I’m a bit annoyed at the anti-science “oh, it’ll die off!” narrative Trump and Winnie the Pooh are pushing. Scientists and doctors are saying this will probably be around a bit longer. It’s thriving in warmer countries south of China.
I am not counting those currently infected; they are still in the undecided column. Of those whose resolution is known, almost 20% are dead, the others are fully recovered.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
Science has evolved since then. No need to totally lock people down as we can keep them in quarantine for 14 days. We monitor their symptoms and then let them go after 14 days.
Shouldn’t have to punish those who are healthy and not treat those unfairly who catch a highly contagious virus. We can help them. That’s what our country stands for as per the Statue of Liberty.
First of all, I don't know about that 20 percent number, the death rate is listed around 2 percent.
The 2% number you see would be of the total number of confirmed infected. This way of looking at it is really only useful once the majority are no longer infected and it is more of a predictor. The current state is not that. The current state still has the majority fighting the virus for several weeks and cases only slowly resolving. I mean, using this way of looking at it now, your recovery rate is only 9%.... doesn't exactly sound right, does it?
The nearly 20% is the percentage of those no longer infected.. it does not include those still fighting the infection. Of those whose status is resolved, almost 20% are dead.
When did Chinese restaurants start offering more than cats and dogs on their menu?
I have a friend that goes to China regularly. He’s eaten horse there a few times. So there’s that.
Side note. When I was in Cambodia dog could be found on some (few) menus. Protein is protein.
Psssttt Portland just how many kids have you adopted from the parents that died from this Virus.??????? I mean come on you support 110 percent those who love to travel all around the world and bring this crap back to the good old USA. You support travelers just as much as I support abortion being outlawed (except for the mothers health or the babies health) Lets be honest here. You bash me for not supporting abortion, yet you support people bringing back diseases from other countries.
No one has proven where this virus came from. There's lots of clickbait articles saying "it came from this thing!", but no study has actually pinpointed where it came from.
I have zero xenophobia. I stated my feeling about this problem when it first came out. I see no reason for folks to run all around the world. Others disagree with me. That doesn't make either one of us right.
No one has proven where this virus came from. There's lots of clickbait articles saying "it came from this thing!", but no study has actually pinpointed where it came from.
Please stop the xenophobia.
Uh............it's pretty much been pinpointed, regardless of any study/studies. There are times we don't have to wait for 'studies' to tell us where something came from. This is one of those times. This is not a zenophobia, as you like to toss that term around, a lot.
Going to China isn't strange or foreign. Bring back a virus.........well, you do the math there.
How do you feel about the smallpox, influenze, and other viruses/diseases the spanish brought to the native americans? After all, the Spaniards were only trying to visit new places.
You rested nothing but your own mind. I believe it was resting already but hey to each their own. I have ZERO hatred of strangers or foreigners. I have a concern of being killed by a virus that should have never made it's way to the good old USA.
If you'd like to start a thread talking about the genocide of Indigenous cultures in north, central, and south America, go for it. I'll gladly participate in a discussion in that thread.
This is from 30 January, but could be from today with the additional 30% jump.
Takeaways:
1. a Senator saying openly that it is aerosolized 2. Wuhan is home to a Level 4 Biocontainment and Research facility 3. this one IS a big deal, even if it is developing slowly here in the US
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
Wait............so now bringing the flu, small pox, and other viruses to north america is genocide? And bringing the coronavirus to america is xenophobia?
There is a reason when I went to Africa I had to get all kinds of shots to immunize me from viruses and/or diseases that were extremely possible for me to get, and bring back. That wasn't xenophobia. Neither was it xenophobia when I was told I couldn't donate blood a year and a half later since I'd been to Africa.
In your enlightened, academic life, perhaps you've missed out on some things, while learning new words to toss about to fit your great learnedness?
how many kids have YOU adopted from parents who died?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
It seems early treatment is key. Rumors suggest that this has been going on since mid-november in Wuhan, and the doctors had no clue what they were dealing with.
The majority of the cases are in Wuhan and Hubei province. Early studies suggest an incubation period of 14-21 days, and that you may not show symptoms if you are infected.
Antivirals are showing some promise. Problem is these are experimental which means more legality and unsure if they'll work on a large scale. The patient in Seattle recovered due to experimental treatments.
Wait, rocket just told us there is no proof of where the virus came from.
But, as to your point.........if incubation is 14-21 days, if you aren't showing symptoms..........who gets treated? Everyone? Only those showing symptoms? Those that have it and everyone they came in contact with in the last 14-21 days?
Wait, rocket just told us there is no proof of where the virus came from.
It's a lot harder to determine source than figure out the infection path and incubation period.
Not all of these things are mutually exclusive
Quote:
But, as to your point.........if incubation is 14-21 days, if you aren't showing symptoms..........who gets treated? Everyone? Only those showing symptoms?
Right now, I think we're putting people on mandatory quarantine? I know those we have flown out that have done government business over there are currently on military bases.
Quote:
Those that have it and everyone they came in contact with in the last 14-21 days?
Reports are that the people who have been around Wuhan/Hubei from the US have to stay home for 14 days, monitor their temperature, and immediately report any signs or symptoms.
From a friend, I know they're being strict at customs with screenings and such. They're trying their best.
It doesn't help when you have someone saying "oh, we've got it locked down!" or "it'll die by April" with no evidence. Anti-science policies or actions could make this into a much bigger mess.
And no, this is not a swipe at you over studies or science facts.
Last edited by RocketOptimist; 02/13/2007:09 PM. Reason: I suck at closing quotes.
In total, the CDC estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That's fairly on par with a typical season, and well below the CDC's 2017-2018 estimates of 48.8 million illnesses, 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths
When did Chinese restaurants start offering more than cats and dogs on their menu?
I have a friend that goes to China regularly. He’s eaten horse there a few times. So there’s that.
Side note. When I was in Cambodia dog could be found on some (few) menus. Protein is protein.
Psssttt Portland just how many kids have you adopted from the parents that died from this Virus.??????? I mean come on you support 110 percent those who love to travel all around the world and bring this crap back to the good old USA. You support travelers just as much as I support abortion being outlawed (except for the mothers health or the babies health) Lets be honest here. You bash me for not supporting abortion, yet you support people bringing back diseases from other countries.
The same number you’ve adopted from those that would have chosen abortion if it hadn’t been for your generosity in caring for their offspring.
Can’t wait to travel again. Hopefully SE Asia in late 2020, early 2021. Want to come by for a slideshow when I get back?
Why would anyone want to be around infected people....infected with anything?
I’ve been a nurse for 23 years. If I was as scared as you I’d have never survived my career. I don’t WANT to work with MRSA or VRSA patients. I do it because it’s what I do. By no means am I comparing myself to those on the front lines of situations like these. I’m just stating some do things that are bigger than them. You should feel thankful that there are some people brave enough to walk towards the bullets.
Why would anyone want to be around infected people....infected with anything?
I’ve been a nurse for 23 years. If I was as scared as you I’d have never survived my career. I don’t WANT to work with MRSA or VRSA patients. I do it because it’s what I do. By no means am I comparing myself to those on the front lines of situations like these. I’m just stating some do things that are bigger than them. You should feel thankful that there are some people brave enough to walk towards the bullets.
First, I am not scared. If I die tomorrow I have had a full life.
Second, I do appreciate you folks on the front line. Not sure where you thought I didn't? I have two good friends, married who are on FEMA call.
In a wide spread breakout, surely you understand that containment is important. Right? Or am I wrong? Letting it spread is no big deal?
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
In total, the CDC estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That's fairly on par with a typical season, and well below the CDC's 2017-2018 estimates of 48.8 million illnesses, 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths
Ok, then I shall ask why; Why did they basically completely shut down Wuhan-an area with 2-3 million more people than New York City. Why as NPR reported yesterday that on one line at Foxconn plant where there were normally 4000 workers, there were about 12 working. The one NPR interviewed said that the bosses are trying to keep them at the plant to get any production-and he has to go back home to school. They hired some school kids before the holiday but kept them working because the normal workers cant come back. About 1 million migrant workers have not made anything for weeks. If this goes on much more-China's GDP will take a serious hit.
Why do they have police and government workers at many apartment buildings and other government buildings scanning people as they enter and in some cases taking them away.
I have thought for a while that this is worse than the flu outbreak, that the numbers reported from workers at the cremation sites are way over 100 a day, the fog/smoke from the cremation sites in Wuhan is thick- that the numbers of patients sickened and the mortality rate are way off-under reported
To Tame Coronavirus, Mao-Style Social Control Blankets China February 15, 2020 in Business, News 7 min read 5.2k 52 To Tame Coronavirus, Mao-Style Social Control Blankets China 10.2k SHARES 29.1k VIEWS Share on Facebook Share on Twitter SHANGHAI — China has flooded cities and villages with battalions of neighborhood busybodies, uniformed volunteers and Communist Party representatives to carry out one of the biggest social control campaigns in history.
The goal: to keep hundreds of millions of people away from everyone but their closest kin.
The nation is battling the coronavirus outbreak with a grass-roots mobilization reminiscent of Mao-style mass crusades not seen in China in decades, essentially entrusting front line epidemic prevention to a supercharged version of a neighborhood watch.
Housing complexes in some cities have issued the equivalents of paper hall passes to regulate how often residents leave their homes. Apartment buildings have turned away their own tenants if they have come from out of town. Train stations block people from entering cities if they cannot prove they live or work there. In the countryside, villages have been gated off with vehicles, tents and other improvised barriers.
Despite China’s arsenal of high-tech surveillance tools, the controls are mainly enforced by hundreds of thousands of workers and volunteers, who check residents’ temperature, log their movements, oversee quarantines and — most important — keep away outsiders who might carry the virus.
Residential lockdowns of varying strictness — from checkpoints at building entrances to hard limits on going outdoors — now cover at least 760 million people in China, or more than half the country’s population, according to a New York Times analysis of government announcements in provinces and major cities. Many of these people live far from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first reported and which the government sealed off last month.
Throughout China, neighborhoods and localities have issued their own rules about residents’ comings and goings, which means the total number of affected people may be even higher. Policies vary widely, leaving some places in a virtual freeze and others with few strictures.
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has called for an all-out “people’s war” to tame the outbreak. But the restrictions have prevented workers from returning to factories and businesses, straining China’s giant economy. And with local officials exercising such direct authority over people’s movements, it is no surprise that some have taken enforcement to extremes.
Li Jing, 40, an associate professor of sociology at Zhejiang University in the eastern city of Hangzhou, was almost barred from taking her husband to a hospital recently after he choked on a fish bone during dinner. The reason? Her neighborhood allows only one person per family to leave the house, every other day.
“Once the epidemic was disclosed, the central government put huge pressure on local officials,” Professor Li said. “That triggered competition between regions, and local governments turned from overly conservative to radical.”
“Even when the situation is relieved or if the mortality rate turns out not to be high, the government machine is unable to change direction or tune down,” she added.
China’s prevention efforts are being led by its myriad neighborhood committees, which typically serve as a go-between for residents and the local authorities. Supporting them is the government’s “grid management” system, which divides the country into tiny sections and assigns people to watch over each, ensuring a tight grip over a large population.
Zhejiang Province, on China’s southeastern seaboard, has a population of nearly 60 million and has enlisted 330,000 “grid workers.” Hubei Province, whose capital is Wuhan, has deployed 170,000. The southern province of Guangdong has called upon 177,000, landlocked Sichuan has 308,000 and the megacity of Chongqing has 118,000
The authorities are also combining enormous manpower with mobile technology to track people who may have been exposed to the virus. China’s state-run cellular providers allow subscribers to send text messages to a hotline that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited.
At a high-speed rail station in the eastern city of Yiwu this past week, workers in hazmat suits demanded that passengers send the text messages that show their location data before being allowed to leave.
An app developed by a state-run maker of military electronics lets Chinese citizens enter their name and national ID number and be told whether they may have come in contact, on a plane, train or bus, with a carrier of the virus.
It is too early to say whether China’s strategy has contained the outbreak. With large numbers of new infections being reported every day, the government has clear reasons for minimizing human contact and domestic travel. But experts say that in epidemics, overbearing measures can backfire, scaring infected people into hiding and making the outbreak harder to control.
“Public health relies on public trust,” said Alexandra L. Phelan, a specialist in global health law at Georgetown University. “These community-level quarantines and the arbitrary nature in which they’re being imposed and tied up with the police and other officials is essentially making them into punitive actions — a coercive action rather than a public health action.”
In Zhejiang, one of China’s most developed provinces and home to Alibaba and other technology companies, people have written on social media about being denied entry to their own apartments in Hangzhou, the provincial capital. Coming home from out of town, they say, they were asked to produce documents from landlords and employers or be left on the street.
For Nada Sun, who was visiting family in Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang, a health scare turned into a mandatory quarantine.
When Ms. Sun, 29, complained of tightness in her chest this month, her mother told her to go to the hospital. She did not have a high fever, yet the hospital gave her a battery of checks. All came back negative for the virus.
Even so, when she returned to her apartment, she was told that she would be quarantined for two weeks. She was also added to a group on the WeChat messaging app with a local Communist Party secretary and other volunteers in which she has to submit her temperature and location twice a day.
“I’m worried they have too much information,” Ms. Sun said.
The lockdowns are not necessarily oppressive. Many people in China have been happy to wall themselves off, ordering groceries online and working from home if they can. Some neighborhood officials act with a humane touch.
Bob Huang, a Chinese-born American living in northern Zhejiang, said the volunteers at his complex had helped chase down a man who stayed out overnight to drink, in violation of rules about how often people can step outside. Yet they also delivered food from McDonald’s to a quarantined family.
Mr. Huang, 50, has been able to dodge the restrictions by using a special pass from the property manager, and he has been driving around delivering protective face masks to friends. Some building complexes don’t let him in. Others take down his information.
A nearby village took a less orthodox approach.
“They always start asking questions in the local dialect, and if you can respond in the local dialect, you are allowed to go in,” Mr. Huang said. Unable to speak the dialect, he had to wait, though the villagers were friendly. They gave him a folding chair, offered him a cigarette and didn’t ask for an ID.
Some parts of China have imposed other, often severe policies for fending off the epidemic.
Hangzhou has barred pharmacies from selling analgesics to force people with symptoms to seek treatment at hospitals. The eastern city of Nanjing requires anybody who takes a cab to show ID and leave contact information. Yunnan Province wants all public places to display QR codes that people must scan with their phones whenever they enter or exit.
Many places have banned large gatherings. The police in Hunan Province this month destroyed a mahjong parlor where they found more than 20 people playing the tile game.
With local governments deciding such policies largely on their own, China has become a vast patchwork of fiefs.
“It can be quite haphazard,” said Zhou Xun, a historian of modern China at the University of Essex in England. “A perfect plan on paper often turns into makeshift solutions locally.”
Officials seem to recognize that some local authorities have gone too far. This month, Chen Guangsheng, the deputy secretary general of Zhejiang’s provincial government, called it “inappropriate” that some places had employed “simple and crude practices,” like locking people into their homes to enforce quarantines.
Zhang Yingzi’s apartment complex in Hangzhou initially forbade anybody who had been out of town from entering. Later, the ban was adjusted to cover only people coming from Hubei Province and the Zhejiang cities of Wenzhou and Taizhou, both of which have had many cases of the new virus.
“Banning everyone from out of town wasn’t realistic,” said Ms. Zhang, 29, an accountant. “There are so many of them, after all. Some needed to come back for work.”
Still, many in China are uneasy about loosening up virus controls too quickly.
Zhang Shu, 27, worries that her parents and neighbors are becoming cavalier about the virus, even as workers drive around her village near Wenzhou with loudspeakers telling people to stay home.
“Ordinary people are slowly starting to feel that the situation isn’t so horrible anymore,” Ms. Zhang said. “They are restless.”
Alexandra Stevenson contributed reporting from Hong Kong. [censored] Yiwei and Lin Qiqing contributed research.
Business Cost of China's anti-virus fight rises with workers idle JOE McDONALD Associated PressFebruary 15, 2020, 9:28 PM EST
BEIJING (AP) — Real estate agent Du Xuekun’s sales usually jump after the Lunar New Year holiday. But this year, Du has been at home for a month with no income after vast swathes of China’s economy were shut down in a sweeping effort to contain a virus outbreak.
Du, who lives in Jiaozhuo, near the central city of Zhengzhou, is one of millions of people who are bearing the soaring cost of the most extreme anti-disease measures ever imposed. Some businesses are reopening, but Beijing has told the public to stay home if possible.
“People will buy food and clothes online but for sure won’t buy an apartment without seeing it,” said Du.
Industries from auto sales to travel to retailing effectively shut down after curbs were imposed starting Jan. 23 with the suspension of most access to Wuhan, an industrial metropolis of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak.
Travel restrictions expanded to cities with more than 60 million people, while curbs on business spread nationwide. The Lunar New Year holiday was extended to keep factories and offices closed. Nationwide, thousands of restaurants and cinemas have been shut to prevent crowds from gathering.
The rising losses threaten to become a political liability for the ruling Communist Party. Local officials have been ordered to revive business activity but are moving cautiously.
By Sunday, some 1,665 deaths and 68,500 cases had been reported in the two months since the first infections in December.
Economists warn optimism that the disease might be under control is premature. Even if auto manufacturing and other business resumes as planned, activity won’t be back to normal until at least mid-March.
Losses are expected to be so large that forecasters have cut estimates for China’s economic growth.
Forecasters including Capital Economics say growth, already at multi-decade lows, might fall to 2% in the three months ending in March, down from the previous quarter’s official figure of 6%.
“If the economy really gets into a tailspin, the challenge for the party will be substantially increased,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
Locking down Wuhan might have hurt more than it helped by causing panic and was “very damaging to the economy,” said Tsang.
“They will have to rethink the lockdown approach,” he said.
The ruling party has responded to the mounting economic pressure by promising tax breaks and subsidies to companies hurt by the anti-disease measures.
The government needs to “maintain stable economic operation and social harmony," President Xi Jinping said Wednesday.
On Friday, the Ministry of Finance announced that companies with monthly sales below 100,000 yuan ($14,000) will be exempt from value-added and other taxes. It said companies that cannot repay loans might be allowed to invoke “force majeure,” a last-resort legal measure that can waive obligations in disasters.
Travel and hospitality were hardest-hit after the government canceled group tours and told businesspeople to put off travel. Airlines canceled thousands of flights and hotels closed.
The manager of a travel agency in Shenyang, the biggest city in China’s northeast, said its monthly revenue, usually 100,000 yuan ($14,000), fell to zero. He said the agency still is paying rent and wages of 20,000 yuan ($2,800) a month.
“We don’t expect to see a recovery until May or June,” said the manager, who would give only his surname, Xu. “We do hope the government can give us a tax exemption or reduction, but we still have seen no subsidies.”
Property sales have fallen to almost zero over the past three weeks. The industry employs millions of people and drives demand for appliances, furniture and other consumer goods.
Du, the real estate salesman, said he usually closes two sales a month and earns 7,000-8,000 yuan ($1,000-$1,100). He needs to make a 3,000-yuan ($430) monthly loan payment whether he works or not.
“I have no base salary and live on commission,” said Du, 27. “Without sales, there will be no income.”
Chinese leaders already were struggling to shore up economic growth that slowed to 6.1% last year thanks to weak consumer demand and a tariff war with Washington. Some economists, citing industry surveys and other data, say real growth already was much weaker than that.
The anti-disease measures closed factories that supply the world with smartphones, furniture, shoes, toys and household appliances. That sent shockwaves through other developing countries that supply industrial components and iron ore, copper and other commodities.
South Korea and other economies that rely on China as an export market face potential job losses.
E-commerce companies are hiring extra workers to cope with a flood of demand as families stay home and buy groceries online. But streets in Beijing and other major cities are still empty and eerily quiet.
Auto sales plunged 20.2% in January from a year earlier, deepening a 2-year-old decline in the industry’s biggest global market. Sales fell 9.6% last year to 21.4 million, well below their 2017 peak of 24.7 million.
That is squeezing global automakers that look to China to drive revenue as they spend billions of dollars to develop electric vehicles to meet government sales targets.
“Enterprises are under huge pressure,” said a statement by an industry group, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
China rebounded relatively quickly from its 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, but economic conditions now are less rosy.
SARS struck when China was entering a history-making boom powered by construction and exports. Growth peaked at a blistering 14.2% in 2007. By contrast, the latest virus hit in the midst of a slowdown.
In smartphones, Apple, Huawei and other brands face a potential hit because China is both their No. 1 market and global production base.
Shipments might fall as much as 50% this quarter compared with the final three months of 2019, according to research firm Canalys.
There is a “high risk” that component suppliers, with factory workers still stranded in their hometowns by travel bans, “will not be able to ramp up to normal capacity if the outbreak is prolonged,” Canalys said in a report.
Apple and other global vendors face a “serious impact” if the virus spreads and those suppliers close, the report said.
“The current situation will likely lead to some of the worst ever shipment numbers,” it said.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/small-gator-chomp.gif)
![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/PortlandDawg/banner.jpg)