Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[JohnBrown1917]

Spanish flu -- not a racism
Japanese Encephalitis -- not a racism
Guinea worm -- not a racism
African swine fever virus -- not a racism

Chinese virus -- racism.

Sometimes I just wonder how this sums up in their heads

The spanish flu did not come from Spain.

[Grimbold21]

Technically not, as that is about Sars-Cov (and some other coronaviruses) and Sars-Cov-2 didn't exist back then.

If you want to include all coronaviruses they were discovered in 1960 and the origin at 10,000 or 55 million years ago. (A bit of difference in opinion.)

To nick pick further then, what is it that is being pointed out as the main culprit being the current corona?

As far as I know, it's the trade and consumption of exotic animals - and materials related to them - that have been known to be carriers of such viruses.

If that is the case, then I suppose my initial assertion stands.

[JohnBrown1917]

Was speaking along the lines of blame but don't let that stop your usual hate boner.

and they are also not doing that, funny how that works, right?
Or are you so naive you don't know why the US gov is blaming China?

[PhaelixWW]

So this supports my hipothesis, that the CCP virus has the IFR of influenza, but the R0 of mumps?

No. Just no.

[PhaelixWW]

Italy's numbers yesterday:

Cases: +5217 on 24504 tests, 21.3% positive rate, well above yesterday's 16.9%.
Deaths: +756, lower than the last two days, but still higher than all but one outlier before that.

No trend determination should probably be made based on this data.

[Thepersona]

No. Just no.

Why not? Or why yes?
And more importantly, when we'll get antibody testing?

- - - Updated - - -

No. Just no.

Why not? Or why yes?
And more importantly, when we'll get antibody testing?

Also, it seems the virus WAS a natural occurrence, like we all said
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/0...n-of-covid-19/

[PhaelixWW]

Calling it CCP virus =/= Liking what trump said. I'm calling it like that to specifically place the blame to the CCP for hiding information and locking up whistleblowers.

If you don't think that distinction is going to be lost on any racist mouth-breather who uses it as an excuse for their hate crime du jour, then you're incredibly naive.

Blame the CCP for what the CCP actually has done, but don't give racist a-holes the world around even the imaginary sliver of validation, or you start to become no better than they are by using a virus as propaganda.

[Thepersona]

Italy's numbers yesterday:

Cases: +5217 on 24504 tests, 21.3% positive rate, well above yesterday's 16.9%.
Deaths: +756, lower than the last two days, but still higher than all but one outlier before that.

No trend determination should probably be made based on this data.

The only thing that we can say is that they tested less tham yesterday.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

You can, 100%, do both.

We can't control china... I mean punish sure but as long as they have a big part in manufacturing will probably just treat them like the Saudi government.

[Thepersona]

If you don't think that distinction is going to be lost on any racist mouth-breather who uses it as an excuse for their hate crime du jour, then you're incredibly naive.

Blame the CCP for what the CCP actually has done, but don't give racist a-holes the world around even the imaginary sliver of validation, or you start to become no better than they are by using a virus as propaganda.

You have a point.

[Forogil]

The spanish flu did not come from Spain.

And it seems that there is a similarly story for Japanese Encephalitis, and Guinea Worm.
The African swine fever virus is a bit of an outlier - it actually seemed to have evolved from a less deadly African virus due to imported pigs.

[LilSaihah]

Well Americas war time actions have lasted more than 2 centuries but ok

China's wartime actions have lasted thousands of years. This whataboutism is retarded.

[Skulltaker]

s

We might have started working sooner, but that seems unlikely. The problem is that our response has been terrible. We didn't lock down because a virus appeared. We knew about coronavirus months before lockdowns started. We just didn't care until the numbers became a problem. Even now, here in the US, we still largely do not care. Both my town and my county have given shelter in place orders, but there are only about 10% fewer people out and about in general - and about 50% more people out and about in leisure areas. Because our culture is the problem.

I know everyone wants someone to blame because it makes all of this easier, but at least in America, we're going to have to recognize that most of the blame falls back on us.

As you point out correctly, lots of ifs. And as I wanted to say before my connection crashed, 'we'll probably never know.' And yes, negligence to hear out experts who have been saying the next pandemic could be devastating for population and economy is one of the biggest factors.

But China did allegedly suppress information and even had evidence either destroyed or put under lock and key, and they did that for some extremely mild disease that, overall, poses no threat to homo sapiens as a whole, but what if, god forbid, next time, they contract something much more dangerous? There's a lot of incredibly more dangerous pathogens, and if anything like that would show up in one of the worlds biggest trade hubs, wouldn't you want to feel that the local government, in whatever country, would not only do all they can to contain the spread and let everybody know about what might happen?

"Reports". What reports? Ones posted by known anti-China fake news spreaders? There is so much fake news going around, you should check actual sources for them.

Your entire post is based on premise that west would somehow react differently. US is still not taking this seriously, while being #1 by number of infections. That proves that nothing would have been done differently, even if those alleged reports are true.

I hope you do get well! However your situation is fault only of US politicians that aren't taking necessary steps to protect their population.

I'm from Germany, so, I'm not blaming the US for inaction, at least not on behalf of my condition.

As for who: The WHO stated, on January 14th, that there was no indicator of human-to-human transmission. Link to the WHO tweet.. Taiwan on the other hand reports that it tried to inform the WHO in late December about indicators of hth transmission, as doctors and nursing staff on the mainland were reported to show symptoms. Link to a Financial Times report.

First of march, The Times released a lengthy report based on sources in China that both the Government aswell as the National Health Comission and health officials in Wuhan province destroyed samples and documentation. Furthermore, they are reporting that the entire virus' genome had been sequenced as early as December 27th, not mid-january. When members of the Chinese CDC went to Wuhan, they were not informed that hospital staff had been infected by patients, so they couldn't put out a warning either. Link to the Times article.

Again, I'm not putting the entire blame on China, but behaviour like that, if true, probably cost us weeks in which we could have reacted.

Uhm, Feb 15.
China: 68k cases
Germany: 15 cases

When did Germany start to take this seriously?

Wait I'll help you out.

"Germany has introduced travel restrictions for entries from outside the Schengen area on March 17, 2020. All corresponding entries from non-EU-citizens and citizens of non-Schengen states by plane or ship will be affected. Entry will be possible for German citizens." - Frankfurt Airport.

Sure China has a role in all of this and we should establish some oversight that is not bound by national laws but let's face it, this will never happen.

Each and every country fucked this up, well maybe except South Korea whom the Virus reached first and couldn't get a hold, so go ahead blame the Chinese but don't blame them for the fuckups of our slow and even negligent response.

Way too late, and yes, Germany reacted poorly as well. I'm not denying that at all. We are, so far, not paying for that, since we are rather well equipped, as compared to many other western nations. Just in terms of capacities. But if the WHO had been properly informed, and if 'China' had released all its findings and didn't allegedly destroy them, we might have gotten off easier. All of us. It's no excuse of how poorly the situation was handled, but it might have been a contributing factor.

Edit: Post was somehow duplicated, edited out the duplicate.

[Cynep]

Whereas there are definitely some people in authority who are promoting the idea that everything is fine and that people should go to church (for example) like normal.

I think I understand the root of our differences - you live in USA, your authorities are reacting too weakly, you're right to lash out at deniers. I came to this thread fully expecting intrusive lockdowns from our governments and asked if damage from restrictive measures was worth it compared to damage from the disease, which was low at the time. I've changed my position since then, the disease is bad enough, we need to prevent panic that could come when sleeping masses realize how bad it is.

I don't see this happening, though. And surely nobody is promoting it, even indirectly.

There are different ways to slice the numbers. If you divide deaths by total cases, death rate is low. But if you set aside still active cases and divide deaths by recoveries, things become scary. It can take one influencer with high outreach saying "THE BLACK DEATH IS UPON US, 20% WILL DIE" convincingly enough, and a significant portion of happy ignoramuses will turn into a stampeding herd.

[Mayhem]

Way too late, and yes, Germany reacted poorly as well. I'm not denying that at all. We are, so far, not paying for that, since we are rather well equipped, as compared to many other western nations. Just in terms of capacities. But if the WHO had been properly informed, and if 'China' had released all its findings and didn't allegedly destroy them, we might have gotten off easier. All of us. It's no excuse of how poorly the situation was handled, but it might have been a contributing factor.

Edit: Post was somehow duplicated, edited out the duplicate.

When all of this is set and done we can talk about what went wrong and who did what, but right now, it's really really useless. And I do hope our government or at least the ones in Tyrol have to pay for their immense fuck up if not criminal neglect.

[Forogil]

As for who: The WHO stated, on January 14th, that there was no indicator of human-to-human transmission. Link to the WHO tweet.. Taiwan on the other hand reports that it tried to inform the WHO in late December about indicators of hth transmission, as doctors and nursing staff on the mainland were reported to show symptoms. Link to a Financial Times report.

I agree that this is bad - and the death of the doctor that originally reported this is suspicious.

However, technically the WHO tweet says "the Chinese … found no clear indicator". That's subtly different, but WHO shouldn't aim to be correct on a technicality.

If we look at the first situation report from January 21th already then there are indications of human-to-human transmission; and the same day it seems WHO confirmed it. However, even if there had been clear indicators a few week earlier it is not clear that other countries would have acted.

[PhaelixWW]

Why not? Or why yes?

The short answer? Many, many scientists around the world have estimated the R0 value at 2-3.

The long answer? Well...

Much can be estimated about the R0 of a virus from things like incubation time, recovery time, etc. COVID-19 has an incubation time of ~5-7 days. Mumps has an incubation time of ~16-18 days. Also, the current estimates of COVID-19's R0 put it in close proximity to SARS.

But also, R0 is not static. It's not intrinsic to the virus, which is why it's almost always given as a range, rather than a discrete value. All these distancing measures being enacted by governments around the world are an attempt to lower the R0 in their country.

Furthermore, take Italy for example. Even if one were to assume that their 20% positive testing rate represented an accurate snapshot of their country's infection level (which is nowhere near the case, as they are specifically testing those at highest risk and/or already with symptoms), then you'd be saying that around 12 million of their 60 million people are already infected. A CFR of influenza (0.13%) would relate to a death count of 15.6k.

Now, that's higher than the current 10.8k, but keep in mind that the death rate curve is a few weeks behind the infection curve. We should be well past that 15.6k benchmark by that time, and the numbers don't appear to be slowing down, so they'll just keep blowing by that number.

And even that number was predicated upon 12 million Italians being infected, which is simply not possible.

And more importantly, when we'll get antibody testing?

No idea. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But I'm not sure we'll be able to do enough breadth of testing to have a super meaningful impact on things even once we do.

- - - Updated - - -

There are different ways to slice the numbers. If you divide deaths by total cases, death rate is low. But if you set aside still active cases and divide deaths by recoveries, things become scary. It can take one influencer with high outreach saying "THE BLACK DEATH IS UPON US, 20% WILL DIE" convincingly enough, and a significant portion of happy ignoramuses will turn into a stampeding herd.

I mean, I take exception to the idea that a 4.5% CFR is "low", but I also don't see any people suggesting that 20% of people will die. And honestly, right now, if someone did attempt to suggest that, they'd probably be laughed into social isolation, as the overwhelming trend (at least here) is to downplay far more than overstate, at least to that degree.

[Forogil]

I'm currently reading N. Stephenson's "Fall or Dodge in Hell"; and I'm wondering does the US (and other countries) consider using the ventilators from "vent farms" to help covid-19 patients?

If there is a shortage of ventilators I assume that a couple of thousand extra ones could help more people survive this; even if it means that the persons currently using them will die sooner rather than later.

[Tuor]

Sorry, i'm tired of bad news, we have to keep laughting...

[JohnBrown1917]

China's wartime actions have lasted thousands of years. This whataboutism is retarded.

So what exactly gives the US the right to decide who gets 'punished'?