coronavirus - The Legacy

[saxitoxin]

Actually, the U.S. has no idea how many cases it has. It could be 20 cases per million, or it could be 2,000 per million. Since testing has been so sporadic, nobody really knows.

This is true of all countries. However, body counts are unambiguous and there are thousands of corpses in Europe and a bit north of 100 in the U.S.

[Dukasaur]

Actually, the U.S. has no idea how many cases it has. It could be 20 cases per million, or it could be 2,000 per million. Since testing has been so sporadic, nobody really knows.

This is true of all countries. However, body counts are unambiguous and there are thousands of corpses in Europe and a bit north of 100 in the U.S.

So far. But the delay in testing means there are probably hundreds of nodes now in the U.S.

Yesterday the U.S. passed South Korea for 7th place in total cases. Overnight, it passed France for 6th place.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You will come to rue Trump's infinite hubris in refusing the WHO tests and re-inventing the wheel. There will be a lot of people who didn't need to die.

[mrswdk]

As soon as S Korea realised it had more than just a small handful of cases among international travellers it immediately banned all mass gatherings and events, shut its schools etc. The growth of new cases in South Korea has not quite flatlined but has completely dropped off. This is in contrast to European countries/the US, which refused to take similar measures until they had thousands of cases all over the country and consequently are now completely plague-riddled.

South Korea didn't even have to ban people from going out on the street, it just did something. European/US governments really dropped the ball on this one.

[Dukasaur]

As soon as S Korea realised it had more than just a small handful of cases among international travellers it immediately banned all mass gatherings and events, shut its schools etc. The growth of new cases in South Korea has not quite flatlined but has completely dropped off. This is in contrast to European countries/the US, which refused to take similar measures until they had thousands of cases all over the country and consequently are now completely plague-riddled.

South Korea didn't even have to ban people from going out on the street, it just did something. European/US governments really dropped the ball on this one.

There's another factor at work which I believe is very important. In South Korea, as in all East Asian countries, masks are a major part of the equation. In South Korea there are apparently signs at the entrance to many buildings saying "No Mask = No Entry." Other countries in East Asia either have masking laws or strong social censure of people without masks. Masks are mass-produced, and in many of the countries are either distributed free or at a controlled price.

In the West, we are constantly told that "masks offer no protection. You're wasting your money." It's true that they do not offer complete protection, but I think the statement that they offer no protection is an outright lie. Why do we mask healthcare workers, if the masks offer no protection? No effort has been made by Western governments to improve the availability of masks. Instead, they are hoarded for health care workers and government agencies, while the population at large is told, "don't worry. You don't need them."

I think the Eastern governments have it right, and the Western governments have it wrong.

I don't worry for my own sake, because my immune system is top-notch, but my wife with many health conditions is immune-compromised and I've been trying to get her some masks for days now. Around here, they're not available at any store, at any price. One pharmacist I approached yesterday literally burst into laughter when I asked if she had any masks. Literal laughter. Once she composed herself, she said no, they've been out of stock for a month and no supplier has any.

Taiwan is making 10 million masks a day. Meanwhile, in North America, mask wearers are ridiculed and shamed.

[mrswdk]

Why do we mask healthcare workers, if the masks offer no protection?

Because if worn correctly and changed regularly, masks catch the traces of the virus that you are breathing out and help prevent someone who already has the virus from passing it on to other people they are in close contact with.

The term 'close contact' is important. Walking past a COVID-19 carrier in the street isn't going to transmit it to you. Neither is meeting a delivery driver outside your house. Sitting next to a carrier for 15 minutes while they breath all over you and your possessions, food etc is. That's why even when governments are shutting schools, banning gatherings of groups of people etc. they're still saying it's fine to go for a run round the park or go out to the shops.

Wearing a mask on your trip to the shops to try and prevent yourself catching COVID-19 is completely pointless.

I don't worry for my own sake, because my immune system is top-notch, but my wife with many health conditions is immune-compromised and I've been trying to get her some masks for days now.

As above, her wearing a mask will do very little to protect her from COVID-19. The best thing she can do is wash her hands regularly (so that there is no virus on her hands), stop touching her face (as that will bring any virus on her hands into close proximity of her eyes, mouth, nose, ears etc.), keep the house clean (so that there is no virus lingering on the surfaces she and you are touching), and avoid being within close contact (2 meters) of other people for any sustained period of time (who might transmit it to her). If you bring objects into the house, particularly those that other people have been handling (e.g. food deliveries), you want to consider washing your hands after handling them yourself. Those are the measures that will help her avoid catching COVID-19.

The amount of use a mask is in helping you avoid catching COVID is absolutely minimal, and if you're not taking the above precautions then the mask will be 0 use. An ordinary citizen (i.e. not a health worker) wearing a mask to avoid catching COVID is like drinking more milk to avoid breaking a bone while playing football.

Instead, they are hoarded for health care workers

i.e. the people who are most likely to catch it and who are in regular close contact with people whose health is poor and who might die if their nurse accidentally transmits COVID-19 to them. And the reason they are being 'hoarded' for health care workers is because, as you say:

Around here, they're not available at any store, at any price.

If supplies weren't set aside for healthcare workers then the panic buyers will be sat at home on the toilet paper thrones wearing 5 masks on at once while health care workers have nothing.

[saxitoxin]

Yesterday the U.S. passed South Korea for 7th place in total cases. Overnight, it passed France for 6th place.

The US has a population of 330,000,000. France has a population of 67,000,000. No person with an IQ above 12 would want to trade places with France. There are, per capita, five dead Frenchmen for every American.

Macron faces the very real threat of being overthrown by the French Army if things get much more dire. The entire French state is on the verge of collapse. Should that happen Presidents Trump, Putin or Xi may face the tough choice of using extreme methods of sterilization of Metroplitan France to control their runaway case load in the absence of a functioning government in Paris.

[saxitoxin]

Novovirus - Hand sanitizer is ineffective; after 50 years of research we're no closer to a vaccine; 200,000 people died last year from it

Coronavirus is a psychological crisis, not an objective crisis. It is being spread by media. The media themselves must be quarantined and prohibited from infecting ( AKA publishing).

[mrswdk]

The media have been long overdue for a crackdown. Maybe this will be the push that finally brings it to them.

[saxitoxin]

The media have been long overdue for a crackdown. Maybe this will be the push that finally brings it to them.

Yes.

I'm all for media freedom, however, there is no way to explain a 10,000 point drop in the Dow occurring as a result of 100 people dying - when 10,000 people die every year from influenza and 35,000 in car accidents - other than calculated hysterics. A minor public health concern has been inflated into a once-in-a-century calamity to try to prop-up Joe Biden's DOA presidential campaign. The media wanted a war and should now be subjected to all of President Trump's war powers without mercy.

When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[mrswdk]

The total number of deaths in Italy (a high-income country of 60 million) just overtook the total number of deaths in China (a middle-income country of 1,400 million):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51955509

The local authorities in Wuhan spent the first month of the outbreak trying to cover everything up, and yet China still got a lid on the problem infinitely faster than Italy. Another advert for the efficiency of the Western model of government.

[spurgistan]

As soon as S Korea realised it had more than just a small handful of cases among international travellers it immediately banned all mass gatherings and events, shut its schools etc. The growth of new cases in South Korea has not quite flatlined but has completely dropped off. This is in contrast to European countries/the US, which refused to take similar measures until they had thousands of cases all over the country and consequently are now completely plague-riddled.

South Korea didn't even have to ban people from going out on the street, it just did something. European/US governments really dropped the ball on this one.

There's another factor at work which I believe is very important. In South Korea, as in all East Asian countries, masks are a major part of the equation. In South Korea there are apparently signs at the entrance to many buildings saying "No Mask = No Entry." Other countries in East Asia either have masking laws or strong social censure of people without masks. Masks are mass-produced, and in many of the countries are either distributed free or at a controlled price.

In the West, we are constantly told that "masks offer no protection. You're wasting your money." It's true that they do not offer complete protection, but I think the statement that they offer no protection is an outright lie. Why do we mask healthcare workers, if the masks offer no protection? No effort has been made by Western governments to improve the availability of masks. Instead, they are hoarded for health care workers and government agencies, while the population at large is told, "don't worry. You don't need them."

I think the Eastern governments have it right, and the Western governments have it wrong.

I don't worry for my own sake, because my immune system is top-notch, but my wife with many health conditions is immune-compromised and I've been trying to get her some masks for days now. Around here, they're not available at any store, at any price. One pharmacist I approached yesterday literally burst into laughter when I asked if she had any masks. Literal laughter. Once she composed herself, she said no, they've been out of stock for a month and no supplier has any.

Taiwan is making 10 million masks a day. Meanwhile, in North America, mask wearers are ridiculed and shamed.

I hope your family stays healthy, Duk. One thing I think you missed is lack of preparation as far as lacking pandemic capacity. Korea had an outbreak of MERS only five or so years ago, in which lazy quarantine policies led to a outbreak of a very preventable disease. China and Korea both had SARS kill thousands less than 20 years ago. Both of these events had limited effects in Europe and North America, but had huge lessons to learn for most people who are in government today in those countries. As somebody who lived through the MERS outbreak in Korea, we learned the value of quarantine and staying home unless you had to go out. In contrast, we've had next to no actual epidemics of that scale occur in the US, which is why Trump probably felt safe eliminating the pandemic response team literally two years ago.
And in addition, terrible air quality in both those countries led to masks being relatively common things, as you said (also, to be sure, the belief that masks keep you from getting sick, when in reality they mostly lower the chance of you passing the infection along). The thing about "shaming" relatively low-risk people for wearing masks while there's a vast shortage affecting people who are high-risk is that it might serve a valuable purpose - again, all focus should be on finding ways to avoid leaving home. Hospitals are being told to ration masks. For us to wear masks in order to pursue non-life threatening tasks while doctors and nurses have to reuse theirs for days at a time seems a bit overly self-oriented in a time when we all need to maximize public awareness.

[saxitoxin]

These guys are the most rational and reasonable people in this whole media circus masquerading as a pandemic.



(Also, what are the odds the Cajun guy at the end of the video is xeno?)

[mrswdk]

These guys are the most rational and reasonable people in this whole media circus masquerading as a pandemic.



(Also, what are the odds the Cajun guy at the end of the video is xeno?)

It's funny because the reporter has likely gone there to try and paint these Spring Breakers as the bad guys, and yet in order to film these interviews has had to have close contact with all sorts of people and could therefore have spread COVID all over the party.

[Dukasaur]

As above, her wearing a mask will do very little to protect her from COVID-19. The best thing she can do is wash her hands regularly (so that there is no virus on her hands), stop touching her face (as that will bring any virus on her hands into close proximity of her eyes, mouth, nose, ears etc.), keep the house clean (so that there is no virus lingering on the surfaces she and you are touching), and avoid being within close contact (2 meters) of other people for any sustained period of time (who might transmit it to her). If you bring objects into the house, particularly those that other people have been handling (e.g. food deliveries), you want to consider washing your hands after handling them yourself. Those are the measures that will help her avoid catching COVID-19.

I'm glad your capable of parroting the party line. Thank you, but I've read it enough times in enough places. What I'm suggesting is that it's a lie.

Did you read what I wrote?

Both Taiwan (which despite many imported cases has prevented any major local outbreak) and South Korea (which had a major outbreak, but has been largely successful in bringing it under control) consider mask wearing to be central to the fight against community spread of the virus. In South Korea, particularly, many public buildings post "No Mask - No Entry". To a greater or lesser degree, all other East Asian countries also consider masking to be an essential component of controlling the virus. Their efforts seem to be working.

Our authorities tell us mask are useless, and yet their efforts are not working. Who are you more likely to believe, the nations that are having success or the nations that are not?

Next piece of evidence -- the cruise ships. Covid spread rapidly among cruise ship passengers, even after they were separated and confined to quarters. They had no face to face contact. Their (sterilized) food was brought in (sterilized) containers. Every possible precaution was taken, and yet the virus spread like wildfire. The only commonality between the passengers (after being confined to quarters) was the fact that they all breathed air from the same air conditioning system. The only possible theory that explains all the observable facts is that the virus is effectively capable of surviving being piped through the air ducts. Surface transmission does not explain the observations -- great pains were taken to clean and sterilize all surfaces.

Third point of evidence -- the authorities are very careful to make sure that everyone in the health care system masks up. Firefighters, ambulance attendants, police, are all required to mask up when entering a house where the virus may be present, or when even speaking to a person who may have the virus. If the masks don't do anything, why is there so much emphasis on making sure anyone who works with people in an official capacity uses them?

[mrswdk]

Korea flattened its curve faster than other countries because it banned mass gatherings, shut schools etc as soon as it reached 80-90 cases and realised its outbreak was no longer isolated to just a few travellers. It has also (same as Taiwan and Singapore) made a lot of use of location tracking, text alerts to all those who have had contact with diagnosed cases etc., and a very thorough programme of testing every suspected contact identified via that tracking system. Western governments have taken longer to respond, don’t have the same personal tracking capabilities (because of data protection laws) and/or have for various reasons restricted testing only to people with symptoms or who are in high risk groups, and they have had more widespread outbreaks as a result.

I don’t know anything about the cruise ships but given COVID is symptomless for about a week it’s quite possible you’re talking about people who contracted it before they were confined to their rooms, then discovered they had it later.

And on point three, you’re talking about emergency workers (in an unspecified country) spending extended periods of time with likely COVID patients who are almost certainly breathing COVID all over them. Masks by themselves aren’t enough for that. I’m assuming those emergency workers you’re talking about are also wearing something over their eyes. That’s the normal practice. Your wife is presumably not spending half her time in hospitals hugging COVID patients. Therefore she does not need to be taking frontline worker levels of precaution.

‘Some Asian governments are giving out masks’ is not evidence that what your wife needs is a mask. Those governments have been getting various things very right but the mask hoarding is not one of those things. Wash your hands, wipe things down, stop touching your face, keep your wife away from other people if she’s that high risk.

[saxitoxin]

Meanwhile in Democratic-ruled Klownifornia ...

The Eva Braun-lookalike who is First Lady of California has issued an urgent warning that Governor Newsom's ass is just one day away from becoming a stinky and dirty mess and is calling on President Trump to urgently help her keep the Governor's ass clean.

The downside, she says, is that the family will run of toilet paper in a day. Her remarks were met with scorn.

https://fox5sandiego.com/news/coronavir ... let-paper/

[Dukasaur]

The total number of deaths in Italy (a high-income country of 60 million) just overtook the total number of deaths in China (a middle-income country of 1,400 million):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51955509

The local authorities in Wuhan spent the first month of the outbreak trying to cover everything up, and yet China still got a lid on the problem infinitely faster than Italy. Another advert for the efficiency of the Western model of government.

Mrswdk: "The Asians are doing everything right! Except the masks. They're definitely wrong about the masks.

The Westerners are wrong about everything. Except the masks. For sure Western propaganda is spot-on when it talks about the masks!"

[jimboston]

she’s hot

[2dimes]

she’s hot

Fever?

[mrswdk]

Mrswdk: "The Asians are doing everything right! Except the masks. They're definitely wrong about the masks.

The Westerners are wrong about everything. Except the masks. For sure Western propaganda is spot-on when it talks about the masks!"

I see now you've entered the final stage of forum trolling: not even trying to respond to any of the points I make and just attacking the messenger.

I don't know why you're so obsessed with masks to the extent that you've decided that my advice must be some sort of attempt at brainwashing you. Go buy 100 masks and sellotape them all over your wife's body then. Hope there's space for them in your trolley given you've probably already stufed it with 300 rolls of toilet paper.

[mrswdk]

Oh look at that, the reasons COVID spread round one of the cruise ships include the ship not being locked down until days after COVID was first discovered on it, passengers ignoring the quarantine even after it was imposed, and passengers/crew with symptoms being left to bunk with others for days without being tested:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/worl ... -ship.html

This article is probably just propaganda though, according to the Facebook post you saw.. Most likely the real reason COVID spread round this ferry was because passengers forgot to gargle salt water every night.

[Dukasaur]

I see now you've entered the final stage of forum trolling: not even trying to respond to any of the points I make and just attacking the messenger.

Lol, if you think your kneejerk responses are any better than non-responses, you're wrong.

And I wasn't really attacking you, not in any personal sense. Just trying to make you see the discontinuity in your position. You're sure the Western governments are doing everything wrong, but on just this one point, you're absolutely certain that they're right. They're idiots, but on just this one point, they're wise. They lie like a rug, but on just this one point, they're absolutely telling us the truth.

I pointed out that the Asian governments, whose strategies include masking, are having more success than the Western governments (whose strategies also include masking, but only for their own employees, and screw the public). You agree that they are, but you insist that it's only because of other parts of their strategies. You have absolutely no data for which parts of their strategies are more important than which others, but it fits your narrative. You dismiss out-of-hand anything that doesn't fit your narrative, don't think about it, don't consider it. How is this better than a non-response?

To your credit, you did actually research something about the cruise ships, which I don't have time to read right now because I'd be late for work, but I will read it tomorrow. But things I've read about the ships indicate that their measures were followed very strictly. Possibly different things happened on different ships.

I pointed out that emergency responders are required to mask up, and if they masks are worthless than why is this? You made some sarcastic retort about them hugging sick people all day. I could point out that the rules apply even if they're not -- police officers are required to mask up to even have a conversation with a motorist who looks like he may be ill -- but what would be the point? You'll just have some other sarcastic retort. You're absolutely certain the government is right, and nothing I say will shake your faith. I just don't understand how you think they're wrong about everything else, but on just this one point, have to be right.

[mrswdk]

My responses aren't knee-jerk or parroted from government ministers. I work in healthcare service design/delivery and have spent a fair bit of time recently reading the NHS advice (NHS isn't controlled by ministers), WHO advice (independent body) and views of various international experts in epidemiology.

You're drawing a correlation between 'masks' and rate of success controlling the COVID outbreak, I'm saying there are way more factors at play and the evidence suggests it's some of those other factors that are the important ones.

My point about the emergency responders was that they are not just wearing masks, they will also be wearing eye protection (and also wearing something over their regular clothes that they can take off after they've finished dealing with the COVID cases). If you want to wear protective clothing that will stop you getting COVID, a mask is just one of the several things you need to wear. If all you are wearing is a mask then that by itself will not protect you. If all a police officer is wearing is a mask then they are not sufficiently protected to be spending extended periods of time around people who have COVID.

[saxitoxin]

Anger as Democrat Elite Retreat to Compounds in the Hamptons for Quarantine Parties, Bringing Pandemic to Infect their Servants

In 2016, more than 55% of year-round residents of Suffolk County voted for President Trump, while the wealthy weekenders from Manhattan supported Hillary Clinton. [link]

It’s all-out class warfare in the Hamptons.



The year-round residents, the locals who serve and clean and landscape for the super-rich in the summertime — and put up with all manner of entitlement and terrible behavior in exchange for good money — are silent no more.

“There’s not a vegetable to be found in this town right now,” says one resident of Springs, a working-class pocket of East Hampton. “It’s these elitist people who think they don’t have to follow the rules.”

It’s not just the drastic food shortage out here. Every aspect of life, most crucially medical care, is under strain from the sudden influx of rich Manhattanites panic-fleeing, bringing along their disdain and disregard for the little people — and in some cases, knowingly bringing coronavirus.

The Springs resident says her friend, a nurse out here, reported that a wealthy Manhattan woman who tested positive called tiny Southampton Hospital to say she was on her way and needed treatment.

The woman was told to stay in Manhattan.

Instead, she allegedly got on public transportation, telling no one of her condition. Then she showed up at Southampton Hospital, demanding admittance.

“Someone else took a private jet to East Hampton and did not tell anybody ’til he landed,” the resident says. “That’s the most horrendous aspect. The virus is already here, and we don’t have any medical resources.”

https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/we-should ... -hamptons/