Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Ihavewaffles]

If anything, China showing that they can lockdown 68 million people without batting an eye is far more of a news story than some 1,000 people dying of pneumonia.

Virus isn't contained to china...

[Belize]

If anything, China showing that they can lockdown 68 million people without batting an eye is far more of a news story than some 1,000 people dying of pneumonia.

I mean, China is a dictatorship, so it's not exactly surprising, especially since its population has been conditioned to do everything they're asked, lest the state bring down the hammer on them, both literally and figuratively.

[Zatheyll]

Virus isn't contained to china...

It pretty much is. A couple dozen cases per country outside of China, with almost all of them being people who traveled from Hubei or relatives of those who did, is contained to me. Even the spread outside of Hubei is drastically reducing day by day.

I mean, China is a dictatorship, so it's not exactly surprising, especially since its population has been conditioned to do everything they're asked, lest the state bring down the hammer on them, both literally and figuratively.

Being able to do it versus actually doing it is a different beast. Showing they can actually do something like this is definitely something to consider, even if people knew they could beforehand. The economic ramifications of the lockdowns will shake the entire world's economy as well. People might gawk at China being able to lock down so many people thinking it won't concern them, but it already is. Supply chains around the world are suffering already.

[shadowmouse]

I mean, China is a dictatorship, so it's not exactly surprising, especially since its population has been conditioned to do everything they're asked, lest the state bring down the hammer on them, both literally and figuratively.

Then you do not understand "the mountains are high, and the Emperor far away". The Chinese have lived by that for far longer than the CCP has existed. Read "the Deer in the Cauldron" and the rest of the trilogy.

Edit:
@Zatheyll

For most, the Japanese are seen as closer to being the good guys, but look what is happening to the cruise ship, the Diamond Princess. Those guys, including American passengers, are fucked and who is doing something to save them. Are they just going to be stranded, until they die or the survivors can be harvested for a vaccine candidate? It looks like they're going to be left hanging because Japan and the other Western countries can't be assed to take effective measures. Yes, I am pissed off.

[Belize]

Then you do not understand "the mountains are high, and the Emperor far away". The Chinese have lived by that for far longer than the CCP has existed. Read "the Deer in the Cauldron" and the rest of the trilogy.

The emperor now has drones, and internet firewall surveillance, so the saying falls apart.

[breadisfunny]

US bio labs surrounding Russia n China, why they put up with this shit...

probably because of these.....we have more than the rest of the world combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine

[shadowmouse]

The emperor now has drones, and internet firewall surveillance, so the saying falls apart.

Are you here? Have you spent the last 20 years watching? I am, and I have. No, it is modestly harder, but nothing more than that. Ask HK.

[Zatheyll]

The emperor now has drones, and internet firewall surveillance, so the saying falls apart.

As long as you're willing to burn a bit of money, it's very easy to get a VPN. The Firewall is only there to give the government a veil of power, which they use at great length. As long the the CCP can show they can't be questioned, everyone else can do whatever they want.

[shadowmouse]

@Zatheyll

The Fallen Bong cult used to run a very efficient VPN for free. A student installed it on my office computer to "help" I was less than pleased, but she was one of the Manchu princesses I've had to deal with. Yes, shadowmouse did use the NSA level scubber.

[Strawberry]

probably because of these.....we have more than the rest of the world combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine

Is that why the US lost the proxy war in Syria?
Cuz submarines can't fly?

[shadowmouse]

<shadowmouse grabs popcorn>

Now, US realizes that China can easily conquer the world with these mindless people.

Chinese = Mindless. Got it, I'm think'n this sounds familiar, and the politics subforum is still over thataway. But since you seem to get a free pass on your derails, let me call you out on this one.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra unveiled a TV spot featuring a young Asian woman riding a bicycle through rice paddies. In pidgin English, the woman thanks Sen. Debbie "Spend-It-Now" (Stabenow) for weakening the U.S. economy vis-à-vis China with her free-spending ways.

Yep, an old friend is back: https://www.newsweek.com/hoekstra-ad...politics-65679

Chinese race baiting in modern politics is really just a new twist on an old bigotry.

The flood of Chinese laborers into the Western U.S. in the mid-1800s led to fears that the "coolies" were depressing wages. The Workingman's Party labor union adopted the slogan, "The Chinese must go!" Congress, in turn, passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the immigration of ethnic Chinese and denied those already here the privilege of pursuing citizenship. The law was not repealed until 1943.

Many newspapers of the time decried the "yellow peril." One 1899 political cartoon depicted a crazy-eyed Chinese man, standing astride the bloody corpse of a woman, a smoking gun in his hand and a bloody dagger in his teeth. The caption: "The Yellow Terror in all his glory."

Now tell us about Africa.

[Corvus]

For most, the Japanese are seen as closer to being the good guys, but look what is happening to the cruise ship, the Diamond Princess. Those guys, including American passengers, are fucked and who is doing something to save them. Are they just going to be stranded, until they die or the survivors can be harvested for a vaccine candidate? It looks like they're going to be left hanging because Japan and the other Western countries can't be assed to take effective measures. Yes, I am pissed off.

Given that there are Australians onboard the ship that are infected, it has been on the news here a fair bit and, no, they are not being left hanging. Those infected have been taken off the ship and into special infection wards in Japanese hospitals and are being tended to around the clock. The ones being left on the ship are those still under quarantine to make sure that they haven't picked up the virus.

Likewise, all Australian citizens that have been taken out of China have also been quarantined until they are cleared of teh virus.

[Muajin76]

I was watching an ABC news thing on e cigs and they played a video after saying the death toll for cv now stands at over 9000. I'm sure they meant to say 900. I sent abc news a tweet about it if it was meant for 900 or 9000, NO reply. lol

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At first, USA thought that the mindless people are good, because of cheap labor.
Now, US realizes that China can easily conquer the world with these mindless people.

I hope Trump realizes that too. Otherwise, the world is doomed.

Contrary to what many westerners believe, there are hard working Chinese people. Trump is an idiot, sorry to say. He's so far up on his high horse that he can't put himself in the shoes of normal working people. There are idiot Chinese AND American people. American companies operating in China for that cheap labor, those companies are run by idiots wanting cheap labor wages...
Support for cv is very high in China, its' a dire situation here. It's a shame that companies are crying low profits due to it, heartless numpties!

[shadowmouse]

Given that there are Australians onboard the ship that are infected, it has been on the news here a fair bit and, no, they are not being left hanging.

Thanks, good to hear. I'm mainly down to Yahoo News and oddly enough the Guardian has come back up. CNN loads sometimes, maybe, at least the headlines. As you can see, such coverage as I've been able to access fails to mention the positive actions taken to care for the infected: https://www.thedailybeast.com/corona...cles_fancylink

While the number of people infected inside the United States has been steady at 12 since last week, 23 Americans have contracted the virus since the outbreak hit a now-quarantined cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan. A total of 135 people on board had been diagnosed, the ship’s captain told passengers on the Diamond Princess on Monday. The outbreak on the 3,700-person ship, which is carrying more than 400 people from the United States, is now the largest outside China. The passengers and crew members have been quarantined on the ship since Feb. 3, and Japanese officials have reportedly said they cannot test everyone on board.

[Muajin76]

@Muajin76 I can get CNN about 4 times a day if I spam it. It started not loading for me sometime around the 8th, when they were pushing things like the Where is Xi story. Yahoo is still loading reliably and that's about it.

Be prudent, but Cupcake hasn't given me any warnings and I know she would if things were dangerous.

8th is around the time when i started not being able to either, I have 4 free vpns on my phone, so getting past the great firewall is np. That's what I thought too, cnn was pushing this anti-china stuff *it wasnt just the where is Xi but also that the comments that Pompeo made about the communist party being aa threat to America..etc etc* I thought that's why it got cut off.
Who is cupcake? a gf or info source?:P

[shadowmouse]

Who is cupcake? a gf or info source?

I've told the story enough times that I figured people had it down. Cupcake is my surgeon and she works in a special burn unit where they have to be super aware of infections. The Wuhan virus would be extremely important for her because they take patients from all over China and also treat diabetic ulcers and severe infections (that's how I ended up there). The diabetic ulcers mean they have a lot of patients who are seniors with lots of underlying health problems and who would not fare well if they were exposed to the Wuhan virus. Her English is probably around the old CET-6 level and we've been friends for about a year and a half, she is on my WeChat.

As for CNN, it seemed like they were also going very heavily towards articles from the National Interest. I find it interesting that the Guardian is back up.

numpties

Britlish detected.

[Muajin76]

I've told the story enough times that I figured people had it down. Cupcake is my surgeon and she works in a special burn unit where they have to be super aware of infections. The Wuhan virus would be extremely important for her because they take patients from all over China and also treat diabetic ulcers and severe infections (that's how I ended up there). The diabetic ulcers mean they have a lot of patients who are seniors with lots of underlying health problems and who would not fare well if they were exposed to the Wuhan virus. Her English is probably around the old CET-6 level and we've been friends for about a year and a half, she is on my WeChat.

As for CNN, it seemed like they were also going very heavily towards articles from the National Interest. I find it interesting that the Guardian is back up.



Britlish detected.

haha i've heard the term enough times by scottish actors. I like using it.
Aaaand why do you call your surgeon cupcake?:P it sounds like a cute name to call someone, just not a personal friend surgeon.

Do you actually call her cupcake in wechat? lol

[shadowmouse]

Aaaand why do you call your surgeon cupcake?

I had developed severe anxiety attacks and needed a nickname for her because she has a very, very common name. She's one of their top surgeons, but she is a Doogie Howser type. She is 28, unflaggingly cheerful, has dimples, giggles, and tends to bounce on her toes when she is excited.

Well, she does with me, that's our deal, she gets to play student and shake off the formality of being Dr. Zhang. She met some of the Herd and to make it easier for us to work together she said to treat her like a student, so when I needed a nickname for a young woman with those characteristics ... Cupcake seemed to fit. The first time she whipped out the scissors and scalpel when she was decked out for surgery, I felt myself losing control of my heartbeat and breathing. I fell back on breathing exercises, but then I told myself "relax, it's just Cupcake". It worked, Cupcake just isn't a name to inspire fear.

Yes, she knows the story. It made her giggle, show off her dimples, and bounce on her toes. I'm sort of a break for her, she is a very tough young lady and she gets some of their roughest cases, kids with burns over more than 50% of their body. For her I dust of the persona of Professor shadowmouse, retired lawyer and fellow professional, who sends a whole bunch of jia you and xin ku le stickers.

To keep this a bit more on topic, China has a shortage of doctors and many hospitals have a lot of young doctors because they have more modern training. In many senses that's a good thing, but they're getting tossed into the deep end of the pool now.

OK, as a heads up, I just got the word that we'll be doing classes in WeChat groups for my university students.

[Muajin76]

I had developed severe anxiety attacks and needed a nickname for her because she has a very, very common name. She's one of their top surgeons, but she is a Doogie Howser type. She is 28, unflaggingly cheerful, has dimples, giggles, and tends to bounce on her toes when she is excited.

Well, she does with me, that's our deal, she gets to play student and shake off the formality of being Dr. Zhang. She met some of the Herd and to make it easier for us to work together she said to treat her like a student, so when I needed a nickname for a young woman with those characteristics ... Cupcake seemed to fit. The first time she whipped out the scissors and scalpel when she was decked out for surgery, I felt myself losing control of my heartbeat and breathing. I fell back on breathing exercises, but then I told myself "relax, it's just Cupcake". It worked, Cupcake just isn't a name to inspire fear.

Yes, she knows the story. It made her giggle, show off her dimples, and bounce on her toes. I'm sort of a break for her, she is a very tough young lady and she gets some of their roughest cases, kids with burns over more than 50% of their body. For her I dust of the persona of Professor shadowmouse, retired lawyer and fellow professional, who sends a whole bunch of jia you and xin ku le stickers.

To keep this a bit more on topic, China has a shortage of doctors and many hospitals have a lot of young doctors because they have more modern training. In many senses that's a good thing, but they're getting tossed into the deep end of the pool now.

OK, as a heads up, I just got the word that we'll be doing classes in WeChat groups for my university students.

hehe she almost sounds like the perfect girlfriend/partner personality type. cupcake is cute. hehe i guess whatever works. Yes, i saw that many military personnel went over there. I imagine some were doctors etc. It's a hard job, with some getting the virus etc.
I found out that i start work on the 17th, guess my school deemed it safe enough to start before march. Oh well. It gets boring not going anywhere except the grocery store.

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Virus isn't contained to china...

Beijing is getting there slowly.

[shadowmouse]

I found out that i start work on the 17th, guess my school deemed it safe enough to start before march.

My students are old enough to be expected to deal with online classes. For yours, being dropped at school is pretty much daycare. Your school probably got flooded with "I have to go to work, who is going to be there with my kids"? Shifting them to makeshift daycare would kind of make the whole isolation thing pointless, so might as well go ahead with classes.

For us, it is a bit bigger problem because our students are old enough to be going out on weekend trips and such ("such" probably involving Sanlitun or Wudaokou and more alcohol applied internally than externally).

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@Muajin76 Per the Beijinger pharmacies now have to report who buys cough or fever medicine.