Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread III (Info. Post 1)

[madmaxmedia]

With hindsight, that is very easy to say. On the flip side, then the complaint and hindsight seekers would be saying, "We shut down the country too early and ruined the economy, spread mass panic, and did so before 'professionals/experts' said to do so."

Really no win, no correct answer scenario for an unprecedented time in world history.

Exactly. It’s only after everyone sees how people are affected regardless that they can see why certain measures are probably better than others, but NOT before. Elected officials have so many competing interests in their ears—there was NO WAY any of them were going to put in the measures we see now back then because nobody would accept them without seeeing a clear and present grave danger before them. All leaders were in zugzwang at the time.

For many in the U.S., the closures of services once thought impossible a few weeks ago are now a reality, and people are talking with the help of foresight. At the time of the first cases, nobody would have thought a few months later that schools and gyms and bars would be closed down. Next time, people WILL be ready for immediate actions just like countries in the past with relatively little scientific knowledge compared to today better handled plague outbreaks.

This is some seriously sad excuse making.

There's no winning perhaps in the public discourse, but there most definitely was a correct answer scenario. I'm not saying it's an easy choice to make or implement, but any medical/pandemic experts would have told you this early on. No special gift of hindshight was required, we have plenty of experience and expertise from past pandemics as well as what happened first in China.

[Stillwater]

This will be a hell of a history class 50-100 years from now

Hope so, not sure I buy there is any world as we know it situation that many days from now.
I'm guessing 18250 days from now Earth is gone

Why?

When I look around at the world and the people in it going about their business like nothing is wrong despite the warnings before the virus hit home, then see them fighting for food and paper products a week later as the virus starts popping up & the wake up call hits as businesses are forced to close by state and federal mandates
Some cities on lockdown should make people elsewhere realize their city is next but no they just keep on socializing in close proximity and proving their ignorance. No way in hell this planet survived another 100 years let alone 50

[madmaxmedia]

Hope so, not sure I buy there is any world as we know it situation that many days from now.
I'm guessing 18250 days from now Earth is gone

Why?

When I look around at the world and the people in it going about their business like nothing is wrong despite the warnings before the virus hit home, then see them fighting for food and paper products a week later as the virus starts popping up & the wake up call hits as businesses are forced to close by state and federal mandates
Some cities on lockdown should make people elsewhere realize their city is next but no they just keep on socializing in close proximity and proving their ignorance. No way in hell this planet survived another 100 years let alone 50

Hopefully our virus overlords will be better stewards of the planet...although they probably won't be.

[ItsDanger]

We need some analysis of why Beijing, Shanghai, etc were not impacted significantly with virus cases. To me, that is shocking given the evidence. The spread should have occurred before Wuhan was quarantined. China just closed Wuhan int'l airport Jan. 23, when cases are about 1,000 and deaths 20? Their stats are BS and its likely this virus had spread all over before that date. The lag you see in deaths is due to the carriers not infecting the vulnerable until later on (vacation/work trip duration, not interacting with them immediately).

Dude, this information is out there if you care to look for it.

The fact is that the rest of China also acted very quickly and swiftly.

Countrywide self quarantine and disinfection was implemented. Masks were mandatory for anyone outside. Your temperature was taken anywhere you went and centrally tracked. If you had a fever, they picked you up and took you to a fever clinic - not home or hospital where you could infect others - but to a location where they could give you further testing. Anyone who tested for the illness or even strong symptoms would have led them to alert others at the locations where they had been (which is what the tracking is for) or so they could contain spread in the case of a clear COVID test.

Here is Beijing, one of the cities you specifically asked about... note the Feb 17 post date, over a month ago.

Watch on YouTube

And here is the other, posted Feb 7 in Shanghai:

Watch on YouTube

This is the extreme that China went to for containment. These things will not happen here, which is why it absolutely cannot be expected that China's experience with the virus would be applicable or replicated here.

I've been to China several times, new years celebration lasts 15 days after Jan 25th. Was there a hard quarantine prior to Feb 8th? My question is given the densely populated urban areas, I'm shocked this didn't spread more to the other areas outside Wuhan (which was likely heavily infected prior to New Years). Their domestic measures were still late. Given the evidence provided by China, perhaps there is info we're not aware of. And the burning question for those praising their response. Why the **** didn't they prevent Chinese from leaving their country?

[Ayt]

Exactly. It’s only after everyone sees how people are affected regardless that they can see why certain measures are probably better than others, but NOT before. Elected officials have so many competing interests in their ears—there was NO WAY any of them were going to put in the measures we see now back then because nobody would accept them without seeeing a clear and present grave danger before them. All leaders were in zugzwang at the time.

For many in the U.S., the closures of services once thought impossible a few weeks ago are now a reality, and people are talking with the help of foresight. At the time of the first cases, nobody would have thought a few months later that schools and gyms and bars would be closed down. Next time, people WILL be ready for immediate actions just like countries in the past with relatively little scientific knowledge compared to today better handled plague outbreaks.

This is some seriously sad excuse making.

There's no winning perhaps in the public discourse, but there most definitely was a correct answer scenario. I'm not saying it's an easy choice to make or implement, but any medical/pandemic experts would have told you this early on. No special gift of hindshight was required, we have plenty of experience and expertise from past pandemics as well as what happened first in China.

I agree. Plus, the response didn't need to be perfect. The administration very publically went with the "bury your head in the sand" approach up until this week. You don't need hindsight or even to be any type of expert to realize that wasn't an appropriate response.

[Stillwater]

The vaccine is at least a year out, the empty promise of malaria drugs only mask symptoms in comfort for the dying situations.
The only good news today is private labs now have to start reporting their test results to the CDC , where prior to last night only public labs had to report.
Of course the odds are greater with more test results we get a clearer view of just how bad it is.
Except carriers with no symptoms are being turned away from testing facilities by needing a doctor's orders which you can't get if not showing symptoms if you can even see a doctor or if there are even test kits not be allotted elsewhere to higher profile facilities

[madmaxmedia]

Fresno right now has only a handful of cases. The city shut down non-essential business activity. Essential business is an extensive list though. Social distancing is required. The mayor definitely acted early in the process so we shouldn't see the high growth rate that has been seen other places.

If anything, this may have come too early. There is probably a sweet spot for when to enact the strict social distancing so that the virus can spread enough to start creating communal resistance, but not so fast that the system is overwhelmed. Shut down too early and it may lengthen the downtime too much.

I both agree/disagree with your post.

I would say the sweet spot is as early as possible, in the sense that the earlier you isolate then lower the measures you may need to enact. If we had hypothetically jumped to action in January, we would have a much better handle on it now and require less disruption of business, lives, etc.

Your city shutting down all non-essential business activity even with low number of cases, is also a reflection of the larger number of cases state and nationwide. Fresno can't exist in a bubble, so has to take that into account.

[flavio_93]

This virus will be under control in 2 months maximum. China is already recovering and is reopening everything. Social media does nothing but pump fear into people. Watch some educational videos. Yes the virus can kill but most of the deaths aren’t even from the virus itself. It’s the virus mixed with other illnesses . This isn’t the Spanish flu or bird flu where people died the same day they got sick. Get a grip people


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[ItsDanger]

The anti-malaria medication discussed is for treatment of mild to moderate cases. Its not a vaccine. But it could dramatically decrease the transmission percentages as it cuts down the incubation period.

[Optimus_Steel]

This virus will be under control in 2 months maximum. China is already recovering and is reopening everything. Social media does nothing but pump fear into people. Watch some educational videos. Yes the virus can kill but most of the deaths aren’t even from the virus itself. It’s the virus mixed with other illnesses . This isn’t the Spanish flu or bird flu where people died the same day they got sick. Get a grip people


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's definitely not what happened.

[madmaxmedia]

I've been to China several times, new years celebration lasts 15 days after Jan 25th. Was there a hard quarantine prior to Feb 8th? My question is given the densely populated urban areas, I'm shocked this didn't spread more to the other areas outside Wuhan (which was likely heavily infected prior to New Years). Their domestic measures were still late. Given the evidence provided by China, perhaps there is info we're not aware of. And the burning question for those praising their response. Why the **** didn't they prevent Chinese from leaving their country?

At the end of the day, the Chinese government's response has been a very mixed bag, moreso than even the US. I don't think anyone is praising them for saving the planet, so much as observing their actions and the effect on spread rates within China. In time we will analyze all of this, and hopefully improve our collective preparedness and responsibility.

I understand there could be legitimate questions about their data, etc.

[zimpy27]

The vaccine is at least a year out, the empty promise of malaria drugs only mask symptoms in comfort for the dying situations.
The only good news today is private labs now have to start reporting their test results to the CDC , where prior to last night only public labs had to report.
Of course the odds are greater with more test results we get a clearer view of just how bad it is.
Except carriers with no symptoms are being turned away from testing facilities by needing a doctor's orders which you can't get if not showing symptoms if you can even see a doctor or if there are even test kits not be allotted elsewhere to higher profile facilities

Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore, that means it essentially creates a channel for zinc to enter a cell and fill it with much higher concentrations than the cell woul dhave normally without the drug.

Elevated Zinc concentrations halt RNA virus replication, this effectively stops the spread of the virus. The virus hiding in your cells will thus be halted from spreading further.

You want to give it early, this virus is aggressive and fast-moving. The quicker you take the drug the quicker you stop it spreading and the more time your immune system has to clear it.

If someone comes to the ICU then the damage by the virus is largely done, they can still give the drug to stop the virus but at that point most of the damage being done to the body is being caused by the body itself.

But regardless when you take it, it cuts the time the virus can spread from ~20 days down to ~6 days. Which is essentially more than halving its transmission rate.

[OkcSinceSGA]

The vaccine is at least a year out, the empty promise of malaria drugs only mask symptoms in comfort for the dying situations.
The only good news today is private labs now have to start reporting their test results to the CDC , where prior to last night only public labs had to report.
Of course the odds are greater with more test results we get a clearer view of just how bad it is.
Except carriers with no symptoms are being turned away from testing facilities by needing a doctor's orders which you can't get if not showing symptoms if you can even see a doctor or if there are even test kits not be allotted elsewhere to higher profile facilities

Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore, that means it essentially creates a channel for zinc to enter a cell and fill it with much higher concentrations than the cell woul dhave normally without the drug.

Elevated Zinc concentrations halt RNA virus replication, this effectively stops the spread of the virus. The virus hiding in your cells will thus be halted from spreading further.

You want to give it early, this virus is aggressive and fast-moving. The quicker you take the drug the quicker you stop it spreading and the more time your immune system has to clear it.

If someone comes to the ICU then the damage by the virus is largely done, they can still give the drug to stop the virus but at that point most of the damage being done to the body is being caused by the body itself.

But regardless when you take it, it cuts the time the virus can spread from ~20 days down to ~6 days. Which is essentially more than halving its transmission rate.

Does this have any relation to supplementing with Zinc when sick?

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using RealGM mobile app

[madmaxmedia]

New daily data from Italy is in- 5322 new cases and 427 new deaths in Italy (vs. 4207 new cases and 475 new deaths reported yesterday.)

The overall trend for both daily new cases and deaths is that both are still going up, but I guess at this point we are just hoping for decline in the GROWTH rate of these numbers first, before the daily numbers themselves can actually flatten or decline. For the daily deaths chart you can view in both linear and logarithmic scale, the logarithmic scale is starting to flatten.

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

It's a terrible thing, analyzing numbers like these like it's a problem in math class...

[zimpy27]

The vaccine is at least a year out, the empty promise of malaria drugs only mask symptoms in comfort for the dying situations.
The only good news today is private labs now have to start reporting their test results to the CDC , where prior to last night only public labs had to report.
Of course the odds are greater with more test results we get a clearer view of just how bad it is.
Except carriers with no symptoms are being turned away from testing facilities by needing a doctor's orders which you can't get if not showing symptoms if you can even see a doctor or if there are even test kits not be allotted elsewhere to higher profile facilities

Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore, that means it essentially creates a channel for zinc to enter a cell and fill it with much higher concentrations than the cell woul dhave normally without the drug.

Elevated Zinc concentrations halt RNA virus replication, this effectively stops the spread of the virus. The virus hiding in your cells will thus be halted from spreading further.

You want to give it early, this virus is aggressive and fast-moving. The quicker you take the drug the quicker you stop it spreading and the more time your immune system has to clear it.

If someone comes to the ICU then the damage by the virus is largely done, they can still give the drug to stop the virus but at that point most of the damage being done to the body is being caused by the body itself.

But regardless when you take it, it cuts the time the virus can spread from ~20 days down to ~6 days. Which is essentially more than halving its transmission rate.

Does this have any relation to supplementing with Zinc when sick?

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using RealGM mobile app

Yes it is. Supplements are not nearly effective as creating a channel though, you'll raise the blood level of zinc but doesn't mean it's getting into the cells where the virus is. But still, it's better than not taking it. Just don't overload it, you can get a toxicity from taking too much (it can be hard to find decent high level zinc supplements because of this.

[Courtside]

I've been to China several times, new years celebration lasts 15 days after Jan 25th. Was there a hard quarantine prior to Feb 8th? My question is given the densely populated urban areas, I'm shocked this didn't spread more to the other areas outside Wuhan (which was likely heavily infected prior to New Years). Their domestic measures were still late. Given the evidence provided by China, perhaps there is info we're not aware of. And the burning question for those praising their response. Why the **** didn't they prevent Chinese from leaving their country?

I've been to China many times also.

It's of course true that they first tried to contain the virus and the information about it to Wuhan. You've been there, you know how quickly things spread and how a panic would follow. We have people in here complaining about the panic response, yet the best way to control and prevent it is to control the information that people are getting. Some say they did it to hide the virus outbreak, but it's kind of the same thing. You can achieve more than one end with a single action.

Wuhan and most of Hebei province was locked down on Jan 23, but once confirmed cases started to show elsewhere, containment efforts went nationwide and that was on or about Feb 1 IIRC. At first it was masks and distancing and then as the gear allowed, they did tracking via apps, the fever testing, etc... it rolled out over time.

It was in the middle of the CNY holidays that travel was locked down and millions of people could not return to their jobs.

This is when I began to get news about it, as my suppliers were warning me of possible delays, worker and material delays, etc... So it was early Feb when the nation as a whole went into the shutdown and implemented mass containment measures. 100s of factories were converted to manufacturing personal safety and sanitation products. The main difference there is that the leaders took control without worry about looming elections or how it looks to their donors or constituents. The freedoms we have in our political system simply do not allow the same kind of actions to be taken.

That answers your earlier question about why other places in China went differently than Wuhan. They acted in the ways that only China, or a few other Asian/ME countries could do.

As for the other questions about preventing people from leaving, if you've been to China then you know that they have thermal cameras and screening at basically any transportation entry and exit point. If someone had a fever, they wouldn't even be able to get into the airport without being screened. I don't know how much power they would have to quarantine foreign nationals trying to leave the country, but once the travel shutdowns happened, then of course everyone was restricted from leaving. Canada had to send special evacuation flights which went on Feb 8 or 10 (or both), so yes, the hard quarantine happened several days before the 8th.

If you look at previous Corona outbreaks like SARS and MERS, the containment measures were more effective. If that was their example, then they may have felt they could contain it. As more became known about how it spreads, they did act very forcefully, but the horses were already out of the barn. Are they responsible for this? Yes. But I'm not sure any country other than maybe Japan or South Korea would have handled it better than they did. It certainly would have been handled much, much worse if this started on any other continent.

[Ainosterhaspie]

South Korea and other countries in the region contained this quickly using tactics that are unacceptable in the west. This is not meant to disparage the eastern nations as I think there is a lot of wisdom in their response, but just to highlight the issue. Virtually every Western nation has had greater difficulty contain the spread.

Speaking just about the United States, we are probably far too concerned with protecting privacy. Not only that, there is an independence, a "you can't tell me what to do" mindset that creates an additional problem. Put those two together and there is no way to contain until a critical mass accept the seriousness of the issue, and even then I doubt we are willing as a people to comply with measures that would be most effective.

If we wanted to go all out in stopping this, we would aggressively collect and disseminate information about who is positive. Once someone is positive we would do what we could to make sure every one they may have had contact with was made aware of the possible infection, we would forcibly quarantine them and we would gather information about who they've contacted as well.

But think about what this means. We place a high priority on privacy of medical information. So if I test positive and dont want to divulge who I've been around, the people I've infected may not know until they develop symptoms. It probably is possible to use data about my phone's location to identify where I've been and who has been in close proximity, but are people ok with the government gathering and disseminating that data? There may well be an uproar about privacy violations if it did that. There almost certainly would be if the government took these measures, neutralized the threat before it got really bad and by doing so allows people to claim the response was overkill and a terrible, unnecessary violation of privacy.

Then think about the 20 year old who has been exposed and refuses what he deems to be an invasive nasal swab because he feels fine and doesn't feel it is necessary. Are we going to force him to comply with testing? If the president orders that, are local authorities going to comply with that order or say "no, we think the president is abusing his powers and wont be a part of that"? What are we going to do if he refuses to self-isolate? Are we ok with arresting him? Its probably not feasible to use police to force him to stay home if the number of similar individuals grows at all and if we put him in jail we're risking spread to that whole population.

Imagine the response if we were putting trackers on people entering the country and forcing them into quarantine and medical follow ups like Hong Kong is doing. I just dont see that being accepted here. There would be widespread uproar about abusing power and racism.

Our government's hands are tied in many ways because we the people demand privacy and freedom not just for ourselves but anyone entering the country be they tourists, students or workers entering legally or illegally. Unless there is buy in at all levels of government and by a large proportion of the population, there is no way to stop the spread no matter how much testing is done, because people who should be getting tested will refuse, people who should isolate won't, and people who should be sharing "private" information will refuse to do so.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Read on Twitter

This is so beautiful and touching. I have a tear in my eye

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[Zenzibar]

We need some analysis of why Beijing, Shanghai, etc were not impacted significantly with virus cases. To me, that is shocking given the evidence. The spread should have occurred before Wuhan was quarantined. China just closed Wuhan int'l airport Jan. 23, when cases are about 1,000 and deaths 20? Their stats are BS and its likely this virus had spread all over before that date. The lag you see in deaths is due to the carriers not infecting the vulnerable until later on (vacation/work trip duration, not interacting with them immediately).

Dude, this information is out there if you care to look for it.

The fact is that the rest of China also acted very quickly and swiftly.

Countrywide self quarantine and disinfection was implemented. Masks were mandatory for anyone outside. Your temperature was taken anywhere you went and centrally tracked. If you had a fever, they picked you up and took you to a fever clinic - not home or hospital where you could infect others - but to a location where they could give you further testing. Anyone who tested for the illness or even strong symptoms would have led them to alert others at the locations where they had been (which is what the tracking is for) or so they could contain spread in the case of a clear COVID test.

Here is Beijing, one of the cities you specifically asked about... note the Feb 17 post date, over a month ago.

Watch on YouTube

And here is the other, posted Feb 7 in Shanghai:

Watch on YouTube

This is the extreme that China went to for containment. These things will not happen here, which is why it absolutely cannot be expected that China's experience with the virus would be applicable or replicated here.

I've been to China several times, new years celebration lasts 15 days after Jan 25th. Was there a hard quarantine prior to Feb 8th? My question is given the densely populated urban areas, I'm shocked this didn't spread more to the other areas outside Wuhan (which was likely heavily infected prior to New Years). Their domestic measures were still late. Given the evidence provided by China, perhaps there is info we're not aware of. And the burning question for those praising their response. Why the **** didn't they prevent Chinese from leaving their country?

Dude, they're have been non-Chinese travelers to China who returned home. There have been cases of people never in China and not in contact with any persons of Asian nationality infected. Could have been on surfaces of planes arriving to airports here or pilots flying there.

Many factors. Haven't you've seen Planet of the Apes?

[ItsDanger]

Dude, this information is out there if you care to look for it.

The fact is that the rest of China also acted very quickly and swiftly.

Countrywide self quarantine and disinfection was implemented. Masks were mandatory for anyone outside. Your temperature was taken anywhere you went and centrally tracked. If you had a fever, they picked you up and took you to a fever clinic - not home or hospital where you could infect others - but to a location where they could give you further testing. Anyone who tested for the illness or even strong symptoms would have led them to alert others at the locations where they had been (which is what the tracking is for) or so they could contain spread in the case of a clear COVID test.

Here is Beijing, one of the cities you specifically asked about... note the Feb 17 post date, over a month ago.

Watch on YouTube

And here is the other, posted Feb 7 in Shanghai:

Watch on YouTube

This is the extreme that China went to for containment. These things will not happen here, which is why it absolutely cannot be expected that China's experience with the virus would be applicable or replicated here.

I've been to China several times, new years celebration lasts 15 days after Jan 25th. Was there a hard quarantine prior to Feb 8th? My question is given the densely populated urban areas, I'm shocked this didn't spread more to the other areas outside Wuhan (which was likely heavily infected prior to New Years). Their domestic measures were still late. Given the evidence provided by China, perhaps there is info we're not aware of. And the burning question for those praising their response. Why the **** didn't they prevent Chinese from leaving their country?

Dude, they're have been non-Chinese travelers to China who returned home. There have been cases of people never in China and not in contact with any persons of Asian nationality infected. Could have been on surfaces of planes arriving to airports here or pilots flying there.

Many factors. Haven't you've seen Planet of the Apes?

I know. Look up how they treated int'l visitors to China. How many Chinese workers go to Northern Italy? My point is, they took measures to protect themselves, but not any other country. This will come out against them in a big way down the road. Book it.