Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Magical Mudcrab]

Their account already has been shown as flawed. The level of extent is in debate. America's account is not predatory in this case yet. They have denied even being involved in this. I believe in this case it's going to be the supplier being shady, but as you said, we'll see.

I'll answer your question when you stop dodging mine. How should masks be distributed from the suppliers?

I've said, multiple times, that the bidding process is fine so long as countries aren't using predatory tactics and making it impossible for countries to purchase medical equipment.

The government's responsibility is for their people first, then their allies. Why isn't Canada sending their masks to Brazil? We're buying masks they could have. Because we need them.

The issue isn't about sending the supplies, it's about the US intervening in the sale and offering many times the going rate of the product, catching Brazil off guard and making it so that they can't secure supplies for weeks. Whether you want to admit it or not, the tactic that is alleged, which you have been defending, will result in the mass death foreign citizens, which you seem OK with.

Which part of occurring in France? The part that was already back tracked on? Nothing has been shown yet. That's the problem. We have multiple step removed hearsay, which in multiple other cases so far has proven to be false.

The accounts of America's unfair tactics seem to be mostly upheld, with one of the accounts from France simply clarifying America's involvement; bidding three-times the amount upfront, making them unable to procure the masks. Though they did call into question if it was America or private interests in America that interrupted the sale. It should be noted that they were only able to procure masks due to help from Franco-Chinese residences.

The difference between you and I though is that you keep assuming the accusations to be true, and I keep saying more information is needed before making a judgement.

I believe the accusations, but am willing to be proven wrong. You disbelieve them, and have moved goalposts, switching from conspiracy theory to blaming the entire incident on a series of coincidental miscommunications that just happened to line up, which may include Brazil simply lying, because of course the impoverished nation is obviously lying.

Yet you felt the need to bring up the fact they want to be oversupplied.

It's mentioned in the article you provided. Going by CBC's source, the US wants to be oversupplied, but wanting to be oversupplied and being oversupplied aren't the same thing.

Who the country is dealing with is entirely relevant. The fact you said the above shows how completely out of touch you are with supply chains and how they work.

For the reports of American involvement, who the country is dealing with is entirely irrelevant, unless you want to claim that their brokers are all telling the same lie to stir up anti-American sentiment.

Other than the literal first quote from CBC I gave you? Fucking hell man. How are you this obtuse?

This is why I say you're lying about the article, and you're doing it blatantly. The CBC does not say that Germany rescinded their claim, only that the manufacturer wasn't 3M. It was only in your last post that you even deigned to provide a source with Germany having actually rescinded the claim. I don't know why you're lying about the CBC article when you've posted a secondary resource already.

And France has recinded one of the claims, and refused to back up the others. Brazil simply said the US bought everything. (Yet when France said the same thing, they were magically able to buy exactly what they needed, on the same day). Go figure.

Ah yes, the poor country is simply lying.

How is the US massively exacerbating a problem when you yourself have stated they are not oversupplied, which means they need everything they are buying?

The purpose is to ensure people have some basic ability to care for their citizens. America is interfering with this, if what is alleged is true. What's particularly disgusting is you seem perfectly content with developing nations having to deal with the brunt of this disease, as these predatory tactics will leave developing countries especially vulnerable.

[Zantos]

i don't know if this is a really bad joke or your intentionally and maliciously spreading lies.

Probably neither. Probably truly believes its a hoax. I am seeing more and more people thinking that way because they go to a hospital, expecting it to be over run, yet seeing it empty. Then they are all shocked at how empty it is and yell "omg the hospital isn't over run! Lies!!11!" Like no ya half melted snow flake, it isn't over run because your town has Maybe 10 cases and they were all sent home. People go for five seconds, get tested, then leave to wait for the results at their house. And with tests so limited, they are Barely doing that even.

This pandemic has show how truly stupid the general public is and how incapable of thinking they appear to be. Throw in one idiot with a camera filming 1 empty hospital and suddenly you have a heard of sheep following along and eagerly saying how its all a lie.

[Krastyn]

Germany changing the supplier is not the same as them changing the events around the diversion of the supplies. The CBC article you listed did not show this change.

You mean other than the part in the story where it literally says:

However on Saturday, his office rowed back, saying it was still trying to clarify the circumstances of how the masks, which were ordered from a German wholesaler, and not from U.S. manufacturer 3M, had been diverted.

Meaning they take back the comments, and will update when they have more information. Read the article.

I'm jumping to the US being predatory when multiple countries are experiencing similar issues with the US interfering with their securing of medical supplies. What you're claiming requires me to believe there's a concerted effort to specifically portray the US as interfering with these countries procurement. Is it possible? Sure, but the information these countries have is leading them to believe the US is playing unfair in the procurement of these supplies. I'm going to believe the international community over the united states.

Three of the countries that have accused the US of this have already rescinded (Canada, France, and Germany). You keep calling it a conspiracy theory. I'm just saying people are getting bad information. I don't think they're all conspiring to sully the US.

If I want to go full tinfoil hat, I'd argue that China's new export restrictions last week were set up so that they can control who and where the export of medical goods go so they can ensure which countries get them, which don't, and who to blame. One of the articles I previously linked even mentioned how orders involving the state can delay shipments, I'm not doing that though.

What I am saying, is it isn't out of the realm of possibility for when someone needs to give a reason why they can't fill an order "Blame America" is a reason that many people will eat up. This is perfectly exemplified in someone like yourself, who has taken this reason as gospel truth despite no evidence to back it up, and mounting evidence showing otherwise. We could be entering a territory of "repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it to be true". Should know more tomorrow after more governments are back to work.

[Orbitus]

This is the second article I've seen where COVID-19 is confirmed to jump species (the first was about a housecat catching COVID-19). @PhaelixWW - how worried should be we about species jumping and mutation?

Does it matter that it's only cats? (is it only cats - checking)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/se...ets-2020-03-20

There is at least 2 dogs that have caught it.

[PhaelixWW]

The accounts of America's unfair tactics seem to be mostly upheld, with one of the accounts from France simply clarifying America's involvement; bidding three-times the amount upfront, making them unable to procure the masks. Though they did call into question if it was America or private interests in America that interrupted the sale. It should be noted that they were only able to procure masks due to help from Franco-Chinese residences.

This is flat-out wrong. Jean Rottner has tweeted about this several times now.

STOP à la désinformation. Je n’ai jamais dit que notre commande avait été détournée mais qu’il s’agissait de pratiques désormais courantes sur les tarmacs. Nos masques sont arrivés en France!!

Google Translated:
STOP the disinformation. I never said that our order had been hijacked but that these were now common practices on the tarmacs. Our masks have arrived in France.

The masks your link is referring to are completely separate. In that instance, the French official was merely outbid, which you claim to be okay with. No "predatory practices", and nothing about "interrupting a sale", or "tarmacs".

[Orbitus]

The comments:







All the comments are the same... like everyone agrees with this shit the fuck.

I hope these people like the bitch that posted that video, gets sued for pushing false information.

[PosPosPos]

I hope these people like the bitch that posted that video, gets sued for pushing false information.

The joys of unbridled harmful speech, brought to you by anarchists like Machismo.

[Magical Mudcrab]

<snip>

Though I find the support for the practice of out pricing people in unusual ways during bidding absolutely disgusting as it will invariably lead to increased death rates in the developing world, I deleted the comment because of the response below.

- - - Updated - - -

This is flat-out wrong. Jean Rottner has tweeted about this several times now.

The masks your link is referring to are completely separate. In that instance, the French official was merely outbid, which you claim to be okay with. No "predatory practices", and nothing about "interrupting a sale", or "tarmacs".

In this case, that's totally fair. As I said, I'm 100% willing to change my opinion based on new information, and it seems that both of the accusations of France are either in question or a case of bad information from media. It also seems that, according to the tweet, that the norm for bidding is also something that had been portrayed as out of the ordinary - that is, the bidding on the tarmacs. Obviously, though it makes the last few pages largely pointless, I'll have to concede that the portrayal as I saw it was most likely incorrect.

[Zantos]

I hope these people like the bitch that posted that video, gets sued for pushing false information.

I hope the ones praising her aren't allowed to reproduce. The comments is filled with such a level of idiocy that I can hardly fathom it. Somehow, they truly believe that less than 1% of the population should have the Entire US medical infrastructure just completely over run right now so that any hospital they go to is nothing but a spectacle. Lets ignore the fact that most of the patients are sent home to begin with unless they are severe cases

[Benggaul]

I swear, if Jesus saw how stupid people were being about ignoring social distancing and going to church he would rename it "Facepalm Sunday".

Alright mods, I'll take the hit. But I'll assume it's for the bad joke.

EDIT: 1.2k case increase in the Netherlands the past 24 hours, highest daily increase to date. Looks like this may be a peak week as I was expecting.

[Krastyn]

I've said, multiple times, that the bidding process is fine so long as countries aren't using predatory tactics and making it impossible for countries to purchase medical equipment.

So if you can back down the hyperbole, it's not "impossible" for anyone. Worst case is "weeks". Are you trying to tell me a product that is in massively high demand, that someone might not be able to buy it off the shelf today? There could be a backorder? You wonder why I ask shitpost questions like that when you make shitpost comments.

The issue isn't about sending the supplies, it's about the US intervening in the sale and offering many times the going rate of the product, catching Brazil off guard and making it so that they can't secure supplies for weeks. Whether you want to admit it or not, the tactic that is alleged, which you have been defending, will result in the mass death foreign citizens, which you seem OK with.

First off, you still haven't clued into the fact that I have yet to actually defend the practice. I've been saying you have yet to actually prove those actions are even taking place. As I keep repeating. The Canadian story was proven false. The German story has been backtracked very far from the initial story, and we don't have an update how far yet. See further below for the mishmash of the comments from France.

The main reason why Brazil was "caught off guard" is because they have a leader in more denial about the virus than Trump. If they're going to run out of supplies within the next 30 days, then they should have been trying to buy these things weeks ago.

By your own arguments, the US is not oversupplied. These recent orders likely wont put them in that position either, seeing as how they have near triple the cases of the next country, and won't be hitting peak for a while. So yes, Americans may live at the expense of another country. Likely more will die in both countries if supplies don't increase, or more is done to contain the spread. Considering the US is adding more cases per day than Brazil has in the entire country to date, it seems the US needs the supplies.

The accounts of America's unfair tactics seem to be mostly upheld, with one of the accounts from France simply clarifying America's involvement; bidding three-times the amount upfront, making them unable to procure the masks. Though they did call into question if it was America or private interests in America that interrupted the sale. It should be noted that they were only able to procure masks due to help from Franco-Chinese residences.

Again, you're seeming to not fully read the articles. From the story you linked:

I found a stock of masks that was available and Americans – I’m not talking about the American government – but Americans, outbid us

She's LITERALLY saying it wasn't the government. Not calls into question, no maybe, LITERALLY states it.

The story then references two other French sources, one of which is Rottnam, who literally in the same article said it wasn't their shipment that was delayed, and the other source is Rénaud Muselier, who I have already stated, and has already been linked in this thread previously, did not apply.

So we have one French official who said it wasn't the American government, and two others who said "Americans", not specifically the government bought masks on the tarmac, not for orders they oversaw, but just things they heard. Adding yet another level of hearsay. It would seem the reporter should try and find out which agency had these masks stolen out from under them by those dastardly Americans, as right now none of them are saying it happened to them from the American government. At best it's "we heard about someone that happened to". Not a single one of the three has said the US government did it to them.

And since in your opinion companies aren't to blame, there is nothing wrong with a US company paying triple up front, or even triple in cash on a tarmac, and undercutting a country.

I believe the accusations, but am willing to be proven wrong. You disbelieve them, and have moved goalposts, switching from conspiracy theory to blaming the entire incident on a series of coincidental miscommunications that just happened to line up, which may include Brazil simply lying, because of course the impoverished nation is obviously lying.

Please explain what goalposts I have moved? Your shitposting is endless. I want evidence. That's it. You brought up the conspiracy theory. All you. 100%, you. I offered the miscommunication as a possible explanation, and you take it as gospel. Then you toss in a fucking strawman for good measure.

Can you link a source where Brazil had their orders yanked from under them? As so far the sources linked have said they wanted to buy things, but the US bought it all before they could. Not that they had an order and it was cancelled, just that the US offered to pay more. You said you have no problem with an open bid, so please, cite a source showing otherwise.

It's mentioned in the article you provided. Going by CBC's source, the US wants to be oversupplied, but wanting to be oversupplied and being oversupplied aren't the same thing.

I'll say it again since you STILL can't read. I cited the article to refute the comment about Germany. I was not, and do not stand by the comment of a random Homeland worker. That's all you.

For the reports of American involvement, who the country is dealing with is entirely irrelevant, unless you want to claim that their brokers are all telling the same lie to stir up anti-American sentiment.

Who they are dealing with is entirely relevant for the chain of events I have already laid out. Your stubborn refusal to understand how procurement works is your problem, not mine.

This is why I say you're lying about the article, and you're doing it blatantly. The CBC does not say that Germany rescinded their claim, only that the manufacturer wasn't 3M. It was only in your last post that you even deigned to provide a source with Germany having actually rescinded the claim. I don't know why you're lying about the CBC article when you've posted a secondary resource already.

Once again, for the last time, from the article, bolded so hopefully it will sink in:

In a statement Friday, Geisel said the consignment had been "confiscated" in Bangkok and said: "Even in times of global crisis, you shouldn't use Wild West methods."

However on Saturday, his office rowed back, saying it was still trying to clarify the circumstances of how the masks, which were ordered from a German wholesaler, and not from U.S. manufacturer 3M, had been diverted.

Do you understand what rowed back means?

Ah yes, the poor country is simply lying.

Hey strawman, nice to see you again.

The purpose is to ensure people have some basic ability to care for their citizens. America is interfering with this, if what is alleged is true. What's particularly disgusting is you seem perfectly content with developing nations having to deal with the brunt of this disease, as these predatory tactics will leave developing countries especially vulnerable.

Alleged, with no supporting information. I'll pass judgement on American actions when there is proof of what they actually were. As it is now, Every story about the US government has been unraveling to be either completely false, "needing further investigation before commenting".

[the game]

I feel so bad for the people who are falling victim to this situation. I was walking around my hospital tonight to find a computer and they were wheeling a covid-19 potential to the digestive health ward where we are putting them. Person was screaming in agony. I don't know if the physical pain is going to be customary for covid-19 patients but I felt bad for that person.

[Magical Mudcrab]

So if you can back down the hyperbole, it's not "impossible" for anyone. Worst case is "weeks". Are you trying to tell me a product that is in massively high demand, that someone might not be able to buy it off the shelf today? There could be a backorder? You wonder why I ask shitpost questions like that when you make shitpost comments.

You seem a little tilted since I didn't respond to your last comment, which is especially funny as other posters have already forwarded me information that make me believe that the accusations against the US are probably false. You're free to continue to shitpost, though.

Again, you're seeming to not fully read the articles. From the story you linked:

She's LITERALLY saying it wasn't the government. Not calls into question, no maybe, LITERALLY states it.

I could have been more clear. She did clarify America's involvement: it wasn't America, the country, but it was Americans who had made the purchase. I assume it was likely private interests.

Please explain what goalposts I have moved? Your shitposting is endless. I want evidence. That's it. You brought up the conspiracy theory. All you. 100%, you. I offered the miscommunication as a possible explanation, and you take it as gospel. Then you toss in a fucking strawman for good measure.

I should preface this with that whether the US is actually doing this or not is immaterial. You've been supporting the idea of superpowers, like the United States, using predatory tactics to procure their own supplies at the expense of developing countries. You even refused to state that the actions alleged, if true, were abhorrent, even though they will result in a lot of foreign deaths. This leads me to believe you must consider it OK to allow minorities and the impoverished to go without medical supplies so long as they're not domestic citizens. This is the epitome of racial apathy. You then later began to back away from this when I called out the obvious racial connotations that such a situation would entail.

Who they are dealing with is entirely relevant for the chain of events I have already laid out. Your stubborn refusal to understand how procurement works is your problem, not mine.

I don't misunderstand how procurement works, but I doubt the brokers are passing along bad information. Now it seems more like some people have been quote sniped.

[hellhamster]

EDIT: 1.2k case increase in the Netherlands the past 24 hours, highest daily increase to date. Looks like this may be a peak week as I was expecting.

1. The peak can't be ascertained yet. We'll only find out about the peak once we're over it, that's why it's called the peak.
2. Cases number isn't the one to look for right now, as testing is limited, best one would be hospitalizations.
3. Honestly, I think the Netherlands has a long way to go, unfortunately. Even when we reach the peak, it will be so high that the decline will be very bumpy. This is why Rutte ended up in my shit list a while back, I predicted this would happen from the first announcement. Yolo SIR epidemiological model of "herd immunity right from the start guys" + highest population density in Europe = trouble. The weather being fucking fantastic right now after months of shitty rain isn't helping either, everyone is outside, even the ones who were paranoid about the whole thing.

[Benggaul]

1. The peak can't be ascertained yet. We'll only find out about the peak once we're over it, that's why it's called the peak.
2. Cases number isn't the one to look for right now, as testing is limited, best one would be hospitalizations.
3. Honestly, I think the Netherlands has a long way to go, unfortunately. Even when we reach the peak, it will be so high that the decline will be very bumpy. This is why Rutte ended up in my shit list a while back, I predicted this would happen from the first announcement. Yolo SIR epidemiological model of "herd immunity right from the start guys" + highest population density in Europe = trouble. The weather being fucking fantastic right now isn't helping either, everyone is outside, even the ones who were paranoid about the whole thing.

By "peak week" I mean a week in which we're going to see a spike in cases. I said last week that I expect that to happen this week and 3 weeks from now based off of public behavior. The trend was down for a few days, but yesterday it went wayyyy back up again.

I think most metrics are going to be problematic given that most of the people who have it either won't get tested or won't know it, but the fact that the number of confirmed skyrocketed while--to my knowledge--they aren't ramping up testing that much here tells me the hospitals got slammed yesterday.

[Puupi]

The balls of the person who took the nasal swab from a tiger must be humongous.

[Granyala]

The balls of the person who took the nasal swab from a tiger must be humongous.

Ever heard of the concept of tranquilizers?

[Forogil]

Inspections started at December 31st for flights from Wuhan. Fever check, not allowed to leave the plane if showing any symptom.
January 5th anyone with travel history to/from Wuhan was met with extra scrutiny. 26 known pathogen test, anyone showing symptom is quarantined and monitored.
January 20th they activated their Central Epidemic Command Center, something that was established because of SARS. That's when the more drastic measures started coming into play.

Yes, why so slow if they believed it to be important?

And for much of Europe the important part is figuring out how it started in Italy.

One possibility is https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN20Y35B that it was someone infected in Germany January 19-22, and likely that one was infected even earlier. So even if Italy had close its border to Wuhan as early as Taiwan it wouldn't have helped.

In Seattle in US the first reported case was January 19th, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...ero-in-seattle

And remember that fever checks alone don't stop everything, people may be infected and not showing symptoms, or they have taken medicine to reduce the fever.

As for why the WHO, it's probably cause they have a bigger reach and cause no one listens to Taiwan anyways.

But why not both, if they really believed it was serious? Currently we don't know exactly what Taiwan wrote - but the likely explanation is that they didn't believe it to be this serious but just wrote to WHO to be able to score political points afterwards in case it became an issue.

[Easo]

So a reporter asked a question to the doctor and the President wouldn't allow Fauci to answer.

So what was the question?

Inspections started at December 31st for flights from Wuhan. Fever check, not allowed to leave the plane if showing any symptom.
January 5th anyone with travel history to/from Wuhan was met with extra scrutiny. 26 known pathogen test, anyone showing symptom is quarantined and monitored.
January 20th they activated their Central Epidemic Command Center, something that was established because of SARS. That's when the more drastic measures started coming into play.

As for why the WHO, it's probably cause they have a bigger reach and cause no one listens to Taiwan anyways.

Yes, but also no. They are incredibly important to world in regards to electronics and a pretty big market, so they do have a pull, just not oficially.

[Remilia]

Yes, but also no. They are incredibly important to world in regards to electronics and a pretty big market, so they do have a pull, just not oficially.

Oh well aware of that, but this is not electronics and very commonly overshadowed because of politics.

Yes, why so slow if they believed it to be important?

And for much of Europe the important part is figuring out how it started in Italy.

One possibility is https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN20Y35B that it was someone infected in Germany January 19-22, and likely that one was infected even earlier. So even if Italy had close its border to Wuhan as early as Taiwan it wouldn't have helped.

In Seattle in US the first reported case was January 19th, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...ero-in-seattle

And remember that fever checks alone don't stop everything, people may be infected and not showing symptoms, or they have taken medicine to reduce the fever.


But why not both, if they really believed it was serious? Currently we don't know exactly what Taiwan wrote - but the likely explanation is that they didn't believe it to be this serious but just wrote to WHO to be able to score political points afterwards in case it became an issue.

I'd assume they weren't sure of the severity of it. For example, MERS is human to human transmissible, but in very close proximity of each other and not known for asymptomatic people. Because the info is coming from colleagues/doctors from china means that they're basically guaranteed to see it as close contact with sick patients is an easy way to get it.

However everything you're arguing about is after the fact we knew more about it. It wasn't established asymptomatic spreading was a thing because that's very rare. Nor was it established that it could sit in the air for 3 hours or survive on steel for 9 days until way later. Remember we still know very little even now about this virus. Hindsight is great and all but that's however cause we know more.