Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[Azincourt]

4 hours ago, NuevoYorko said:

The Chinese are putting forth notable humanitarian efforts worldwide.  Shipments of masks, tests, ventilators HAVE been received, doctors from China have arrived.

There is no doubt that there is a heavily political angle to doing so.  

I don't think I mentioned anything to the effect that their reporting was reliable.  They have an admirable propaganda mill going on.  But I'm not going to be joining y'all in the hate / blamefest against China or in stewing in conspiracy theories.  Yes, the virus started there.  It probably could have started elsewhere just as well.

 

The Chinese are afraid the western nations wake up and realize that China is the 21th's Russia.  The Chinese want us to buy their iphones, their Nike shoes, and everything else that we buy for cheap, that is produced by slave children. They want the euro and the dollars bills. They couldn't care less about us if we we're to die in mass, and if they were to care, it would be because they want easy money. That is all.

[elaine567]

In a capitalist society wanting "easy money" is a good thing no?
We in the West buy cheap, sell dear. Our businesses thrive on that principle.
I don't think we can blame the Chinese for making and producing the goods we all want and are addicted to.
The Chinese were up till now the main victims of this virus. If they wanted to kill us then a few well placed vials in European/US ski/beach  resorts would have achieved that without the huge upheaval wreaked in China.
It doesn't' sound like it would  be a great strategy to kill off a large section of your own population and your main customer base and shut down the entire world...
 

[Gaeta]

7 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

It doesn't' sound like it would  be a great strategy to kill off a large section of your own population and your main customer base and shut down the entire world...
 

I agree with that, especially China has numerous spies everywhere in the world that could easily do that job. 

[serial muse]

HI this is your once-every-few-days reminder that China did not "create" this virus, thoroughly debunked by facts, kthxbye.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-not-human-made-lab-genetic-analysis-nature

 

[pepperbird]

8 hours ago, NuevoYorko said:

The Chinese are putting forth notable humanitarian efforts worldwide.  Shipments of masks, tests, ventilators HAVE been received, doctors from China have arrived.

There is no doubt that there is a heavily political angle to doing so.  

I don't think I mentioned anything to the effect that their reporting was reliable.  They have an admirable propaganda mill going on.  But I'm not going to be joining y'all in the hate / blamefest against China or in stewing in conspiracy theories.  Yes, the virus started there.  It probably could have started elsewhere just as well.

 

It's been discussed for a long time now how human overpopulation and expansion will put us into contact with a whole new slew of viruses. I suspect this is just one example of this process at work.

[pepperbird]

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

In a capitalist society wanting "easy money" is a good thing no?
We in the West buy cheap, sell dear. Our businesses thrive on that principle.
I don't think we can blame the Chinese for making and producing the goods we all want and are addicted to.
The Chinese were up till now the main victims of this virus. If they wanted to kill us then a few well placed vials in European/US ski/beach  resorts would have achieved that without the huge upheaval wreaked in China.
It doesn't' sound like it would  be a great strategy to kill off a large section of your own population and your main customer base and shut down the entire world...
 

My husband is at work today, the only staff person out of a few dozen. He's been trying to expedite the shipment of components for military equipment, and guess why he can't do it?

They are sourced from Wuhan in China. Nothing it getting out, which is as it should be right now. I could be wrong, but with so much coming from in China, I'm wondering if this is impacting other supply chains? There could be a lesson in all of this about the risks of a global economy so that countries can be as prepared as possible for the next world crisis to come down the pike.

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by pepperbird

[mark clemson]

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

 If they wanted to kill us then a few well placed vials in European/US ski/beach  resorts would have achieved that without the huge upheaval wreaked in China.
It doesn't' sound like it would  be a great strategy to kill off a large section of your own population and your main customer base and shut down the entire world...

True, BUT... plausible deniability. They will have plenty of people "left over".

However, I agree, it's insane to think they did this intentionally. They need US (the West) to buy the stuff they produce. So risking "breaking" our economies is risking breaking theirs too. Not to mention that this is definitely a "genie let out of the bottle" - it can come back in waves, mutate, be deliberately "bred" by terrorists, hacked by biohackers, etc. Way too uncontrollable to be a very useful weapon.

So you're correct (IMO).

[pepperbird]

At least our PM wasn't able to sneak his nonsense through in the proposed legislation to help those affected by the virus. I don;t thik it matters which side a politician sits on, they will make political hay any way they can.
 

 

[NuevoYorko]

1 hour ago, serial muse said:

HI this is your once-every-few-days reminder that China did not "create" this virus, thoroughly debunked by facts, kthxbye.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-not-human-made-lab-genetic-analysis-nature

 

Science is a hoax perpetrated by George Soros.  

[NuevoYorko]

4 hours ago, Azincourt said:

The Chinese are afraid the western nations wake up and realize that China is the 21th's Russia.  The Chinese want us to buy their iphones, their Nike shoes, and everything else that we buy for cheap, that is produced by slave children. They want the euro and the dollars bills. They couldn't care less about us if we we're to die in mass, and if they were to care, it would be because they want easy money. That is all.

American businesses are in a lucrative partnership with Chinese manufacturers.  Y'all make it sound like it's a big store over there with cheap stuff to buy.  That is the case for certain markets, like the whole "dollar store" category.  When it comes to brand name shoes and the like, WE are the ones sourcing the cheapest available option for their production.  WE need the cheap stuff so that businesses and corporations here in the US and other western countries can mark it up massively, for some markets (Nike for example) or sell it for cheap to a different retail customer (Walmart.)  

So what if Chinese people don't "care" about us?   It's a commercial relationship and it's symbiotic.  

It serves no one to continue to make China into a "boogeyman" during this disaster.  

[nospam99]

Two points ....

First, this topic is getting a lot of posts and there are plenty of identifiable subtopics. If the LS moderators ''don't have anything better to do'' it might be a good I idea to have a covid-19 category so that each topic gets its own thread .... or multiple specific threads.

Second, I'm going to 'stir the pot' by raising questions about the 'hot spot' in NYC.

It's hard enough keeping track of the world-wide progress of the pandemic. One problem is counting diagnoses and deaths. Deaths are relatively straight forward. But the count of diagnoses is dependent on testing. There could be LOADS of infected people walking around but not counted as having the virus because they haven't been tested. Easier to have confidence you're counting dead people, though without diagnosis it's hard to be certain that covid-19 is the cause of death.

That said, WTF is going on with NYC? LOTS of people dying both there and in the suburban commuter counties that would have had people running in and out of NYC every day. Having lived in NY state for 45 of my 46 adult years and all my 'youth', I know that NYC has always been the most corrupt and poorly managed municipality in the state. Looking back before my time, such institutions as Tammany Hall were a national metaphor for corruption. One question now is whether there was something that, to name one name, Deblasio did or didn't do which is having an impact on the covid-19 death rate in NYC. FWIW, I have heard him accused by conservation radio talk show hosts are being way late ordering supplies, ventilators in particular. But that's just one possible and questionable accusation.

[Tamfana]

7 minutes ago, nospam99 said:

One question now is whether there was something that, to name one name, Deblasio did or didn't do which is having an impact on the covid-19 death rate in NYC. FWIW, I have heard him accused by conservation radio talk show hosts are being way late ordering supplies, ventilators in particular. But that's just one possible and questionable accusation.

Mayors and governors probably expected federal leadership and when it was clear it wouldn't be coming, NY State and NYC leaders were already behind the eight ball.  

Edited March 26, 2020 by Tamfana

[amaysngrace]

Yea like George W or Obama would’ve done, they showed up and handled it like leaders usually do.

[elaine567]

19 minutes ago, nospam99 said:

But the count of diagnoses is dependent on testing. There could be LOADS of infected people walking around but not counted as having the virus because they haven't been tested.

Of course and that is being taken into consideration.
In Scotland we have 894 people tested positive, but the estimate is that 40000- 50000 are actually infected today in Scotland according to Scotland's Chief Medical Officer.
 

[Azincourt]

7 hours ago, serial muse said:

HI this is your once-every-few-days reminder that China did not "create" this virus, thoroughly debunked by facts, kthxbye.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-not-human-made-lab-genetic-analysis-nature

 

The more people there are, the more stuff like this has it's chances of happening increases. Why in heaven is China hosting a population of 1 billion and 300 millions? What is the need for that many people? What are the chances of a virus like this originating from Andorra with a total of 30.000 citizens next to China with almost 2 billion souls?

Maybe next time when we send medical aid and provisions to China, we should also pack up some condoms.

[Paul]

Hi all,

We've opened a new forum for topics principally related to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. @nospam99 was kind enough to have a chat on this in the COVID-19 bunker chat this afternoon (stop by and say hi!), and special thanks to him for giving us feedback.

4 hours ago, nospam99 said:

First, this topic is getting a lot of posts and there are plenty of identifiable subtopics. If the LS moderators ''don't have anything better to do'' it might be a good I idea to have a covid-19 category so that each topic gets its own thread .... or multiple specific threads.

We've moved many of the threads that had been around the forums that had the pandemic (or the related activities surrounding slowing the spread of transmission) as its key subject. If we've missed any, feel free to report the thread with a note to moderators. As @nospam99 has pointed out, there are a number of subtopics in this thread and we'll see if it makes sense to split more separate conversations out to help participants just joining the conversation with catching up with a topic of interest.

I hope you're staying safe and healthy! Please heed the advice of officials and do your part to slow the spread!

Best,
Paul

[elaine567]

8 minutes ago, Azincourt said:

The more people there are, the more stuff like this has it's chances of happening increases

If you keep animals in overcrowded spaces, infections both bacterial and viral have a field day, especially if you keep mixing populations and do not allow  natural immunity to develop.
Overcrowding causes stress and stress reduces the effectiveness of the immune system.
Humans are animals, we were never meant to live like we do in the modern world.

[justwhoiam]

On 3/25/2020 at 9:03 PM, carhill said:

Some science history...

What's your take?

[justwhoiam]

8 hours ago, nospam99 said:

Easier to have confidence you're counting dead people, though without diagnosis it's hard to be certain that covid-19 is the cause of death.

Are you implying that if you develop Covid 19 from SARS-COV-2 and you're on a ventilator in an ICU and die, you could have died by something else instead? If you have lung cancer, but someone stabs you in your chest and you bleed to death, the cause of death will be the stabbing, not the cancer. That said, I can tell you there are people dying in their homes, even in the USA, and those people are not tested, because tests are scarce in number and what, those people are already dead, so who cares?

I personally think it'd be important to test everybody, even those deaths deemed as from natural causes, because people died alone or in their sleep. So I think that makes it even with the number of deaths you might be suspicious about. Also, (and here I'm talking of the former category, aka people diagnosed with Covid 19 through swab and xrays/CTs) if you have managed whatever all your life, and you died all of a sudden from respiratory failure, you have your answer right now. All the Italian deaths are not presumably from Covid 19, they were tested. That's what happens all over the world.

Quote

That said, WTF is going on with NYC? LOTS of people dying both there and in the suburban commuter counties that would have had people running in and out of NYC every day. Having lived in NY state for 45 of my 46 adult years and all my 'youth', I know that NYC has always been the most corrupt and poorly managed municipality in the state.

NYC is going through what anyone else is going through. People seem to only be capable to understand or barely understand when it's closer to home. We all have a hard time accepting it's all over the place and can hit anybody. If you have a sufficient quantity of beds/ventilators (or similar devices) that has worked for a century based on average demand, and all of a sudden you need a quantity 10 to 50 times higher, you can see the problem. Ordering more... when many countries did the same and only so many companies can manufacture what you're asking means that orders won't be quickly delivered. Italy tried to warn everybody mid February. But I'm not sure what the various countries were thinking of: "they are managing it badly", "we'll implement better measures", etc.

What is going on now is the result of acting late, and with low containment. And maybe production of certain companies could have been converted sooner, so that protection items (masks, gloves...) and treatment material (drugs, ventilators...) could have been available in a more timely manner. But this virus took us all by surprise. Or the world has good actors around...and it's all a scheme to lower the human population. I can vouch for the honesty of Italian PM and the 5-star movement, as they side with people 100%. Common people were able to penetrate institutions at any level (towns, regions, national parliament and goverment), and we were scaring the entire EU because of this. I wouldn't be able to vouch for anyone else at this time, lots of filth surrounding too many countries.

[justwhoiam]

4 hours ago, Azincourt said:

Why in heaven is China hosting a population of 1 billion and 300 millions?

Almost 1,4 billions. India is only 47 million short.

Quote

What is the need for that many people?

China only allowed one child, remember? If you had two the other got killed. That resulted in people killing girls as they wanted a boy... lots of tragedy in China went on for decades. That measure imposed by the government came after a famine that killed many... That said, we, the West, are to blame for how their population flourished. We gave them well-being. A middle class society. And people who got rich. The people we see around for tourism all over the world now. Until the 1990s, that was unconcievable. If you went to China then, people could hardly speak to you. People were scared of the Communist party (not they they aren't now...). They couldn't speak to foreigners. Now they still have censorship and the Communist party in charge, but they have a sense of freedom, because they can travel. China back then was like Eastern countries during cold war.

Quote

Andorra with a total of 30.000 citizens next to China with almost 2 billion souls?

Well, I guess this was just poorly expressed, as Andorra is not next to China. You probably wanted to say: compared to. And I'm not sure when China will reach 2 billion souls, now it looks like that'll happen a bit later than in 2019.

Quote

Maybe next time when we send medical aid and provisions to China, we should also pack up some condoms.

The one-child policy that was on for decades resulted in the number of men exceeding that of women. At that point, many men wouldn't have had children. But these Chinese men started going to South Asian countries to buy little girls to get married with. Mess over mess. They don't want condoms, they want freedom. Sadly, that would make things even worse.

[pepperbird]

8 hours ago, justwhoiam said:

Italy declared a national emergency in January until July 31. That's our goal. As the maximum time span of the virus in a human body is 37 days (average contagion considered as 14 days), if people are doing their part, we get rid of this. The more people are resistant and go against rules, the longer it'll take to get out of the tunnel. Some people seem to not understand that.

This may not be sustainable. If even one case exists, then there's the potential for it to flare up again. A vaccine is still a fair amount of time away.
It could end up being that governments will have to start looking into ways of allowing life to get back to normal while still protecting as many people as possible. How that would work, I don't know.

[serial muse]

14 hours ago, Azincourt said:

The more people there are, the more stuff like this has it's chances of happening increases. Why in heaven is China hosting a population of 1 billion and 300 millions? What is the need for that many people? What are the chances of a virus like this originating from Andorra with a total of 30.000 citizens next to China with almost 2 billion souls?

Maybe next time when we send medical aid and provisions to China, we should also pack up some condoms.

My post was directed at the oft-repeated conspiracy theory on here that China created this virus in a lab, on purpose, to eff with the west. It's dumb and needs to go away. Not sure what that has to do with your reply here. 

[serial muse]

On 3/25/2020 at 3:37 PM, mark clemson said:

I read an article about how bats have large numbers of these corona viruses circulating and mutating in their various populations (ie, specific large caves with lots of bats). They, unfortunately, are a breeding ground for these kinds of viruses and there are a lot of them in China.

That means the origin of this in bats that people were eating is plausible (not that I will pretend to know the truth with certainty).

Unfortunately it ALSO means that China has access to LOTS of potential bio-weapons similar to this virus.

Of course, as we have seen, unless your country is completely shut off from travel, a virus like this is very much a double-edged sword. (And even if you're shut off there is always smuggling or covert ops.) So there's that at least.

What's even worse is the potential for this virus to get in the hands of biohackers (they are a thing now) and potentially used for terrorism or simply to kill people and disrupt normal life. Some people think this way, unfortunately.

Yay, humans!

People suspect that there was an intermediate animal that helped transfer the virus from bats to humans (meaning it acquired an adaptation somewhere along the way that made it infectious to humans). It doesn't appear to be pangolins, which can carry coronaviruses similar to this one, and have a version that's similar in many ways to the one humans have. The idea now is that the virus probably circulated between bats and pangolins for some time, exchanging genes. But the version that pangolins are carrying is different enough from the human version that scientists think they weren't the vector...which animal it was is still a mystery.

[carhill]

Israel:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/teva-to-send-us-millions-of-malaria-pills-with-potential-to-help-covid-19/

Michigan:

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/lara/Reminder_of_Appropriate_Prescribing_and_Dispensing_3-24-2020_684869_7.pdf

Whitmer/Soros

Unions, SEIU:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-39-million-n95-medical-masks-stockpile-us-hospitals-union-2020-3

[justwhoiam]

FROM A FOREIGNER LIVING IN SHANGHAI

1. Youtube is banned, has been prohibited since 2008 or so, you can access it through VPN, which means you need another program that makes your IP seem like you're in another country (e.g. Japan).

2. Schools all over China are still closed, and foreign students are connecting from abroad (U.S. included) using Chinese learning platforms.

3. Shanghai was on lockdown for 56 days. Only one person for family could go out once a week to get primary needs goods.

4. Now most offices in the city have reopened. They officially said people can go out without wearing a mask.

5. After the quarantine, the population still needs to follow certain rules (e.g. social distancing is still in place as a general rule, but not in restaurants.)

6. In any public space you enter, at the entrance there are people verifying your temperature: if it's above 37.3 °C (99.14 F), they won't let you in and you get reported. This obviously lengthens the time to get in anywhere and also causes some funny things, because thermometers not always work perfectly, aka they sometimes detect an unreal temperature for a human (like 34.3 °C/93.7 F). Long lines are the new normal.

7. All over China, they're using Alipay (a platform meant for payments and owned by Alibaba), to monitor everyone's movements (where people are going to) for the last 14 days. Alipay contains a miniprogram now generating a QR code of three different colors: red, yellow and green. You're allowed to enter any place (store, mall, post office, office, etc) only if your code is green. For example, someone landing in China from abroad starts with a red code, gets quarantined for 14 days when code is yellow, and at the end of the quarantine, code is green. If they find out you have the already mentioned temperature, you start it all over.

8. In order to help the recovery of consumption, some Chinese regions are promoting a longer weekend: from the classic 2 days to 2 days and a half (so starting from Friday 12 pm), so that people can go out more. In fact, restaurants, cafés and bars have reopened in many cities, but the population is still cautious going out. You find people in the street, but they are not going places...

9. The Chinese government also started recommending all Chinese state officials, so all the members of the Communist party, to take a U-turn regarding the policies that were promoted until before the virus: before the mantra was "You don't have to lead a mundane life, because you're not setting a good example for the other citizens and you don't have to spend public money like that", now it's the opposite "You need to go out to show that going out is safe and it's good".

10. The economy in Shanghai didn't go down completely, e-commerce had a nice peak with Alibaba. Some products had a 40%+ rise in sales.

11. DiDi, the Chinese "Uber", had all its drivers install a sort of cellophane or plastic divider that would isolate driver and customer for protection.

12. There are Chinese people thinking that the virus spread because the American marines took the virus there. That's also because a Chinese ministry hinted to that publicly.

13. After the lockdown, China had its first arrivals from abroad and, for the first week or so, the Chinese government was paying for the expenses (for instance if someone had to be quarantined in a hotel). Now all the expenses are on the traveller.

14. All the condominiums' main entrance doors were closed with a padlock, so anyone getting in had to be registered. It looks like padlocks are still in place, because people are returning to China (e.g. foreigners).

15. Shanghai has cams all over the place. At traffic lights, if you cross when the light is red with your vehicle, the cam detects you and your name is displayed with a warning.

16. In Shanghai, they can deliver your grocery order within 30 minutes, if you are in a 3 km range (less than 2 miles) from the store. If the deliverer is even a few minutes late, you can ask for a refund. As apparently they also sell live fish, that guarantees freshness of products.

Edited March 27, 2020 by justwhoiam