Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Easo]

So since the cases in Baltics are starting to explode, I seriously worry... about Russia. How the hell can they have three times less cases than Estonia, while having the virus BEFORE Baltics got their first case? And it does not seem they are doing anything outside of the initial China travelers ban - everyone is focused on the Putin for life issue with constitutional changes.

I smell another Iran in the making. Would be nice if I was wrong.

... Wait... what?

Please tell me that's a rumor...

Check the thread a bit above my post, there was link. I seriously hope it is not true and just an error in translation.

[Skroe]

So since the cases in Baltics are starting to explode, I seriously worry... about Russia. How the hell can they have three times less cases than Estonia, while having the virus BEFORE Baltics got their first case? And it does not seem they are doing anything outside of the initial China travelers ban - everyone is focused on the Putin for life issue with constitutional changes.

I smell another Iran in the making. Would be nice if I was wrong.



Check the thread a bit above my post, there was link. I seriously hope it is not true and just an error in translation.

I was talking to someone about this last night.

The lack of news about Russia's numbers seem impossible to believe. 63 infections in all of Russia? The US state of Massachusetts had 74 infections from a spreading incident at a single meeting.

It stinks. It stinks bad.

[Ihavewaffles]

I was talking to someone about this last night.

The lack of news about Russia's numbers seem impossible to believe. 63 infections in all of Russia? The US state of Massachusetts had 74 infections from a spreading incident at a single meeting.

It stinks. It stinks bad.

O shut up, ur Russophobia can't even take a rest in this thread...
Russia reacted early to this crisis unlike some that were asleep at the wheel (Italy)

You n boltblaster seem dissapointed that Ru doesn't have thousands dead..

[Ihavewaffles]

US government tries to swipe exclusive rights for vaccine in development from German biotech company, offering large amounts of money to have it "only for the US"

And its true, confirmed by the german health minister.

3h ago this went the right way (against the US gov and pro Worldhealth)
https://twitter.com/berlindirekt/sta...45508255809536

Trying to jack up price like with cancer medicine that Martin Shkreli did?...

[Ange]

Right, that's an article saying "the Germans said this" and referencing the earlier quoted message, not verifying that any of it is accurate. Maybe if they'd said "US Drug Company X is trying to buy this company and move research to the USA to make moneys!!!!" but saying Trump is going to have the USA buy the company and horde the vaccine that results is just delusional.

???

# The company FIRED the CEO involved with Trums deal last week and the owner (Dietmar Hopp - SAP) and second biggest investor (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) made yesterday an official statement about it.

# The german health minister talked about Trumps "US ONLY" deal and the company also made it clear how they stand with this issue.

# The whole issue is beyond belief, because while the company is one of many private research institutes tasked since january 2020 to create a vaccine for CORVID-19, the federal institutes working with them got unlimited funds since january 2020 and its no longer just interfering with a private business

The whole thing would be extremly problematic without any world wide pandemic but right now its an act of war, while the rest of the world is sharing resources and helping each other as much as they can.

Its not fake news, since its allready confirmed by the goverment.

[Skroe]

O shut up, ur Russophobia can't even take a rest in this thread...
Russia reacted early to this crisis unlike some that were asleep at the wheel (Italy)

You n boltblaster seem dissapointed that Ru doesn't have thousands dead..

Are you kidding? If the rest of the world manages to contain the disease by the end of the year and there is a reservoir of it in Russia that the rest of the world doesn't know about because the authorities are keeping a lid on it, it would run a major risk of undoing all containment efforts and reinfecting the entire world.

Russia is an authoritarian regime, and the first priority of authoritarian regimes is to preserve their grip on power. In the past 6 years Russia has lied about military casualties in Ukraine and in Syria. It lied about a nuclear-weapon testing disaster in the Arctic Circle last year. It lied about the deployment of chemical weapons to kill regime opponents in Europe.

More pertinently to this topic, Russia has lied about it's HIV infection rate for many years. Russia is in fact, one of the very few places the HIV epidemic is growing (at a rate of 10-15% per year) because of government cover-ups of the scale of the problem. Russia has the largest HIV infected population in Eastern Europe / Central Asia... not a fact its government acknowledges.

If far more people in Russia are sick than is currently known, it would be ENTIRELY in keeping with Putin's regime that it be covered up to protect the image of competence his government tries to project and suppress a challenge to the power of the state.

The thing is, with Russia's vast borders and the amount of travel across those borders, the reported infection number - 63 - makes zero sense.

No. I don't want Russians to die. Why would want that? I want Russia to be transparent so the pandemic gets under actual control rather than fake control because Putin is obscuring bad news.

Or let me spell it out for you more clearly, Russian. If the world manages to contain this, and that work is undone because Russia has far more cases than they let on, who do you think the world is going blame? China's facing a brutal and long overdue reckoning for its part in this catastrophe. You planning on joining them? Or Russia could get ahead of it and just be transparent for a change.

[Gaidax]

Russia certainly goes hush hush about real state of affairs, par the course with its usual behavior.

Not that it matters to us, we have our own shit to deal with.

[Dentelan]

Are you kidding? If the rest of the world manages to contain the disease by the end of the year and there is a reservoir of it in Russia that the rest of the world doesn't know about because the authorities are keeping a lid on it, it would run a major risk of undoing all containment efforts and reinfecting the entire world.

Russia is an authoritarian regime, and the first priority of authoritarian regimes is to preserve their grip on power. In the past 6 years Russia has lied about military casualties in Ukraine and in Syria. It lied about a nuclear-weapon testing disaster in the Arctic Circle last year. It lied about the deployment of chemical weapons to kill regime opponents in Europe.

More pertinently to this topic, Russia has lied about it's HIV infection rate for many years. Russia is in fact, one of the very few places the HIV epidemic is growing (at a rate of 10-15% per year) because of government cover-ups of the scale of the problem. Russia has the largest HIV infected population in Eastern Europe / Central Asia... not a fact its government acknowledges.

If far more people in Russia are sick than is currently known, it would be ENTIRELY in keeping with Putin's regime that it be covered up to protect the image of competence his government tries to project and suppress a challenge to the power of the state.

The thing is, with Russia's vast borders and the amount of travel across those borders, the reported infection number - 63 - makes zero sense.

No. I don't want Russians to die. Why would want that? I want Russia to be transparent so the pandemic gets under actual control rather than fake control because Putin is obscuring bad news.

Or let me spell it out for you more clearly, Russian. If the world manages to contain this, and that work is undone because Russia has far more cases than they let on, who do you think the world is going blame? China's facing a brutal and long overdue reckoning for its part in this catastrophe. You planning on joining them? Or Russia could get ahead of it and just be transparent for a change.

In a short -
Real numbers are higher, for sure. But we still have much less virus than many other countries because
1. Russians dont travel so much as EU/US/South Koreans (not enough money for that, thats true)
2. Actually respect to government for this, we banned very operatively flights from infected countries when news about virus were popping out (Iran, South Korea etc)
3. Closed borders with China early
4. Soviet heritage, for sure, telling everyone we are okay.

So these are the reasons, unfortunately i think numbers will grow up and we just slowed down epidemic here. Cant say real numbers, but i hope they are close to official ones. I would bet on 500-1000. I may be wrong.

[Easo]

Probably unfortunately you are not wrong. Doesn't look like they are taking any steps at all. I think they just can't do anything - economy is already bad, so they can't just give everyone 2 weeks break, all doctors who know what they are doing have ran away to western countries for better pay.

Nah, they are not THAT bad. If Iran of all places, even with their lying, can still fight it, then Russia should be able too, just better.

O shut up, ur Russophobia can't even take a rest in this thread...
Russia reacted early to this crisis unlike some that were asleep at the wheel (Italy)

You n boltblaster seem dissapointed that Ru doesn't have thousands dead..

Russia is not reacting right now, genius. There is nothing, as far as I am aware, done outside of the initial travel bans from China and Iran and few news posts about basically washing your hands.
Once more, BALTICS, right next to it, got virus AFTER Russia. Estonia right now have cases exploding (look at last... 5-6 days/ 40+ cases to 180), Latvia is next to follow (we are closing our borders for a month, starting today/tomorrow morning until April 14th) and there were daily flights to multiple places in Russia to/from Riga.
I fucking really dont want to see bullshit which would be cases in Europe going down while going up in Russia when they finally start to implement the same things everyone else is doing.
I guess Putin's eternal reign is more important xD

[The Butt Witch]

Are you kidding? If the rest of the world manages to contain the disease by the end of the year and there is a reservoir of it in Russia that the rest of the world doesn't know about because the authorities are keeping a lid on it, it would run a major risk of undoing all containment efforts and reinfecting the entire world.

Russia is an authoritarian regime, and the first priority of authoritarian regimes is to preserve their grip on power. In the past 6 years Russia has lied about military casualties in Ukraine and in Syria. It lied about a nuclear-weapon testing disaster in the Arctic Circle last year. It lied about the deployment of chemical weapons to kill regime opponents in Europe.

More pertinently to this topic, Russia has lied about it's HIV infection rate for many years. Russia is in fact, one of the very few places the HIV epidemic is growing (at a rate of 10-15% per year) because of government cover-ups of the scale of the problem. Russia has the largest HIV infected population in Eastern Europe / Central Asia... not a fact its government acknowledges.

If far more people in Russia are sick than is currently known, it would be ENTIRELY in keeping with Putin's regime that it be covered up to protect the image of competence his government tries to project and suppress a challenge to the power of the state.

The thing is, with Russia's vast borders and the amount of travel across those borders, the reported infection number - 63 - makes zero sense.

No. I don't want Russians to die. Why would want that? I want Russia to be transparent so the pandemic gets under actual control rather than fake control because Putin is obscuring bad news.

Or let me spell it out for you more clearly, Russian. If the world manages to contain this, and that work is undone because Russia has far more cases than they let on, who do you think the world is going blame? China's facing a brutal and long overdue reckoning for its part in this catastrophe. You planning on joining them? Or Russia could get ahead of it and just be transparent for a change.

Given the state of global surveillance and social media, it's really hard for any country that's connected to the world, to hide information about disasters.
Sure, they can lie at official level, but intelligence services will KNOW what's actually going on, and will instruct their governments to take the appropriate measures, regardless of what's circulating at official levels.

If the international community relies on official statements from any government whatsoever, then we're all fucked. But then that's not the case.

[shadowmouse]

Or let me spell it out for you more clearly, Russian. If the world manages to contain this, and that work is undone because Russia has far more cases than they let on, who do you think the world is going blame?

Not exactly a classy reply.

Nor is it particularly well thought out, you're waving that as an issue as if North Korea doesn't exist and face it if we're looking at possible reservoirs for the virus -- why should India get a free pass? Do they get presumed more honest because they're counted as democratic? Large population, lots of people from India living or traveling abroad, Ayurvedic medicine as a tradition, menstrual huts, dead bodies in the Ganges ... Nope, no problem there! Look at numbers from the US or South Korea, compare the numbers in India, think about that.

[Skroe]

In a short -
Real numbers are higher, for sure. But we still have much less virus than many other countries because
1. Russians dont travel so much as EU/US/South Koreans (not enough money for that, thats true)
2. Actually respect to government for this, we banned very operatively flights from infected countries when news about virus were popping out (Iran, South Korea etc)
3. Closed borders with China early
4. Soviet heritage, for sure, telling everyone we are okay.

So these are the reasons, unfortunately i think numbers will grow up and we just slowed down epidemic here. Cant say real numbers, but i hope they are close to official ones. I would bet on 500-1000. I may be wrong.

To be clear, I'm not saying the number is 5000 or 10,000 or anything. I'm saying 63 is pure bullshit.

In my state here in the US, there was a meeting among leaders of a biotech firm (Biogen). Lots of handshaking and meet and greets. And one guy who didn't know he was infected managed to infect over 75 people.

It's a commentary about how it doesn't take a systemic failure or a lot of travel. It takes just the one wrong dude in the wrong building.

That's why i say: 63 is B.S. and Russia needs to come clean. And for the record folks on the ground are saying that it's getting better in Wuhan is also Chinese government BS.

- - - Updated - - -

Not exactly a classy reply.

Nor is it particularly well thought out, you're waving that as an issue as if North Korea doesn't exist and face it if we're looking at possible reservoirs for the virus -- why should India get a free pass? Do they get presumed more honest because they're counted as democratic? Large population, lots of people from India living or traveling abroad, Ayurvedic medicine as a tradition, menstrual huts, dead bodies in the Ganges ... Nope, no problem there! Look at numbers from the US or South Korea, compare the numbers in India, think about that.

I mean it is well thought out. Your implication is correct. Nobody should get a free pass if they obscure the truth numbers in order to prevent any reservoirs. Democracy or no. I was commenting on the proclivity of authoritarian regimes to obscure failures of the regime to control events. I was also talking to a Russian. Hence my reference to Russia. What I said is universal. The Covid-19 cover up / testing delay in the US has burned what little credibility the Trump administration had to the ground and it'll take a miracle for him to save himself in November. Accountability everywhere.

Make no mistake, the Chinese government will see severe consequences for the propaganda games they played this time. It's too late for them to avoid those consequences. They will lose their role as a global manufacturing hub, and thus a great deal of their wealth and power. Having their regime, which cannot be trusted, be the single point of failure for basic supplies in an emergency has proven to be an unacceptable vulnerability. It make take years to disentangle, but the show's over and there is no going back. This is the event that will spur the long predicted cleaving of the global economy into rival US-centric and Chinese-centric as the New Cold War accelerates.

No country or government should want to join in their fate. Transparency is essential.

- - - Updated - - -

Given the state of global surveillance and social media, it's really hard for any country that's connected to the world, to hide information about disasters.
Sure, they can lie at official level, but intelligence services will KNOW what's actually going on, and will instruct their governments to take the appropriate measures, regardless of what's circulating at official levels.

If the international community relies on official statements from any government whatsoever, then we're all fucked. But then that's not the case.

One of the logical flaws in this though is that agencies like the WHO and CDC rely on governmental cooperation to gather data. For example with HIV, the WHO has to take numbers provided by the Russian government at face value. They can (and do) state based on additional research and sources that the number is far higher, but their recommendation and support to governments is based upon what the government requests based on their own numbers.

This is why voluntary cooperation is essential. It's also why the WHO has struggled with epidemics in African countries over the years. The local strong man doesn't want to fess up to the problem and the WHO, as an intergovernmental / international organization can't just say "no do this". The government has to take the lead. Even the worst ones.

So yeah we're all in a lot of trouble. Because the issue isn't simply Russia. The issue is North Korea and Iran. It's Sudan and Egypt. It's Venezuela. It's places that have every reason not too cooperate with international organizations. The Russian government will be as they always are, but it's places like Venezuela that will be truly screwed.

[Muajin76]

This is something that I think people have not yet fully grasped.

i'm sure some are readying for such a possible reality.

[Muajin76]

The general population has not accepted it yet. People are being mad at governments because their daily lives are disrupted, but majority of people have no idea how much their daily lives can actually be disrupted, and for how long.

People should be angry. To blame the Obama administration for this...is absurd! measures weren't put in place so the govt is scrambling to do it. T.T
have you heard if Inovio Pharmaceuticals has started human clinical trials yet?

[Verdugo]

This is amazing.

[Ihavewaffles]

Are you kidding? If the rest of the world manages to contain the disease by the end of the year and there is a reservoir of it in Russia that the rest of the world doesn't know about because the authorities are keeping a lid on it, it would run a major risk of undoing all containment efforts and reinfecting the entire world.

Russia is an authoritarian regime, and the first priority of authoritarian regimes is to preserve their grip on power. In the past 6 years Russia has lied about military casualties in Ukraine and in Syria. It lied about a nuclear-weapon testing disaster in the Arctic Circle last year. It lied about the deployment of chemical weapons to kill regime opponents in Europe.

More pertinently to this topic, Russia has lied about it's HIV infection rate for many years. Russia is in fact, one of the very few places the HIV epidemic is growing (at a rate of 10-15% per year) because of government cover-ups of the scale of the problem. Russia has the largest HIV infected population in Eastern Europe / Central Asia... not a fact its government acknowledges.

If far more people in Russia are sick than is currently known, it would be ENTIRELY in keeping with Putin's regime that it be covered up to protect the image of competence his government tries to project and suppress a challenge to the power of the state.

The thing is, with Russia's vast borders and the amount of travel across those borders, the reported infection number - 63 - makes zero sense.

No. I don't want Russians to die. Why would want that? I want Russia to be transparent so the pandemic gets under actual control rather than fake control because Putin is obscuring bad news.

Or let me spell it out for you more clearly, Russian. If the world manages to contain this, and that work is undone because Russia has far more cases than they let on, who do you think the world is going blame? China's facing a brutal and long overdue reckoning for its part in this catastrophe. You planning on joining them? Or Russia could get ahead of it and just be transparent for a change.

You are obvious with ur conspiracy theories n singling out Russia, mods should infract u, a guy who has a posting history of making ww3 confrontation rants n about destroying/starving Russian economy/people.
You if anyone would use this crisis, I if anyone would want to get it under control. Russian media is reporting on cases in Russia, so take off ur tinfoil hat of hate

You should worry more about countries that haven't done anything with their borders. 2nd, China if any country needs to be singled out since they didn't get their shit together after Sars..

[Poopymonster]

You'd think hospitals would be on the BALL with this!! In Beijing, everywhere you go. *minus buses* you must get a temp check. Grocery stores..etc. Many restaurants only do take out order, ALL cinema's have been closed since early february. How can people feel safe going to the hospital when they aren't taking this shit seriously. (

You'd have people screaming about their freedumbs if there was required temp checks. Not let's think about how "I maybe a carrier and shouldn't go out" is instead "I feel fine, fuck you, and the horse you rode in on."

- - - Updated - - -

Jesus fucking christ?

"Yea self isolate and starve to death or else I'll kill you!"

To be fair, in the US if we put them in a school and then shot them, some people would consider it acceptable.

[Vorkreist]

To the average American who is not immunocompromised or above the age of 65

People have to stop with that story that it only affects 75-80 yr olds. There a lot of serious cases needing mechanical ventilation and growing number of deaths bellow 60 and even 50 in Italy and France. You are still at risk even with no underlying conditions. The number one reason why this shit is still spreading is people who still don't realise how serious this is. A lot of younger derps going about their day like "I'm young I'm safe it doesn't matter if I'm spreading it to my entire family and relatives. YOLO!"

[Poopymonster]

Whatever you say, ITG. Whatever you say.

And I'm from rural America, and the only yokels who think they're above the law are the ones that end up in jail or in the grave. No skin off my nose which one you choose to pursue, really. Have a nice life. However fleeting.

------------------

In other news, the big bosses here decided we're all coming in to work regardless because fuck the public safety, I guess. They haven't been explicitly told not to by the government so they're thinking hard with their wallets. Unsurprising, given that the ones in charge don't actually have to come to the buildings themselves to work, so it'll just be us working stiffs taking the risks. Hooray! I'm going to have make sure I set up a meeting with one of them and have a nice, long coughing fit once this is all over.

Same. Service industry. Skeleton crew at work, cut business hours, none of our food "for here". Guess opening 2 hours late today, running solo, moving all my table and chairs to one side of the cafe and barricading it off, AND getting my order placed by noon EST today is easy.

[Gorsameth]

For anyone who continues to downplay the seriousness of this outbreak, I'll post some charts here.

Worldwide cases/deaths from COVID-19:




And US cases of COVID-19:




For those of you who want to downplay this, I'd ask you if you understand what the graph of an exponential function looks like. Then I'd follow up with whether or not you understand what an exponential function of human deaths actual means.

I'd explain that we're more than doubling our case-count every three days. If that rate continues (and based on the types of comments on these last few pages, betting against that would be foolish), then we're looking at passing the one million infected mark in about 21 to 24 days. Another 27-30 days after that we could pass 100 million infected.

Now we can hope that something comes along to change that equation for the better. But if nothing changes, the next two months are going to be excruciating.

Just want to add to this, because of incubation lag the next 2 weeks are already locked in. Aka measures taken today will only show an effect in about 2 weeks. Since nothing was done 2 weeks ago this graph is going to keep rising for another 2 weeks.

That is why countries are taking such big steps. Because your not planning for the amount of cases today, but the amount of cases 2 weeks from now under exponential growth.