR much higher than it currently stands seems weak to me, but we'll see.

As to Italy, they have the oldest population in Europe. 22% are over 65. The US is at about 16%. It makes a difference.

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No plan to deal with the passengers to be offloaded in Oakland from the Diamond Princess.  Nothing.  Carson basically admits it to Stephanopoulis:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-working-hard-coronavirus-hhs-secretary-ben/story?id=69455917

This is not bungling.  This is sabotage by the greatest Saboteur the world has ever known.

Meanwhile the Saboteur had a wonderful time at dinner with Bolsanaro last night.

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1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

Looks like the pandemic and the economic recession it brings will do what the Dems couldn't do to Trump.

Don't bet money on that.  As said before: he's not a bungler, but a Saboteur.  It's blamed on the Dems and Obama.  It supresses voting. And probably campaigning too -- and what happens if one of the Dem candidates does get infected?  Both bees and the Saboteur are in the demographic of highest likelihood of fatality. The Pandemic and internal epidemic intensifies the lockdown of this country which has been going on for a long time but went into high gear in 2016.  National emergency.  Cancel elections. And if by some chance there is an election and Dems win, Saboteur has own military, ICE and Prince, etc., plus his 2nd amendment worshippers, his own television network, etc.

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7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

As said before: he's not a bungler, but a Saboteur. 

This is wrong. He doesn't think that fast. As reporting shows, he is simply a short-term thinker. He is obsessed with keeping the numbers as low as possible, and the "easy" way to do that is to resist testing regimes, resist taking in cases, etc. He is bungling this, and he will blame everyone but himself, but "saboteur" suggests he's acting deliberately to sabotage things when it's simply in his nature to be unable to handle this.

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There were elections during WWI, WWII, the Civil War and even during the Spanish Flu. Any talk of cancelling elections is madness and anyone seriously trying it should be certified as insane. Not that some people wouldn't try, but they should be considered as un-American and enemies of the Republic.

I was seriously suspecting Trump would be reelected, a few weeks ago, because the economy was surprisingly still not going down and he was carefully avoiding to get drawn into foreign wars, despite options of doing so. My hunch was that, unless the economy crumbles (which is a few months or years away) before the election, he would be reelected - there's a lot of dirt one could bring against Trump, but that has already been aired and tried, as opposed to the dirt Republicans having yet aired against Biden or Sanders. But now, with the fuckup of the response to Covid (which alas will most probably be obvious to all before the Summer is over) and with the economy which is likely to go South in a couple of months, I'm having my doubt about Orange's survivability. I'm beginning to think the main event that could help him is the Dem candidate actually getting sick and him being spared.

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6 hours ago, Ran said:

Among new cases in Sweden today, our first apparent infection brought from ... not Iran, not Italy, but the United States. Ugh.

Not sure what you meant to say here.  But Sweden has 42 new infected cases today of which only ONE is believed to have been infected in the United States.  This brings the official case total in Sweden to 203.  There were 24 new cases in Sweden yesterday, and another 42 cases the day before yesterday, and another 42 cases the day before that.  The very first case in Sweden was on January 31.  Case totals seem to be exploding in Sweden, and I really don't think you can get away with trying to make the United States a scapegoat for this problem, just because an infected traveler from the United States happened to show up today.

Also, your words seem to imply (even if that's not what you meant) that Sweden has no prior cases from Italy and Iran.  However, Sweden's second (I think) case, reported on Feb 27, was a traveler from Northern Italy.  The next day, Sweden reported 4 new cases, 3 from Italy, and 1 from Iran.  After that, a few more cases trickled in, with no announcement on the country of origin, until, on March 3, Sweden reported 9 new cases, all from Northern Italy.  Then the new cases began to explode, with no announcement (AFAIK) made as to their country of origin, until today when (for reasons best known to himself) someone decided to single out one case from the United States.

5 hours ago, Toth said:

Such a news was, sadly, long overdue. Just because the US administration is in denial is no reason for us to not treat the US as an infection hub.

 

5 hours ago, Toth said:

No doubt about that. My thought process however was more that from an outsider that we should treat any incoming flights from the US as if coming from Italy or Iran.

As a citizen of the United States, I am of course very concerned, and totally on board with calls for a more aggressive response from the Federal Government, and from local State governments.  I don't think the virus can be stopped, but I think we should do what we can to slow it.

However, in attempt to provide an arguable reality-check to the above US-bashing narrative, let me provide a list of the top-40 countries in terms of number of infections per million population, based on official case totals:

  1. South Korea . . . . . . . . . . 142.6
  2. Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.0
  3. Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    78.2
  4. China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   56.1
  5. Bahrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    50.0
  6. Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . .  38.9
  7. Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31.9
  8. Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25.6
  9. Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20.1
  10. Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17.3
  11. France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17.3
  12. Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . .  15.5
  13. Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . .  15.2
  14. Kuwait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   15.0
  15. Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   13.1
  16. Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   12.2
  17. Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   11.5
  18. Slovenia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     7.7
  19. Estonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     7.5
  20. Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    7.0
  21. Denmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    6.0
  22. Qatar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5.2
  23. Lebanon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4.7
  24. United Arab Emirates . . . . .   4.5
  25. Finland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4.3
  26. Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3
  27. UK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4.0
  28. Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.0
  29. Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . .3.7
  30. Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3
  31. Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3.1
  32. Oman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3.1
  33. Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3.1
  34. Croatia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.9
  35. Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.9
  36. Czechia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2.9
  37. Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2.7
  38. Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..  1.9
  39. Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1.7
  40. United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1.4

Now, much of this data should be taken with a grain of salt.  Perhaps South Korea does not deserve to be at the top of the list, and this position may reflect how aggressive their response has been in tracking cases.  China's figures would be much higher, if not for official suppression of case totals.  And there may be many countries not even on the above list where the virus is spreading widely and silently.  Perhaps the US figures would be higher if the US federal and state governments were tracking cases as aggressively as they should be.  But I'm sure the US is no the only nation that has some guilt in that regard, and perhaps other nations have been even more negligent (for various reasons), which would push them even higher on the list.

But I really think one should think twice before trying to spin a narrative to make the USA the scapegoat for the fairly-extensive spread of the New Coronavirus within the European Union.

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5 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

But I really think one should think twice before trying to spin a narrative to make the USA the scapegoat for the fairly-extensive spread of the New Coronavirus within the European Union. 

That was not my intention, certainly Italy is the main transmitter, but you could do this number-crunching game the other way as well. If we replace "Confirmed Infections" with "Confirmed Deaths" the US suddenly appears on place 6.

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31 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

Not sure what you meant to say here.  But Sweden has 42 new infected cases today of which only ONE is believed to have been infected in the United States.

That's exactly what I said. Our first apparent infection brought from the US rather than from Italy or Iran. Others understood this.

The issue is not making the US a scapegoat, except in the sense that the US has widespread community spread because of its failures and is now causing infections in other countries (Canada, as well, has suffered from this), whereas Sweden has been able to trace (nearly) everything to people who have been to or in contact with those who have been to Italy or Iran and so far as I know no one outside of Sweden has been infected by someone bringing it from Sweden as of yet. Fingers crossed that this remains the case. 

The reason information is being shared as to source of infections coming into countries is to better be able to manage the spread of the contagion. It is proper and transparent to say that China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, and the US are among countries that are spreading or have spread the illness to other countries. Doubtless there are others now, but those are the sources that are most well-known at this time, I think.

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24 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

 

  1. South Korea . . . . . . . . . . 142

Now, much of this data should be taken with a grain of salt.  Perhaps South Korea does not deserve to be at the top of the list

A bit more than a grain I would say? USA has performed around 6000 tests, South Korea 140,000. Surely that renders the table useless as a means of determining actual numbers of infected people? 

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I would love with all my heart to agree with you that I am in tinfoil territory and that nothing I fear is reasonable.

However.  The last three + years have proved I am on track and while you all persist in the foolishly optimistic lane of this whatever it is can't happen, which gets chewed up by the t oval:crying: 'dozers and tanks every time.

 

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4 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

A bit more than a grain I would say? USA has performed around 6000 tests, South Korea 140,000. Surely that renders the table useless as a means of determining actual numbers of infected people? 

Data on US cases (i.e. confirmed positives of people who have been tested in the US) is not very meaningful at this time. So it's a waste of time trying to compare numbers with other countries. Yet.

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Just now, Zorral said:

you all persist in the foolishly optimistic lane

There is nothing optimistic in believing the President of the United States is wildly incompetent and by his very nature has allowed his incompetence to infect the federal government so as to keep himself happy. 

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One thing that we haven’t heard about as much is the impact the virus is having/will have the developing world aka Africa, portions of Latin/South America and even places like India’s slums that don’t have regular access to healthcare. In this case no news is not good news, more likely that these regions don’t have the resources necessary to deal with/diagnose the virus. To worsen their plight I wouldn’t be surprised if WHO resources will be directed away from these states now that the West is having to deal with an outbreak at home. This makes the list of countries hardest hit by the Coronavirus so far fairly meaningless imo. 

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9 minutes ago, Ghjhero said:

One thing that we haven’t heard about as much is the impact the virus is having/will have the developing world aka Africa, portions of Latin/South America and even places like India’s slums that don’t have regular access to healthcare. In this case no news is not good news, more likely that these regions don’t have the resources necessary to deal with/diagnose the virus.

As far as India goes, they had five cases in the state of Kerala announced recently, but a friend who's in India and works in the media there (or used to, I believe he's with a think tank now) said that Kerala isn't messing around; despite it being a poor state, it has recent experience with taking measures to contain contagion and has acted quickly. From what a top bureaucrat in the state told him and his colleagues, every case is immediately quarantined and they investigate all their contacts and reach out to them all to tell them to self-isolate and visit them daily to check on if symptoms occur or if there are any other troubles.

India's health system may be easily overwhelmed due to lack of resources, but they're doing what they can with what they have.

There's also the whole heat/cold thing with viruses like typical coronaviruses. Hopefully warmth will negatively impact its spread, even if it can't stop it entirely.

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57 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

A bit more than a grain I would say? USA has performed around 6000 tests, South Korea 140,000. Surely that renders the table useless as a means of determining actual numbers of infected people? 

Well, you just can't go around testing everyone.  If you do, you are just wasting your resources, which are always going to be limited.  You need some sort of criteria to determine who is most likely to be infected.  But let's do a fairer comparison, accepting as accurate the number of tests as stated above:

The USA has found 484 infected to date, which is 1 person per 12.4 persons tested (484/6,000).

South Korea has found 7,313 infected to date, which is 1 person per 19.1 persons tested (7,313/140,000).

So I think it is fair to say that South Korea has been testing a bit more widely and liberally than the USA has.  But not by the massive margins your previous remark suggested.

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