Corona Virus 2019-nCoV

iceaura said:
The question in the US is whether any lessons will be learned by white American rightwing men - even enough to bring us out of chaos in a year and a half only.

The lessons were learned only by lefties, last time we had public health chaos. That's not enough, obviously (the most recent round of Republicans - with the support of the American media and public - dismantled the pandemic response team as soon as they could, defunded the emergency response agencies, and blocked all attempts to improve the US public health system or increase its capabilities).

How many actually dead people will it take to get anyone except a fringe lefty to learn anything from the latest Republican bedshitting? A million or so wasn't enough in Iraq, but those were mainly nonwhite foreigners. Maybe a half million white Americans will be enough of a jolt - maybe a few graves dug and filled with bulldozers, one headstone with a few dozen names? Maybe a few suburban upper class hospitals pitching Red Cross tents with generator powered cold storage of corpses in the parking lot, so the relatives can pick them up without navigating hallways crowded with cots and IV drips?

One of the lessons not learned from the Iraq War chaos, for example, was about secret private contracting and lobbying and bribery of Executive Branch officials in matters of ordinary citizen's health (recall body armor and brain injury and PTSD and repeated deployment and torture interrogation and mental health and 9/11 or oil fire toxin exposure and oil spill dispersant and FEMA preparedness and private prison abuse and yadda yadda yadda ).

Instead of lesson learned, we see Trump's administration saturated with that same issue of corruption and secret dealings - to the point that nobody and no place in the entire country has been able to either obtain or make for itself hospital beds, Covid tests, masks, or ventilators, despite more than three months notice and large capacity ready to hand both domestically and in foreign trade. It has been soldier's body armor, military ammunition, Katrina response materials, working fighter plane design and construction, rodent infestation of Veteran's hospitals, medical gear held hostage for price, and so forth, all over again. Once again we have high level White House officials with large and largely secret financial and political interests at stake making public health contracting decisions for the entire country, enriching or empowering themselves at great public cost in misery and expense.

And more than half the country approves of how they are doing their jobs. That is not an indication of anyone learning anything.
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True. Upon further reflection, we will probably all be dead in a year or so.
 
billvon said:
No, you can't. You can REDUCE the transmission rate.
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Yes you can. You can reduce the transmission rate to zero. Just talk to any Prepper and they will tell you..
This is simply because the virus has a life span that requires a bit of patience and solid planning, enforcement and solid compliance.

The virus isn't some demigod. It has significant limitations.
  • It's life span (say 60 days total)
  • It's distance of droplet dispersal (2 meters)
  • It's life span on surfaces.
  • It's effect on co-morbidity.

Every thing we are scared of can be turned in to a positive strategy.

Once Governments stop underestimating and start properly estimating there is every reason to believe that enforced social distancing regardless of peoples ability to do so, the viral transmission rate will over time reduce to zero.
Without effective social distancing and quarantine provisions of course you end up doing what the USA is doing...chasing the wind...chasing your tail and just extending the life span of the virus in the collective and in doing so surely degrade and ultimately destroy any economy a nation has, which will lead to further increases in transmission rates, overwhelm medical facilities and rapidly increase the fatality rate.

But of course the most important thing is to stop underestimating this dire situation and start acting rather than reacting.
 
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Quantum Quack said:
Yes you can. You can reduce the transmission rate to zero.
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You sure can. Biological labs do it all the time.

You CANNOT do that with people who "go do exercise, shopping etc." Or even if they stay home and have Josh (and Andy, and Shanelle, and Dave who is covering for Josh who is sick) deliver them food. Sorry, just not going to happen.

Once Governments stop underestimating and start properly estimating there is every reason to believe that enforced social distancing regardless of peoples ability to do so, the viral transmission rate will over time reduce to zero.
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That has never, ever, ever worked.

Remember the AIDS epidemic? It is fairly straightforward to avoid getting that - just don't have unprotected sex with people, and avoid transfusions if it is at all possible until the blood has been screened. Far easier than preventing virus transmission - all you have to do is NOT do two things. And then transmission drops to zero, and it is gone within a few years.

Right?
 
Rant:
I have been monitoring this crisis from the get go (early December 2019) and what is happening in the USA now and most likely in the future can only be described as catastrophic.
The situation in the USA is actually early days and it appears that the USA is only on the start of it's anticipated curve.
as early as it is it is already returning:
100,000 + confirmed cases with fatalities running close to 1500+.

If the USA had approached this as the Chinese had then we could anticipate the curve with a reasonable accuracy. However the USA isn't capable of applying the draconian strategies that have proved successful albeit limited in other places in the world. Mainly because the spread has been so comprehensive prior to the government taking appropriate actions. Too little too late. Too many epi-centers. Virtually zero preparedness and important instrumentalities politically compromised.
The sort of leadership required to lead the USA is simply not possible or at least highly improbable to emerge. IMO. This means that the future is indeed very dire for the USA.

It is such a tragic thing to consider but that is the new reality we all face... I have many friends in the USA some quite elderly and they are terrified and greatly saddened by what is currently happening and what is apparently going to happen in the USA and to the USA in the coming month or two.
It is not too hard to imagine that the ending of the USA Federation of states will be severely compromised by the time this situation is resolved.

Poor federal leadership, lack of Federal planning and most importantly chronic underestimation of the problem can only exasperate the problem.

Thoughts are with you USA... best of luck!

End of Rant
 
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Are the individual states (USA) prepared to go it alone, close their borders and employ their militias ( national guard(?) to support border enforcement and order?
 
billvon said:
That has never, ever, ever worked.
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I understand how you feel and how desperate you see this situation.
The first thing I wanted to post is to suggest that while similar has happened before, drawing comparisons with other pandemics may not necessarily be productive.
It may never never have worked in the past, but this virus has not ever ever happened in the past.
It is a new radical situation that will require new radical solutions.
As with HIV, once the limitations are understood progress can be made.
Understanding those limitations and employing a personal strategy with government help can greatly reduce this viral impact.
So what are the limitations of this contagion?
 
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Quantum Quack said:
The first thing I wanted to post is to suggest that while similar has happened before, drawing comparisons with other pandemics may not necessarily be productive.
It may never never have worked in the past, but this virus has not ever ever happened in the past.
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No novel virus has ever happened in the past.
It is a new radical situation that will require new radical solutions.
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I agree. But if something as simple as "don't have unprotected sex with at-risk people" isn't easy enough for people to do, how will "don't come into any kind of contact with anyone else" work?

With strict isolation, we can slow down (not stop) this. And that flattens the curve so our hospitals are not overwhelmed - and it gives us time to develop a vaccine.
 
billvon said:
With strict isolation, we can slow down (not stop) this. And that flattens the curve so our hospitals are not overwhelmed - and it gives us time to develop a vaccine.
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Agree!
However avoiding the contagion is possible if one is up for it...
 
billvon said:
I agree. But if something as simple as "don't have unprotected sex with at-risk people" isn't easy enough for people to do, how will "don't come into any kind of contact with anyone else" work?
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HIV was actually easy to avoid compared to this beast..
Nothing kills the sex drive more than the fear of picking up an STD once you know that an invisible killer un-treatable STD is out there.
Of course, now that HIV is no longer a death sentence in most cases, people are relaxing their decisions.
 
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Quantum Quack said:
HIV was actually easy to avoid compared to this beast..
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Exactly! And we couldn't even avoid that.
Nothing kills the sex drive more than the fear of picking up an STD once you know that an invisible killer un-treatable STD is out there.
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And yet - it went from 8000 cases in 1984 to 300,000 confirmed cases by 1990. And that was far easier to avoid than COVID.
 
We are continuously negotiating what we deem "essential services," with many industries disrupted or suspended at present, but I am curious as to how much thought/research has been devoted to matters of collateral damage as a consequence of disruption. I'm not referring to "the economy," as such--and, frankly, I'd be quite pleased if people who "work" in "finance" largely disappeared from the face of the earth--but rather, to things along these lines:
Spring is when vital forest management happens, as crews set prescribed burns and thin forests in order to reduce the fuel for spreading fires. In much of the West, including California, all prescribed burns on national forest land is postponed until further notice. Without being able to properly manage lands to prevent fires, we’ll have to rely heavily on early suppression of fires.
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(bolding mine)
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...n-is-a-pandemic-nightmare-and-its-almost-here <<<

Likewise, medical procedures deemed non-essential--including dentistry--have largely been suspended and resources have been diverted, possibly resulting in deaths wholly unrelated to the coronavirus.

Anyone know of any data or hypothesizing on this?
 
Quantum Quack said:
Are the individual states (USA) prepared to go it alone, close their borders and employ their militias ( national guard(?) to support border enforcement and order?
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We already have a number of state governors and local authorities stepping up, as the federal/Republican response has been overwhelmingly worthless--or worse, actually counter-effective. However, not all states, needless to say. And that presents an enormous problem: one state is doing all it can to lessen propagation, while it's neighboring state--say, Texas or Florida, during spring break--isn't doing a damn thing. Yet, with the contiguous states, the borders remain open, so their efforts essentially come to naught.

Closing borders is immensely complicated, especially with so much our distribution being dependent upon long haul trucking, as we've largely decimated the rail industry (passenger especially, but also cargo) for the sake of Ronald McDonald and ghastly suburbs or some such shit.
 
Quantum Quack said:
It is not too hard to imagine that the ending of the USA Federation of states will be severely compromised by the time this situation is resolved.
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I just reread this and woaha, scrambled egg for breakfast..lol

I mean it almost makes sense..don't it?
 
parmalee said:
We are continuously negotiating what we deem "essential services," with many industries disrupted or suspended at present, but I am curious as to how much thought/research has been devoted to matters of collateral damage as a consequence of disruption. I'm not referring to "the economy," as such--and, frankly, I'd be quite pleased if people who "work" in "finance" largely disappeared from the face of the earth--but rather, to things along these lines:

(bolding mine)
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...n-is-a-pandemic-nightmare-and-its-almost-here <<<

Likewise, medical procedures deemed non-essential--including dentistry--have largely been suspended and resources have been diverted, possibly resulting in deaths wholly unrelated to the coronavirus.

Anyone know of any data or hypothesizing on this?
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"The economy" isn't primarily referring to those who work in finance (which is a rather broad category itself). It refers to all production, everyone's job, etc.
 
Seattle said:
"The economy" isn't primarily referring to those who work in finance (which is a rather broad category itself). It refers to all production, everyone's job, etc.
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Derrr, really, genius? Gee, I din't know that.

What do you suppose I meant when I said that it was not so much about "the economy, as such?"

Again, learn how to read.
 
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