Coronavirus

[King James]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html

Excellent and chilling data driven account of the rapid spread of the virus. Also, vividly demonstrates the blame the Chinese Communist government deserves for this global calamity. 7 weeks passed from the initial signs of community spread in Wuhan until they locked down Wuhan and the Hubei province. In that time an estimated 7 million people left the Wuhan area.

Had the Chinese Govt sought to help its people and by extension the rest of the world instead of covering up the virus and threatening doctors sounding the alarm with jail, thousands of lives could have been saved and trillions of dollars of wealth not destroyed.

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To be fair a lot of us have been watching this unfold since Jan when they started locking people in their apartments.

Pretty sure back then was the time for Uncle Sam to give the general population the ol’ heads up, not a couple weeks ago.

[RobertSul]

1 hour ago, RCNYILWX said:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html

Excellent and chilling data driven account of the rapid spread of the virus. Also, vividly demonstrates the blame the Chinese Communist government deserves for this global calamity. 7 weeks passed from the initial signs of community spread in Wuhan until they locked down Wuhan and the Hubei province. In that time an estimated 7 million people left the Wuhan area.

Had the Chinese Govt sought to help its people and by extension the rest of the world instead of covering up the virus and threatening doctors sounding the alarm with jail, thousands of lives could have been saved and trillions of dollars of wealth not destroyed.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

I read that December 23rd was when the virus was first noted as novel and spreading, and Hubei closed down January 23rd. That’s a little over 4 weeks, with a brand new virus that they certainly didn’t have the data then that we have now.
 

As you very well know, closing down a province that has a larger population than California couldn’t be taken lightly with the limited information they had then, and WHO had even commended China on its swift response. 
 

I am by no means saying that China’s censorship and suppression aren’t problematic (they very well are), but in this case you’re looking at the situation with 20/20 vision, with the knowledge you possess two months after Hubei’s closure.

By contrast, when this virus entered our shores on January 21st, it wasn’t until 2 months later that states started sheltering in place, and there still aren’t any wholesale traveling restrictions (at least that I’m aware of).

 

 

 

[SchaumburgStormer]

1 hour ago, King James said:

To be fair a lot of us have been watching this unfold since Jan when they started locking people in their apartments.

Pretty sure back then was the time for Uncle Sam to give the general population the ol’ heads up, not a couple weeks ago.

That’s when some members of congress were briefed. But instead of sounding the alarm, they conveniently sold stocks in holdings which would be severely affected by widespread disease.  

[IWXwx]

14 minutes ago, SchaumburgStormer said:

That’s when some members of congress were briefed. But instead of sounding the alarm, they conveniently sold stocks in holdings which would be severely affected by widespread disease.  

That, if true, is a prime example of what will be the downfall of this great country.

[weatherbo]

8 minutes ago, IWXwx said:

That, if true, is a prime example of what will be the downfall of this great country.

If? There’s a paper trail. 
politician's have been hacking away at this country from the very start. They ARE the downfall

[IWXwx]

This is the kind of crap that is showing up on social media. To my Canadian friends, tell me that this is not true.

"All schools in Canada are closed for the rest of the school year, each family will receive $950 every two weeks for the next 15 weeks, banks were notify to suspend mortgage payments for at least 6 months, and student loans deferred. Imagine if the United States did this."

[sokolow]

4 hours ago, RCNYILWX said:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html

Excellent and chilling data driven account of the rapid spread of the virus. Also, vividly demonstrates the blame the Chinese Communist government deserves for this global calamity. 7 weeks passed from the initial signs of community spread in Wuhan until they locked down Wuhan and the Hubei province. In that time an estimated 7 million people left the Wuhan area.

Had the Chinese Govt sought to help its people and by extension the rest of the world instead of covering up the virus and threatening doctors sounding the alarm with jail, thousands of lives could have been saved and trillions of dollars of wealth not destroyed.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

From an effective patient zero, lets say it took a month for the PRC public health system to identify clinically, trace and type, and begin assessing the outbreak of a novel — though not unfamiliar — zoonotic virus and another three weeks to recognize the gravity of the situation and implement measures which at the time! remember! parts of the anglosphere MSM insinuated were authoritarian and draconian — that brings us to the end of January. Seven weeks.

My household including healthcare professionals heard about the potential for this to be serious on the 26th of January, and about then my spouse started getting workplace briefings.  OK let’s say that China’s government or scientific establishment was negligent or irresponsible — and I don’t really think they were, but for the sake of argument lets just grant it.  

OK its about seven weeks from end of January when they were airlifting out UK nationals and the world was coming to grips with the idea this was serious

I do not really see that we, in the United States, leveraged the benefit of their experience to prepare.  The USA didn’t have to identify the novel pathogen, didn’t have to describe its behavior or learn how to screen for it. So if the NYT can scold China for failing to contain it what do we say about our own leadership used our own seven weeks if in that time we couldn’t even produce and deploy a rapid test that other people in other countries have since already invented and implemented on a mass scale

[Snowstorms]

9 minutes ago, IWXwx said:

This is the kind of crap that is showing up on social media. To my Canadian friends, tell me that this is not true.

"All schools in Canada are closed for the rest of the school year, each family will receive $950 every two weeks for the next 15 weeks, banks were notify to suspend mortgage payments for at least 6 months, and student loans deferred. Imagine if the United States did this."

Schools depend on the province. For now schools in Ontario are closed until April 6th. Universities and colleges have moved the remainder of the semester online. I'm not sure about final exams though. I haven't heard anything about $950 every two weeks lol. Canadians are eligible to apply for EI (employment insurance) if they've been laid off or if they're in self isolation. The waiting period has been waived. The mortgage part is true but there's some controversy going on as the banks are being difficult about it. Canadians with federal student loans are getting a break on loan and interest payments for the next 6 months. They've also announced property tax deferrals but that's based upon on each municipality’s discretion. They've also temporarily suspended rental evictions to those who can't pay their monthly rent.

[on_wx]

20 minutes ago, IWXwx said:

This is the kind of crap that is showing up on social media. To my Canadian friends, tell me that this is not true.

"All schools in Canada are closed for the rest of the school year, each family will receive $950 every two weeks for the next 15 weeks, banks were notify to suspend mortgage payments for at least 6 months, and student loans deferred. Imagine if the United States did this."

 

I'm not 100% sure if the public schools are closed for good. Theres an emergency fund still being set up to provide $900 every two weeks for 15 weeks for those who dont qualify for EI. You'd still have to be approved for it first. And the 6 month deferrals were from the feds on bank loans like mortgages and car payments. You still have to pay that money back eventually and they still charge you interest during the deferral months according to CBC

[sokolow]

Even if we want to pretend China was 100% maliciously covering it up or first and foremost covering its own incompetence or whatever — if we are seriously indicting China my god the magnitude of blame the USA deserves for how we failed to use our seven weeks to prepare to save lives and the common wealth, if we for one minute are willing to apply the standard of scrutiny to ourselves as a nation that we think others deserve.

[Snowstorms]

2 minutes ago, on_wx said:

 

I'm not 100% sure if the public schools are closed for good. Theres an emergency fund still being set up to provide $900 every two weeks for 15 weeks for those who dont qualify for EI. You'd still have to be approved for it first. And the 6 month deferrals were from the feds on bank loans like mortgages and car payments. You still have to pay that money back eventually and they still charge you interest during the deferral months according to CBC

Really? The interest should be waived too. Its not like people are sitting at home because they want to. Isn’t EI only 55% of your avg insurable weekly earnings?

[Jackstraw]

Buckle up folks.  I think the next 7-10 days are going to be the true test of peoples nerves.  I hope people will keep their heads but from my experience in hurricane disasters its the period between 2 and 3 weeks where people start getting edgy.  I honestly don't know how sustainable our current actions are either economically or socially.  

[BuffaloWeather]

Brother in law fired(with company 6 years), wife got laid off this morning in an emergency lay off. Has been with company for 7 years. This virus is going to have an impact on this country for 5-10 years at least. 

[weatherbo]

12 minutes ago, Jackstraw said:

Buckle up folks.  I think the next 7-10 days are going to be the true test of peoples nerves.  I hope people will keep their heads but from my experience in hurricane disasters its the period between 2 and 3 weeks where people start getting edgy.  I honestly don't know how sustainable our current actions are either economically or socially.  

I'm equally concerned about the economic hard times as a result of the virus, as I am the virus itself.  Whitmer prettied the name up a little and issued a "stay home, stay safe" order. I think some areas of our country could really come undone in the next weeks.

[RCNYILWX]

To@sokolow, @King James,@RobertSul,
your responses are well taken and I agree. I wanted to focus on the China angle not to deflect from the poor response our own government has had, including the testing fiasco. There's many elements to it, and it's been largely a collective failure. The travel ban from China probably bought us some time but then we sqandered that time with a largely business as usual approach that spanned the entire month of February and the beginning of March. Hopefully the actions being taken since at a state level and the federal level finally taking it more seriously can avoid a true Wuhan/Italy/Spain/Iran scenario in many cities.

But returning to the China point, I think we can both be critical of our government's prep and response and also acknowledge the role the Chinese government played in this. The important thing to know is that you can't trust anything coming out of authoritarian governments like China because they control the flow of info and censor anything bad for the leadership. This is very analogous to the USSR's initial handling of Chernobyl. They have the control over their populace, they have a police state, I don't see how it was a logistical thing to shut down Wuhan and Hubei province because they had the ability to do it prior, they did it when they did it as a last resort because their cover up couldn't prevent a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of control. In terms of big picture geopolitics, people need to know China is an evil actor and things shouldn't return to the way they were with their role in the global economy and supply chain once this crisis subsides, whenever that happens.


Good Twitter thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1240708244881854465

Direct link to article in Twitter thread:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/

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[sokolow]

Anyway I think if there’s one area PRC public health authorities might be keeping quiet that’d be real positive if there was glaring transparency, it’d be what they know or don’t know about asymptomatic carriers & transmission.  AFAICT from what my spouse says, even her major research institution is grappling with the issue.

Also if you can help now is a great time to call down your phone tree and make sure your family, friends, neighbors, church members, coworkers all are gonna be able to make rent & fill their pantries. Check with your local food bank

[on_wx]

24 minutes ago, Snowstorms said:

Really? The interest should be waived too. Its not like people are sitting at home because they want to. Isn’t EI only 55% of your avg insurable weekly earnings?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mortgage-deferral-rbc-banks-covid19-coronavirus-credit-card-1.5505704

 

Something like that

[mississaugasnow]

41 minutes ago, Snowstorms said:

Schools depend on the province. For now schools in Ontario are closed until April 6th. Universities and colleges have moved the remainder of the semester online. I'm not sure about final exams though. I haven't heard anything about $950 every two weeks lol. Canadians are eligible to apply for EI (employment insurance) if they've been laid off or if they're in self isolation. The waiting period has been waived. The mortgage part is true but there's some controversy going on as the banks are being difficult about it. Canadians with federal student loans are getting a break on loan and interest payments for the next 6 months. They've also announced property tax deferrals but that's based upon on each municipality’s discretion. They've also temporarily suspended rental evictions to those who can't pay their monthly rent.

 

I havent heard anything about the $950 either per family for 15 weeks. EI easier to get ive heard and that makes sense since Canada just had 500K file for unemployment. In a weird way the US is more to the left of us politically as no politician in power here has floated the idea of just giving Canadians money. 

To limit the spread of false information which is running rampant these days. Here is a link to the official Canadian government response as of today. This is subject to change*

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html

[sokolow]

@RCNYILWX I think it is important to recognize that China is not an evil and monolithic orwellian total state with iron control over an antlike brainwashed populace; geopolitically it’s a modern state-capitalist superpower with a strong centralized government that has foreign, domestic, and economic policy priorities different to those of the USA. Those priorities don’t rate some individual rights as highly, and do rate some collective rights more highly.  Nonetheless the level of active surveillance power & coercive intrusion the central government can apply is probably less than the DDR had at its height and likely less than the USA can apply to you or me if it thinks we’re a national security threat

If I wanted to round up a dozen candid accounts & frank opinions from Chinese nationals all I’d have to do is just ask a bunch of friends and I’d probably get answers within a day

[Hoosier]

Stay at home order for Indiana that will kick in on Wednesday.  

Our confirmed case number is still kind of low compared to many other states, but a concerning thing is that 8 people have already died.  I think that is a good indicator that we are substantially farther along with the outbreak than we think, because it often takes 10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks for a person to die from this.  

[Hoosier]

Deaths in Italy dropped for a second day in a row.  It is working, it just takes a while.

The next phase of this is that when you do start to loosen the restrictions, the cases increase again, like what is happening now in parts of Asia.

[Snownado]

Stay at home order for IN but you can still go to grocery store, work, etc. How is that different than whats been in place the last 2 weeks ?

[Hoosier]

18 minutes ago, Snownado said:

Stay at home order for IN but you can still go to grocery store, work, etc. How is that different than whats been in place the last 2 weeks ?

The way I read it is that essential work will go on but everything else has to shut down.  So places like clothing stores, hair salons, etc shouldn't be open.

Edit:

  https://www.wthr.com/article/heres-what-you-can-do-under-stay-home-order-and-which-businesses-are-essential

[snowstormcanuck]

2 hours ago, mississaugasnow said:

 

I havent heard anything about the $950 either per family for 15 weeks. EI easier to get ive heard and that makes sense since Canada just had 500K file for unemployment. In a weird way the US is more to the left of us politically as no politician in power here has floated the idea of just giving Canadians money. 

To limit the spread of false information which is running rampant these days. Here is a link to the official Canadian government response as of today. This is subject to change*

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html

How does that make the U.S. more to the left?  By funneling the money through E.I. and other indirect programs, it's a way for the government to means/needs test it.  Otherwise, potentially, you'd get wealthier people who don't need the money getting gov't assistance.

[snowstormcanuck]

https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/03/ontario-orders-the-mandatory-closure-of-all-non-essential-workplaces-to-fight-spread-of-covid-19.html

Ontario ordering all "non-essential" businesses to close by tomorrow at 11:59 pm.  A list of what constitutes "non-essential" will be released tomorrow.   Apparently Quebec is doing the same thing.

Cases have been rising here but still no exponential growth, so maybe this is the right time to get strict.  Better to be proactive than reactive.

[nwohweather]

3 hours ago, sokolow said:

@RCNYILWX I think it is important to recognize that China is not an evil and monolithic orwellian total state with iron control over an antlike brainwashed populace; geopolitically it’s a modern state-capitalist superpower with a strong centralized government that has foreign, domestic, and economic policy priorities different to those of the USA. Those priorities don’t rate some individual rights as highly, and do rate some collective rights more highly.  Nonetheless the level of active surveillance power & coercive intrusion the central government can apply is probably less than the DDR had at its height and likely less than the USA can apply to you or me if it thinks we’re a national security threat

If I wanted to round up a dozen candid accounts & frank opinions from Chinese nationals all I’d have to do is just ask a bunch of friends and I’d probably get answers within a day

China is kinda both of those things sir.  As a person in supply chain I can tell you right now it is easily a dictatorial-capitalist society which holds them back severely

[Guest ovweather]

2 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Our confirmed case number is still kind of low compared to many other states, but a concerning thing is that 8 people have already died.  I think that is a good indicator that we are substantially farther along with the outbreak than we think, because it often takes 10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks for a person to die from this.  

If we are farther along than we think, then wouldn't we be seeing many more people testing positive right now, as up until a week ago, it was pretty much business as usual for most of the country in terms of social interacting? In other words, if we are farther along than we think, yet only about 1 in 10 who are tested are testing positive and the death rate is still pretty low here in the US, wouldn't that then be a good sign?

I was reading from others on another forum that they believe the virus has been in the US longer than we think. In fact, a couple of people are saying they had the same exact symptoms of Covid back in December. One person in particular who was ill was around someone who had spent 3 weeks in China in November before returning stateside. Tests were negative for the flu, but they claim the symptoms of shortness of breath, etc, were exactly as others are describing who are ill with Covid. Now I'm not naive enough to believe 100% they had Covid as there are lots of other respiratory viruses besides Covid and the flu, but it's an interesting thought. After all, up until recently, there hasn't been any tests available for Covid in this country.

I guess another question is if we are farther along than we think, are we seeing the worst right now or is the worst still yet to come? Time will tell, but just like in weather forecasting, even the best educated forecasts / outlooks are often wrong, especially when dealing with nature. And we still don't know how the hot and humid months ahead of us will affect the virus's sustainability.

[Chicago Storm]

1,285 total IL cases now, with 3 new deaths to make 12 total.

[Hoosier]

27 minutes ago, ovweather said:

If we are farther along than we think, then wouldn't we be seeing many more people testing positive right now, as up until a week ago, it was pretty much business as usual for most of the country in terms of social interacting? In other words, if we are farther along than we think, yet only about 1 in 10 who are tested are testing positive and the death rate is still pretty low here in the US, wouldn't that then be a good sign?

I was reading from others on another forum that they believe the virus has been in the US longer than we think. In fact, a couple of people are saying they had the same exact symptoms of Covid back in December. One person in particular who was ill was around someone who had spent 3 weeks in China in November before returning stateside. Tests were negative for the flu, but they claim the symptoms of shortness of breath, etc, were exactly as others are describing who are ill with Covid. Now I'm not naive enough to believe 100% they had Covid as there are lots of other respiratory viruses besides Covid and the flu, but it's an interesting thought. After all, up until recently, there hasn't been any tests available for Covid in this country.

I guess another question is if we are farther along than we think, are we seeing the worst right now or is the worst still yet to come? Time will tell, but just like in weather forecasting, even the best educated forecasts / outlooks are often wrong, especially when dealing with nature. And we still don't know how the hot and humid months ahead of us will affect the virus's sustainability.

We are still pretty far from the capability of everybody who is having symptoms getting a test, let alone people who are asymptomatic.  I posted last night about how my sister's friend who works in a hospital is having symptoms and can't even get a test.  That is pretty unreal that somebody in that occupation can't get one.  I would hope they have decided to stay home for the time being out of an abundance of caution but I don't know.  Hopefully anybody who even suspects the slightest hint of having covid19 is staying home right now and not waiting for a test to confirm.

[Guest ovweather]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

We are still pretty far from the capability of everybody who is having symptoms getting a test, let alone people who are asymptomatic.  I posted last night about how my sister's friend who works in a hospital is having symptoms and can't even get a test.  That is pretty unreal that somebody in that occupation can't get one.  I would hope they have decided to stay home for the time being out of an abundance of caution but I don't know.  Hopefully anybody who even suspects the slightest hint of having covid19 is staying home right now and not waiting for a test to confirm.

My brother is an anesthesiologist at one of Louisville’s largest hospitals and he hasn’t been tested. It’s crazy ridiculous. If many medical personnel can’t even get tested yet, why are politicians, athletes, etc, many of whom aren’t even showing signs of illness, being tested?