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Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 23 2020, 10:20 PM

There is a Corona Virus spreading out of China and a few hundred folks are infected and several have now died. China has locked down two cities to try to prevent spread. There is NO TREATMENT for Corona Virus. So the problem for people who get it, is that there is very little that can be done for them. We have just one case in the states. So it's not a big deal here. It's a problem in China though. Don't get too freaked out by this stuff though as it's probably going to stay mostly in China. I'm starting to see crazy videos on youtube where people are really blowing it out of all proportion. It's not as deadly as SARS so it's sorta like a bad flu virus that reguiar meds won't work on.

EDIT: MARCH 25, 2020: I just looked at this original post which I made back in January. In this post I say stuff like "it's probably going to stay mostly in China" and "It's not as deadly as SARS". Both statements were proved to be just wrong as time went on. At the time, the news was indicating that it was not a big deal and was mostly centered around China and that the United States was at very low risk as was the rest of the world. A few months later, this thread is still going and the news keeps getting worse. I wish we could go back to January


So
Wash your hands a lotStay away from people who seem sickstay home if you get sick.

Same things you always do in Flu Season
Todd

Posted by: Phil66 Jan 23 2020, 11:05 PM

It's here in the UK, four people in Scotland flew in from the town that is in lock down in China.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 24 2020, 08:02 PM

It's over here now as well. It's just one or two folks so far over here. I was a bit shocked to hear China had cancelled Chinese New Year festivities in Beijing. Each year, Chinese New Year is the largest mass migration of humanity on the planet earth. All those people moving about for one reason. To celebrate new year with their families. It's much like Christmas is for western folks. Imagine the president coming on TV and saying he was going to cancel Christmas, and then asked everyone to just stay home.

I am glad to see the Chinese govt is taking this very seriously and hopefully it will all be sorted very soon.
So far, like 20 Million people have been asked to simply not leave home. 3 Cities so far in china. All public transport has been closed. This sort of thing is a first in history. Trying to isolate tens of millions of people is going to be a challenge.
Todd

Posted by: Phil66 Jan 24 2020, 10:43 PM

Fourteen have now been tested, all clear thankfully.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jan 24 2020, 11:14 PM

That's great news! It looks like they are doing their best to keep it contained. So we should all be just fine It's the folks near the epicenter that have it bad. store shelves are cleared out already in many places, all transport in and out has been stopped. The worst part, people are just starting to drop on the street. Evidently, at some point the virus makes it really hard to breath and sick folks just pass out where they happen to be. They are building a hospital just for folks with corona virus. The other health facilities are already maxed out. They plan to build a new hospital in 6 days! From ground breaking to first patient in 6 days. I don't know how that's possible.



13 cities on lockdown in china with a population roughly equal to Canada.

Posted by: Phil66 Feb 2 2020, 11:17 AM

The cases here now, one person just 12 miles away from my town has been quarantined

Posted by: Mertay Feb 2 2020, 04:50 PM

Guys check the food at your house to see where it comes from, if from an asian country (like rice etc.) stock some just incase.

Posted by: klasaine Feb 2 2020, 07:00 PM

My rice comes from California

Fun fact: Calrose rice (grown in CA) exports rice to both Japan and China.
Go 49ers!

*Chiefs fan today though.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 2 2020, 10:05 PM

We eat a lot of Hinode Calrose rice up here too, good stuff. Rooting for KC today. I have always loved Andy Reid ever since he coached my team the Philadelphia Eagles so I would like to see him get a Super Bowl ring, but I also love Patrick Mahomes and watching him play.
Go Chiefs!

Posted by: Mertay Feb 2 2020, 10:07 PM

It turned out to be a huge hit to the Chinese economy and spreading to the area around it.

Countries started avoiding ships/goods from there either cause of the crew or goods where virus can live (like food). If not directly the food, ingredients of some food may be dependent from China to be prepared. Likely the foods on shelves today are from before the virus started spreading, so stocking isn't a bad idea if possible.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 3 2020, 04:26 AM

EGAD!! Are you serious? That close? That's crazy. What are the odds of one of these random people landing within spitting distance of where you happen to be?
The rate of spread of this thing is just insane. Every single day the infected count seems to double. There are now 12,000 cases confirmed of this thing. That's just the confirmed. Unconfirmed we have no idea. We have military bases ready to take infected people coming in. Stock market took a 600 point down hit the other day. So now it's impacting our economy as well.



the worse part is carriers can be "asymptomatic" meaning no symptoms yet able to spread the virus. Here is a doctor talking about. The expansion of the virus is growing exponentially so they really need to get a handle on this.
Here is a real time tracker of infected and dead.
[/quote] [quote name='Phil66' post='774464' date='Feb 2 2020, 06:17 AM']The cases here now, one person just 12 miles away from my town has been quarantined

Posted by: Mertay Feb 3 2020, 12:56 PM

For now I'm not too worried about the spread, number of patients increase but its mostly around China. Quarantines other countries are doing seems to be mostly effective, its expected to have incidents but the quarantine protocol seems to be effective (for now).

But most of us have no idea how much we're connected to China by the stuff we use, either food or even guitar parts. So on the long run I do expect some shortages of supply. Food is the most critical, I don't know if medicine is related (China bought all medical masks Turkey has, yesterday my mom barley found one box for herself and dad).

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 4 2020, 07:20 AM

We are a much more connected world than we were 20 years ago during the SARS outbreak. That's what has everyone worried. Also people are saying that China is under reporting the entire thing. That in fact, there are hundreds of thousands of people infected and that they are under reporting deaths by saying cause of death was "pneumonia" instead of saying cause of death was Corona virus. Here is the hospital they built in under two weeks. Sadly, they don't have enough supplies.

You mentioned they bought every medical mask in Turkey. I've heard they have bought every medical mask from every country they can and that it's still not enough as the masks are meant to be changed every four hours so that's 2 masks a day (eight hour work shift) or 6 masks a day, for everyone waiting in line at a hospital. It's growing exponentially which is starting to be concerning. There are only a few cases here in the States, how about the rest of you guys? Any new cases in other countries?

In this report just like mertay says, FOOD is the culprit. This lady bought a Chicken from a wet market in Wuhan. Now she has Corona Virus and the medical people who treated her have it now as well. It's in the food, it's being spread to medical people who are not wearing masks in some areas of China. ugghl









for everyone needing a mask in a country of well over a billion people.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 4 2020, 08:35 AM

Oil and copper dropped in value rapidly, its usually the first sign the world economy is slowing. This was what I was expecting and it will continue depending on the state of virus spread.

I'll start worrying when it starts to hit middle-east and Africa, most of the countries there can't manage something like this. Then by illegal passing's of boarders it will be dangerous for everyone. The incubation period can extend to 14 days so its possible an immigrant can step in somewhere like Europe seemingly healthy.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 11 2020, 06:57 AM

More people have now died of CORONA in about a month than died of SARS in 3 years. So how many will corona kill in 3 years? Well, it's about a thousand a month. So not looking good. The only good news so far is that numbers outside China are very very very small. So for the rest of the world, this is not a big threat. Inside China, it's got people a bit freaked out.



None of the people in quarantine facilities are permitted to leave. Hopefully this will help. They have dug up the roads leading out of wuhan.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 20 2020, 05:38 AM

Infected people are above 70,000 and climbing. Thankfully, it's been kept mostly in China so far. I'm thankful for that! In this video, the same building that saw the SARS virus spread through the pipes in the building was suspe cted of doing so again with corona. Thankfully it was a false alarm. in another case, they tried to quarantine people on a cruise ship and it just made things worse.


3,000 Medical Workers roughly infected which is very sad

The really scary new bit of news is that there are Chinese News Sources saying that it's possible that the CORONA VIRUS was leaked from a biological weapons research facility in Wuhan. Research at this facility(The Wuhan Center for Disease Control) involves bats and it's possible a bat got loose and the rest is history. This sounds like a "Conspiracy Theory", but it's being reported by actual news outlets, not just crazy bloggers.


Also, any one who says bad things about the way the govt is handling the crisis, are being "disapeared" they Just go missing. One professor in particulare is mentioned in this report.

I hope this thing wraps up soon as I'm starting to see really strange videos on youtube about how this is a "Biblical Plague" (it's not, it's a regional virus and it's not going to kill 1/3 of humanity as foretold in the book of Revelations). Also, there has been a "Locust Plague" in Africa recently which also has the Conspiracy Theory people going nuts. A "Plague of Locusts" to go with out "Breaking of the 7th Seal" is just what every bible thumping conspiracy zealot needs to start asking for more donations. Uggh.

Even legitimate outlets like DW in Germany are calling it a "Plague of Locusts". I wish they would stop using that word.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 20 2020, 07:13 AM

You say "Conspiracy Theory" like it has to be some kind of outlandish and unbelievable thing. This term is frequently misused. A conspiracy is simply when 2 or more people get together and conspire to commit a crime of some sort, in most cases Criminal Conspiracy's, and they happen all the time. So a conspiracy theory is simply some people theorizing that there are other people that have conspired to commit a crime.
Criminal conspiracy's are uncovered, tried and convicted quite frequently.
Granted, some theories are bigger than others, involve powerful people, and may seem far fetched and some are of course, but even many of those that sound outlandish have turned out to be real. Many of yesterdays conspiracy theories, even outlandish ones, have ended up being today's news and part of history.
A plague of locusts isn't a conspiracy theory but more like a doomsday prophecy theory unless you want to theorize that it was manufactured by a group of people somehow for nefarious reasons.
A deadly virus, maybe. If again you want to theorize that it was purposefully released or maybe even developed for some nefarious reason.
The idea that this virus may have got away from that lab in Wuhan isn't new although I don't think it has been called a weapons lab but a level 4 research facility for studying deadly viruses of which there are some all over the world. We have such research facilities here in the US too.
Some news organizations were reporting about that idea from the outset of this crisis and mentioned that it had even been warned about by scientists and officials here in the US that something could escape that lab into the population, and about the dangers of the proximity of that lab the huge population center that is Wuhan province.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy%20theory

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 20 2020, 07:59 AM

Thanks for the clarification My only point being that things like this are often snagged and blown way out of proportion by a certain group of youtube folks and the results are not positive. Next thing you know, we have videos cropping up everywhere showing the corona virus and the locusts and following it with a few quotes from revelations saying that the end is near and you need to buy these special pills that will purify your water or taint wipes, etc. Any public tragedy seems to fuel this type of thing which is kinda sad imho
One thing that is very real is that the Chinese Economy is going to slow down and also, the largest company on earth, APPLE COMPUTER is going to slow down a bit as well since most of theyr products are built in China. Apple is already warning share holders that there will be a dip and that we may see fewer iphone available due to factories being closed from the virus. Also, there will be other knock on effects of Chine being basically shut down for this long. Prices are going to go up. The stock market is going to go down. All of which is yet more fuel for folks selling "PREPPER" kits and claiming it's all going down the drain. I really don't think it's all going down the drain. I think we are having a run of bad luck that will sort itself out if we can all just stay calm Here is that vid about APPLE saying they are not going to make enough iphones due to Corona.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 20 2020, 10:02 AM

Few incidents have been seen in Iran, Egypt...these are the places to be afraid of as they might not be able to contain the virus. Russia will shut boarders to China soon completely.

As for conspiracy theory, my thought is USA did it. Been years since its known China will surpass US economy in the not so distant future, Trump did all he could with the tariffs and calling US based brands back to USA. Human life is most important, but the real damage Corona did was to Chinese economy. Their stock market closed for 2 weeks and they pumped 150billon just so it wouldn't crash the day it opened, now they're merging small airplane businesses with bigger ones so they won't face bankruptcy. Also huge internal credits are being arranged so common people who cannot work right now (like a drugstore owner etc.) so mass unemployment won't happen...

Posted by: klasaine Feb 20 2020, 04:53 PM

Yeah, that's a theory going around but that's not the Donald's style. He likes to 'win' in the public view not in some covert, unproveable way.
Out here on the coast, covid-19 as it's called now barely makes the news and CA is probably the biggest recipient of cash and goods via China. We also have a HUGE Chinese population.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 20 2020, 08:56 PM

An equally unlikely theory going around is that the Chinese government unleashed this virus on their own people as a means of population control .
I don't buy either one of those theories.

Posted by: klasaine Feb 20 2020, 11:03 PM

Me either.
The most likely scenario is that it was just another animal borne, flu like disease that they figured would be easily curable and/or burn itself out - as most of these do and that most of us never even hear about. Every once in a while we get one that is a little deadly and not so containable.
Personally, I would stay away from youtube vids, blogs and talk radio shows about the Corona virus.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 21 2020, 02:15 AM

According to this article that I read last week, there may already be a cure. A lab in California claimed to come up with a vaccine within hours of receiving the genetic sequence. All that's needed is for testing to begin and hopefully be successful.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-15/coronavirus-vaccine-design-inovio-san-diego

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-lab-says-discovered-coronavirus-123356925.html

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 21 2020, 02:57 AM

The rate of spread for this has been pretty scary indeed. I've run across the theory you are talking about. The idea that the U.S. Did it, but there is precious little evidence it seems. Also keep seeing vids talking about it coming out of a research lab in China. I suppose we may never really know how it all started.

I'd have to agree It seems like it did start in that animal market. Which has since been shut down. Such markets are illegal but have operated for many years. It's possible the Govt will be much more harsh on such markets in the future.



I really hope they get a vaccine by summer. The knock on effects financially may be felt for quite some time. Despite the Chinese govt pumping money in to the system, the market as was mentioned. We are still quite a way from full recovery in terms of financial results.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 22 2020, 06:42 PM

Here is an interesting article that I ran across today concerning the lab in Wuhan.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/

Posted by: klasaine Feb 22 2020, 07:48 PM

Sure, maybe - ?
The New York Post is about one notch above the National Inquirer in terms of reliability. It's a tabloid.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 22 2020, 08:09 PM

So are most others news organizations these days. Who knows?
But yeah, it would be nice if they would cite some sources to those claims. Without that, might as well label it an op-ed.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 22 2020, 09:33 PM

That's the trouble with so much News these days. It's all click bait just to survive as a publication. Even respectable rags like the New York Times have been guilty of putting up stories quickly instead of sourcing everything as would have been done in the "old days".

One thing that saddens me is I keep seeing stories about how this virus is creating hatred and racism for anyone that looks Asian. Folks in the states, born here, raised here, never been to china, being taunted on the subway just for looking asian. It's similar to what anyone looking Arab went through after 911. The sooner they can get a vaccine for this, the better.

For perspective, Spanish Flu infected almost a third of planet earth and killed about 500 million people.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

Posted by: Mertay Feb 27 2020, 02:40 PM

Good news is the spread rate has finally decreased noticeably in China, it didn't stop but slowed down. News of the virus being seen all around the world affected oil prices and stock markets, thats why there is so much fuss about it on TV these days.

Its estimated around 2 months until we can say the virus spread is 100% under control and won't be a threat anymore.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Feb 27 2020, 05:03 PM

First case found here in Denmark now, my mom just told me she heard on the news.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 27 2020, 05:14 PM

I think Turkey is hiding the cases 50+ died in Iran, seen in Greece...its suspected many (3.rd world) counties are hiding so their economy won't take the hit.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 27 2020, 09:25 PM

sadly we have our first "Community Spread" case here in the states. Someone has it and they didn't go to china, or the infected cruise ship etc. They have no idea how they got it. Now it's destroying our stock market. It's had it's worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. Goldman Sachs predicting zero growth for the U.S. meaning all gains will be lost in the market and a possible recession. Supply chain disruption from china is starting to bleed in to the financial markets. The fear of this thing is burning billions of dollars as people run for the exits in financial markets all over the world. Uggh.

Posted by: Adam Feb 27 2020, 10:19 PM

Some airheaded party girl came back to Poland after spending a month in Thailand. She already felt sick before leaving and took some meds but she arrived at Warsaw, which is the biggest city here, travelled via train to another huge city and only there she went to see a doctor. The amount of people she could have infected before being isolated is just... 1 out of 3 genes she had tested was positive the other two were negative but people started to panic already. The official test results should be out within 3 days and only then we'll know if she really is a vector.

But this weekend there's IEM Katowice and the organizers and the medical staff decided to just have people tested individually before allowing them in. Katowice's president decided to allow nobody in, besides the players who compete in the tournaments. His decision overrides everyone else's.

On the other hand, my mom who is easily made hysteric and panicked, came home with a large shopping bag full of cold and flu medicine for everyone. Whether the danger is real for my family or not, one thing is certain: pharmacy corporations will make immense profits.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 27 2020, 10:30 PM

It's startin to make people act crazy. Amazon.com is running out of medical masks. Stores are selling out of cold meds, etc. It's barely even hit us here in the states and it's getting nuts already. In Japan they are closing all schools for a month just in case. MERTAY is right about IRAN. It seems to be the ground zero for the entire region and the death toll is just below the infected number in IRAN which is impossible. So they are faking the numbers.

to make things worse, people are testing POSITIVE after being released from hospital and declared healthy.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 27 2020, 11:02 PM

On tv someone said 97% of medicine material for flu (made in USA) comes from China,this also rised panic.

Recession was already expected for USA, but this is worldwide. Even before the virus China and Euro were showing strong signs, these periods are usually passed on long runs so it doesn't hurt the people much. The virus effect made it hit much stronger than it normally would.

China is said to have 30% role in world economic growth, now people realize depending so much to one country on production may have been a mistake. It's said that after this virus thing ends, likely a political change in world economy may start to happen.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 28 2020, 01:58 AM

Yeah, having all of the pharmacy production located in China is about to bite us in the back side. They are predicting shortages for generic medications of all kinds. Ugh.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 28 2020, 07:39 PM

This is highly unlikely and I haven't been able to find anything whatsoever to back up that claim. Was there a source referenced?
There seems to be a lot of misinformation on this outbreak being spread around and it's not just from YouTube. Anything you read about it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, especially if it is not sourced. Does that claim of 97% really sound believable? There is quite a bit of sensationalism being used in the news these days.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 28 2020, 08:02 PM

All I remember was he was an indian guy (not sure if American) owning a big financial firm in USA, topic was recession.

Actually I made a google search now and found this (notice date is august 2019); https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-dependence-pharmaceutical-products-china

The topic reminded me of a spirited discussion described in Bob Woodward’s book, Fear: Trump in the White House. In the discussion, Gary Cohn, then chief economic advisor to President Trump, argued against a trade war with China by invoking a Department of Commerce study that found that 97 percent of all antibiotics in the United States came from China. “If you’re the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics,” he said.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Feb 28 2020, 10:14 PM

Sadly it's very true. Almost all precipients and complete drugs used to be made here in the USA and some in Europe. Eventually, making them in China was just cheaper, so production moved to China. The problem now is that factories in China are shut down. So there will be a lack of production to some degree. We have a couple of months of inventory until this starts to bite us in the back side.


We have very few tests for corona here in the states. We need more. So far, CDC in Atlanta has been doing most of our tests and they can only do so many tests per day. We need to expand our ability ahead of this. sadly, the funding for CDC is going down 16 percent in the current budget instead of it going up as it should be given whats going on.

The Stock markets here continue to tank. We had the biggest drop in HISTORY in the market yesterday, 1200 points down in a single day. Trillions in value lost.

Posted by: AK Rich Feb 28 2020, 10:19 PM

Ok, there is some interesting information there and it seems a great deal of some of the active pharmaceutical ingredients produced do indeed come from China and also India, but also stated in the article that our dependence on those products from China may be overestimated.

"Moreover, we could have overestimated our dependence on Chinese-made pharmaceutical products. As of 2018, China claimed 13.4 percent of all import lines– defined as distinct regulated products within a shipment through customs–among countries that export drugs and biologics to the United States. Of these import lines for drugs and biologics, about 83 percent were finished drugs, and only 7.5 percent were APIs. We certainly underestimate the share of APIs from China given that Chinese-made APIs can come to the United States as part of the finished drug products from other countries like India. However, the lack of a reliable API registry makes it difficult to estimate the true market share of Chinese-made APIs."

On further searches I have found that API's (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) are produced all over the world and that the leading producers are based in countries other than China including Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Israel, India, China, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States. And even if production is outsourced to China, they are not from Chinese producers.

http://www.mdtvalliance.org/top-api-manufacturers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teva_Active_Pharmaceutical_Ingredients
https://www.imarcgroup.com/top-players-global-active-pharmaceutical-ingredients-market
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/active-pharmaceutical-ingredients-api-companies-and-manufacturers-2019-10-21

So even if that 97% figure is correct for some API's, which I still don't believe is that high, I think it is reasonable to believe that this could be changed rather quickly and easily because production of these ingredients could be ramped up in other countries since the infrastructure is already in place. I believe production will be ramped up in other countries as a reaction to the crisis we are seeing now because again, if that figure is accurate, it makes no sense and another reason being is that some products produced there have been inferior as the article you shared also states. So our eyes will have been opened. A potential problem in doing this is of course price related but I think that could be remedied as well as time goes on.

Posted by: Mertay Feb 29 2020, 09:37 PM

My thoughts exactly, this adjustment when happens will be a benefit for the whole world so like poor countries too can join in wold trade to some degree instead of one getting fatter and fatter till a day becomes a risk for others as we're witnessing these days.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 1 2020, 10:37 PM

Sadly, CDC is predicting a good chance a wide spread outbreak will happen in the states. Here is a quote and link from CDC. THis thing is coming for us. Get ready.

"It’s likely that at some point, widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States will occur."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html#risk-assessment

Posted by: Mertay Mar 2 2020, 11:11 AM

Interesting NASA photo, before-after virus of air-pollution.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 2 2020, 04:13 PM

I've always said that "when mother earth is done with us, she'll let us know" ...

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Mar 2 2020, 05:34 PM

Very interesting - and it def makes sense..!

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 2 2020, 06:17 PM

And when that happens, there won't be a damned thing we can do about it.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 2 2020, 07:15 PM

China is having the best air quality in quite some time due to all the factories. Being closed. No factory work, no pollution. Just goes to show the air pollution problem in China can be fixed by changing the method of energy use in their factories. They don't really have an E.P.A. to regulate pollution like we do.

CNBC interview with Doctor on firing line in big new york hospital.

"We are going to have thousands of cases by next week".


So if you are in the states. Be safe. Cases are expected to spike up.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 3 2020, 12:05 PM

Bit unrelated but can be considered connected, some may heard Turkey opened boarders to refugee's who want to leave.

Since monday the estimated refugee number Greece is trying to hold is nearing 100.000, depending on the situation in idlib (Syria) its very likely the number will hit a million in a matter of weeks. The refugee's are coming from various countries so the virus might be among them.

I checked international news agencies and there isn't much written about this, feel to me like avoiding so markets won't panic.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 3 2020, 07:04 PM

PS: This isn't going to be it, not even close.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 3 2020, 11:56 PM

I saw a speed where Turkeys President said they could come and go as they wanted. Which is very nice of him But Greece is sending out patrols with masks and unmarked vans to round up and arrest every immigrant that crosses in to Greece. With the conflict now in idlib/syria between Turkey and Syria, all the civilians are running for their lives. Folks in Europe are worried about a second wave of immigrants. Such is life.

Iran seems to have had a spike in corona virus cases and it continues to blow up around the world We had our first case in my home state of Georgia as well. This thing is growing faster outside of China than inside

Posted by: Mertay Mar 4 2020, 12:07 PM

It's not just Corona, after they migrated to Turkey we've seen disease's which were thought to be eliminated (infantile paralysis, leprocy etc.) or ones that were never seen here (foot and mouth disease etc.), also this like hepatitis jumped. A new born baby today in Turkey gets near double amount of shots till grown-up compared to pre-Syrian war.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 4 2020, 03:26 PM

Musikmesse 2020 postponed (the regional events 'Musikmesse Plaza' and 'Musikmesse Festival' to go ahead as planned)

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/musikmesse-2020-postponed-the-regional-events-musikmesse-plaza-and-musikmesse-festival-to-go-ahead-as-planned-47915

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 4 2020, 06:14 PM

We have had similar problems here due to illegal immigration.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 5 2020, 01:11 AM

Iran is having a severe outbreak. They don't have a great health system so many cases are not diagnosed. The U.K. cases are mostly folks who traveled to Italy. Italy cases are spiking. It's growing faster outside china than inside.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 5 2020, 07:19 PM

Posted by: Mertay Mar 6 2020, 07:11 PM

Maybe because its not spread here as much, doctors advize not to use masks.

They say you'll touch your face a few times to keep the mask in-place which is considered more dangerous. Also moise builds on the mask so the virus may pass to your hand from it. They say only people who feel sick should ware it.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 7 2020, 12:09 AM

That's correct. The cheap flimsy masks are designed for nurses (they are called nurses masks) and they are built to protect a patient from the nurse if she is sick. It won't help the nurse from getting sick because it doesn't create a seal around the mouth/nose. For that you need an N95 RESPIRATOR mask. Those are MUCH more expensive and they fit to the face. For it to be effective, one has to pick the right size and follow the righ procedure.



I was shocked to see how fast IRAN is spiking with CORONA infection. Also ITALY is seeing a huge spike.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 7 2020, 04:09 AM

The good news is that it's getting under control in China The bad news is that it's EXPLODING in Europe. Cases of Corona are doubling overnight in various states. In australia the entire country is out of toilet paper People doing panic buying. Fear is causing folks to act pretty strange.

We lost 30,000 people to regular flu last year in this country. We have barely lost a few to corona. It's true that it's more deadly, but mostly for older folks. Still, people are freaked out world wide.

South Korea has 6,000 cases!!! But it's because they test 10,000 people every day. They have FREE drive though testing for folks. We have a lot more cases here than we know about because we are doing a CRAP job on testing. We probably have thousands of cases that won't be detected until the tests become free and available.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 8 2020, 06:11 AM

40 to 70 PERCENT OF WORLD POPULATION COULD GET CORONA VIRUS: Egad.

Millions of People marked to not survive it. Also, Epidemiologists are saying it's probably going to become "Evergreen" and show up every single winter from now until the end of time just like the other corona viruses the common cold and flu. So it could be a permanent part of our planets virological makeup. Uggh.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 9 2020, 08:46 AM

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/08/investing/oil-prices-crash-opec-russia-saudi-arabia/index.html

add;

Why US stock trading took a 15-minute break this morning
From CNN’s Matt Egan, Anneken Tappe and Pamela Boykoff

Stocks resumed trading at 9:49 a.m. ET, after the New York Stock Exchange halted activity for 15 minutes.

What this is about: The NYSE has a series of “circuit breakers” that will kick in to halt market trading if we see severe declines in the S&P 500 index. It's basically an automatic breather to try and calm market.

There are three levels:

Level 1, when there's a 7% decrease – 15 minute halt
Level 2, when there's a 13% decrease – 15 minute halt
Level 3, when there's a 20% decrease – the market closes for the day

Posted by: Phil66 Mar 9 2020, 07:21 PM

It's in my town now. A case is in the hospital one and a half miles away.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 10 2020, 02:02 AM

Still spreading like wildfire. Italy has shut the entire country down for fear of spread. Meanwhile, we still don't have enough testing kits here in the states and folks still trying to figure out if they have to pay out of pocket or not, even if they can get a test. Our numbers are probably way worse than stated simply because we are not testing. here is the real time view.

Also, doctors are saying that this is likely to become a yearly thing. Just like the flu. Every year, it will show back up, kill lots of old people and kids, then abate during summer. Uggh.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 10 2020, 03:24 PM

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/09/health/toilet-paper-shortages-novel-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Mar 10 2020, 03:51 PM

No deaths in Denmark yet, but the number has gone from a few cases to 150 in a short time. A couple was quarantined and decided to travel to another country. How dumb. They were told they could stay in their hotel room when they arrived.

Another person went to a big party while knowingly having the virus. Not clever either.

I think the panic may be spreading faster than the virus, but of course we should be careful

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 10 2020, 06:35 PM

Sounds pretty dramatic. There is a whole lot of sensationalism going on in the media about this thing. There is no evidence to show that this thing is going to kill a lot of children. What we know shows that children are low risk. People that are high risk include the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/children-faq.html

I have yet to hear anything about this becoming a yearly thing like the flu either. Cooler heads are saying that this thing could be wrapped up sometime this summer.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 10 2020, 07:42 PM

I'm probably less alarmist than I should be but when did we all become so chicken shit.

Christ folks, it's a friggin flu. The reason it's called Covid-19 is because there's been 18 of 'em before.
Guess what, you're probably gonna get it sometime within the next 18 months ... and you're not going to die.

RELAX!

Posted by: Mertay Mar 10 2020, 08:15 PM

It's like when a fire starts and instead of people evacuate organized, they step on each other...

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 10 2020, 08:59 PM

Sadly, the mortality rate for this "Flue" is 20 TIMES HIGHER than regular flu. Thats what has people so freaked out. Just like flu, most people are gonna get this at some point. Just like flue, most people will get over it just fine. The bad news is that about 2 (edit thanks AKRICh, it's 20 timers more fatal than flu resulting in a 2 percent mortality, not 20) percent of them will just DIE. It's the 2 percent death rate that has people so freaked. The good news is that it's mostly people over 60 that end up dead which means most folks here at GMC will probably be just fine. It's parents and grandparents that are most at risk. People are over reacting partly because the news won't stop talking about this.

Either way, the reaction to it seems to be FAR worse than the thread itself. The Stock market sank 2,000 points in a single day and had it's worst week since the financial collapse of 2008. School/factories are closing. The economic impact of this is going to be far worse imho than the results of the virus itself.

It looks like 60 percent of the globe will end up getting this "flue" and Millions of people are going to die from it. Here is a bit from the guy who predicted the sars outbreak. Panic won't help. But being informed is all we can do for now.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 10 2020, 10:50 PM

No it isn't. It's only because relatively few have actually been screened and then diagnosed with it. The ratio is artificially high.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 12:43 AM

Yes it is I don't know where you are getting your info from ken, but I'm curious. Please do share. I'm being conservative at 2 percent. The W.H.O said recently it's closer to 3.4 percent. I"m not making this stuff up. It's info being shared by CDC and WHO. That's the only real info out there IMHO. At 2 percent, it's 20 times higher than flu for mortality. If it's really 3.4 like the WORLD HEALTH ORG suggestions, then it's 30.4 times as deadly. I know this is hard to absorb, but it's just what the folks who know most about it are saying. Here is a link. Please do share your information/links as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/04/coronavirus-flu-comparison/

https://www.sciencealert.com/covid-19-s-death-rate-is-higher-than-thought-but-it-should-drop

This is a quote from the article about the "GLOBAL" fatality rate. Not the "LOCAL" rates in different countries.

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing March 3 that the global case fatality rate for the coronavirus is believed to be about 3.4 percent, higher than the 2.3 percent reported in a China CDC study released in February


This is from the Director of the W.H.O. Some folks won't believe anything no matter who says it. Some conspiracy folks think the W.H.O. is is a pawn of some nefarious group. I don't buy that.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 11 2020, 12:44 AM

Finally, a voice of reason here! This thing has been so overblown in the media for whatever reasons (ratings, politics) that it's become a bit ridiculous. No wonder people are freaking out! And now I can't find friggin toilet paper. That 20% mortality rate is completely bogus and irresponsible to state. It's probably closer to less than 5% from what we know and maybe even less than 1%. Some people that are healthy may get this thing, get over it, and never even know they had it. From what I am hearing the avg age for people dying from this is close to 80 and I sincerely doubt that deaths will be in the millions. Unless you are elderly, immunocompromised or have other underlying health conditions, you will most likely be fine IF you even happen to get it.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 12:51 AM

Sadly, that rate isn't "Bogus" it's the global rate given out by the W.H.O and it's been revised up by the director of the W.H.O per my post. I get that some folks just don't want to believe this and wont believe it no matter who says is. God himself could come down and give a number and it wouldn't matter. Still, the CDC and WHO are the ones doing the global studies and those are the numbers. Some folks think they know better. I'm not one of them evidently

I'm not posting any wacky sources, etc. Only bits from CDC/WHO and major news outlets. However, I do agree, according to the data, that older people are most at risk and that most younger people who get this will be just fine. Globally, this does have the potential, according to CDC/WHO of killing millions of people. Most of them will be old/infirm/have underlying conditions. But they will still all be dead.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 11 2020, 12:53 AM

2% is a helluva lot different from 20%

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 12:59 AM

sorry for the typo. It's 20 times as deadly as flu according to CDC/WHO, 2 percent of people will die. I'll go fix the post. Most of them will be elderly/underlying conditions. Here is the chart on that from CDC. As mentioned, the director of the WHO himself recently said the mortality rate is closer to 3.4 percent. See above links. This is 30.4 times more deadly than flu and may result in 3.4 percent of cases ending with death. Of these, most will be older, and have underlying health conditions. For the younger cohort, there is very little to worry about. People in their 30s/40s/50s are really not at high risk. it's grand parents who are most at risk especially if they have an underlying condition.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 11 2020, 01:24 AM

Thank you.


Maybe edit this too. Old people maybe, but not kids.


I'm with you on this except for the name. 19 in Covid-19 signifies the year 2019. But yes there are other Coronaviruses, it is a type of virus.

"In choosing the name, WHO advisers focused simply on the type of virus that causes the disease. Co and Vi come from coronavirus, Tedros explained, with D meaning disease and 19 standing for 2019, the year the first cases were seen."

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/11/disease-caused-by-the-novel-coronavirus-has-name-covid-19/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html

Posted by: klasaine Mar 11 2020, 01:46 AM

Yeah, I realized that about 20 minutes after I wrote it.

In regard to the mortality rate ...
We don't know how many people have or had it because, especially here in the States, we're not testing hardly any of the population. The reason it 'seems' so widespread in Italy is because they're testing anyone who walks into a clinic.
I guarantee you that once we get real infection rates for the US, the mortality rate % will go down.
Both the CDC and WHO acknowledge that they don't know the 'actual' infection rate.

Here's the WHO stats as of two days ago minus the paranoia ... https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200308-sitrep-48-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=16f7ccef_4

Just for some perspective ... https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
2019 - 2020 flu season has killed between 20,000 to 52,000 people.
And this is with a vaccine.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 01:57 AM

Very true that the mortality rate is just a best guess. It's the best guess that has people freaked even though most folks are way to young to really be impacted. That link is a good resource. I'm a fan of WHO/CDC. Outside of that the information is just way far afield. We really are working in the dark to be honest as we are not testing very widely here. We won't really know what is going on until we get a lot further with testing. South Korea does 10,000 tests a day. We are just way behind. So the numbers are all just best guess at this point.

Also, it's the folks past 70 with underlying conditions that are at risk. The entire rest of the population is not really at risk. Mortality rates are very very low compared to the older cohort. So there is no reason for younger and even middle aged people to freak out. Most of us will get this and just get through it, just like the flu.

We are just at the starting edge of this thing, it's only a few months old and it's brand new. So health pros really don't have enough information. The news media is really just making it worse.

For anyone tending aging parents, this is a very real thing. My parents have passed so I'm far less concerned personally. I do feel for all the people that may lose their folks due to hopped up flu virus. They are the at risk group that we need to care for.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 11 2020, 02:37 AM

I agree, the mortality rate numbers we have now are far from certain and will go down and will probably end up being very close to the rate of seasonal flu mortality rates at a fraction of 1%.
Some folks in the media suggest that we shouldn't compare the flu with Covid-19 but I think that is what Colonel Potter would call "Horsehockey!"



For elderly people that are most at risk from both the flu and Covid-19. Getting a vaccine for Pneumonia may not be a bad idea since in many cases, it is not the flu that kills, but instead complications from it. I think they are good for about 5 years.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/pneumo/public/index.html
https://www.webmd.com/lung/pneumococcal-vaccine-schedule#1

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 03:03 AM

Agreed Covid and Flu and the common cold are ALL types of CORONA virus. This new one is just a new corona which is why it's called a NOVEL corona virus. Nobody has built up immunity unless they have been infected and even then people are being reinfected so they are not sure about immunity. As I said earlier, for most of us, it's nothing to really fear. It's just a harsh version of the flu if you are under 50 and in good health. Our country is so far behind in testing that it's sad. I"m more worried about our older population.
Baby boomers, especially with underlying health issues are the prime targets for this thing. I Hope the vaccine comes sooner rather than later.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 11 2020, 07:23 AM

Just because it's a best guess doesn't make it a good guess. It seems a bit irresponsible to me to put out a figure like that with very little data to justify it unless they add a disclaimer stating as much which I don't know if they have or not. I suspect that these organizations (WHO/CDC) are under great pressure from news media to give them some numbers on things like mortality rates etc, even though there really isn't enough data to give reliable info. It seems that the media's appetite for bad news is insatiable and I agree with you that they are just making things worse. Many so called journalists just don't take their responsibilities very seriously these days and it's a damn shame.

Posted by: fkalich Mar 11 2020, 08:00 AM

It is far more deadly than most a lot of people grasp yet. Italy is running a 6% death rate now. But in most of the cases the people are still sick, the recovery period for this illness can be 6 weeks. That death rate assumes that all the currently sick will survive. If you compare deaths to recoveries in Lombardy, the death rate is more than 30%, like MERS.

The .7% mortality rate for S. Korea has been quoted, the basis of our fearless leader stating that the death rate would fall to well under 1%. But if you look at the S. Korean numbers that was based on, only a very small number have recovered, the vast majority are still sick. At that point there had been 7.478 cases in S. Korea, but only 118 had recovered. The grim reaper jury was still out on the vast majority.

I have been prepared for this as best I could since SARS 15 years ago. I knew it was coming. I know what to do, and what not to do to minimize my odds of catching it. But you have to be willing to change your habits drastically. There are no guarantees, but you can cut your odds of catching it very significantly if you follow the rules.

You need to start right now. It takes some time to make them habitual.

Here a post by a surgeon in Italy, it is chilling to read....

https://mronline.org/2020/03/10/testimony-of-a-surgeon-working-in-bergamo-in-the-heart-of-italys-coronavirus-outbreak/

Posted by: Mertay Mar 11 2020, 08:04 AM

The median age of Europe to my knowledge is very high, USA is younger but still...I mean this also affects the % as it hits the elderly much harder than young.

Turkish goverment finally (officially) declared there is a patient with the virus. They didn't give a name or which city, announced at night time. I'll see today if this helped preventing any panic (currently morning here).

The first thing I stocked was cat food (I order online) as I live in a small area the markets are small, basically I stocked incase everyone else gets in a panic. I got toilet paper too lol

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 11 2020, 07:26 PM

I posted a graphic showing the fatality is really hitting folks past 70 years old. Younger folks just get a flu type effect. Most folks that die have underlying health issues and are older. Still it's got the entire world in a panic. You can't buy masks or hand sanitizer on amazon anymore as they are just sold out. Delivery dates are a month out. To make it worse, the W.H.O. finally declared it a PANDEMIC. We are at no greater risk than yesterday. However, this declaration is going to make the panic worse. At this point, the panic is going to cause most of us problems in some way, more so than the actual virus.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Mar 11 2020, 08:51 PM

Denmark going on lockdown after having the quickest growing numbers of the virus in the last days. 514 cases now, and from Monday onwards all crowds of above 100 people will be banned.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 12 2020, 12:38 AM

Wow. Yeah, it's happening all over the world. It's the panic and fear that are going to cause far more damage overall than the virus. The economic impact of just shutting everything down is gonna be bad. It will take a while to impact the economy and such. Folks are saying all this stoppage can cause a global recession. Uggh. Just what we need.

I also notice the video I shared has been made PRIVATE. Lots of videos seem to be getting deleted and made private. I'm sorry to hear this mania has made it's way to Denmark as well.

Todd

Posted by: klasaine Mar 12 2020, 12:47 AM

Just because a video or social media post says it was "made by a doctor" or is "advice from a doctor" or any other (alleged) health professional - doesn't mean that it was.
A lot of people are fucking sick in the head and they will use this hysteria to further their own egos (views, likes, thumbs up, etc.).

Beware the rampant idiocy on social media and youtube. It's contagious.

Posted by: Potsau Mar 12 2020, 03:13 AM

What Video did you share? Thiscould be something controlled by governments.

Posted by: fkalich Mar 12 2020, 06:25 AM

No, not right. In two weeks we will all be living in ghost towns. You won't go out unless you have to. We are screwed in the US because of the testing failure, what you see in Italy, expect it here, triage, you get the ventilator, you die.

And don't think if you are under 60 you will just get the flu. It can take 6 weeks to recover, this is nasty, people need to quit comparing this to the flu, we have some resistance to the flu, this is novel. !4 came back from a ski trip to Italy, all got sick, 4 hospitalized, three in serious condition. Yes the older, or those with underlying conditions are more vulnerable, but it can be nasty at any age.

People need to cancel everything in the US, and start distancing themselves, to slow this down, or the ER rooms are going to be swamped, and they will just have to start letting people die due to lack of ventilators.

Even if you figure you will likely survive infection, you still may get sick enough that you need a ventilator to do so. And that means you will take it away from someone else who needed one to survive, so who won't. Everybody needs to stop their social lives, go out as little as possible, and be careful to slow this thing down, or our hospitals are going to be so swamped they will just have to give people morphine and let them die.

The slower people are to accept this, the worse this is going to be.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 12 2020, 11:31 AM

A Turkish online news agency shared photo's of someones lungs who died in Wuhan at age 44.

I prefer not to share the link here but it writes he was hospitalized 2 weeks later when first signs appeared (probably one of the early victims). X-ray's remind of progressing cancer visually.

There are people who survived writing their experience online, they comment it was very nasty experience. Consensus appears to be whether it hits the lungs strong or not determines survival. Might be a last chance to quit smoking these days...



This is the most trending vid. today.

Posted by: Potsau Mar 12 2020, 12:23 PM

first schools have closed here

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 12 2020, 04:38 PM

It's a nasty virus to be sure. But let's all try to stay as calm as possible. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be good. The only positive news is that, per the chart I shared earlier, the motality rate is highest once you get past 70 years old. So most of us are likely to be infected at some point, yes. It's not a fun virus. Even some young people will not recover. Yes, we have seen people get re infected. However, panicking and panick buying will only make things worse for everyone. Take common sense measures. Try to stay away from people if you can, especially sick people. Wash your hands for 20 seconds several times a day. "social distancing" is one of the few things we can actually do. Try not do travel if you can help it. Stay off planes and cruise ships if you can.

We can get through this people I was actually more worried at the start than I am now. In the 20 through 50 cohort, mortality rates are very very low so most of us here are not going to die of this even if we get infected. Just brace yourself for the reality of things getting hard in life for the next few months. Try to have 90 days of medication, 90 days of food of some kind, and 90 days worth of money. I know this won't be possible for everyone but if it is possible, it's a good idea.

So take special care of your parents/grand parents as they are most at risk.

If you have a 401k. Stop looking at it. It's not going to be pretty. If you sell now the tax hit and market dip will wipe out years of your savings. So talk to a financial planner.

Keep calm and carry on folks

Bit of sad news American Actor TOM HANKS and his wife are both positive for CORONA virus. I hope he is ok as it would be a great loss for us to lose him. He is a national treasure.


Here is a real time map of current information.


Todd


This seems a bit alarmist to be honest. We are not going to have an easy time, but we will get through this. It's going to be long and hard, but most of us are going to get sick with this and survive according to the current research. Just be prepared and take proper precautions and tend to your elderly .

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 12 2020, 06:37 PM

Seems very alarmist to me as well, the claim of a mortality rate of over 30% in a previous post too. For reasons we discussed earlier, these mortality rate figures we are seeing are just guesses because we don't have definitive numbers on the denominator, definitive numbers on how many infected.
Also, a recent statement by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases puts the deadliness of this virus at only 10 times greater than the flu and not 20 times as has been previously claimed in this thread. A number that I believe will go down as we get more info.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/487086-coronavirus-10-times-more-lethal-than-seasonal

I'm not saying we shouldn't take precautions, we absolutely should. But let's not get carried away and get panicked or say things that may panic others. I will certainly be taking some precautions as I fall into the higher risk category since my immune system is a bit compromised due to chemotherapy which is part of my cancer treatment.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 12 2020, 08:01 PM

Some probably won't like the news org that this comes from but there is an interview with a spokesman for the WHO where he states that 80% of Covid-19 cases will involve mild symptoms.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/world-health-organization-coronavirus-80-percent-of-cases-involve-mild-symptoms

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 12 2020, 10:14 PM

Very true. Most, per the graphic that I keep referencing, are mild. The ones that get tricky are for older folks with underlying conditions. While it's true that some younger people will die, they are not an at risk group in general. Most will have only mild symptoms more than likely.

However I did notice every bottle of hand sanitizer was gone from the store today and people were guying toilet paper in bulk. Way out here in little lawrenceville GA, folks are freaking out.


Todd

Posted by: Mertay Mar 12 2020, 10:48 PM

1 month ago infected number was around 400, today its nearing 150.000.

What we learned from specially Italy, Iran is once this virus starts to show itself a peak occur-es inevitably.

This is why schools, public places are closed. This won't stop the "peak" but delay and/or slow it down from happening. If this peak can be pushed when people startto spend out outside more (nearing summer) then its guessed then control and maybe eliminating will be much easier.

Our role is simply avoiding getting infected as much as possible to help this plan.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 13 2020, 01:10 AM

You can make your own hand sanitizer by mixing 2/3 cup of rubbing alcohol that is 91% or better and 1/3 cup of aloe vera gel. You can add a few drops of your favorite essential oils for fragrance such as lavender if you like. Using too much sanitizer can dry out your hands so you may need to use some lotion every now and then to avoid that. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to make my own toilet paper.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 13 2020, 01:58 AM

What exactly is the deal with the TP hoarding - ? We make it all over the country. It's not like it's an import.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 13 2020, 03:50 AM

I know right? Seems absurd. Evidently it's psychological. There are some comforts that people simply will not risk being without. As a result of seeing panic buying, it has begotten more panic buying. The idea of not having spare double ply when needed is most upsetting for many folks. To the degree that they are filling up entire carts with nothing but charmin It's nuts. Factories are running around the clock to meet demand and still can't keep up. Despite the demand for certain products, the stock markets continue to implode. The knock on effects from the fear of this thing will be with us for quite some time sadly.

Todd

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 13 2020, 04:34 AM

I guess people just want to have enough on hand in case they have to hunker down at home for an extended amount of time, and then like Todd says there is a lot of monkey see monkey do going on. My folks went to Costco today and they said it was a madhouse with the most people there shopping than they had ever seen, including right before Christmas and Black Friday. Every checkout lane was running which is also something you never see there and there were only a few shopping carts that weren't being used. Apparently paper towels are something that everyone is stocking up on too. I have been able to find toilet paper now, just not our usual Kirkland brand. Apparently there isn't any currently in the state. Speaking of the state, Alaska, I am really surprised that we haven't had a case here yet since we are an international hub and get quite a bit of traffic from all over Asia coming and going through here. There have been about a couple of dozen people tested but all have been negative for this virus.

Edit: Apparently I spoke too soon. It was announced today that an international traveler flying in on a private cargo plane has tested positive. It sounds like as soon as he showed symptoms that he took steps to self isolate as best he could and arranged to see a doctor and has since continued isolation. It doesn't appear he was out mingling with the general public so chances are that if he spread it then it wasn't to many others and anyone he has been in contact with is being contacted by health officials for monitoring and possible testing.

Posted by: MrVegas Mar 13 2020, 08:05 AM

I dig this.

How man people here ave been affected?

How man people here ave been affected?

How man people here ave been affected?

Posted by: fkalich Mar 13 2020, 08:34 AM

We might get lucky, their might be a seasonal aspect to this. The 1918 Spanish flu settled down in the warmer months, as flu does. But it came back later in the year with a deadly vengence. But that would buy us time. We don't know if this one has the seasonal aspect, we are not sure whether MERS or SARS did. So ask yourself this question, "do you feel lucky....well do ya punk?"

Please practice social distancing to the best of your ability, stay away from people whenever possible, we as a society need to try and flatten the curve so our health care systems are not overwhelmed in the upcoming weeks. Half of us are going to get this, and it is worse that you may think, mild just means you were not hospitalized, anything from cold symptoms to walking pneumonia. But we want the infections to be spread over time, not bunched up in April to where our health care systems are so overwhelmed that they have to make decisions on who lives or dies as they are doing in Northern Italy, and soon will in all of Italy, i.e. "you mother with children, you get the ventilator, you live, grandma, goodbye"

These are the numbers for Italy. That is over 6% death rate if you assume all the ongoing cases recover, which is a ridiculous assumption. The high death is not just due to the disease, or the older Italian population, it is due to the fact that their health care system has been push past the point where they can keep people alive, who they could have have kept alive under normal circumstances. There are only so many health care resources. Health care systems are designed to handle normal flows, not pandemics.

Why in the hell do you think things are going to be different here. Look how we screwed up the testing! Closing down the sports was good, but we all need to do more, not just for ourselves, but for everyone, we need to practice social distancing as best we can to try and slow this down, we can't assume the Spring will do that for us.


Italy
Coronavirus Cases:
15,113
Deaths:
1,016
Recovered:
1,258

Posted by: MrVegas Mar 13 2020, 08:51 AM

We’r not there yet. Don’t be so scary.

Posted by: fkalich Mar 13 2020, 09:22 AM

For two months I have calling this one correct, as everyone around me knows, I got N95 masks, gloves, food and water for three months, sanitizer etc, etc. weeks before others were even thinking about it, and now they are scrambling to try and get stuff, often unavailable. I said weeks ago that the sports would all be cancelled, others scoffed at that. I predicted that the market would crash. And I advised family members, who now are lucky they listened to me.

I want to be wrong. I would just love people to tell me how stupid I was a month from now. But so far, I have seen this coming in advance every step of the way. Well I have been prepared for 15 years, since SARS, so I have known what was inevitable.

Seriously, my greatest hope is that a month from now people will ridicule me here, say how stupid and alarmist fkalich was. I hope to hell that this thing has a seasonal component and we get some breathing room, but I know that unless we get that, I know what is coming, and coming soon.

I am not saying to be scared. I am saying to SOCIAL DISTANCE, that is what people need to do now. Stay away from public interactions as best you can. I know we can't all live in a cave, but do your best, not just for yourself, but for everyone.

Think of it like Russian Roulette. Like in Deer Hunter. There are no guarantees, but if there is only one bullet in a chamber, your odds are better than with three. Just make the changes to get rid of the two extra bullets, I like those odds better. And you are not only acting in your own self interest, but in everyone's.

If you do nothing else, wash your hands often, never touch your face.

Posted by: Potsau Mar 13 2020, 12:55 PM

Corona. So no war.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 13 2020, 05:37 PM

Haha! That's terrible!

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 13 2020, 06:16 PM

well.. my county just shut down all gatherings over 200

Posted by: Potsau Mar 13 2020, 06:49 PM

All Schools closed in germany

Posted by: Fran Mar 14 2020, 02:57 AM

All I can say is that things are getting a bit scary over here. I believe Europe should have reacted sooner.

Schools are closed, and tomorrow a new battery of measures will be announced.

Fklich, I thoroughly agree with you.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 14 2020, 04:18 AM

Yup, it's starting to get scary over here. All the schools are closed, sporting events shut down, concernt cancelled. It's going to be a ghost town like fkalich said pretty darn soon. No sanitizer or toilet paper on the racks, etc. Folks are in full on panic.

At this point all we can do, just like FK said, is wash your hands often, stay away from people as much as you can, and try to stay as healthy as possible. Hopefully folks have stocked up on their meds/food/toilet paper, because shortages are starting to bite. Call your pharmacy ahead of going in to get meds since many pharmacies are already having shortages. Even though this thing mostly kills old people, all the people are freaked out and the news is making it worse. Now Tom Hanks has it and that was the last straw for many. If the rich and famous can fall victim, anyone can. Of course, it was that way before tom hanks got it. The president could have it and not know it. He has been exposed to a guy who had it. He could just be a carrier. Nice eh?

Posted by: klasaine Mar 14 2020, 06:06 AM

Schools are closing here too but not because kids are sick. Because they are not sick and they want to keep it that way. Next week or the week after is the start of 'spring break'. Everyone will be getting 2 or 3 weeks off instead of one week. Most large companies are having most of their work force stay (and work) at home if possible. Most events over capacity of 250 are cancelled. Again, because people are not sick. It's a state by state decision for now. California is a port and border state. We have contingency plans for this regardless of what the federal government does. Other than buying too much toilet paper there's no panic going on here. No touching, a lot hand washing and no large gatherings. Other than that, we're going about our business. I met a friend today for coffee and did some shopping. All perfectly ordinary except for the TP thing (which still baffles me).

Half my family lives in Italy. The reason the country is locked down is to keep the spread under control and not overwhelm the health care system. They're not trioging people to die. That's fucking ridiculous. In general, the Italian population is satisfied with the way their government is handling it. For example, my father in law can not leave his house without 1) a good reason and 2) written permission. He's in his late 70s and considered in a high risk group to potentially contract COV19. His wife, who is 15 years younger, is free to come and go as she pleases.
*Also, in some papers or online you'll that "Italy is under Martial Law". There are two types of police in Italy. The Polizia - they're like our normal city cops and the Carabinieri. The Carabinieri are technically military police as they are a branch of the Italian military. They are nation wide and can have an office in even the smallest and remotest of villages and patrol in vehicles and on foot. Anytime something is implemented on the statewide or national level, the Carabinieri are involved or tasked as the lead agency.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 14 2020, 05:12 PM

Life for the most part is business as usual here as well except for a few things that are similar to what Ken describes, extended spring break being the main thing. The stores have been busy but I haven't seen bare shelves except for toilet paper and paper towels and I expect sales on those items to be limited per customer. Also there seems to be a bit of a run on canned soup but supplies weren't wiped out. Not sure why, but the mayor of Anchorage has declared a state of emergengy. There has only been one case presumed positive until confirmed by the CDC. I think there have been voluntary cancellations of some large gatherings but nothing ordered yet. Out here in Big Lake there is a big pond hockey tournament going on this weekend and quite a few people out riding snowmachines since we recently have recieved quite a bit of snow, almost 3 feet over the past 2 weeks. So here, things are far from scary.

Edit: I just read that in Anchorage, the municipal libraries have been closed as well as some recreational and cultural sites. Also one of the checkpoints of the Iditarod sled dog race is being bypassed because of Covid -19 fears. Not sure why because it's a village out in the middle of nowhere.

Posted by: DeGroot Mar 14 2020, 06:26 PM

So far, our County in Chicago has 14 or so virus cases. Illinois schools are shutdown until at least March 30th. All of our park district activities and libraries are closed for the remainder of the month. Movie theater is limiting to 50% capacity. I'm guessing they will end up closing as well.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and ended up walking out because of enormous amount of people and lines. Most items I wanted had already been hoarded. Even seen a couple carts filled up with nothing but booze. Tried to get my wife some allergy medicine but all that was already gone. Tried again this morning ( a different market) around 6:00 A.M. and a lot of empty shelves. No fresh meat was available. They had some frozen burgers but that was about it. Luckily they had just stocked some bread so we have some things to go with our frozen items. The panic and hoarding is a problem for us last few days.

Last I heard some store are now limiting what people can buy so the non-hoarding people can buy some necessities.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Mar 14 2020, 07:31 PM

They have started limiting what people can buy here too in some places.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 14 2020, 08:43 PM

My only problem is being in a remote location, I've always relied on subway or bus. You can't avoid people there.

I don't want to buy a car as here gas and car is most expensive+ its obvious a worldwide recession is going to happen, cash is most important during such periods...

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 14 2020, 10:18 PM

that's 2 more than some of my gigs

Posted by: fkalich Mar 15 2020, 07:05 AM

This gives you an idea what your country is up against. The US looks to be in better prepared than Italy was. You can see why Korea has fared so well, they were exceptionally well prepared for a pandemic.

I have told my 6 dogs, we go to the dog park every day now, because in a week or two, we won't be allowed to go anywhere other than what is considered an essential activity by the authorities.

We will get though this I think, but in the immediate future we all need to keep a distance from each other was much as possible so we spread out the infections over a time line that our health care systems can accommodate.

https://www.niskanencenter.org/is-u-s-health-care-well-equipped-for-the-coronavirus/

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 15 2020, 05:50 PM

I believe that would take a declaration of Martial Law and that's not likely to happen. Things would have to be far worse than even Italy is experiencing. Maybe as a recommendation but not an enforced restriction to local travel.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 15 2020, 09:19 PM

Just remember.

Wash hands for 20 seconds
Use Hand Sanitizer (if you can find it)
Social distancing ( at least several feet/meters from other)
Don't go to public spaces with people.
It's time to be careful not panic

Todd

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 16 2020, 06:08 PM

Vaccine testing begins.

https://apnews.com/76b614811eef32955180c8260188bc24

Posted by: klasaine Mar 16 2020, 10:03 PM

So here's an interesting tid bit from Italy.
In a small village in the north east, in the Veneto region where it started in Italy (close to where my wife's family all live), they have tested the entire village. 70% of the population that tested positive were completely asymptomatic.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 17 2020, 02:20 AM

I think that's probably good news as long as people continue to avoid contact with others. But it also means that the mortality rate estimates we have been hearing about from there are most likely too high.

Some may be getting a bit carried away with the social distancing here in the states though. It seems that the City of San Francisco has issued a shelter in place order like Fkalich suggested would happen. I think this is unenforceable similar to how mandatory evacuation orders are unenforceable in the event of a hurricane, fire or flood during a state of emergency but maybe circumstances are different enough to allow it. I am sure it will be debated. I also don't see how the police force there could possibly have the manpower to enforce an order like that and still carry out their usual duties. We will see I guess. These are largely uncharted waters I think at this level of government.

If this kind of order is legal and enforceable, it probably should have been done by the Governor so that the National Guard can be used to help enforce it and I don't think that a mayor would have that authority. If you are going to try to do it, do it right, otherwise I don't think it carries any more weight than a recommendation.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Bay-Area-must-shelter-in-place-Only-15135014.php

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 17 2020, 02:48 AM

The entire thing has our country by the short hairs. People are just going nuts. You can't buy sanitizer or toilet paper anywhere as it's all sold out across the entire country!!! You would think the "END IS NEAR" and that the fourth Seal of Revelation had been broken and the PALE RIDER of Death had been released and given authority to kill on fourth of the Earth's Population with "PESTILENCE" (E.G. COVID19) and that he magically took all the toilet paper with hiim

I went to my doctor today and before I could even go in the building, a guy with an N95 respiratory made me sign a sworn document stating I had not traveled or even coughed or sneezed in the last 24 hours or I would not be let in to the building.

People are going a bit nuts.

Folks, when our number really is up, it's up, hording TP for your bunghole is NOT going to save you. Let's all try to maintain our dignity shall we?

The ASYMPTOMATIC Carriers are what is causing all the "COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION" E.G. Tyhoid Mary walking around infecting people.

Stay Calm and Carry on.

Todd

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 17 2020, 03:03 AM

At least one of the area hospitals here have a screening station at every entrance. I think they are basically just taking temps and asking a few questions though.

Typhoid Mary was a sick individual in more ways than one because she KNEW she was infected at some point and continued to infect others.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 17 2020, 04:20 AM

Very true! Typhoid Mary probably knew she was sick, but just like fast food workers of today, she was a low wage day worker and if she didn't work, her family didn't eat. So as a result, she just kept getting different jobs doing the only thing she knew how to do. She was a kitchen cook.

So we have millions of low wave laboriers today who simply can't "just stay home" because their families will starve and they will lose their dwelling place. This is a big part of the problem of community infection. Until we have plans in place to allow the lowest among us to survive without going in to work when they get sick, we are going to have a huge problem.

It's not just a problem here. It's a huge problem in Europe too.



retails workers can't "work from home" so folks at banks/fast food/grocery stores etc. could be infected and passing the illness to everyone within sneezing range.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 17 2020, 04:19 PM

Well, that's the thing. We aren't talking about people that are sick necessarily. We are talking about people that have been ordered not to work by government and they should probably be compensated one way or another. Maybe employees can be covered under unemployment insurance but that still leaves many businesses and independent contractors that would need to be compensated. Many small businesses could be bankrupted.
I have never been a fan of bailouts and I don't believe in "too big to fail" especially when a buisiness or corporation is in trouble because of their own failings, but when government shutters a buisiness or contractor and there is no fault of their own. Maybe a bailout ,if that's what you want to call it, should be in order and it has to be immediate. People can't wait for months because of a bunch of red tape when the bills are piling up and families are hungry.

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 17 2020, 05:17 PM

I hate the idea of bailouts , but once again banks are getting billions everyday and the rule that they have to have 10 percent cash to cover customers that might want their money has been lifted..The banks got 1.5 trillion overnight and that's just one night and then lost all their worth in the market in 1 hour ..we could have paid every adult 1000 for six months for that 1 night ..and the Banks get billions every night

government printing money, giving it to the banks for free and talking about covering workers unemployment for the people

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 17 2020, 06:36 PM

Right after I made that last post, there was a press conference with the President and the Coronavirus Task Force where many of the concerns that I have were addressed. Plans have not been finalized but I liked many of the ideas I heard. We will see what the final decisions will be.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Mar 17 2020, 07:59 PM

Now gatherings of more than 10 people have been banned here starting tomorrow morning.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 18 2020, 05:03 AM

I'm against bailouts for rich folks but I'm all for keeping regular working folks from going hungry and becoming homeless and such simply because they got sick cause they couldn't afford to skip work and have no paid sick leave. About a third of our country is one paycheck away from the street.

BEN: Yeah, folks all over the world are being encouraged to simply shelter in place and stay home.

As an aside, TYR is postponing the Tour dates in the States that I was auditioning for. Tons of other bands have also cancelled or postponed tours. Even our political process is falling victim to corona. Our primary voting is taking 5 times as long they are only letting one person in at a time.

The knock on effects from this are going to have very bad impacts on our economy. I just heard projections of 20 percent unemployment as a result of the knock on effects of corona virus. Ouch.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 18 2020, 04:44 PM

I'm not sure every adult In the country would need or should get assistance. Maybe that idea is more about stimulating the economy. But if you have been forced out of work because of government action, you should definitely be compensated and a safety net for those that get sick is probably a good idea too. Heaven knows I could use some help for my own and unrelated health issues, I haven't been able to work much at all for going on 2 years, but I am not so sure that I should get help for what's going on in the country now because so far it hasn't affected me financially, at least not yet.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 18 2020, 08:01 PM

Because of the knock on effects of "Sheltering in place" due to corona virus, our economy is taking a massive hit. We are being told to stay home to help stop the spread which makes sense, but the result is that spending is way down, businesses are closed, people who depend on day labor are out of work as the coffee shop they used to clean has shut it's doors temporarily, for example. The stock market has wiped out a years gains in one week. We are looking at the possibility of a recession and potentially massive unemployment if the small businesses that account for about half of our economy don't end up surviving or outlasting our "shelter in place" approach caused by covid19. A one trillion dollar stimulus bill is on the table and even that is just a drop in the bucket of what has already been lost due to lack of business activity as a direct result of corona virus.

schools and businesses are being closed on a massive scale. All the small biz places that support them are drying up as a result. People are driving much less also which has reduced demand for gasoline which has reduced demand for crude oil which caused the OPEC nations to have a slap fight over prices. The sheer scale of unforseen consequences of this thing are hard to fathom. that's on the positive side assuming one doesn't get ill and or pass on the illness to a loved one with underlying condition.

Pretty Grim financial outlook from a hedge fund guy. He thinks is we end up having to ride this out for an extended period, big parts of the economy will collapse.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 19 2020, 07:24 AM

If civic, state, and fed legislature tell us to shut down for the greater good, I'm fine with that ... but they also need to mandate that those who are being asked or told not to work, don't have to pay rent and at least some of their other bills during that time. And not just a , "oh, you can pay later" but a full on waiver. Or, send everybody affected 2 or 3 grand a month for as long as it lasts.

As far as bailing out the airlines - fuck them. They've been upcharging us for anything and everything over the last few years and taking tons of profit. They can kiss my ass.

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 19 2020, 11:51 AM

last time they got bailed out I believe they used ( about 90 percent ) their bailout to buy back stock

Posted by: Phil66 Mar 19 2020, 01:59 PM

Sent one of my workers home, sore throat. Fingers crossed.

Posted by: Arpeggio Mar 19 2020, 03:01 PM

Indeed. If someone has had it already and got better they won't be included in the comparison to death rate. Retrospectively the amount of people that could be, could be very high.

You should read this:

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Also Italy has the worst air pollution in Europe (it' out there if you look it up). Of course we won't be told this though!

The economic destruction from the lock-downs and hysteria will be more damaging.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 19 2020, 03:36 PM

Exactly. I'm sure every company that got a bail out last time bought back their stock.
"If" they get another one they should not be allowed to do that - ever.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 19 2020, 06:15 PM

Thanks Arpeggio! Great article by a reputable doctor and instructor at Harvard Medical School. I looked him up. Everyone should read it and I will be sharing it with friends and family. I have been thinking along these lines myself and in speaking with my Oncologists PA yesterday, he is thinking along these lines as well.


Maybe we should buy up the stock ourselves while the price is right. Just have to be careful not to pick one that is likely to fold. 😉 I have a neighbor who has done quite well for himself. Built up a multimillion dollar company from scratch and then sold it a few years back and built a retirement home out here at the lake. Before this crisis the buisiness was worth a billion, now its at about a quarter billion. Anyway, that's what he has been doing lately, not necessarily buying airline stock but a few others although he did mention one. Seems like a good investment if you can swing it and can hang in there for a while. He is looking at about a 3 year investment timeline depending on how the markets rebound.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 19 2020, 09:51 PM

A waiver for rent? What about the landlords, property owners who in many cases depend on the rent money to pay off mortgages for those rental properties and their own income? They shouldn't have to take a loss anymore than anyone else should.

I feel you about the airlines though. They seem to be getting a bit too greedy in many ways, and then cram us into their planes like sardines. Reclining seats are a bad joke, especially if you are tall like I am.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 19 2020, 10:09 PM

Them too.
A moratorium on mortgage payments while there's no income.

Posted by: Phil66 Mar 19 2020, 11:41 PM

I sent one of my workers home today, sore throat, his daughter's best friend is in hospital confirmed with Covid19. Fingers crossed he's okay and we will be too.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 20 2020, 12:27 AM

Yeah, I kind of figured that you meant to include them too. Thanks for the clarification.

I can see how this is going to be a tough thing to figure out. A one size fits all approach just isn't going to work. A lot of people are losing money in a lot of different ways and to varying degrees. So where are the lines going to be drawn as to who should get what? Not everyone is not going to be happy with what is decided. Where do you cut it off? Even millionaires don't deserve to get hammered and a million bucks ain't what it used to be, at least not in this state where the cost of living is pretty high. Even that kind of wealth can disappear pretty quick. I don't envy the people charged with trying to sort all this out.


Well that's probably not good. He probably should have known to stay home if he is sick and has people close to him who have tested positive for the virus. I hope everyone gets through it alright and you don't get sick too, Phil. My fingers are crossed with you.
It hits close and starts to get a bit worrisome when someone you know gets this thing. My better half, Stacie knows someone who has it too but we haven't had personal contact with him because he resides in California. He does a lot of traveling because of his work and is pretty certain he picked it up in his travels.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 20 2020, 01:54 AM

I agree! Shockingly so does the president to some extent. We are all going to get a thousand bucks in the mail as a check in the next couple of weeks to help with bills and some folks might get a lot more. Also, HUD has suspeended all evictions so folks can't get kicked out of their homes. Still, it's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme.

Very sorry to hear I also heard today on the news that ITALY is getting hammered with corona a lot worse than all the other countries in Europe. Edpidemiologists seem to be saying it's partly cultural. Italians do a double kiss to say hello and goodbye on the cheek, they often hold hands simply when having conversation. They love to get together and hang out, etc. Social distance is a semi offensive idea to many italians. They are paying thee price now




On the financial front, we have not seen a contraction of this size (on track for 14 percent) of our economy, EVER. Thats right. EVER. Not in the history of the republic. It has never happened. It has not happened yet, but that's the current prediction. The economy is simply in freefall and it's going to keep falling for about another month or so.



on the policy front, there are bills in progress that will top ONE TRILLION in spending/stimulus in an effort to keep our economy from falling off a cliff and causing an actual "Depression".

Posted by: fkalich Mar 20 2020, 03:02 AM

I'm afraid things are going to really blow up in the next week, and the weeks after that. Our failure to be prepared for this, i.e. very inadequate medial supplies, failure to test, etc. just put us behind the 8 ball. I expect the biggest first hot spot is NYC. Social distancing will help areas like mine. In Kansas City, hell everything is closed pretty much, just take out food, grocery stores, most retail is shut down, and the caseload is still light. That should help places lucky enough to not be one of the initial epicenters to not have the medical facilities overwhelmed as badly in this first wave. But people will be left to die in NYC, they won't have any choice, I understand that in at least some parts of Italy, if you are over 70, they don't even admit you.

The US had the chance to jump on this two months ago.

I freaking knew two months ago, it was obviously inevitable. I bought masks, gloves, sanitizer, stocked u on food then, i knew it was coming.

If someone like me in Kansas City knew it was coming two months ago, why didn't the Administration? We are going to pay for that, and they will just try to blame it on somebody else. They should have gotten into warp speed producing what our medical people needed months ago. That is the real biggie, that those people are going to be overwhelmed, and not even have the protective gear that they need.

Well, just try to avoid getting it in this first wave, things should be a bit better after that.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 20 2020, 03:05 AM

UPDATE: CALIFORNIA IS SHUT DOWN. The Governor has asked EVERYONE in the state of California to stay home. Yup. All 40 MILLION PEOPLE are being asked to skip work, stay home and shelter in place. Needless to say, this puts a stop to a lot of people working, lot of people buying/consuming/etc.

To put this in perspective, CALIFORNIA IS THE FIFTH LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD. Yup. And it just got shut down. As a bonus, there is no end date, also, he doesn't think schools will re open for the rest of the school year in California.

It looks like we are going to see just how much of our economy we can switch off at one time before complications of which start to have unpredictable results so extreme, that it merits risking infection, to open it back up. The GUV is saying that HALF the states population could end up infected. Egad. Weeks is the timeline for this. Thats 20 Million INFECTED People folks.

UPDATE UPDATE: There has been such a surge in unemployment applications that the web sites for signing up are all crashing at once. 70,000 new applications so far nationwide before the servers crashed. outch.

Posted by: fkalich Mar 20 2020, 03:08 AM

Yeah, that is it. Places that wait until they are hard hit to shut down are going to be overwhelmed. I probably am lucky where I am, at the back end of this first wave, and my city (Kansas City) has shut down pretty well, and most of it has been voluntary. Maybe our hospitals will just have twice as many as they can care for properly, rather than 10 times. I hope I am exaggerating.

I repeat. I knew this was coming months ago. I can prove that, I have text messages I shared with others advising them to get prepared. Adn who am I? Just some obscure person, but I sure as hell knew it, and I got myself prepared. I don't even need to leave my house for 3 months if I don't want to. So why didn't our freaking government recognize this, and prepare us for what was coming, if some nobody like me could see what was coming and make preparations?

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 20 2020, 06:16 AM

Man, you're not much of an optimist are you? And as far as the current administrations response goes. Most people seem to think they are doing a good job, including an increasing amount of Democrats, some of which never in a million years would you expect to hear praise from. Could they have done more? Maybe, but most people believe the step taken to ban travel from China early on when they refused to share data with the CDC bought us some much needed time to make up for some failings and unpreparedness that were not the fault of this administration nor the fault of anyone really in some cases, which is another thing that most experts now agree on even though initially the President was called racist for his actions which was absurd of course and since then other nations have followed suit. And let's not forget that China covered up what was going on there for some time before that which caused harm to the rest of the world at a time when a good deal of the Chinese people were traveling because of the Chinese New Year. Maybe try to have a little faith and realize as more data comes in that this thing doesn't look as bad as it has when we didn't know a whole lot yet. Things could be a lot worse. It's all good though, we are all entitled to our own opinions and you can be a pessimist if you want. But don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I do that too.

Posted by: klasaine Mar 20 2020, 07:14 AM

Here in LA we've been closed down for a week already. Restaurants have only been doing delivery and take out and all schools closed as of a week ago Wednesday. So far, folks are relatively relaxed and coping.
Still hoarding TP and milk but everything else you can find.

Me, I'm swapping speakers in a few of my combo amps just for the hell of it and because I ain't doin anything else. My kid's Kung Fu school is having classes/workouts virtually on-line every day and I'm letting him play as much mine craft as he wants.

I'll tell you this, the air is clean and it's really quiet. Though with gas prices dropping precipitously and us not being able to go anywhere, I can't help but think that the universe is seriously mocking me.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 20 2020, 07:27 AM

Watching those fuel prices and waiting to fill up my tank with some heating oil when the price is right. The price of regular gasoline has dropped about a quarter in the last week and a half or so here and I read today that a gas station in Kentucky I think it was had regular for 99 cents a gallon and promptly sold out.

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/gasoline-99-cents-kentucky

Here is some good news.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pence-says-admin-has-identified-tens-of-thousands-of-ventilators-that-can-be-converted-to-treat-coronavirus-patients

Posted by: Mertay Mar 20 2020, 02:20 PM

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 20 2020, 09:39 PM

All of Europe seems to be Shutting down as well. It looks like most of the entire planet is shutting itself in and cancelling school and hoping to wait it out. ITALY is now leading Europe in cases/Deaths. It doesn't seem like any country is going to be able to keep business as usual.

Some great vids shared in this thread and a really good one from Mertary just above. Solid advice and information. Here is the BBC with a global overview.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 21 2020, 07:39 PM

As of now age 65+ and those with conditions sensitive to Corona are not allowed to get out of their homes in Turkey. For those in need, police and army will help them (to get their medicine, food etc.) if they have no one else to depend on.

To be honest they should shut down completely. China did this and only now there are close to zero cases, other countries are testing to try spin the economy wheels slowly to lessen economic damage but I think this is a mistake.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 21 2020, 08:10 PM

Probably a good precaution. More states are coming on the news and declaring shut down here in the USA. So it's starting to happen one state at a time rather than all at once. Hospitals are starting to speak of shortages of basic equipment like masks/gowns etc. I keep hearing on the news how millions of items are being distributed, then folks on the front line (doctors nurses) get on tv and beg for help from anywhere.

Here is a report talking about how nurses are even starting to reuse masks (which is not a great idea). Nurses are starting to test positive and many are being asked to stay home after being exposed. If we lose our health care workers due to a lack of protective gear, this will get much worse.



A BIT OF GOOD NEWS!!!

China has not had any new local cases in a couple fo days. They are living with quite a few restrictions but it looks like they finally have it contained! They did have to shut down the entire country of course, but it seems to have worked! I think Mertay was right in suggesting more country closures, at least temporarily.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 23 2020, 07:10 AM

This is interesting;

Turkey got 2 million kits from China this morning (gives result in 15 minutes) an China didn't charge for it.

Apparently in 1919 a coholera outbreak occured in China killing 300.000 people. Atatürk (founder of Turkey) donated a large amount of supply and medicine to them and as a thank-you they donated the kits to us today.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 23 2020, 04:52 PM

I think you may be a few days behind in the latest news concerning this crisis. Have you been watching the daily briefings from the Coronavirus Task Force? A few days ago Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed that some masks can be resanitized and reused per CDC guidelines. It was also acknowledged last week that some doctors were asking for supplies but since then not so much as the whole process has been streamlined to make it easier and faster for those supplies to be made and for hospitals to get those supplies, so we are making progress there. There has been a great deal of improvisation and tearing down of red tape going on to get ahead of this thing.

It's not going to be a perfect and seamless response and there will most likely still be shortages depending on how fast and how long this thing progresses and there will be limits to how many and how fast the supplies can be manufactured and dispersed. Giving the private sector first shot at letting us know who among them is qualified to make supplies quicker and efficiently and of acceptable quality is a good idea before we go about ordering companies to make and distribute supplies that they may not be the best suited to do so.

There is nothing really solid to back this up at this point yet but some comparisons to other similar viruses suggest that this thing could taper off as we approach the warmer months of summer which would give us a much needed break. Keeping the faith here.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 24 2020, 12:22 AM

I've been watching news around the clock using news mix which shows four separate news feeds. Sadly, the news coming from various outlets is VERY different. Depending on which network you are watching, medical supplies are no problem or you see nurses and doctors coming on saying we are going to run out in one week with no date for delivery of any help. The gap between what is being said on different networks is staggering imho.

Here is a video from ONE HOUR AGO so pretty recent. About New York Hospitals running out of medical supplies this very week. He spoke to the President last night. Despite that, he is still saying new york public hospitals may run out here shortly before relief arrives.



As this is a "NOVEL" virus, we really have no idea whether warm weather will have any impact at all in constraining this virus. It's pure speculation and hope at this point, and hope is not a policy. It would be great if it falls off at least a bit during the summer as our economy is slowing down more each week. Once this is sorted, I think things will spring back, we really need a vaccine. I saw that we have started trials already!!! I hope the FDA pushes things through and allows as many options as possible for doctors.

Here is a video about seasonality and the virus with actual Doctors talking about the truth of it. It may or may not have any impact at all on the virus. The virus could live in the southern hemisphere during warmer months and then come back here next fall/winter just like seasonal flu does. So it could be the new normal but God I hope not.



[
quote name='AK Rich' date='Mar 23 2020, 11:52 AM' post='775904']
I think you may be a few days behind in the latest news concerning this crisis. Have you been watching the daily briefings from the Coronavirus Task Force? A few days ago Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed that some masks can be resanitized and reused per CDC guidelines. It was also acknowledged last week that some doctors were asking for supplies but since then not so much a
There is nothing really solid to back this up at this point yet but some comparisons to other similar viruses suggest that this thing could taper off as we approach the warmer months of summer which would give us a much needed break. Keeping the faith here.
[/quote]

Posted by: Mertay Mar 24 2020, 07:45 AM

The weather thing, I also started not believing that. Even in hotter climates around the world its still spreading very fast, I even wonder if hot weather is making it spread faster...so it might be a something made-up to keep hopes high.

But I do believe its possible to keep it under control by the summer, cause some countries managed this already.

Today an experimental drug has been started on critical patients in Turkey (came from China). It's said to decrease virus symptoms evolution from 10 to 4 days.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 24 2020, 05:32 PM

[quote name='Todd Simpson' date='Mar 23 2020, 03:22 PM' post='775916']
I've been watching news around the clock using news mix which shows four separate news feeds. Sadly, the news coming from various outlets is VERY different. Depending on which network you are watching, medical supplies are no problem or you see nurses and doctors coming on saying we are going to run out in one week with no date for delivery of any help. The gap between what is being said on different networks is staggering imho.

Yeah, staggering is right. At least with Newsmix, you get one that's accurate and reliable I guess.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 24 2020, 05:46 PM

NY Gov. asked for 30.000 ventilators but government could only send 400 till now, he said this live on TV.

Edit; Trump hinted 2 more weeks for lockdown...sounded very grim to me..

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 24 2020, 07:22 PM

Yeah, they think they will need that many in the next couple of weeks when they expect cases to peak. So they don't absolutely need them today. They have around 6000 in that state and they are supposed to get another 4000 in the next couple of days from what I am hearing, plus another 2000 from the stockpile. Looking at the numbers, they likely will not actually need another 30,000 since the recovery percentage is over 98% in this country and the majority of those infected (roughly 80% of those infected so far) will not need a ventilator since they are for the worst cases. We will see how it plays out but it is very possible that he can get that number of ventilators anyway. There are different types of ventilators, some are used when patients are under anesthesia during surgery and those can be converted easily for the kind of use needed to treat the worst cases of Covid-19.

On another point concerning testing. It was announced today that the US has done more tests in 8 days than S.Korea had done in 8 weeks and our total tests are now on par with theirs and that our testing rates are going to be increasing exponentially. Also, there are to be some self tests that are to become available soon, possibly including one that involves a pin prick where the results are almost immediate.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 25 2020, 12:14 AM

The 15 day plan suggested by the President was always meant to be reassessed at the end of the 15 days and possibly extended. I don't think anyone really thought 15 days would be enough, including the President. We still have 7 or 8 days left on that plan.
I watched the town hall meeting with the President and members of the Task Force today and the daily briefing as well, and my takeaway was that the President is optimistic that people can get back to work and the economy can be up and rolling again by Easter if not sooner. I didn't see it as grim at all.

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 25 2020, 02:31 AM

I am trying to make sense of this post ...Why ?

Posted by: klasaine Mar 25 2020, 02:56 AM

Cali is not even considering re-starting schools and larger gatherings until at least May 6th (or 8th) and I'm betting that schools won't resume until next fall. Just write off the spring semester.
As non-alarmist as I am about this, I'm also a realist. Easter is a pipe dream and dangerously early. We all need to keep our distance for at least a solid 6 to 8 weeks.

On a brighter note, most folks here have stopped their panic hoarding and you can find what you need. the national guard will probably be employed to keep people from partying on the beaches and in the parks.
My biggest concern here in LA (and SF) is that it will spread unchecked in the homeless communities.

On another bright note I can definitively tell you what is the best 12" replacement speaker for a Fender Blues Jr.
Eminence 'Cannabis Rex' hands down, no contest. *I tried every 12" I had in all of my amps and cabs - american, british, hybrid - the C Rex is the one. And yes, it took hours over several days.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 25 2020, 07:38 AM

New York (our epicenter) is still really worried about having enough supplies and things getting worse every day.



Here is a vid with a doctor treating covid patients on the front lines. The problem of Doctors getting sick is a serious issue. If they don't have the protective gear they need, (some are being told to buy their own gear and also re use your protective masks, which is just not a good idea). If the doctors start getting sick from not having enough masks, they can't treat any patient, corona or otherwise.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 25 2020, 08:08 AM

Egad. I had not even thought about that. You are right. It's going to burn through the homeless communities like wild fire. Cali has a huge homeless population and they are very at risk. Also, none of them have health insurance so they can't get regular admittance to a hospital normally. They have to use the emergency room like we would use a regular doctor. Emergency rooms can't turn people away even if they can't pay. The aged, infirm, and now the homeless, seem like the most vulnerable populations. I really hope these projections are way way off. I keep seeing numbers from CDC and others that just seem like insanity. I just can't bring myself to accept the idea that we could lose tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of our countrymen before we find a way to stop this.

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 25 2020, 12:29 PM

On a side note
French border guards seize a truck with a 130,000 thousand face masks bound for Britain (mail on line news
Czech Republic seized 100,000 masks from china bound for Italy (Independent)
Germans seize supplies headed for Switzerland (RT)
Kind of shows when the chips are down , The EU falls apart

Posted by: Arpeggio Mar 25 2020, 12:34 PM

https://nypost.com/2020/03/24/new-york-hospitals-treating-coronavirus-patients-with-vitamin-c/

“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C............vitamin C levels in coronavirus patients drop dramatically when they suffer sepsis, an inflammatory response that occurs when their bodies overreact to the infection."

Study for Sepsis: https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(16)62564-3/fulltext

"The hospital mortality was 8.5% (4 of 47) in the treatment group compared with 40.4% (19 of 47) in the control group (P < .001)"

Sepsis is one of the leading complication of influenza deaths. 11 million deaths a year.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sepsis-deadlier-than-cancer-as-study-shows-11m-deaths-a-year-vnjqdmpts

Posted by: Darius Wave Mar 25 2020, 12:36 PM

Agree. I don;t believe in a miracle that after all this situation, we will be able to return to our regular schedule within weekes. I keep my fingers crossed to at least start a regular giging since september. I mean...I wish....I truily wish this would go away within weeks...but same as you, I'm a realist.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 25 2020, 06:43 PM

Hoping to get the whole country back to work by Easter I agree is probably a bit too optimistic but the plan has always been about constantly re-evaluating the data to determine how to move forward and it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that parts of the country could start working again. We will just have to see when we get there and there is certainly nothing wrong with hoping for the best even though it may not be possible.

A bit off topic maybe but it had occurred to me that doomsday preppers and those that cater to them don't look so overly paranoid anymore and are probably feeling a bit vindicated lately.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 25 2020, 07:15 PM

Sounds like a bit of a dubious claim to me. I doubt that a healthcare worker can procure their own gear nearly as fast as a hospital can get it for them, especially when hospitals are the number one priority as to who gets that gear now. Also, there are indeed risks with the extended use and reuse of N95 masks, but if the manufacturers recommendations and CDC guidelines are followed, those risks are minimized. So, not necessarily a bad idea.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hcwcontrols/recommendedguidanceextuse.html

Posted by: Mertay Mar 25 2020, 07:30 PM

Here when someone is tested positive, they take them to isolation immediately (for example without letting them take stuff from home).

Incidents start to happen as while they're waiting for the test result some escape and get cought by the police.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 26 2020, 02:26 AM

Let's wait to pass judgement until we see if our own states can manage to not start stealing ventilators from each other. We are already seeing citizens of our own country doing massive price gouging which is just sickening imho.

Egad. That's rough. People are afraid to get positive tested if they think they are gonna get thrown in a place full of sick people that they may never escape alive. Some folks say this is the problem with "Self Testing". If we do self test and it's positive, how many folks would admit it? Some folks don't eat if they don't work. Millions of folks actually. We have a big chunk of our population that can't write a check for five hundred bucks if they had to. Folks that are one paycheck away from the street. now those people are losing their jobs in food service and what not. A lot of people are very afraid. We are getting a bit stimulus package that should put a little food on the table for everyone, but even that check is a few weeks away. In countries where they are not doing stuff like that, I imagine people are downright desperate.

We are seeing famous folks coming down with it as well. There is no way to escape it if one is out and about doing a press tour and such. Idris Elba is the latest one and here he is with his daughter. He tested positive which means he has also given it to his daughter

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 27 2020, 05:20 PM

I am fairly certain that all tests are to be submitted to the CDC for confirmation one way or the other. That is where the final confirmation has come from after tests have been "presumed positive."
The first case in this state was "presumed positive" until it was confirmed by the CDC.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 27 2020, 06:31 PM

-969 people died in Italy in a single day
-Boris Johnson and health secretary Matt Hancock are infected
-USA surpasses China with most virus cases

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 27 2020, 08:34 PM

With self testing, they are not forcing anyone to submit results. Doing so would be pretty tricky. So folks that self test can just look at their results and keep it to themselves if they want. Only tests that run through labs / cdc are being included in the official numbers.

I found this news VERY disturbing when I saw it. USA now has more infected than CHINA! We have become the global epicenter of the virus outbreak. Not a good sign. Whats worse, it's still going up every single day. Despite this, we keep hearing about some folks wanting to "open back up" before we even get to the peak of infections. It seems like a good way to infect way more people

This is a pic from a briefing in new york. No more press people. Just military people in the audience spread several feet apart.


I saw that news about italy as well. About 1,000 per day dead from the virus. It's really gone nuts in Italy. They are out of space in all the cemetarys in the breakout area. Miiltary trucks are having to take the coffins elsewhere to be buried. They are not big on cremation in Italy but they are starting to have no other choice.

Sorry to hear about the Prime himself coming down with this. I hope he makes it out the other side. Most people will make it through with minimal symptoms. Some folks just don't make it.

In New york, hospitilzation jumped 40 percent in one day!!!! New York subways are still running and people are crammed in and getting sick. New yorks health system is being over run. People are being put in the hallway as there are no rooms left.

MOST DISTURBING: The end of the video. In New York, Doctors testing positive are being asked to go back to work after 3 days without fever. Even if they are still testing positive. So we are going to have doctors/nurses who are still positive, treating patients.

This vid from German News. The infection is expected to hit the migrant camps all over the world. Greece has a 20,000 person camp on the island of lesbos. If the virus makes it in to these packed camps, it will spread quickly.



It seems way premature to think we are anywhere close to this being over.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 28 2020, 06:27 PM

I certainly hope that isn't correct. I am pretty sure that early on it was ordered that all test results were to be submitted to the CDC so that we can have accurate data on infections. It makes no sense that people would be able to keep the results secret. It would be simple to enforce if people had to supply some evidence of address when obtaining a self test which I don't think are available quite yet. The first to become available is one where the swabs are sent to a lab to be tested, so not much chance of keeping that a secret. It also appears that the FDA will not approve any test that does not require a doctors approval to obtain a test in the first place.
So it looks like at this point that ALL tests will be run through labs and therefore will be included in the official numbers as they should be.

https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-make-at-home-coronavirus-testing-work

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-home-test/

It has been ordered by the Governor that a shelter in place order is in affect for Alaska starting today, as well as a state wide travel ban. Looks like it's going to be a quiet weekend here at the lake.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 29 2020, 02:23 AM

As bad as we have it, we have it easy compared to Italy and Spain. Anybody here from Italy or Spain?



Sadly in the U.S. as of yet, we have ZERO FDA approved home test kits. There were some folks trying to do at home collection of swabs that could be sent in to labs and the results tracked as they should be but the FDA stepped in and pretty much said no, so far. So in the states at least, we really can't self test right now, at least not officially.

HOWEVER, There are grey/black market tests available that claim to show results at home without the need for a lab to be involved. None of these are approved FDA tests and none of the results would enter the CDC tracking. If anyone sees an advert for a home test in the states, make sure it's been FDA approved. Hopefully soon we will have at home testing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-home-test/

in England, they do have an at home test that is self contained and requires no doctor or lab. They bought 3.5 million of these but they have not been distributed as of yet it seems since they are still be looked at to make sure the results are valid. It's an antibody test to see if a person has already had the virus. If one has antibodies to covid, one has probably had it and may not even known it. The results, if positive, would indicate the person should have some level of immunity at that point.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-mass-home-testing-to-be-made-available-within-days

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 29 2020, 01:12 PM

There is a reason they are called drive by media , they stop throw out their story and drive away and let others pick up the peices and clean up the damage..They love a story , They love a headline ..The sky is falling..And without it they don't have a show..Life is hard enough and has enough troubles without listening chicken littles..
I think a little postivity will go a long way

This new new count has a world wide rate down to .5 percent , and that is from as high as 8 percent in some places
Things are getting better.. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 30 2020, 03:14 AM

The numbers of infected are still going up all over the world, sadly. Dr. Fauci from the white house thinks we are 2 weeks away from the peak of deaths. Even the administration is saying 100,000 dead would be a "good" goal number if we can stay below it. We can be as positive as we want and still get sick. Taking care and taking steps to stay safe are all we can do. Here is the real time info on the global pandemic. The sky isn't falling. It already fell. It fell really hard on Italy and Spain. It's falling hard on New York. I just hope it doesn't fall on the rest of us. At least there is always hope

721,233 INFECTED (not dead, thanks to crsn and rich for the correction, it's typo, I'm not a journalist so I can't really create fake news) as of this post.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 30 2020, 07:02 AM

First of all, I think you meant to respond to Cursin, not me. Secondly, there are not anywhere near over 721,000 deaths as you stated at the end of your post. Those are cases! Aka number of infections. Take a deep breath man. The death toll worldwide as of this post was just over 34,000. And that is not even in the same ballpark as the yearly seasonal flu death totals worldwide which has actually been fairly close to 700,000. Also take note of the 159,000 plus recoveries from Covid-19 which actually seems odd to me because if you run the latest numbers, you get about a 4.7% mortality rate worldwide which would mean recoveries must be higher than listed and should be 95.3% shouldn't they? So in the US it should be over 98% recovery, right? Recovery meaning, that percentage of infected didn't die, at least not yet. The numbers listed add up to almost 23% recovery but it seems to me that it must be quite a bit higher than that and I don't believe those recovery numbers to be accurate because I think there is a good chance that they are not updated properly. A great deal of them were not even hospitalized because there was no need.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html

And just for the record, here is today's actual quote from Fauci. I know because I watched it. He didn't predict anything, such as 100k to 200k deaths, but the media is reporting as if he did. What he did do was talk about the LATEST MODELS scenarios.

"There are things called models, and when someone creates a model, they put in various assumptions. And the model is only as good and as accurate as your assumptions.

And whenever the modelers come in, they give a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario. Generally, the reality is somewhere in the middle. I've never seen a model of the diseases that I've dealt with where the worst-case scenario actually came out. They always overshoot."

Posted by: Mertay Mar 30 2020, 12:36 PM

A video about how China succeeded (still in a struggle but life is slowly going back to normal there), I don't think the free world can take measures like that;

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 30 2020, 06:02 PM

As far as the recovery goes in China and how successful they are in stopping Covid-19. I have trouble believing it because they have suppressed information from the rest of the world and their own people from the beginning. Everyone in the world should understand that the suffering in countries around the world are in large part due to the Chinese government holding back critically needed information and their continued negligence in allowing situations that contribute to these kinds of outbreaks in the past and present. The rest of the world needs to make sure that the Chinese government is held accountable for allowing this thing to be as bad as it is. Maybe our debt to them should be erased is an idea that I have heard floated recently.
Here is an article that goes into what I have stated here. Everyone should read it and remember, and that even now, things are most likely worse than they say. Do you really believe their mortality rate numbers or the number of infected for example? Because I sure don't, but that is for another post.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/

Posted by: Mertay Mar 30 2020, 07:55 PM

Yes there isn't much to disagree about what happened in China and how they "handled things" before+during the spread but to be honest blaming things at this point doesn't matter much.

In-fact, it diverts (political) pressure from responsible politicians and imho they need to be pressured to do their best. Every country without exception took the situation too lightly and now we've only started to face consequences.

Posted by: AK Rich Mar 30 2020, 08:46 PM

Oh I agree. Right now we just need to get through this, and that in the future, the rest of the nations of the world need to take steps to ensure that they are much better prepared for a situation like this. But after all the dust has settled, I think it's important for all of the nations of the world that have been affected by this to stand together to hold the Chinese government accountable, and for big changes to be made in how the world does business with China and how China is allowed to do business with the rest of the world.

Posted by: Mertay Mar 30 2020, 09:33 PM

I expect that to happen no matter what. We've discussed the mistake of depending on Chinese production so much was a mistake, maybe not economic but strategically. As the Covid jumped to India who knows which material shortages we'll see in a week or 2...

I expect China's era of extreme growth to end anyway, I mean even before the corona we were discussing USA tariff's. And even before that globalism was discussed specially in EU weather brexit or refugee issue's.

So 2020 economically in down to thrash, might even extend to 2021. Probably by 2022 we'll likely see a re-shaping of what we understand of globalism and global marketing.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 31 2020, 05:18 AM

The long term effects of this on our population and our global economy are hard to predict in terms of specifics, but it does seem one good thing is oil/gas is getting cheap. Expensive gas/oil is just a shadoow tax imho because it can be just as cheap as it is right now, at any time. Only by restricting supply does opect make the price rise. They are in a slap fight with russia now and are trying to over produce to make russia yield. I don't think it will work. Underestimating the Russians ability to cope with harship is always a mistake.

I do hope it lights a fire under govts to start spending on pandemic research and general research and also to spend on stockpiling so we are not caught off guard, again. But only time will tell.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 1 2020, 11:34 PM

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 3 2020, 03:47 AM

The day I moved to Florida, the Governor shut down the state. We are now on the same trajectory as Italy which is not good news. Which is to say our curve of death/infection is going to be similar to theirs. Here is DR FAUCI who is the Presidents main guy on this top and a very smart man whom I've come to respect. Bad news is he says this is still gonna get worse before it gets better. Shockingly, here in Florida, Church services are still being allowed despite the fact that it's going to get a LOT of people sick and get a lot of people Dead. Florida has more old folks than any other state in the union. It's a very vulnerable population.


We have had about 10 Million people asked for unemployment. These are numbers we have not seen since the great depression. We lost 13 million jobs in the great depression and it took 3 years. We will lose more jobs than that by the end of next week. It's just grim. I wish I could put a more happy spin on it. One Million plus Infected and we are not even at the peak yet.

We will get through this. Stay strong, stay calm, practice guitar!

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 4 2020, 03:03 AM

NURSES CALL NEW YORK HOSPITALS A "SUICIDE MISSION"
*Deaths DOUBLE in one day. I was hoping this would be wrapped up by now and it's getting exponentially worse day by day. Stay safe folks. I'm in Florida and the entire state has been shut down. It happened the day I got here.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 4 2020, 05:08 PM

Turkey isn't doing so well either. Despite having a small timing advantage and getting test kits sooner, the increase is still rapid. A peak in nubers is unavoidable but how you get there matters for total number affected.

Anyone under 20 or over 65 is prohibited for going out and those who do must wear a mask. All city's are closed (you need paper to from one to another), there are quite a few small town/villages under strict quarantine.

We don't have any kind of shortages yet but time will tell, I guess after USA it will be our turn to go through the peak.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 4 2020, 07:40 PM

Quarter Million cases here in the states. Growing exponentially. 10 million unemployed, not since the Great Depression have we seen this. Now CDC says EVERYONE SHOULD WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC. It's just insane here. 1 in 4 deaths are in New York. about a thousand a day die here from these. They are saying a quarter million deaths would be a low number. My state of Florida is shut down til april 30th. A hundred thousand body bags have been ordered. Frozen meat truck are backed up to hospitals in new york to act like portable morgues. Uggh
stay safe

Posted by: Mertay Apr 4 2020, 08:37 PM

Yeah that started here yesterday, we are lucky to have washable masks but my mom made a few too. Turns out the asymtomatic young are the main spreaders, closing schools was one of the first thing we did but they were worst about not caring and act as if summer holiday started as of yesterday finally they're ordered to stay at home.

To me USA's main problem is every state has its own measures and some really loose. So even if one state gets better in time (like NY) another will get bad and this period will be way longer for USA compared to other countries.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 4 2020, 10:21 PM

this is also our strength though..people living in farmland where there neighbor is 2 miles away do not need to act like NY City..The states do not need to wait for Trump to implement any measures and lets face it with everybody wanting to impeach Trump for farting to loud it is better for him to leave it up to states
Bottom line -- governors fault not Trumps

Posted by: Mertay Apr 4 2020, 11:25 PM

We started quarantining small villages (most very away from cities) first, the details of why isn't announced but to my understanding in such area you get connected with the same people more often than compared to the city. Also given a proper hospital is likely far, they delay going as long as possible (north Italy may also be an example). Your farm example is correct but a tiny community may spread the virus even faster.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 4 2020, 11:51 PM

We just heard that from CDC. That young asymptomatic people, strong and healthy, are infected, and don't know it. They can spread without sneezing, just by talking to you. So now cdc has reversed direction and says everyone should wear a mask in public to keep from infecting other people.

You nailed it mertay. it's going exponentially up here and we are weeks away from the worst of it. Feels like living through the walking dead.

The young people spread this like crazy since they thought they were immune for a long time.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 5 2020, 06:13 PM

Actually, the CDC recommends cloth face coverings and homemade masks because surgical and N95 masks should be reserved for healthcare professionals. If you already have the masks, then wear them, but we shouldn't be trying to buy new ones. Below are links to the CDC recommendations as well as instructions on how to make your own masks.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html

Who says that a quarter million deaths would be a low number? And what is the timeframe? The latest models project 100,000 to 240,000 and so far since those projections have come out, we are not on pace to reach the 100,000 low end of the projection by the time we are expected to be on the downhill side of the curve which was 2 weeks after the models came out. At least that is what I understood from the graphs that were shown. The models came out about 4 days ago I believe. I myself don't think we will reach 100,000 deaths in the US, at least not in the short term.

Posted by: klasaine Apr 5 2020, 08:30 PM

We are nearing completion of our 3rd full week of lockdown here in Cali.
Pretty chill for the most part. Some small pockets of stupidity but certainly no more violence than usual (cops here rarely ever respond quickly to non-violent crime reports even in 'normal' times). Police are actively breaking up baseball, basketball and soccer games in the parks and writing $1100.00 fines for surfing and/or picnicking on the beach. Non essential businesses that remain opened have their water and electricity shut off.
I haven't had any problem getting supplies I need, even TP . Definitely less hoarding going on.

For the record, CA boasts a shitload of firearms. Second highest below Texas. *Alaska has the highest amount per capita.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 6 2020, 12:01 AM

Surfing seems sort of isolating an both cleansing from the salt water.. as far as the Guns , you mean to tell me Law abiding gun owners are not violent and not shooting up everything ..huh .. who would of seen that

Posted by: klasaine Apr 6 2020, 12:26 AM

The reasoning is that they don't want a ton of folks going to the beach and 'congregating', so they crack down even on just one or two.
They pulled this guy out of the water on Friday I think ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_Hamilton

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 6 2020, 02:48 AM

More than 300,000 cases nation wide. Trump warning to prepare for a LOT OF DEATH. This thing is still getting worse sadly. New York, Detroit, will reach the apex in the next week or so. Be safe people. We are all we have and we have to count on each other. Help where you can, give when you can, stay home because we simply have to in order to slow this down.

2500 beds added in new york. Every 2 and half minutes someone in new york dies of covid 19

Posted by: Mertay Apr 6 2020, 08:45 AM

Posted by: Mertay Apr 6 2020, 10:37 AM

Worst pandemic leader ever; https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/05/uk/boris-johnson-hospital-coronavirus/index.html

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 6 2020, 11:58 AM

so.. you do know CNN is considered fake news , they told us they had proof of Trump being a russian agent for three years , now their paper's a good replacement for toilet paper,just take with a grain of salt, a very big grain

Posted by: Mertay Apr 6 2020, 12:32 PM

CNN (or other) isn't fake news, independent journalism is

But its true he's hospitalized from other sources. If it weren't for France prime minister threaten him to stop all commercial affiliations, UK would be going through a tragedy now.

Posted by: klasaine Apr 6 2020, 04:21 PM

CNN is no more 'fake news' than Fox.
The Boris Johnson story is completely legit. There's nothing even remotely controversial about it. He has lingering symptoms and they want to check him out.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 6 2020, 06:02 PM

Not talking about that story in particular. But in the last 4 years, and longer, Fox had been far more accurate than CNN in their reporting. It's not even close. CNN has been wrong so often that they really have no credibility as a news organization anymore. I'll take it further and say that CNN is straight up propaganda for anything political or politicized. Worse than a tabloid and worse than fake news. The Russians couldn't dream of doing a fraction of what CNN and some other news organizations have tried to do to influence the outcome of elections in this country.
Edit
The extreme bias coming from them and some other news organizations is so completely obvious that everyone should recognize it. They don't try to hide it, and many so called journalists from these outlets have admitted it, are unapologetic about it, and even wear their extreme bias as a badge of honor.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 6 2020, 09:19 PM

it is how they color a story and turn it into propaganda , weather it is left or right ..
you need some Jimmy dore stat and all I ever watch from fox is Tucker Carlson , The hills rising and I find the truth usually finds itself right in the middle

Posted by: Mertay Apr 6 2020, 10:15 PM

True but when the next president is a democrat fox will be just like cnn again its just how media works (not specific to USA either). The losing side goes into propaganda period as long as needed, the winning side stop pressures their journalists so they can actually have some time to do their job

Cnn international is globally stronger than fox specially on TV, thats why my habit is following them as a non-US citizen. Their website is also to me better than fox.

https://www.foxnews.com/category/newsedge/international
https://edition.cnn.com

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 7 2020, 01:35 AM

I have to disagree with you on that, at least in part and basically on the degree of fairness and balance. Fox has never been just like CNN. Not even close. The vast majority of big news media was in protection mode for the last administration. Obama was a media darling to the majority of the media to a much higher degree than Trump is a media darling to one big network which is Fox news. Call it propoganda lite if you want but they were very reluctant to report on things that would be unfavorable to that administration and even when they did, they made light of things, dropped it and moved on. Now that a somewhat more conservative admin is in office, they are reluctant or flat out refuse to report on anything positive or may cast the current admin in a positive way. The amount of uncorroborated and unsourced so called bombshells that have come and gone from media like CNN and MSNBC (just to name a couple) that have turned out to be completely wrong are far more numerous compared to what we have ever seen from Fox. And Fox has been more balanced and accurate in their reporting during either admin. Of course Fox leans one way, but the vast majority of the other big networks lean the other way to a greater degree, and even though they may lean to the right, Fox has been consistently more accurate for more than a decade.

There have been studies done at different universities over the years that have consistently shown that the vast majority of the media leans left and that during this admin, the reporting has been in the high 90's percentile in the negative. It was the opposite to almost the same degree during the previous admin. So although there is some truth to what you say. It is far from equal or balanced from one side to the other.
The bottom line is that this admin hasn't got a fair shake from the vast majority of the media in this country and arguably the world, with many being completely hostile to conservatives and this admin. And it wasn't close to being equally the opposite during the previous admin.

We all have our opinions on this and I don't want to turn this into a debate on media bias because this thread, or this forum for that matter is not really the place for it and we all have better things to do, so I'll just add a couple of things and be done with the topic before we go off on a tangent.
I assure you that I can show numerous examples and overwhelming evidence that supports my view to the extent that there really isn't a good argument against it, and it appears to me that most people see it too when you look at the various favorability ratings, grading and polling on the subject. It also seems that some don't want to admit it, or don't care, or that some may think that the level of irresponsible journslism we are seeing is somehow justified because of a political ideology, but what the media and the Democrats have tried to do to this President and his supporters is beyond disgraceful in my view.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 7 2020, 05:17 AM

Can we try to focus on the facts at hand? The facts are frankly shocking. Here is a clip (NOT CNN OR FOX) that tracks the timeline of how we got from having very few cases to having more cases than any country in the united states. It's just a bunch of clips from the news and words from the lips of our leaders/experts put in to a timeline. This is how we got to where we are today. All we know for sure is that this is not a "hoax". It's real.

*IF YOU DON"T HAVE TO GO TO THE STORE THIS WEEK, THE GOVT SAYS YOU SHOULD STAY HOME. THIS IS IT PEOPLE. THE BAD WEEK. STAY HOME< STAY SAFE.

*for some reason the Governor in Georgia has OPENED THE BEACHES!!!!! Sheer stupidity and insanity. Funeral homes are running out of body bags. There is no more space at any of the morgues in the hot spots. They are putting frozen meat trucks in the back of the hospitals in new york to fill with dead bodies.Now they are considering mass graves. Something we have not done since world war II




Let's leave all that kind of talk out of this thread before it gets closed please? Accusations of who is and isn't fake news we can just leave to our illustrious president who is not shy about calling anyone "fake news"? Everyone knows which news is fake and which isn't. Trying to convince the other side is just a silly slap fight waiting to happen. Thankyou for your restraint.





Let's leave our personal views of who is and isn't "Fake news" out of this thread please before it gets closed? Everyone has their own thoughts on who is and isn't full of crap and we can just please keep those to ourselves in order to keep this conversation going? Feel free to share clips/vids/etc. Just lets try to restrain ourselves on accussations of what is and isnt fake news? We don't need another silly slapfight causing this information thread to get shut down. Thanks for our restraint in this matter.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 7 2020, 07:26 AM

No-one has ever said that it was a "hoax" in reality. Sorry about the little sidetrack we got off on there. I said my piece in response to someone else and I'm over it now. I'll ask you for a favor too though. Please be more careful and pay better attention to the things you post here. For example, the other day you mistakenly posted that there were over 721,000 deaths worldwide from Covid-19 when as of today there are just under 75,000. Back then, the number was just over 34,000. That post was from March 29th and is on the 9th page of this thread and the error was the very last statement that you made. It is under the video if you would like to go back and correct it. I responded to you in the very next post and corrected you but I guess you must have missed it.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 7 2020, 01:15 PM

so ..you can give any story or news source , but if I question it I am the one in the wrong ..that's ripe , especially coming from the one most responsible for getting threads shut down since "you voted " to not have political dialog ..Of which I voted to keep political dialog exactly for this reason , if we need to discuss something of utmost importance .. it is way to easy for you to shut my speech down just by saying" I am the one " being controversial ,all the while you get to say what you think

was it fake news, a Freudian slip or just an accident when you said 721,000 people died when only 75,000 had , was is good for rich to call that out or is that too controversial to point out

How about this :
Getting laid off sends many into depression
same people are not suppose to go outside to even exercise (which is a leading stress reducer )
except to go to the grocery store the only place where everyone is telling everyone to go , if you have money,(if you want to have a pandemic , tell everyone to go to the same place )
The stupid people in charge have no clue what to do , you see this as their suggestions on what to do changes every other day and the way in which Media sensationalizes, this needs to be called out , weather it is fox , Cnn or ABC running a story about a covid-19 ward in new york when it was taken from Italy

I said CNN was fake for saying Trump was a russian agent, and they had the proof, for 3 years and the Mueller report cleared him, prove me wrong that CNN did not do that and I will strike it..( funny how the stupidest president "ever" , covered his tracks so well )
Did you know the Meullar team even dropped the case against the Russians they indicted , thats how poor their case was .

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 8 2020, 03:36 AM

I was referencing our president. He was the one who said it was a hoax, see vid below. Folks have been twisting themselves in to pretzels trying to say that despite him saying it several times, he meant something entirely different. It's not worth a back and forth as folks are gonna believe what they want. I'm just sharing the vid that I was making the reference for. I was trying not to use his name directly as I didn't want this to devolve in to a closed thread. But, here he is using the H word saying that the democrats basically made it up as a way to attack him. Surely you saw this on the news? I apologize for getting one of my numbers wrong and thanks for the correction. Skip to 3:56 to see him say this is their new "hoax" and mention nobody has died yet. Then they have Fauci come on and they ask him if it's a hoax at 6:16 and he side steps it.


My only point being this is a very real thing and was treated as a fake thing for several weeks while it took hold of our country. Either way, we are where we are and we have to work out way out of it together. So who said what doesn't change anything. Just wanted to point out that somebody pretty important did in fact use the "H" word several times. Simple as that.

To prevent my making another typo, here is a screen grab of current numbers. See for yourself where we are. The united states is having trouble "Flattening the curve" and our health care system is being overwhelmed. This is bad news.

This is a long clip showing how the information from nearly every source has been confusing and contradictory. CDC has contradicted itself several times, and changed it's position several times, not to mention the W.H.O. This is a NOVEL "New" Virus so everyone is figuring it out as they go and as a result, as new info becomes available, the recommendations change in real time. This results in serious confusion on the part of the audience which is why I started this thread. To try to keep up with the constant changes. Per the still image, we are NOT flattening the curve and instead, we are seeing a HUGE spike up. This is very very bad. It's going to be hard. We are going to have to pull together.

One this is clear. We are [b]LEADING THE WORLD IN DAILY DEATHS, per chart below. [/b


Here is the live vid that I'm taking these grabs from.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 8 2020, 08:14 AM

Yeah, I knew exactly what you were referring to. That snippet is taken completely out of context, in fact there is no context at all in that short little snippet. Trump was comparing the Democrats politicization of the crisis and the ctiticism of the Trump administrations response to the virus to the Russiagate fiasco which he also calls a hoax and also his impeachment in the House which he calls a hoax as well. He also has described those two Democrat endeavors as "witch hunts" which they certainly look to be and were a complete waste of time and taxpayer dollars. This is what most voters believe by the way. He in no way called the virus itself a hoax, period. I know this because I saw the entire statement in full context from him myself. Nevermind what the "news" says. It's just more bs political spin, simple as that. And that's putting it nicely.

This is from Snopes. The link is below.

What's True

During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax." During the speech he also seemed to downplay the severity of the outbreak, comparing it to the common flu.

What's False

Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/

This is from factcheck.org with a link below.

Even after Trump explained his remarks, some Democrats — including former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg — continued to wrongly accuse Trump of describing the coronavirus as a “hoax.”

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-new-hoax/

And finally, this is the entire video of the rally in Charleston. Scroll to 1:13:55 To see for yourself what was said in context and unedited.



I hope this thread does not get closed because I think it's important, although I believe there have been some significant exaggerations made here. But I can't let you get by with making a claim like that which is clearly false without a correction, or a challenge if that's what you want to call it.
And thank you for the correction in your earlier post about the number of deaths from Covid-19.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 8 2020, 12:37 PM

A little common sense ,might go a long way

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Apr 8 2020, 07:49 PM

We have tried going the politics path before and it did not work out too well. So unless this thread can be kept strictly fact driven around the coronavirus we will have to close it.

Even though Tucker Carlson has had some occasional good moments in regards to the coronavirus - embedding fox new videos generally takes us further away from facts.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 8 2020, 08:10 PM

That is your opinion and highly debatable. I hope you are not going to sensor, or even discourage news reports from Fox news.
You can do what you want obviously, it's your party, but it wouldn't be right.

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Apr 8 2020, 08:24 PM

Generally we want to avoid any thread that ends up being a copy and paste of various news sources - whether they are legit or not.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 8 2020, 08:31 PM

I think I see what you want ..If a video has good info. and it is worth saying, type it out , condense it , a link (for conformation ) and debate the essence of the video

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 8 2020, 08:39 PM

I'm not sure I follow you. Isn't that what this thread has been about from the beginning? Sharing news and personal observations about Covid-19? This thread is full of cut and paste from various news sources isn't it? Not trying to argue with you, just looking for some clarification.

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Apr 8 2020, 08:50 PM

Yes, it seems so. And this can take us into political ground if we are not careful - which is what seems to be happening now.

I am more than happy to discuss politics - but I have found that for the good of the community it is best left out here.



Generally yeah, if we use our own analysis - discussions seem to get more friendly and contain less 'fake news' stuff.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 8 2020, 09:00 PM

Ah ok. I understand what you are saying now and I agree. Thanks for the clarification. I think we just had a little bump in the road so to speak and we will be staying more on point now. Thanks for your patience in not closing down what is an important discussion, Kris.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 8 2020, 10:38 PM

So good news for USA estimated death gone from 80.000 to 60.000 considering if current precautions continue till august. I heard California was extremely successful and now the government is analyzing their success.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 8 2020, 11:10 PM

they have sun , warm weather and vitamin d from walking in the sun. I think hiding inside is a death threat to someone that is vulnerable

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 9 2020, 12:24 AM

Good news indeed. I think the revision to 60,000 is actually down from 100,000 - 240,000 though instead of 80,000 which is even better.(Edit: Apparently these IHME models are being revised more frequently than I was previously aware and 80,000 revised down to 60,000 may be the most recent adjustment) I think, and I am hopeful that as we continue to get more data, that those projections will continue to fall and that we will end up with a result that keeps us below the avg seasonal flu morbidity rate.
Early on there were projections and speculation that millions in this county could die but as we move forward and continue to get more data, things are looking better and more manageable.

Other good news is that in New York, hospital admissions and ICU admissions have fallen over the past few days and the number of people being released from hospitals has risen. Hopefully this continues as a trend as the death rate going down is sure to follow.

As far as California goes, I think they have done a pretty good job there. I wasn't real happy with the mayor of San Francisco shutting things down the way he did because I think the governor should have taken the lead on that kind of action. But it has worked out for them and right now they are looking really good in spite of the kind of international traffic that flows through there. I think the travel ban from China early on helped too. It seems that in New York that international travelers that were infected may have taken the long way around from Europe probably contributed to the outbreak there, as well as a slower response by leaders there in regards to implementing a shutdown. A full travel ban from Europe implemented sooner maybe could have helped too.

There is still a chance that this could taper off as we move into summer. I realize that there are outbreaks in the southern hemisphere too but we have to consider that those countries are moving into the winter flu season as countries in the northern hemisphere are moving away from it.

Posted by: klasaine Apr 9 2020, 12:46 AM

Going out as little as possible is what is helping us.
It's been raining here in LA and pretty much all over CA for most of the last two weeks solid, which is keeping peeps inside. Also, as I've mentioned, the governor and the mayor of SF and LA are being really hard line in dealing with people who purposefully disregard the rules.
Almost everybody here in Los Angeles wears some type of mask when they enter any type of shop (that's opened).

The real 'trick' will be to see if we can continue to be vigilant. If we slack off because it looks like we're doing OK - all hell could break loose.

Angelenos want to get the back to work, so the mantra here is, "the longer you break the rules, the longer we have to do this - stay the fuck home, and if you go to the store, wear a mask".

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 9 2020, 04:08 AM

Things aren't too bad here in Alaska. Last I saw there were about 200 cases and maybe 6 or 8 deaths. The mayor of Anchorage followed suit with the mayor of San Francisco and took action with shutdowns before the governor did and the restrictions there are a bit more strict than the governors restrictions for the rest of the state with more businesses able to stay open as long as they practice social distancing.

At least one grocery store out here in the valley has installed sneeze guards at the checkout counters. And there are still some items that are a bit harder to find including TP, paper towels and facial tissue, some canned goods, especially soup, flour and sugar, some cleaning products and probably a few other things that Stacie and l forget at the moment.

My neighbor went to the valley hospital for some blood work the other day and said that all but 2 floors of the hospital are shut down. The main building is probably 5 or 6 floors. The reason being that most elective procedures have been put off until the danger is over so they can have plenty of space for C-19 patients if needed. As of now they might have two C-19 patients there but I am not sure about that. There have been a few cases in the valley but it's possible they may have went to one of the Anchorage hospitals.

I went into Anchorage today for my immunotherapy and chemo treatment and noticed that there were significantly less cars in the lot than usual so I suspect that some of that hospital may be shut down as well. My oncologist is in a separate building than the main hospital building and there were significantly less cars there in the parking garage for patients too. All of the doctors, PA's, nurses and staff were wearing masks as were the patients except for one guy that the head nurse kind of scolded and reminded that he was high risk for C-19 and that he should be wearing a mask to protect others as well as himself and then gave him one to wear. Everyone's temp is scanned before they let you in past the receptionists and inside they do a great job of keeping all the chairs and surfaces wiped down as patients come and go and there are plenty of bottles of hand sanitizer spread throughout the main floor area as well as the isolated rooms.

Traffic going in and out of Anchorage was definitely reduced but there was still a fair amount of cars on the road, more than I thought there would be but it was pretty smooth sailing. It usually is if it isn't rush hour but I always avoid that so I don't really know how much that has changed. Life out here at the lake is pretty quiet. From my place, on a clear day or night, l can see air traffic coming and going from Anchorage International and Jber which is the joint Army/Air force base and I can see that air traffic is greatly reduced. It's a bit eerie and kind of reminds me of right after 911. Even the small aircraft traffic like Super Cubs and the like is greatly reduced.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 9 2020, 04:52 AM

It seems many folks are just abandoning their animals out of fear that somehow their pets might end up infecting the owners with covid19. The good news is that there is very little chance of this and that the pets are more likely to get infected from the owners than the other way around. So if you have pets, it's safe to keep them This is a interview with an animal health expert.



A bit more bad news from New York. It's the highest Death Toll yet in Epicenter here in the states. The "curve" is flattening but 779 people passing away in a single day is just flat out horrible. 2,000 police officers in NY have tested positive. My heart goes out to folks in New York. We have a lot of infections in Florida, but we have nothing near as bad as New York. If any of our members are in New York, please be safe.

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Apr 9 2020, 09:34 AM

Same here in Sweden!




Let's completely leave out the embedded videos in the thread from now on - so we can keep it alive.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 9 2020, 09:46 AM

With pet/animals, the virus sticks to their fur just like its can for example on a grocery bag etc. and it can reach inside their bodies. But the thing is it can't or very limited replicate itself as their metabolism is very different than ours.

It has news potential I can agree with that but there is also a potential some ignorant idiot may abandon his/her cat after watching such news. Thats why I really dislike tv's showing stuff like that.

Also TV's don't cover family abuse cause of lock-down. There are many woman (even children) getting hurt by their likely un-employed husband who's always at home but yet again they have no voice.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 9 2020, 07:54 PM

There are stories about that getting some traction here in the US, but not a lot. Recently the media is a bit focused on the disproportionate impact on African Americans and other minorities because of increased underlying conditions among those groups such as Diabetes and Hypertention among other things as well as many being more exposed in the general public or large numbers of other workers because they are still working in jobs that are considered essential. Also it seems that in many cases or in some areas, men are falling victim to the virus in much higher numbers than women.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 9 2020, 10:17 PM

dr scott jensen is one of many being urged to blame covid-19 for deaths not being tested for it ,as well as many dieing with covid but not because of it thus inflating numbers ..this , to me, is troubling

And some might get mad , but this disease affects many conditions brought on by being overweight ..Is it allowable to talk about keeping oneself healthy and yes I know it kills healthy people too , but the numbers would surely be lower

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 9 2020, 11:00 PM

It's not really the virus that kills directly but has more to do with complications that come from it such as pneumonia, sepsis, heart failure etc, so essentially it is still the cause of death in some cases. In other cases, if you get infected and you have underlying conditions that make you weaker such as diabetes, hypertension, immunodeficiency or are compromised in some other way, you may not have otherwise died if it weren't for the virus putting you over the edge. Obesity is a big problem in this country and has all kinds of negative effects on ones health which puts those people at a greater risk of death if they are infected, but in all these examples it is still the virus that puts those people over the edge and kills them. So I see those death numbers as legit for the most part if not completely as long as there is a definite diagnosis of Covid-19, otherwise it would sound a bit sketchy and could be over inflating the numbers of deaths, so I can understand Dr. Jensen's point too but I'm not sure how significant the difference would be.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/physician-blasts-cdc-coronavirus-death-count-guidelines

I think you could say that underlying conditions and bad heath are exploits that the virus takes advantage of making death more likely for the host in a sense, but that's probably not the best analogy. The bottom line here is that this thing is going to kill the weakest of us that become infected. It's the law of the jungle in effect. Only the strongest survive.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 10 2020, 03:15 AM

Some numbers on the current state of affairs in the states.

1.) 17 MILLION UNEMPLOYED :

This is the highest number of officially unemployed people since we started keeping track of the numbers. During the GREAT DEPRESSION we lost 13 Million jobs over 3 years. We have lost 17 Million Jobs in the past several weeks and we still have more to go. Economists have no idea how long it will take for us to recover from this or if we can recover fully at all. Some jobs are just gone forever.

2.)NEARLY 2,000 DEAD IN A SINGLE DAY

We are losing around a couple thousand people each and every day at this point. The numbers are just staggeringly bad. Hopefully, this is the apex and we will start seeing a decrease in the number of dead each day. See post by AKRICH below. Even if numbers start to decline, we are still looking at tens of thousands of dead, just in this country and in the space of a few months. Not to mention the tens of thousands of dead all over the world. Covid is now the leading cause of Death in the United States.






3.)NEARLY HALF A MILLION INFECTED

We are fast approaching half a million people infected. We are also starting to see new trends that are just becoming apparent. For example, people of color are getting sick and getting dead at a rate that far exceeds the rate of white folks as a percentage of society. Black people are more likely to be poor, more likely to have underlying conditions and less likely to have health insurance. Like most things, minorities and the poor are bearing the brunt of it.

4.)DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASES SPIKE DUE TO LOCKDOWN

In every country around the globe we are seeing a spike in domestic violence reports. The lockdown has created a situation where abusers and the abused are locked in one place with no real way to escape. Women and children are being abused in record number due to social isolation as a result of the virus. Also, the severity of abuse seems to have increased as well. Social isolation increases pressure as does the economic uncertainty of all this. The result is a big spike in those unable to defend themselves or leave being abused.

5.)TRACED TO BATS

Scientists now believe that the virus probably started in bats and made the step to humans via blood and or urine from the original infected bat. It's suspected that the original infected bat may be from the "wet market" in Wuhan China where the initial outbreak started. For more see last video link below. As the virus matures, it may mutate and become part of our seasonal virus list. E.G. Just like regular FLU, we may see new strains of covid19 and get new covid shots, just like flu shots, each year. Fun.



ONE BIT OF GOOD NEWS!!!!!

THE CURVE IS GETTING FLATTER!!! Due to social distancing, it looks like the rate of infection has stopped accelerating. Thank God for that. At least it's stopped getting faster every day. New York is the "first in" to the worst of things. So every other state is looking to them as a template on what to expect and how to best cope. So it looks like things have "peaked" which is a victory in a sea of loss and death.

Stay home. Stay safe, try to stay sane.

numbers taken from NBC news
https://youtu.be/TWi_ucqdC9M

domestic abuse spike information taken from DW News Germany
https://youtu.be/szK7WSRZPeM

origins of corona, bats from wet market taken from NBC news
https://youtu.be/f2aDEPZbLEI

**Always vet your information if possible. Don't trust facebook for anything. Social media is NOT a good place to get news. Try to source news through CDC, W.H.O, NBC, CBS, PBS, BBC, DW. All of these sources are about as good as news gets in a world where nearly all information/news is vulnerable to some sort of dilution/political slant.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 10 2020, 04:54 AM

Yeah, we had a big spike and a peak on April 7th with 1,970 deaths but those numbers have declined yesterday and today so hopefully that trend will continue and we will be on the downhill side of the curve.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/coronavirus-becomes-leading-cause-of-death-in-us/ar-BB12o7aQ

There is a graph with this article.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936

And a time lapse sort of graph with this article.

https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Doctor-shows-COVID-19-deaths-compared-to-top-15-causes-of-death-569524971.html

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 10 2020, 09:41 PM

Here are a couple links to some interesting videos with good info and animations to illustrate how these viruses invade our bodies, penetrate cells that the virus then turns into a factory of sorts to create millions of copies of itself and then obliterate the healthy cell as those millions of copies are released to repeat the process, as well as some other info about pneumonia and vaccines and how our immune system works to combat these viruses.

https://youtu.be/5DGwOJXSxqg

https://youtu.be/Rpj0emEGShQ

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 11 2020, 01:06 AM

Good stuff!! I have seen several things about new trials for antibody type solutions in the works. Hopefully, we will see some effective treatments for this very soon.

Todd

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 11 2020, 02:39 AM

According to the graph at this link that is updated daily. The daily count of deaths went back up and surpassed 2000 for today. Not so good. But as we see numbers for both hospitalized, and admitted to the ICU continue to drop, and the numbers of C-19 patients being released from the hospitals continue to rise, those death counts should follow and drop too as they are expected to lag behind a bit. Keep the faith!

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 12 2020, 12:39 AM

GREAT news that in NEW YORK (our epicenter for covid) that ICU admissions WENT DOWN!!!! Finally.

I shared a vid about this in my other thread that is packed with embedded vids. It's wonderful news that we are finally not going up and up every single day. We may have finally turned the corner on this thing. We have more deaths than China at this point, where this whole thing started, and despite the fact that they have about triple our population.

It's still very very sad to see nearly a couple thousand or so people lost to this thing each and every day. All we can do is pray and hope for the best and for some medicine to come through as quickly as possible. Until then, try to stay safe and sane and stay home


quote name='AK Rich' date='Apr 10 2020, 09:39 PM' post='776541']
According to the graph at this link that is updated daily. The daily count of deaths went back up and surpassed 2000 for today. Not so good. But as we see numbers for both hospitalized, and admitted to the ICU continue to drop, and the numbers of C-19 patients being released from the hospitals continue to rise, those death counts should follow and drop too as they are expected to lag behind a bit. Keep the faith!

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936
[/quote]

Posted by: Mertay Apr 14 2020, 10:55 AM

Some bad news;

-Chinese researchers concluded that half of the patients who suffered the virus severe, 3/1 of others endure brain or nervous system damage while they recover from the virus. So after recovery, people have to monitor each other for signs similar to suggesting a stroke. This was also being discussed by EU and USA researchers on TV this week...

-Iran economically surrendered to the virus, life will continue pretty much as was before their pandemic. No one can estimate numbers of lives will be lost to this.

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 14 2020, 09:04 PM

Do you mean they surrendered their health in favor of their economy by not having a total lock-down? Hopefully for everyone else there will be a vaccine around the corner and a way out of this mess, a compulsory vaccine for everyone. This will be accompanied by surveillance and contact tracing. Travel movements will be restricted on non-compliance. This will all be made easier with telecommunications infrastructure. There are desires to make owning and carrying a smart phone wherever you go compulsory, although I'm not sure if that will be an easy thing to force but hopefully people will understand and agree. There's a lot of people at the top working on this for our own sake to save us from this crisis, just look it up.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 14 2020, 10:11 PM

Yes, every country has its own limit to afford a total lock-down. Iran has been doing it for a while, had some success but couldn't bring it down fast enough to a controllable level. Basically they used the limited time their economy allowed.

This is every countries faith, its impossible to stop the virus till a vaccine is made so all they can do is bringing numbers down to a controllable level and more importantly keeping that level in a tight limit.

Sadly there likely will be many countries like Iran. The virus spread-ed first and fastest in the more richer countries, these had (China, Italy, Spain) or having (USA, UK) their peak numbers right now. Considering the economic damage they suffered till now, I don't give much chance for the poor countries to be able to stop their peak period.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 14 2020, 11:14 PM

I'm proud of my country and government (maybe for the first time in my life). The lockdown has been done very early and that's why the numbers are very low, compared to other close countries like Chile or Brazil.

However, our economy won't allow this much more time, so I don't know what can happen in the next two months....

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 15 2020, 02:33 AM

One sad and Ironic thing about IRAN was a press meeting with the health minister saying everyone was over reacting. The entire time he's wiping sweat from his forehead. Later he tests positive and dies. Seems it was a bit more serious than he wanted to admit in the press briefing. He even blamed other countries for fanning the flames of false narratives. Then bam, sorta like the rest of the world, people starting getting dead

China has put new measure in place to stop studies of corona virus from being published. Any research article now has to pass through several layers of officials and if it says anything negative about China it won't get published.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 15 2020, 10:57 AM

The only problem is it would only work with whole world co-operation for worldwide compulsory vaccination. All governments acting as one, or a "one world government" one could say. Otherwise if different countries have different approaches it could cause various problems like some countries needing to shut borders to other countries etc. The efforts being made to track people via their mobile phones is happening as we speak, surveillance and tracking etc.

It is highly advantageous that vaccine producers https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-vaccine-ruling-parents-cant-sue-drug-makers-for-kids-health-problems/ and instead cases are referred to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, paid for by the taxpayer, otherwise drug companies would be hampered in their efforts towards providing healthcare.



Argentina 105 deaths as of April 15th? Lockdown started on March 21st?

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 15 2020, 06:51 PM

A one world government wasn't required to virtually eradicate Smallpox and Polio, just world cooperation. Why should this be different? Once a good vaccine is developed, everyone will use it.

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 15 2020, 08:09 PM

OK, https://csglobe.com/bill-gates-life-would-be-better-with-a-world-government/. You say everyone will use it but what about people who don't want it? everybody should be forced to have the vaccine or face penalties prison etc, just like Leicester 1853-1889 except this time much easier with tracking technology.

Obviously much better oversight in the present than the past, so not ending up with 90% of children and 60% of adults in the U.S. injected with SV40-contaminated polio vaccines. The people who question the CDC motive behind changing the definition of Polio are way off the mark, they where obviously doing that for good reason to hone in on the real polio issues. Those who say they did it to eliiminate 90% of cases by redefining it are just conspiraloons! lol.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 15 2020, 09:00 PM

There will always some that resist but those numbers are likely to be minimal when you look at world population. Getting the vast majority of people vaccinated is likely to be enough. The world population is not 100% vaccinated against Polio or Smallpox either but vaccinations have been numerous enough and done long enough for Smallpox to have been declared eradicated and chances of getting Polio are extremely low except for in severely impoverished nations. It's likely that trying to force people to vaccinate will result in more resistance than educating and reasoning would I believe. At the point it is tried to be forced, entire countries may resist. I doubt that forced vaccination of the entire world population is even possible.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 15 2020, 09:36 PM

The mobile-phone tracking has some argument potential against human-rights. I hope they make a dependable test-kit in the near future so anyone travelling can be tested that way. My brother got the right to be a Canadian citizen after going through a lot of test, paperwork and health inspection. Likely for travel similar methods will be used, it will be 9/11 like period for the world only this time instead of security, health checking will be the focus.

But I'm not very optimistic on boarders opening for travel like it used to be. Many organizations like concerts/sport events are postponed till fall or even next year. I'd feel lucky if we can still find guitar strings made in another country 3 months from now.

As for the vaccine, obviously whoever gets the patent will be super-rich. We must not forget every nation reacting slow to the virus spread had economic reasoning behind it, so some legal protection against "cooperate greed" is needed. There can be many side-affects and this happened with medicine, there's even a whole generation; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIzcI6pBecY

Posted by: Mertay Apr 15 2020, 10:56 PM

News study on the virus released (watched a video not in English);

- It can live a very long time in the fridge, even more than 2 weeks at 4 Celsius
-70 Celsius kills it very quickly, down to 56 still considered safe.
-Any cleaner is extremely effective (if alcohol based then must be 70% minimum). Only with regular soap you have to wash your hands for an extended period as advertised.
-It can stick to your clothes when you come from outside. Either sprey something when you come from home or keep it outside for a day or 2.
- It can live 7 days on the exterior of a face-mask on normal weather conditions.

So not new info but I guess they made proper tests to further prove what was mostly already known.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 16 2020, 12:23 AM

Interesting info. I have read that if you are mixing things with alcohol to make cleaners such as hand sanitizer, then the alcohol needs to be 92% or better which will give you a sanitizer that will meet or beat that 70% minimum, although some are saying that a 60% minimum is sufficient. I like 70% better. Otherwise it can be too diluted to be most effective.
We have been tossing our clothes into the wash as soon as we get home from being out in public and spraying our shoes lightly with straight 70% alchohol, as well as wiping down things that come into the house with a mixture of bleach and water or alcohol. I also have plenty of acetone on hand for wiping some surfaces if I need it. I am still looking into whether or not acetone is a viable option but so far it sounds like it may be as long as it is not diluted.
This will probably be as a last resort and for limited use if we run out of and can't replace things like alcohol, bleach and peroxide as there are some materials that you don't want to get acetone on like some plastics.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/410346/

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 16 2020, 04:14 AM

This is a GREAT point. We are running out of the things we need to disinfect things and we are having to turn to home made versions of disinfectant. It's important to BE CAREFUL WITH BLEACH. I've seen online some people suggest that you GARGLE BLEACH!!!!

PLEASE GOD DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PUT BLEACH IN YOUR MOUTH!!!!!!

Bleach is a TOXIC SUBSTANCE THAT CAN KILL YOU if ingested. After you clean anything with bleach or a bleach mixture, wash it off with a wet cloth using just water then dry it with a dry cloth. Don't leave bleach on anything that you will be touching and then maybe touching your lips.

It's getting hard as it's getting harder to get cleaning wipes, cleaining gel etc. Not to mention it's now getting hard to get basic food now that many meat factories have shut. We are going to have "rolling outages" not of power, but of basic food stuffs across the country. Meat products are gonna become somewhat scarce. Some stores are already limiting your purchases of say cold cuts to 2 items. So if you need meat, stock up if you can before we start running low.

For some reason, folks have made a run on Hair Dye here in the states. Sounds stupid, but it's true.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/11/business/panic-buying-walmart-hair-color-coronavirus/index.html

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 16 2020, 04:58 AM

Sounds reasonable to me. There are a whole lot of ladies in this world that color their hair for one reason or another. Gotta love em! Probably a fair amount of men doing it too. Speaking of hair. Is anyone else starting to get a bit shaggy like me? I could have used a cut before this whole thing started.
Sales of personal grooming supplies such as clippers and trimmers have increased lately too. I have some nice clippers and cut my own hair from time to time. I have no problem cutting it down to about 3/8 of an inch at all. Wash and wear! Stacie cleans up the back of my neck and around the ears for me. Word to the wise. Don't mention anything about your better half's hair looking a bit different than usual.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 16 2020, 09:14 AM

Chlorine is also effective, I've been using it mixed with some water to spray stuff when I get home. It's relatively cheap too.

I've been trimming my hair for 3-4 years now, first 1-2 tries wasn't great but not too bad either. Now I barely need a mirror, just watch 1-2 youtube tutorial video's to get an idea.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 16 2020, 05:10 PM

More coming out about this now. It is starting to sound like the death count in N.Y. may be artificially inflated after all to a significant degree. Deaths are being presumed caused by Covid-19 even when testing is not done and some are being counted as a Covid-19 death because basically, the hospital was so busy with Covid-19 patients that others died from other causes but somehow that counts as a Covid-19 death. To me, this sounds like a big problem with accurate counting of Covid-19 deaths. It is an easy thing to confirm with a test and I think presumed cases should be kept separate from confirmed cases.

This is part of the reporting from a story in the N.Y. Times.

Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the commissioner of the city Health Department, said in an interview. While these so-called excess deaths were not explicitly linked to the virus, they might not have happened had the outbreak not occurred, in part because it overwhelmed the normal health care system.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 16 2020, 06:04 PM

I said this on the prior page, even with inflated numbers we have 33,000 out of 650,000 which is around 5 percent and treatment is getting better ..I think we need to start adding things back into this economy to get it going .
LA sheriff has released 4000 criminals ( supposedly non-violent ) and at the same time closed FFL's which means people can't buy guns while at the same time telling people they will only come out for their interpretation of "urgent:". governors are stripping constitutional right by executive orders( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG7SglDjeOM&t=535s ) and that does not sit well with "US" gun people , now us gun people are the most law abiding people on the planet , but we believe the 2nd amendment was put in place to stop a government from taking rights they do not have the authority to take ( and ya, I am talking to the US top branches ) , Remember when we used to argue and some would say " they would never do that " well this has got to be a big middle finger to that.

I believe the very start of societal breakdown is already too late . I believe history will judge us stupid to sacrifice the 6.6 billion for the sake of what is now 142,000 deaths, and I am on the threshold of risk with a 7 yr old that has breathing problems , unless you are of the mindset that this planet can't house this many people
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Posted by: Mertay Apr 16 2020, 07:46 PM

It's still better than hiding numbers like China, Italy etc. did.

When you think of people who are already sick for something else, then die'ing from getting covid may as well complicate things. But in such a bad time when hospitals are full, I find it the right thing not spending time on the dead to figure what killed them.

Also about tests; there are a few kinds of kits, but even the best ones has a false %. Lab. tests are safe but takes very long time.



This is a more to the political side of comment than health, lets not get into those if possible.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 16 2020, 08:29 PM

90 percent of this thread has politics , this whole problem is brought about by crappy politicians / politics
but that doesn'tmean we can't laugh does it


you know I put this up for a laugh , but the small business stimulus they talk about , just ran out of money
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/349-billion-ppp-coronavirus-loan-program-for-small-businesses-runs-out-of-money-in-13-days-143606277.html

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 16 2020, 09:04 PM

Ingesting the virus if it's on your food or drink won't cause you to catch it. It will go into your stomach and die in acid. It only gets in through aerosol. You probably wouldn't want it in your fridge though as it would feel icky, although you wouldn't know. Yes, heat does kill the virus (as for most viruses). Like many colds and flu, it starts in the nasal area for 2 - 3 days before working its way into you. This is why using a sauna can be a good idea in the early stages.



Glad you seem to disagree with me there re: tracking, as I was playing devils advocate for very real interests in rolling this kind of thing out for real. Like yourself I see the sense in the health tests for immigration to Canada, but this isn't the same as what is being suggested for this one virus.



Glad to see someone quoting a scientific journal. That journal is for eye surgery so I assume you are applying it to a much less vulnerable vector of infection (aerosol) based on perceived thread of COVID, as opposed to the much more vulnerable state of ones innards being opened up and exposed during surgery, as a risk for infections in general.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QExd-tRiEnw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA7-3ycAS1I

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 16 2020, 11:17 PM

Whether its better or worse than what was done elsewhere is not the point. The point is whether or not we are creating statistics that are as accurate as possible and I see no good reason to lump presumed causes of death with confirmed. I have no problem with a tally of presumed causes of death, only that they need to be seperate for the sake of accuracy.
I also see no good reason for not confirming the presence of Covid-19 in the patients that die that are added to the number of dead. The test itself takes seconds to administer. The time factor comes with waiting for lab results which doesn't take away from time that doctors can spend with other patients.
The best way to understand this and have the best plan for combating it is to have the most accurate data possible.

Of course there will be a margin of error when considering the accuracy of the tests and we can figure out what that is too as we continue to gather information. One thing we know is that the tests we have now are more accurate than the ones we started with.

Yeah, using acetone as a disinfectant is something that only recently occurred to me and that journal was the best of the very few pieces of good info that I could find in my limited search so I really have nothing conclusive to say it is viable or not. As I mentioned, it's really just a last resort scenario in case it gets hard to find bleach, alcohol and peroxide or maybe chlorine like Mertay mentioned.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 16 2020, 11:35 PM

I'm shaggy as can be. I have not worn my hair long in a while and I forgot what a pain it was to deal with. Such is life in the apocalypse

Todd

Posted by: Mertay Apr 17 2020, 12:13 AM

As you say the accuracy can't be 100% (specially these days) so you have to take either the lower or higher possibility into account. The possibility favoring higher numbers it will affect the precautions to be tougher which is the harder but safest route.

Currently USA is barely starting to flatten the peak so I imagine tough choices are made in priorities. Not only patients but medial staff sickness is also in the flattening peak so I wouldn't be surprised even finding someone who can take a simple sample may have become an issue currently.

But once the peak is reached and the pressure in the health system gets relieved, those numbers can be fixed later on. Currently in Turkey we are burring those who died of covid to specified graveyards. Later on they will be re-located to their original planned resting place.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 17 2020, 03:55 AM

We are seeing about 20 percent of cases requiring "acute" care with ventilators etc. We are still seeing a lack of PPE gear which is sad. We are finally starting to see the curve flatten a bit in new york. This is very good news as it was going straight up for quite some time. The images of refrigeration trucks to take the dead as the morgue was full, even the rooms used for sleep studies are being used to store the dead as they just didn't have enough space to put all of the dead people.

We have passed 33,000 Deaths.

The economy is on life support as well with 22 MILLION PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/16/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/

We only had 13 Million unemployed in the "GREAT DEPRESSION". We are now seeing levels of unemployment that we have NEVER seen since the founding of the Republic. Economists have no idea what the long term implications of alll this is, in terms of long term economic impact. It's just never happened before so we just have no way of really knowing. The general consensus is that it's just monumentally bad and that the economy may take years to fully recover if it recovers at all.



What's also terrible is that people who are recovering are seeing lung scarring, kidney damage and losing ones sense of taste and smell.

The small business support program just ran out of money to put a cherry on top of things.

Every time I turn on the news and pray for a bit of good news, I seem to get a bit of worse news. This is a hard time people. We are going to make it through this. We are stronger than sickness. Our will to survive and live on willl win out.
Just hang on and stay safe. "This too shall pass"

Todd

Posted by: Mertay Apr 17 2020, 09:47 AM

I read somewhere that the minimum wage in USA is 11 dollars. It said since unemployment-benefit money is minimum 21 dollars, this also spiked the requests. Is it true?

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 17 2020, 05:11 PM

we did not have 330 million people in America either ..context my friend and the real number was closer to 15 and that was about 20 percent of the population and in today's number would be about 66 million , are we on our way there .. I don't think so.. here is a great read from the history chanel https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history

I am so optimistic about this .. I have had a child die at birth , a love of my life killed in a car crash , and I know many your your losses as well , the sadness comes for a while , take heart , here we are on the other side of those issues as we will soon be on the other side of this

on a side note , my dog ate my favorite pick , what to do , what to do

Posted by: Mertay Apr 17 2020, 06:21 PM

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/17/europe/turkey-coronavirus-lockdown-response-intl/index.html

Current situation in Turkey, seems to be a decent review for both on negative and positive sides.

There's info on our weekend curfew (first one was a disaster, but this week-end should be fine), experimental drugs, business...

I'm pretty sure USA is monitoring the business part here as we never shut down factories, construction etc. . Hopefully we'll reach our peak in a week or 2 and if this happens (based on the corona task force briefings I watched till now) with positive outcome then I'm sure some jobs will be re-gained faster in USA.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 17 2020, 07:29 PM

We had a sheriff in the states start a curfew with the same horn sounding they used in the movie " the purge "

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 17 2020, 08:29 PM

From politifact.

The federal government’s largest stimulus law — the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act — adds $600 per week, for up to four months, to the regular unemployment checks that people receive through their state government.
The bonuses began April 5, 2020 and are available through July 31, 2020.


Basically, most folks on unemployment get roughly half the amount of money they would normally get for an average salary. This is just an average, generality, not a specific case.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 17 2020, 09:14 PM

T he small business bail out of this ran out of money in 11 days

Posted by: Mertay Apr 17 2020, 09:23 PM

Thats still more than minimum wage (?)

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 17 2020, 10:14 PM

The short answer is yes if folks are getting $600 a week on top of what they would normally get.

$600 a week alone ÷ a 40 hour standard work week would be $15 an hour, so if folks are getting more than that it would most probably be higher than the minimum wage anywhere in the country.

We have different minimum wages for different parts of the country. The national minimum wage established by the Federal Government is $7.25 an hour I believe. Georgia and Wyoming have a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.
The individual states can set their own minimum wages and individual cities can as well. The highest minimum wage set for this year in the country from what I can find is, or is set to be. $15.45 an hour in Seattle. San Francisco, New York City and Washington DC are all supposed to have a $15.00 an hour minimum wage this year.

Edit: Georgia and Wyoming may have increased to the national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. I am finding some conflicting info so I am not sure.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/best-states/minimum-wage-by-state

https://www.laborlawcenter.com/state-minimum-wage-rates/

https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 18 2020, 05:09 PM

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 18 2020, 07:28 PM

Apparently 7 million US people died during the great depression. Out of a population of about 127 million at the time this would be 5.51% of the population. Although 5.51% represents actual deaths, this won't account for the suffering of those who physically lived to tell the tale.




It depends on what kind of good news you are looking for. If it involves social control and a vaccine then you should see at least some good news in what you view.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 18 2020, 08:17 PM

There is growing evidence that there may be significantly more people infected than we have known up to this point according to a study from Stanford university, another study done in Germany, and at least one other small group of random people tested for antibodies of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. This would mean that the virus would have a significantly lower mortality rate than official numbers show if the study proves to be accurate. It could also mean that we are on our way to developing a herd immunity. Certainly, more study is needed.

Article about the Stanford study.

https://spectator.us/stanford-study-suggests-coronavirus-more-widespread-realized/

Link to the Stanford study paper Pdf itself.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf

Article about a similar study conducted in Germany recently by a team from the University of Bonn.

https://spectator.us/covid-antibody-test-german-town-shows-15-percent-infection-rate/

Article about a smaller and perhaps less scientific study.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 19 2020, 10:24 AM

Now that the antibody test is rolling out, it's going to be easier to see how many people were infected and didn't even know they had it due to being either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. It is looking like the infection rates, per much of the info shared by AKRICH and others, is much much much worse than what we expected. The only good news there is that despite being infected, many people did not present with severe symptoms.

The collapse of the global economy and destruction of both supply side and demand side of the Economy is now looking to be worse than suffering and death caused by the virus itself. We are seeing massive unemployment on a global scale and jobs being destroyed on a level we have never before seen. We are starting to see food banks popping up all over the country and being mobbed by people immediately and running out of resources.


QUESTION: Anybody out there got there stimulus check yet? Anybody out there seen their job go away because of the "lockdown"?

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 19 2020, 01:02 PM

Yes. Higher lethalness doesn't tend to spread as much because fewer carriers are walking about (e.g. SARS) and less are getting their hands on stuff like door handles or coughing. Less lethal spreads easier.



Antibody tests only show antibodies, namely Immunoglobulin G (Igg). Such a test could indicate any number of things, such as influenza, bacterial infection, malnutrition, inflammation etc.

There's enough info on this link to glean the basics of the different types of antibodies without being overwhelmed or put off by the stuff not understood. https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-igm-and-vs-igg/

I agree that COVID19 is not as lethal as the WHO and CDC wanted, yet subsequently failed, to make everyone think it was. Also agree on the economy, it has already led to an increase in suicides, domestic violence and abuse.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 19 2020, 02:38 PM

I believe it is time to start slowly rolling out the economy starting with states in the middle that have not been hard hit , remember the thread I started "at what point "...well , with 729,000 cases in America with 40,000 deaths out of possibly screwing up the lives of 330 million people

I did get a stimulus check , I can;t say 5 grand hurt my feelings

Posted by: Mertay Apr 19 2020, 10:01 PM

-All precautions made till today was about not getting the healthcare system overloaded, was never about how deadly it was but how contagious. And cause of these working (flattening/lowering the peak) an economy then can start to function + no one has to die cause of not getting proper treatment .

UK tried the herd immunity thing and lost 2-3 weeks on stay-home precautions, then even the idiot Boris being hospitalized. Because of this needless experiment 1000's are dead.



This is a very un-health language, considering them like an enemy. Being an election year isn't helping USA on this covid thing.



This is also not cool, we have a GMC'ers relative (if I remember correct) among one of those 40.000 dead imagne him reading that. I'm not saying your logic is wrong but I'm certain this could be brought-up more delicately.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 19 2020, 10:15 PM

No-one is arguing that a herd immunity approach instead of mitigation should have been tried here. The study suggests that a herd immunity IS being established because the number of infected are likely much greater than official numbers show because many people have probably had it and passed it on and those people have had little or no symptoms and therefore were not tested. So it's not something we tried to do. It's simply just happening in spite of mitigation you could say.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 19 2020, 10:28 PM

Correct but though the spread is/has happened, we have no clue if immunity will be achieved or if the damage will show itself on the long run. Scientist still know too like about this virus.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 19 2020, 11:18 PM

Which is why I said that more study is needed. And there are in fact clues or evidence that immunity can be achieved. Basically, what we know about viruses in general supports this.


Maybe Boris Johnson made a bad call. That doesn't make him an idiot. He got elected didn't he? The governor and mayor of New York and New York city made bad calls and were slow to establish good mitigation too and we see the results there, but that doesn't make them idiots either. The Swedish government has tried an approach that to some extent relies on a herd immunity being established and they haven't done so well either. Idiots? I wouldn't say so.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 19 2020, 11:39 PM

I only noted the alternative possibility of things.

Actually, "Someone" is trying fix the economy till election cause he knows damn-well not any candidate but the results of this virus could be the end of him. I'd like to see his followers being aware of this and give some thought to what he says is truth/fact etc. and whats propaganda/diverting blame etc. ...so I don't have to read too much (I'm positive its unawarely made) hidden propaganda here.



He did a very bad call and was forced to change it cause of France, not because he choose to. This is different than making a "mistake".

You guys didn't hear about this much in your media cause of brexit, USA has big plans for UK and building new relationships. But the rest of the world criticized what UK was doing at the time very harshly.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 19 2020, 11:55 PM

you have to watch this , non partisan i promise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVESJhgko6M

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 20 2020, 12:13 AM

Right, it has nothing to do with the fact that getting the economy going again asap is part of his job and is in the best interests of the country and the world for that matter. Gimme a break, man.

Any changes made were because the team of professionals he has assembled recommended them as the data changed over time. This has been confirmed by the health professionals on the task force. Fauci has stated that the President has listened to, and acted upon his recommendations from the very beginning at one of the recent task force press briefings.
Edit*
Or maybe you were still talking about Boris. If so then my bad, but a bad call and a mistake are the same thing here so I am not sure what you mean. But it sounds like he may have made changes as the data changed too. You have to judge the decisions that were made then by the data that was known then, not by what we know now. Because if you judge by what is known now. Then everybody made bad decisions, didn't they?

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 20 2020, 02:29 AM

non partisan conspiracy theory? Bit of a contradiction in terms eh? The Chinese are pitching the opposite theory saying it was a United States Military Bio Weapons project that the CIA let loose in Wuhan. I don't buy in to a lot of conspiracy theories so I'm really unconvinced on both counts

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 20 2020, 03:12 AM

I agree that this can't last forever. Thankfully Sadly, it's still gonna get worse, in terms of the economy before it gets better.
We are now at 22 Million unemployed (that's just the official number, the real number is much higher). The homeless population is expanding rapidly and food banks are being over run.

https://youtu.be/Vrh5TaVaWas

Posted by: Mertay Apr 20 2020, 11:15 AM

First about UK; Only UK's government was forced to change their corona measures by force of another government till now, this is very important fact and can't be compared to mistakes others made. I wrote this days ago here and only yesterday voices in UK finally started to rise about this, likely they waited for Boris to recover. I'm certain UK history won't forget this.

As for my other political comment, I'll exemplify using empathy; First imagine instead of Corona, USA went to war and 40.000 US soldiers died.

In such a situation, can you imagine someone saying flu or traffic kills more people than that on tv? or make daily comments/arguments that suggests to lessen the impact of such war or focus attention to other things etc.?

The measures in every country is extremely similar to war measures and 40.000 people died in USA till now...So as a foreigner I find some comments made here very inhumane (and replied to them respectfully) and I know "where" they are influenced from and specially "why" they're being originated from that "where". Its important to note my disturbance isn't about you guys or any countries efforts of rising their economies, its not like I enjoy my lockdown that much

It's certainly better to be not sacred or panicked about this pandemic (I'm well aware some media in US wants this too) but while doing that suggesting the importance is lesser than it should be isn't proper balance.

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 20 2020, 12:19 PM

The purpose of comparing deaths between COVID and other causes, is for comparing the need for lockdown measures. i.e. other causes that lead to as many, or more deaths, which don't lead to lock down.

You are suggesting that this is similar to justifying war by saying other causes of death are the same or greater. Does this include civilians on either side?

Let's say a million soldiers die and 4 millions civilians die. In which case I would assume you might see this as a reason to end a war? (In WW2 and estimated 70-85 million died.)

Let's say the same, 5 million, die from COVID, not assumed COVID or people who died with COVID, people who died because of COVID. I assume you would see this as a reason to continue the war on COVID?

You are comparing apples to oranges.



Despite being subscribe to read, this might be good new for you?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-data-suggest-the-coronavirus-isnt-as-deadly-as-we-thought-11587155298

A study finds 50 to 85 times as many infections as known cases—meaning a far lower fatality rate.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 20 2020, 05:18 PM

I noted for empathy, not intended to start a comparison.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 20 2020, 05:51 PM

I'm not sure what you are talking about regarding the UK since I haven't really been following what has been going on there as much as I have here. Use of force? What kind of force, and to do what exactly? I'd be happy to read an article about it if you have a link.

As far as the rest of your response. You seem to be going off on a tangent and comparing things that aren't really comparable and providing "what if" situations which I am not really interested in discussing since it is going off point.

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 20 2020, 07:29 PM

In the UK the original plan was similar to that of Sweden. Chris Witty health secretary talked about herd immunity in which a certain infection rate would be required. Originally the plan was to focus on protection of the 1.5 million who are vulnerable. Boris Johnson was not initially interested in a country wide Lockdown for everyone, but had little choice when threatened with mutiny by other MPs (otherwise might risk ending up with a government that wants stricter and longer lockdown).

They have tried to be as sensible about as they can by allowing people to go out for an hour a day to exercise while respecting 2 meter distancing. You are allowed to go to work if you cannot work from home (although if your place of work has shut down that's not happening). If a person suffers abuse or serious argument at home they are allowed to move to a friend / other family member's house. Police are a little confused at what the heck they are supposed to be doing at times apparently.

Like the US, the deaths are categorized as COVID when people have COVID but didn't necessarily die of it, or if the patient is suspected of having COVID but not proven. For instance if you weigh 6 stone and have terminal cancer and have COVID.

There are calls to delay the UK's democratically mandated departure from the EU because of COVID, in much the same way there have been consistent attempts from the same people to delay / stop it since the referendum.

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 20 2020, 10:48 PM

Thanks Arpeggio. I am starting to get the picture now and it sounds like kind of what I expected, at least in part. The response to the threat changed as the data had changed but also that there was political pressure from members of parliament in the UK to make those changes. But what is Mertay talking about when he says that France forced Johnson to make changes? It sounds like the initial decisions he made may have very well been bad ones in hindsight but I don't know if that justifies calling him an idiot like Mertay has. But if it does, then I guess we have a couple in New York that made some bad decisions early on too.

I am not surprised about more stalling on Brexit. Many leaders there have been trying to overturn or go against the vote of the people for a long time now, almost 4 years I think.

Posted by: Mertay Apr 20 2020, 11:11 PM

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1261753/emmanuel-macron-news-boris-johnson-latest-coronavirus-uk-news-george-galloway-rt-video

About my France comment, right after this happened UK started to take measures.

And some news;

-American oil crashes below $0 a barrel -- a record low
-Turkey is going 4 day curfew this week (limited first 2 days, like can go food shopping daystime)
-UK will start experimenting plasma treatment (been going on for 2 weeks in Turkey, early comments are positive)
-Bookstores started to open in Italy
-Scientists start to argue the virus may live in the system more than 14 days (maybe as long as 27 days)
-After cats and dogs, China stopped eating an animal called Bamboo rat

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 20 2020, 11:55 PM

I am admittedly not too deep into European politics but I suspect that this was an idle threat that Macron really had no intention on following through with, and that decisions to change the UK's approach to the virus may have been more about the way things were playing out with the virus, and pressure from within the UK. Not because of France. I think saying that France forced the UK to make changes is probably a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe "influenced" was the word you were looking for, rather than "forced". Thats just my gut reaction but I would be interested to hear what other Europeans think about it because I don't really know enough about it.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 21 2020, 07:00 AM

It does look like we may be looking at 40 or 50 times the number of infected than previously thought. The good news is that this pushing the mortality rate way down. The bad news is that it means many more people have been exposed and can still pass it on to folks more likely to die from it like older people/folks with other conditions etc. It's still hard to think about 50 times the number of infected as "Good news" somehow.

As mertay noted, oil went to NEGATIVE PRICE for the first time in history. Sure hope it doesn't stay there for long. It's the tip of a very large set of industries. Like the tip of a big iceberg. The demand destruction for oil is unprecedented, like many things associated with this virus.

Economists are now saying a 2 percent drop in GDP for a year or two. This is far better than a 10 percent drop so also good news in a way. Still, a 2 percent drop in global gdp is a very serious thing. It's back to the long term knock on effects of stopping the global economy. We are sorta winging it. Despite the 2 trllion in stimulus, oil still went negative, global gdp expected to contract for a couple of years (the textbook definition of recession).

Now Georgia is opening up small biz next week despite the warnings it will cause a massive second wave of infection and deaths. Just no good way out of this entire mess it seems. Just gotta hang on and try to hope for the best

I have heard lots of cheerleading on fox news about a quick recovery, but experts whom I actually trust are mostly saying it will be a 'muted recovery" and take 3 years. Bit of a mess.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/economic-impact-covid-19/

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 21 2020, 01:04 PM

If 40 - 50 times more people have it / have had it, this means that after getting through it they are no longer a risk to the vulnerable.

If they haven't already had it this means they could get it and then are a risk to the vulnerable. It only takes one vector / person to start. You might as well whack-a-mole.

If you believe you can get the same virus https://www.dictionary.com/browse/serotype or "strain", more than once, then there's not much point in talking because mainstream media talk of that is all "could", "may", "might" and if true the first in the history of mankind, and we might as well talk about the sky falling on our heads.



Macron threatened to close borders to UK unless UK went into Lockdown (and nicked a truck of masks on their way to the UK for good measure). If COVID was so worrying to Macron he would have closed borders anyway, and in a less discriminatory way.

His approval rating in France was / is worse than Frances least favourite president. https://www.newsweek.com/macrons-approval-drops-behind-frances-least-popular-president-ever-1104354

Yellow vest protests were going on for a whole year just before he locked down France and apparently he annoyed some French Generals.
https://freewestmedia.com/2018/12/14/french-generals-accuse-macron-of-treason-over-un-migration-compact/

Posted by: Arpeggio Apr 21 2020, 02:04 PM

Please watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=168&v=WGbYHJcMbz8&feature=emb_title

PS: How do I embed video so it's on screen rather than just a link?

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 21 2020, 02:40 PM

we are not embedding videos on this thread , as people start calling each others video's propaganda , and some think they are the final authority on which is and isn't a "good" video.. that being said , the youtube tab on the lower left ( after you are in the reply page ) , you paste everything after the = sign such as .. Z7LwD0kgVYw
Yes I have put a video up , but it was more for comic relief rather than a debatable topic

Posted by: Mertay Apr 21 2020, 04:48 PM

It's more of a gamble than a risk.

If it works, then other states will follow and the US economy will take much less long-term damage. If it doesn't, all measures will be repeating again likely the same time-length and unlike till now there will be serious protests/rage then.

Posted by: jstcrsn Apr 21 2020, 05:34 PM

I have news for you , we are already open up where I am , of course every place where 10 or more can gather is closed , except for the food store where everybody is - strange ..huh , Restaurants just have curbside , all fast food have drive thru , things are reduced to be fair , but we need to get this B_tch moving again

Posted by: AK Rich Apr 21 2020, 05:57 PM

Thanks again. Now these things I have heard about, they have been all over in the news so they are hard to miss. I follow what is happening in the rest of the world to some extent but recently I have been more focused on what is happening here in the US. I guess that story of Macron's threat slipped by me or wasn't widely reported here.