April Banter 2020

[Eskimo Joe]

Spain / UK approaching 9% mortality rate of infected persons.  Oof.

[showmethesnow]

1 minute ago, psuhoffman said:

@showmethesnow given how much more we know about virus transmission now and medical advances hopefully we never see another pandemic that wipes out majorities of the population in places. It’s possible but it’s also likely we could at least mitigate the impact some compared to pandemics that predated modern medicine.   This doesn’t have the mortality rate to be that kind of outbreak anyways but people taking the minimalist extreme position also aren’t accounting for what the mortality would look like if we didn’t take these measures. Somewhere in between is the likely answer but a level we would regret considering the crash to the healthcare system it would cause and how that would impact millions of other people.  

Wish I had your optimism but I think the odds have actually increased if anything. If we were talking in past times when the spread was limited to the speed of foot or horse (barring animal transmission such as birds, bats, etc...) then I would definitely agree given our current technology and resources and the amount of time we would have because of the slow spread. But I fear we are now looking at globalization where travel between countries is very prevalent. Where many travel from one side of the globe to the other in mere hours. So we could have a contagion in it's infancy just breaking out being spread world wide before we are even aware of it. In fact that is what we are pretty much seeing now.

We were very lucky with the Corona virus, if you want to call it lucky. We had almost the perfect storm as far as world wide spread of this disease as the Chinese sat on the outbreak for a month plus before they were forced to acknowledge that there was a problem. Then they waited a month plus to quarantine and shut down all travel in and out of Wuhan. Through this window of opportunity we were seeing millions in the way of international travelers moving from in and out of China to all parts of the world. In fact I think the saving grace for our country was the limited ban put in place to restrict travel from China Jan 1'st. Didn't go far enough as far as I am concerned as it did still allow a small flow of of travelers into the States through various loop holes but it did mitigate a great deal the influx of the virus being carried in. If it were me I probably would have also instituted a limited ban on all international travel in particularly from Europe at the same time. Without that initial ban that bought us much needed time to start preparing I feel quite strongly that we would be looking at a scenario in the States more closely matching that of Italy at this time instead of what we are now seeing.

Now I mentioned that we were lucky as far as this pandemic. Let me explain why. Now this is a nasty bug, no denying that. But it could have been so much worse. The mortality rate is very low compared to some bugs we have seen recently. Though it does spread fairly easily it is looking as if it isn't a true airborne which is the last thing we want to see. Also it is a form of virus (corona) we are familiar with so we don't have to start totally from scratch into deciphering it as we already have a foundation to build off of. Think that is one reason why we have seen the move to try the various malaria drugs to mitigate the impacts of the virus as they are working off of previous experiences/knowledge. Time will tell if this is a fruitful endeavor on their part but right now it does look somewhat promising in my eyes.

Now back to your bolded statement above. Now picture the rapid world wide spread of a virus that we are now seeing as mentioned above. A virus that shares many of the characteristics now displayed by the corona virus. But lets add the mortality rate of Ebola (90+%). Now with Ebola we had factors in play that very much limited its scope. Both its somewhat remote location limiting spread and the rapid onset of symptoms and death (a matter of days) which basically kills off the victims before they are able to widely spread the disease.  But take those two factors out as we see with the Corona virus. Where travel in and out of the region is extensive and world wide. Where victims don't become symptomatic until roughly day 5 on average and then take many days if not a week+ to pass away after initial onset. Where the symptoms start off slowly where most are not even aware they are sick and slowly worsen over days. Where there are some indications that people are infectious even before the onset of symptoms. To add a further twist make this virus a true airborne. Throw in a virus that isn't of a seasonal variety where it waxes and wanes. And also add in that it is of an unknown pathogen where we had no foundation to work off of as seen with Ebola in the early days. Essentially we are talking a perfect storm in the way of viruses. Throw all this together and we are probably looking at 50+ % of the population gone within a couple of months even before herd immunity can start playing a part. Hell, even taking out some of the ingredients above still probably results in 25+% gone in a short period of time. And hoping for a rescue from mass immunizations is a fantasy as we are not afforded near enough time.

[Cobalt]

4 hours ago, PDIII said:

We should stop speculating about the death rate and leave it to post analysis: 

https://www.livescience.com/death-rate-lower-than-estimates.html

Usually the estimates at the end will bump up not only the amount of cases, but also the deaths. At this point in it's US lifespan, the 2009 H1N1 had around 300 CONFIRMED deaths. We're at 4,500 confirmed, with 4,800 people in critical condition. Not good. The "just the flu" crowd has been awful quiet as of late

[EastCoast NPZ]

5 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Two more members of my extended tested positive. Both hospitalized and not doing well...

Prayers for them.

[George BM]

@WxWatcher007 You and your family will be in my thoughts and prayers. Keep safe and well friend.

[H2O]

Sorry to hear, @WxWatcher007  I hope they recover.

[Vice-Regent]

God willing this madhouse will be foreclosed soon and we can get on with our lives tracking weather without UHIs and Global Warming.

[showmethesnow]

42 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Thanks. As I said in another thread, it’s incredible how quickly things have moved through that part of the family. 4 confirmed cases, three in the hospital, one in the ICU and another may not be far behind. All in the span of six days. 

Horrible news. Really hits home when friends you know are having to deal with this first hand. Stay strong, will be praying for you and yours.

[Santa Clause]

1 hour ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Spain / UK approaching 9% mortality rate of infected persons.  Oof.

Yeah that is definitely a disturbing trend.

[Eskimo Joe]

4 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Yeah that is definitely a disturbing trend.

We know of the lag in deaths after the number of cases stats to lax, but you wonder what this is doing to regions of the world right now in terms of knowledge and family lines of succession, etc.

[jaydreb]

2 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Spain / UK approaching 9% mortality rate of infected persons.  Oof.

I’m probably not saying anything everyone doesn’t already know, but it’s way too early to draw any conclusions about death rates at this point.  Given the wide discrepancies with testing and reporting, we probably won’t have a true figure for years, if at all. Current death rates are all over the place:

Italy- 11.9%

Spain- 8.9%

Germany- 1.1%

USA- 2.2%

France - 7%

UK - 8%

South Korea- 1.7%

Switzerland - 2.7%

China (FWIW) - 4.1%

[Inverted_Trough]

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Wish I had your optimism but I think the odds have actually increased if anything. If we were talking in past times when the spread was limited to the speed of foot or horse (barring animal transmission such as birds, bats, etc...) then I would definitely agree given our current technology and resources and the amount of time we would have because of the slow spread. But I fear we are now looking at globalization where travel between countries is very prevalent. Where many travel from one side of the globe to the other in mere hours. So we could have a contagion in it's infancy just breaking out being spread world wide before we are even aware of it. In fact that is what we are pretty much seeing now.

We were very lucky with the Corona virus, if you want to call it lucky. We had almost the perfect storm as far as world wide spread of this disease as the Chinese sat on the outbreak for a month plus before they were forced to acknowledge that there was a problem. Then they waited a month plus to quarantine and shut down all travel in and out of Wuhan. Through this window of opportunity we were seeing millions in the way of international travelers moving from in and out of China to all parts of the world. In fact I think the saving grace for our country was the limited ban put in place to restrict travel from China Jan 1'st. Didn't go far enough as far as I am concerned as it did still allow a small flow of of travelers into the States through various loop holes but it did mitigate a great deal the influx of the virus being carried in. If it were me I probably would have also instituted a limited ban on all international travel in particularly from Europe at the same time. Without that initial ban that bought us much needed time to start preparing I feel quite strongly that we would be looking at a scenario in the States more closely matching that of Italy at this time instead of what we are now seeing.

Now I mentioned that we were lucky as far as this pandemic. Let me explain why. Now this is a nasty bug, no denying that. But it could have been so much worse. The mortality rate is very low compared to some bugs we have seen recently. Though it does spread fairly easily it is looking as if it isn't a true airborne which is the last thing we want to see. Also it is a form of virus (corona) we are familiar with so we don't have to start totally from scratch into deciphering it as we already have a foundation to build off of. Think that is one reason why we have seen the move to try the various malaria drugs to mitigate the impacts of the virus as they are working off of previous experiences/knowledge. Time will tell if this is a fruitful endeavor on their part but right now it does look somewhat promising in my eyes.

Now back to your bolded statement above. Now picture the rapid world wide spread of a virus that we are now seeing as mentioned above. A virus that shares many of the characteristics now displayed by the corona virus. But lets add the mortality rate of Ebola (90+%). Now with Ebola we had factors in play that very much limited its scope. Both its somewhat remote location limiting spread and the rapid onset of symptoms and death (a matter of days) which basically kills off the victims before they are able to widely spread the disease.  But take those two factors out as we see with the Corona virus. Where travel in and out of the region is extensive and world wide. Where victims don't become symptomatic until roughly day 5 on average and then take many days if not a week+ to pass away after initial onset. Where the symptoms start off slowly where most are not even aware they are sick and slowly worsen over days. Where there are some indications that people are infectious even before the onset of symptoms. To add a further twist make this virus a true airborne. Throw in a virus that isn't of a seasonal variety where it waxes and wanes. And also add in that it is of an unknown pathogen where we had no foundation to work off of as seen with Ebola in the early days. Essentially we are talking a perfect storm in the way of viruses. Throw all this together and we are probably looking at 50+ % of the population gone within a couple of months even before herd immunity can start playing a part. Hell, even taking out some of the ingredients above still probably results in 25+% gone in a short period of time. And hoping for a rescue from mass immunizations is a fantasy as we are not afforded near enough time.

Italy 'banned' flights from China before we did.  Obviously that didn't work.  The virus was already here by that point.  In any case, let's say restricting flights from China buys you more time.  You have to actually do something with that additional time in order to get any benefits.  We did nothing with the additional time.  Didn't ramp up any tests, and we spent most of the time believing "it's just the flu"

Most of the Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.) have done a phenomenal job with containing this virus.  Western Europe and the US have done a terrible job.  There's no way to sugarcoat it.  What do those Asian countries have in common?  They went through the SARS epidemic.  In other words:  They were prepared from the get-go and took it seriously.  We didn't.  In fact, South Korea and the US had their first COVID case at about the same time.  But South Korea has done a much better job at containment.

 

[CAPE]

12 minutes ago, Inverted_Trough said:

Italy 'banned' flights from China before we did.  Obviously that didn't work.  The virus was already here by that point.  In any case, let's say restricting flights from China buys you more time.  You have to actually do something with that additional time in order to get any benefits.  We did nothing with the additional time.  Didn't ramp up any tests, and we spent most of the time believing "it's just the flu"

Most of the Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.) have done a phenomenal job with containing this virus.  Western Europe and the US have done a terrible job.  There's no way to sugarcoat it.  What do those Asian countries have in common?  They went through the SARS epidemic.  In other words:  They were prepared from the get-go and took it seriously.  We didn't.  In fact, South Korea and the US had their first COVID case at about the same time.  But South Korea has done a much better job at containment.

 

They did this largely with early and aggressive testing. Never had to impose a hard lock down, as China did. US and UK are trying to play catch up, and we will see how it works out.

[psuhoffman]

@showmethesnow everything you bring up are good points and it’s very possible. I guess I’m more optimistic that if it was a truly catostrophic (extremely high mortality) virus nations and individuals would be more likely to take the known necessary measures. It’s one thing to have 20 year old selfish ding dongs ignoring the measures when the risk to them truly is relatively minor. It’s another if the virus had a 50% mortality rate!  And the few remaining idiots would likely face swift immediate severe government action. We were “lenient” and many people ignored the advice. I hope that wouldn’t be true if a civilization threatening level event. 

Additionally modern medicine likely would reduce the mortality rate “some”.  Of course that’s assuming we mitigate the spread enough not to crash the system. A huge assumption. So I agree your pessimism is warranted but there are more optimistic possibilities. Hopefully we never have to find out!  

[showmethesnow]

1 hour ago, Inverted_Trough said:

Italy 'banned' flights from China before we did.  Obviously that didn't work.  The virus was already here by that point.  In any case, let's say restricting flights from China buys you more time.  You have to actually do something with that additional time in order to get any benefits.  We did nothing with the additional time.  Didn't ramp up any tests, and we spent most of the time believing "it's just the flu"

Most of the Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.) have done a phenomenal job with containing this virus.  Western Europe and the US have done a terrible job.  There's no way to sugarcoat it.  What do those Asian countries have in common?  They went through the SARS epidemic.  In other words:  They were prepared from the get-go and took it seriously.  We didn't.  In fact, South Korea and the US had their first COVID case at about the same time.  But South Korea has done a much better job at containment.

 

Italy and the US banned flights virtually at the same time. Italy on Jan 31 and the US on Feb 2nd. (Mis-posted with the Jan time frame when I actually meant Feb for the US ban.) But I think we might be comparing apples to oranges when comparing the two countries when it comes to the bans. First off, from what I understand we saw a large influx of Chinese nationals from the Wuhan region into Italy just prior to Wuhan being shut down on Jan 23. An influx that we never saw within the US. Now as to why, if we in fact saw this, I have my theories considering Wuhan was deep into the crap at that point. Second, how these bans were implemented probably played into things as well. The US keyed not only on flights out of China but also as well on international travelers themselves and their prior destinations on their trips. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case with Italy where there are indications that there were quite a few bypassing the restrictions by taking connecting flights from other countries. Now the above doesn't even take into account the multitude of differences with both countries in other areas. Genetic makeup, implementation of mediation internally, healthcare, populations density, age, etc..., etc..., etc... 

So I am not so sure I would look at Italy's ban and their results then maybe try to argue that the ban in the US had no impact.Think that is flawed logic. There are just far too many unknown factors to consider to make that leap at this time. Now we might find after the fact when the numbers are crunched that the ban did have little effect in the US. But I am not expecting that. When all is said and told I think we are going to find it made a significant difference to the outcome as it helped to significantly flatten the curve.

As far as the rest of your comment? I really have made a point of trying to avoid any discussion involving the US. Some of my points of view would not be popular on these boards and would more then likely be met with derision if not open hostility. I prefer not to start a flame war so... I will say though, I thought mentioning the travel ban was a safe enough topic considering there is a growing consensus among the professional field that it has made a significant impact. Guess I was wrong.

[PDIII]

5 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Wish I had your optimism but I think the odds have actually increased if anything. If we were talking in past times when the spread was limited to the speed of foot or horse (barring animal transmission such as birds, bats, etc...) then I would definitely agree given our current technology and resources and the amount of time we would have because of the slow spread. But I fear we are now looking at globalization where travel between countries is very prevalent. Where many travel from one side of the globe to the other in mere hours. So we could have a contagion in it's infancy just breaking out being spread world wide before we are even aware of it. In fact that is what we are pretty much seeing now.

We were very lucky with the Corona virus, if you want to call it lucky. We had almost the perfect storm as far as world wide spread of this disease as the Chinese sat on the outbreak for a month plus before they were forced to acknowledge that there was a problem. Then they waited a month plus to quarantine and shut down all travel in and out of Wuhan. Through this window of opportunity we were seeing millions in the way of international travelers moving from in and out of China to all parts of the world. In fact I think the saving grace for our country was the limited ban put in place to restrict travel from China Jan 1'st. Didn't go far enough as far as I am concerned as it did still allow a small flow of of travelers into the States through various loop holes but it did mitigate a great deal the influx of the virus being carried in. If it were me I probably would have also instituted a limited ban on all international travel in particularly from Europe at the same time. Without that initial ban that bought us much needed time to start preparing I feel quite strongly that we would be looking at a scenario in the States more closely matching that of Italy at this time instead of what we are now seeing.

Now I mentioned that we were lucky as far as this pandemic. Let me explain why. Now this is a nasty bug, no denying that. But it could have been so much worse. The mortality rate is very low compared to some bugs we have seen recently. Though it does spread fairly easily it is looking as if it isn't a true airborne which is the last thing we want to see. Also it is a form of virus (corona) we are familiar with so we don't have to start totally from scratch into deciphering it as we already have a foundation to build off of. Think that is one reason why we have seen the move to try the various malaria drugs to mitigate the impacts of the virus as they are working off of previous experiences/knowledge. Time will tell if this is a fruitful endeavor on their part but right now it does look somewhat promising in my eyes.

Now back to your bolded statement above. Now picture the rapid world wide spread of a virus that we are now seeing as mentioned above. A virus that shares many of the characteristics now displayed by the corona virus. But lets add the mortality rate of Ebola (90+%). Now with Ebola we had factors in play that very much limited its scope. Both its somewhat remote location limiting spread and the rapid onset of symptoms and death (a matter of days) which basically kills off the victims before they are able to widely spread the disease.  But take those two factors out as we see with the Corona virus. Where travel in and out of the region is extensive and world wide. Where victims don't become symptomatic until roughly day 5 on average and then take many days if not a week+ to pass away after initial onset. Where the symptoms start off slowly where most are not even aware they are sick and slowly worsen over days. Where there are some indications that people are infectious even before the onset of symptoms. To add a further twist make this virus a true airborne. Throw in a virus that isn't of a seasonal variety where it waxes and wanes. And also add in that it is of an unknown pathogen where we had no foundation to work off of as seen with Ebola in the early days. Essentially we are talking a perfect storm in the way of viruses. Throw all this together and we are probably looking at 50+ % of the population gone within a couple of months even before herd immunity can start playing a part. Hell, even taking out some of the ingredients above still probably results in 25+% gone in a short period of time. And hoping for a rescue from mass immunizations is a fantasy as we are not afforded near enough time.

I like this write up.  What you said above really brings things in to perspective.. China didnt do anything at all when (probably) millions of people were passing it around.  And the net result was a several thousand deaths.. I think if this was the "perfect storm" scenario.. we would have been completely blind sided by it and there would have been a massive death toll before anyone really new exactly what was going on..

[showmethesnow]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

@showmethesnow everything you bring up are good points and it’s very possible. I guess I’m more optimistic that if it was a truly catostrophic (extremely high mortality) virus nations and individuals would be more likely to take the known necessary measures. It’s one thing to have 20 year old selfish ding dongs ignoring the measures when the risk to them truly is relatively minor. It’s another if the virus had a 50% mortality rate!  And the few remaining idiots would likely face swift immediate severe government action. We were “lenient” and many people ignored the advice. I hope that wouldn’t be true if a civilization threatening level event. 

Additionally modern medicine likely would reduce the mortality rate “some”.  Of course that’s assuming we mitigate the spread enough not to crash the system. A huge assumption. So I agree your pessimism is warranted but there are more optimistic possibilities. Hopefully we never have to find out!  

There is one thing that I probably should have mentioned but didn't. Been quite a few years since I read a study/report so I am a little fuzzy on the details. But the general gist was that highly deadly viruses very rarely were massive spreaders. Had to do with the fact that they incapacitated then killed the victim very quickly giving very little time for the virus to spread. So you are looking at quick burning fairly localized flareups. Ebola comes into mind as a good example.

[Cobalt]

7 minutes ago, PDIII said:

I like this write up.  What you said above really brings things in to perspective.. China didnt do anything at all when (probably) millions of people were passing it around.  And the net result was a several thousand deaths.. I think if this was the "perfect storm" scenario.. we would have been completely blind sided by it and there would have been a massive death toll before anyone really new exactly what was going on..

You.. trust China's numbers?

 

[PDIII]

3 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

You.. trust China's numbers?

 

No... not one bit.  I think that they have had a steady (if not exponential increase) of cases and deaths.. even after they lifted much of the quarantine and lockdown restrictions.  

I think that they had a 2 months of data.. without any social distancing.. and then a month of data with social distancing.. and I think that they realized that they really it didnt make a difference either way.. so they just went back to normal...

 

[ErinInTheSky]

China gets a good bit of blame, for sure, but China didn't make us keep our beaches open with spring breakers a week and a half ago, didn't tell us to pretend masks don't work, didn't keep our stockpile of supplies dwindled, didn't wait until there were 1,000 cases to close schools for us, etc.

 

China didn't make us reject the international tests for our own bunk failed POS gold plated test.

 

They get the blame for starting it, but we only have ourselves to blame for it getting as bad as it is right now.

[nj2va]

How anyone can trust anything coming from China is beyond me. 
 

also notice they are now trying to appear as “heroes” sending a bunch of stuff to western countries while flooding  the internet with propaganda. 
 

China is a threat to democracy and human rights, plain and simple. 

[mappy]

Let’s be clear that the China you guys speak of is the regime, not the people. Too many stories about hateful things towards Chinese Americans since this started. 

[showmethesnow]

6 hours ago, supernovasky said:

China gets a good bit of blame, for sure, but China didn't make us keep our beaches open with spring breakers a week and a half ago, didn't tell us to pretend masks don't work, didn't keep our stockpile of supplies dwindled, didn't wait until there were 1,000 cases to close schools for us, etc.

 

China didn't make us reject the international tests for our own bunk failed POS gold plated test.

 

They get the blame for starting it, but we only have ourselves to blame for it getting as bad as it is right now.

This brings up an interesting point. Do you use a test that has a known failure rate of 40+% with false negatives?

One could argue yes, as it gets known cases off the streets so they don't continue spreading the disease. Those that would argue no, would point out that we would being giving a false sense of security to the 40+%  who received the false negative. People that would more then likely continue socializing. But really it isn't quite a simple as I have stated above. As it really depends on the circumstances at any one particular point of time and what other actions may or may not be be putting in place concurrently.

Given the circumstances we were facing at that given time I would probably favor no. I think we would have been seeing many of these false negatives still out on the streets (false sense of security) even if they were under voluntary quarantine because of the uncertainty. After all we have seen how well the self quarantine has worked or hasn't worked in so many cases. Now we could have forced the quarantine on the recipients but then you are facing a whole new issue with rights and freedoms.

To further complicate the issue throw in Social Distancing or even Shelter in Place. We see that concurrently with the above test and I would probably favor releasing the kit. At that point I think the numbers favor getting known cases identified. Now some may ask 'So why we didn't we at least start social distancing at that time?' Well even that becomes somewhat complicated. But the quick answer to that is that it was far to early. If we put that in place so early in the process we are looking at flattening the curve so much that we extend this 6 months or even more. There is just no way in hell our economy nor our citizens could handle being shut down for that length of time. Now this is assuming that the virus is of the non-seasonal variety. If we are talking a seasonal type virus we run into another issue that could be even worse. What we see in that case is we have such a low level of infection rate this go round that we are nowhere near reaching what we need to see for herd immunity to start kicking in. This would portend another out break incoming next fall and winter where we once again have to shut everything down for an extended period of time unless we have a vaccine at that point. But unfortunately the projections on that being released in mass quantities is projected for a year to a year and a half at this time. Far too late to have a meaningful impact.

Like it or not we are probably in this for the long haul until we start reaching herd immunity. Now given that we more then likely have to wait for this to burn out on its own that brings up the next important question. How do we get there? Too flat of a curve and we prolong the agony so long that the economy and/or the citizens break. We don't want to exit this with riots in the streets and/or an economy that is so broken it can not recover. But then again if we steepen the curve too much we are then looking at crashing the healthcare system where the mortality rate probably doubles, triples or even more. The optimal possible solution probably rides just a little under the capacity for our healthcare system to handle. Gives us the shortest time to get us through this with a little room for our healthcare system to handle any sudden spikes. We are pretty much in a balancing act at this time, a balancing act that will determine how we exit this pandemic and head into recovery.

[CAPE]

9 hours ago, supernovasky said:

China gets a good bit of blame, for sure, but China didn't make us keep our beaches open with spring breakers a week and a half ago, didn't tell us to pretend masks don't work, didn't keep our stockpile of supplies dwindled, didn't wait until there were 1,000 cases to close schools for us, etc.

 

China didn't make us reject the international tests for our own bunk failed POS gold plated test.

 

They get the blame for starting it, but we only have ourselves to blame for it getting as bad as it is right now.

This certainly did not help. It was part of the deconstruction of the government apparatus mantra of the current administration.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/387191-trump-official-overseeing-pandemic-response-suddenly-leaves-admin

[nj2va]

9 minutes ago, C.A.P.E. said:

This certainly did not help. It was part of the deconstruction of the government apparatus mantra of the current administration.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/387191-trump-official-overseeing-pandemic-response-suddenly-leaves-admin

Did stories like this (which were numerous in the media) in early February after the US quarantine of China travel help? Perhaps it further caused people to think the virus was overblown and that any type of quarantine is silly?  The WHO’s response was a joke as they were trying to protect China. 
 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quaratine-travel-110750

[Eskimo Joe]

ni

[Ralph Wiggum]

8 hours ago, mappy said:

Let’s be clear that the China you guys speak of is the regime, not the people. Too many stories about hateful things towards Chinese Americans since this started. 

Agreed. I still order C5 combination General Tso Chicken....I refuse to discriminate against the Chinese people and I still support their local small business.

[PDIII]

I really dont like to buy in to crazy theories.. but when I hear things like this.. I am simply flabbergasted.  Last night at the grocery store there was a young man walking behind me talking on his cell phone.. His exact words were this: 

"I am out.. Can you believe that sh$t?  They let me out on my own recog on a gun charge.. they be lettin everyone out.. "

then I see this cases where someone was trying to have a cookout and they are locked up: 

https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/maryland-man-arrested-for-breaking-coronvirus-order-hosting-bonfire-party/

 

[Baltimorewx]

8 hours ago, mappy said:

Let’s be clear that the China you guys speak of is the regime, not the people. Too many stories about hateful things towards Chinese Americans since this started. 

Nobody should discriminate against anybody because you don’t know how an individual lives their life. That said, way of life over there is disgusting. There’s a reason a lot of diseases begin over there. The population density combined with these disgusting meat markets is a recipe for disaster 

[mappy]

12 minutes ago, PDIII said:

I really dont like to buy in to crazy theories.. but when I hear things like this.. I am simply flabbergasted.  Last night at the grocery store there was a young man walking behind me talking on his cell phone.. His exact words were this: 

"I am out.. Can you believe that sh$t?  They let me out on my own recog on a gun charge.. they be lettin everyone out.. "

then I see this cases where someone was trying to have a cookout and they are locked up: 

https://nypost.com/2020/03/29/maryland-man-arrested-for-breaking-coronvirus-order-hosting-bonfire-party/

 

i have no idea where this post was headed, but lets not post it again.