Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[Homercles 10,206]

Coworker of mine came back from a week long data science summit in Japan.  Corporate policy at our large company has special rules in place for a handful of Asian companies, but not japan. The VP said ‘under no circumstances are you to come into the office for two weeks’.  
 

 Makes perfect sense to me and I’m grateful for it, but still eye opening that it’s gone from a curiosity in China to impacting my office.  

[RayDog 682]

23 minutes ago, Blotto said:

I was talking to a coworker and his wife last night and they just casually mentioned that in two weeks they are heading  to the Philippines for a two week vacation to visit her family. No plans to cancel. WTF? When I asked what they would do if they got stuck in a town under quarantine, he replied that he didn't think the Philippines was an area to worry about. WTF? That plan fails my risk/reward analysis on just about every front, but hey, what's the worst that can happen?

People are getting stuck in the Philippines already and flights through more infected countries could be cancelled in the next 4 weeks. I don't recommend that anyone come to the Philippines now as it will spread to the entire country in a month to 6 weeks from the first major outbreak.

I have had a dry cough for two days and I think more of my friends are coughing. I hope I just have an alergy or ate some bad pussy.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8,817]

12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

*insert bugs bunny with handsaw to California gif here*

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13,118]

29 minutes ago, RayDog said:

I hope I just have an alergy or ate some bad pussy.

Is that wrong?

[BBQ2Bayou 807]

44 minutes ago, RayDog said:

People are getting stuck in the Philippines already and flights through more infected countries could be cancelled in the next 4 weeks. I don't recommend that anyone come to the Philippines now as it will spread to the entire country in a month to 6 weeks from the first major outbreak.

I have had a dry cough for two days and I think more of my friends are coughing. I hope I just have an alergy or ate some bad pussy.

I gotta say, I really commend you for your "when life gives you lemons, eat pussy" attitude in your situation. 

[Armybrat 40,851]

15 hours ago, UTGrad98 said:

Ill post in the ICU if I have to

Been there, done that last year.

[Parliament 14,260]

2 hours ago, Homercles said:

Coworker of mine came back from a week long data science summit in Japan.  Corporate policy at our large company has special rules in place for a handful of Asian companies, but not japan. The VP said ‘under no circumstances are you to come into the office for two weeks’.  
 

 Makes perfect sense to me and I’m grateful for it, but still eye opening that it’s gone from a curiosity in China to impacting my office.  

Will they sequester themselves at home?  If not all the people they interact with at church, the gym HEB (when it's open), etc are at risk.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Parliament

[Telegraph_it 3,358]

This isn’t ominous at all from the Editor-in-Chief of the politburo times. 
 

 

[Bevo 13,579]

Just now, Telegraph_it said:

This isn’t ominous at all from the Editor-in-Chief of the politburo times. 
 

 

Dude sounds like a dick and his shit is all retarded.

[MissingInAction 25,107]

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Better not keep them in the chili.

"Chili" is the safe word.

[Pato del Muerto 52,528]

I looked, and I find no evidence that the UK has banned Chinese nationals from entering. So in 3 weeks the London book fair will have hundreds if not thousands of Chinese peddling their wares, along with thousands of others from around the world as vendors and consumers. 
ive told the mrs that she shouldn’t go. The city will be extra foreigner heavy that week, and two visits through the international portions of heathrow seems like asking for trouble. 

[Armybrat 40,851]

Just think of the Asian tourists in Las Vegas and Macao. WCGW?

Have a Happy Hour friend currently on a cruise down under in Oz and NZ. Guess I’ll be drinking Wild Turkey 101 neat next week.

[Colonel Sanders 1,355]

14 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

 

That Twitter account looks sketchy as fuck.

No verification, refers to “mainstream media” bullshittery, and links to ZeroHedge as a legitimate news source.

This is like the third or fourth time you’ve posted this kind of stuff.

Your Twitter feed must be a cauldron of crap.

 

Okay, this is from NTY, which I think has done the best job covering the outbreak. 

 

More than 1,250 members of the sect, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, have reported potential symptoms, and officials are still trying to locate 700 members so they can be screened.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html

[UDontKnow 10,447]

3 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

*insert bugs bunny with handsaw to California gif here*

I thought that was Florida.

[Brisketexan 105,158]

The kiddos are both doing summer language studies - the girl is already booked for France, and we’re getting ready to book the boy for Germany....but I’m going to wait before I lay out $$ for the flights...I’m becoming concerned that summer international travel could be significantly curtailed.

 

[Loco 3,752]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The kiddos are both doing summer language studies - the girl is already booked for France, and we’re getting ready to book the boy for Germany....but I’m going to wait before I lay out $$ for the flights...I’m becoming concerned that summer international travel could be significantly curtailed.

 

What site did you use researching the study abroad?

[HiggyBaby 2,538]

South Korea starting to do things like delay school year starts, restrictions on travel, etc.   and US military personnel are starting to be banned from going off post.   
BNO has a ton of South Korean stuff this morning, but this is the scariest one. 
 

Praise Jesus and pass the Lysol!

[Neonmoon 38,129]

I’m hoping Europe isn’t a hot zone in May. Trip has been books for months. Shit 

[Brisketexan 105,158]

What site did you use researching the study abroad?

None in particular. The girl picked a French program through her university (several outfits connected with the school). The boy went to a Gap Year program presentation, and was looking at one of those programs discussed there (but it was really pricey and hoity-toity, and not focused on language), so we used that as a jumping off point and looked at comparable programs. We’re looking at a multi-week program at a language school in Berlin.
Mom and I will be staying home this summer (just going to the beach a couple of weeks).

[HenryJames 66,127]

2 hours ago, Telegraph_it said:

This isn’t ominous at all from the Editor-in-Chief of the politburo times. 
 

 

[clapclapclap 9,000]

Unless perhaps if you are retired and fine with being mostly homebound for months, most of us are going to be exposed to China Flu.  Almost impossible to avoid, your kids or workplace will expose you to it.  And doesn't it also live on surfaces for awhile, not just airborne transmissions?  So even if you get groceries delivered, think of how many people they interact with in store/warehouse, delivery, all the different shared equipment and other surfaces they touch, the gas pump handle when refueling, etc.  

Not that efforts to slow the spread aren't worthy, but I don't see how it will be stopped in the near term.  Life will go on (for most....)

Edited February 22, 2020 by clapclapclap

[HenryJames 66,127]

I’d you get groceries delivered, you deserve to die.

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13,118]

I’m deserve if I’d groceries delivered.

[The University 851]

anyone know where i can get a biohazard suit tailored?

[Seger78 258]

I'm leaving for a month of travel around Europe for work in a couple of weeks. Where do I get one of those airline seat tents?

[Pato del Muerto 52,528]

Just now, The University said:

anyone know where i can get a biohazard suit tailored?

Normally I’d say China but that might defeat the purpose at this time. 

[Player 4,575]

anyone know where i can get a biohazard suit tailored?

Marco’s in the galleria is where Icono gets his authentic Chinese knockoff jerseys tailored, so they could prolly handle alterations for other junk coming in from China.

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

 

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

2 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

I’m hoping Europe isn’t a hot zone in May. Trip has been books for months. Shit 

43 minutes ago, Seger78 said:

I'm leaving for a month of travel around Europe for work in a couple of weeks. Where do I get one of those airline seat tents?

Narrator: You’re staying home

 

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

C’mon Italy, get your shit together.   You can fit a lot of coronavirus in a boot.

 

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

Nearly all patients in a South Korean psychiatric ward have it.   Not sure if they are included in SK’s 433 cases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-22/nearly-all-patients-in-south-korean-psychiatric-ward-have-virus

Quote

Almost all patients at a psychiatric ward of a South Korean hospital tested positive for the coronavirus, with local reports saying a religious sect with followers who were infected had attended a funeral in the same complex.

South Korea’s two confirmed deaths from the virus were also from the Cheongdo hospital’s mental health division, Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday. Both patients had been moved out of the psychiatric ward for medical treatment before their deaths, Vice Health and Welfare Minister Kim Kang-lip said at a briefing.

 

[BrickHorn 18,237]

UPS delivered us a package from Shanghai today.  Nice knowing y’all.

[HenryJames 66,127]

Was it though?

[BrickHorn 18,237]

2 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Was it though?

No, not really.

[Bigbend1812 12,927]

[wild_turkey 3,167]

I’m hoping Europe isn’t a hot zone in May. Trip has been books for months. Shit 

Yeah, we have France/Belgium in July and I think it will be one of the following situations by that point:

1) the whole world has it everywhere and mortality is under 1% and we just treat it like flu

2) mortality is much higher and the world is in a state of panic and all international travel is shut down

I’m hoping for option 1

[Neonmoon 38,129]

33 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

 

Yeah, we have France/Belgium in July and I think it will be one of the following situations by that point:

1) the whole world has it everywhere and mortality is under 1% and we just treat it like flu

2) mortality is much higher and the world is in a state of panic and all international travel is shut down

I’m hoping for option 1

 

The problem is we have to go through Option 1 first before we reach option 2

 

[Wally Fairway 5,559]

4 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

I’m hoping Europe isn’t a hot zone in May. Trip has been books for months. Shit 

I just read that Italy quarantined several towns.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Wally Fairway

[F250 28,784]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Nearly all patients in a South Korean psychiatric ward have it.   Not sure if they are included in SK’s 433 cases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-22/nearly-all-patients-in-south-korean-psychiatric-ward-have-virus

 

This sounds like a plot out of a South Korean horror film.

[Anastasis 23,475]

I am just glad that the case of israeli 556 i have in the closet isn't going to just sit there forever. 

[Somnio 751]

1 hour ago, wild_turkey said:

 

Yeah, we have France/Belgium in July and I think it will be one of the following situations by that point:

1) the whole world has it everywhere and mortality is under 1% and we just treat it like flu

2) mortality is much higher and the world is in a state of panic and all international travel is shut down

I’m hoping for option 1

 

I hope so, too.  But isn't pretty much accepted as fact now this is much more serious than the common flu?  The flu has like a .01% kill rate.  Only 1-2% of flu cases require hospitalization.

Maybe things change, but it seems this virus is 100x more deadly thus far.  That's assuming a 1% mortality rate.  It also requires vastly more hospitalizations.

If this isn't contained, it will be catastrophic.  I mentioned it before, but I recommend everyone read up on the Spanish Flu to see what has happened before.

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

59 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I just read that Italy quarantined several towns.

And they aren’t fucking around

 

[achooloco 1,072]

good.

side note, so best case scenario is this is a more deadly flu (actual rate tbd but hopefully not that much higher)? you get it, self quarantine (more so than the flu cause you can actually kill people from it; yes people die from the flu but looking at the comparative odds and how a normal subway rider would view it), get professional/hospital help, then probably/hopefully recover? worst case is that ...well not sure. you get it, recover but more than likely kill your very old or very young relatives if you don't adequately self quarantine? die instead? or is it still tbd?

i'm wondering b/c it seems if it is that lethal for olds and youngs, and its an annual thing here to stay, then there will be a cataclysmic change in american social interactions/culture. "got a cold, could be corona, not going anywhere for a fortnight, kids at a hotel". or will people just shrug and get used to it, running the russian roulette for their family members? starting to feel more like a 12 monkeys situation, except this is the appetizer, and if we don't wise up, we'll get hit with the real entree in a couple years that really collapses shit.

[atomheartbevo 89,732]

 

[Parliament 14,260]

I am just glad that the case of israeli 556 i have in the closet isn't going to just sit there forever. 

Remember. Head shots.

[Bevo 13,579]

23 minutes ago, achooloco said:

i'm wondering b/c it seems if it is that lethal for olds and youngs, and its an annual thing here to stay, then there will be a cataclysmic change in american social interactions/culture. "got a cold, could be corona, not going anywhere for a fortnight, kids at a hotel". or will people just shrug and get used to it, running the russian roulette for their family members? starting to feel more like a 12 monkeys situation, except this is the appetizer, and if we don't wise up, we'll get hit with the real entree in a couple years that really collapses shit.

Please read: https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/

 

“One scenario is that we go through a pandemic,” as the current outbreak may become, said Columbia’s Morse. “Then, depending what the virus does, it could quite possibly settle down into a respiratory illness that comes back seasonally.”

The toll that would take depends on how many people it infects and how virulent it is. Virulence reflects the viruses’ genetics.

The genome of the novel coronavirus consists of a single strand of RNA. Microbes with that kind of genome mutate “notoriously quickly,” said biologist Michael Farzan of Scripps Research, who in 2005 was part of the team that identified the structure of the “spike protein” by which SARS enters human cells.

But SARS has a molecular proofreading system that reduces its mutation rate, and the new coronavirus’s similarity to SARS at the genomic level suggests it does, too. “That makes the mutation rate much, much lower than for flu or HIV,” Farzan said. That lowers the chance that the virus will evolve in some catastrophic way to, say, become significantly more lethal.

The coronavirus “may not change [genetically] at all” in a way that alters function, said biologist Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh, who has been analyzing the genomes of the 2019-nCoV’s from dozens of patients. “It is transmitting quite well already so it may not have to ‘evolve’ to be endemic.”

Any evolution that does take place in an endemic coronavirus, including one that spikes seasonally, might well be toward less virulence. “It doesn’t want to kill you before you transmit it,” Farzan said. “One would therefore expect a slow attenuation” of virulence if the virus becomes like seasonal flu. Dead people don’t transmit viruses, “and even people sitting in their beds and shivering” because they are seriously ill “don’t transmit that well,” he said.

The toll of a seasonal-flu-like coronavirus also depends on immunity — which is also scientifically uncertain. Exposure to the four endemic coronaviruses produces immunity that lasts longer than that to influenza, Webby said, but not permanent immunity. Like respiratory syncytial virus, which can re-infect adults who had it in childhood, coronavirus immunity wanes...

 

How widespread even limited immunity would be, and therefore how many people would become ill from the next go-round of 2019-nCoV, also “depends on how many people get infected the first time around,” Webby said. That number is certainly higher than the more than 20,000 identified cases, since people with no or mild symptoms escape the attention of health care systems.

Since 2019-nCoV is new, “this first wave will be particularly bad because we have an immunologically naïve population,” Adalja said. Future waves should pass by people who were exposed (but not necessarily sickened) this time around, Morse said, “but that assumes this virus doesn’t develop the tricks of flu,” which famously tweaks the surface molecules that the immune system can see, making itself invisible to antibodies from previous exposures.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Bevo

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13,118]

20 minutes ago, Parliament said:

 

 

Remember. Head shots.

 

 

Double tap.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

51 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

[clapclapclap 9,000]

https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/

Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab

Spoiler

Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab

At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future.

A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue.

Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive entitled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”

Read that again. It sure sounds like China has a problem keeping dangerous pathogens in test tubes where they belong, doesn’t it? And just how many “microbiology labs” are there in China that handle “advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus”?

It turns out that in all of China there is only one. And this one is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be . . . the epicenter of the epidemic.

That’s right. China’s only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses, called the National Biosafety Laboratory, is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What’s more, the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak.

According to the PLA Daily, Gen. Chen has been researching coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax. This would not be her first trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology either, since it is one of only two bioweapons research labs in all of China.

Does that suggest to you that the novel coronavirus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, may have escaped from that very lab, and that Gen. Chen’s job is to try and put the genie back in the bottle, as it were? It does to me.

Add to this China’s history of similar incidents. Even the deadly SARS virus has escaped — twice — from the Beijing lab where it was — and probably is — being used in experiments. Both “man-made” epidemics were quickly contained, but neither would have happened at all if proper safety precautions had been taken.

And then there is this little-known fact: Some Chinese researchers are in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.

You heard me right.

Instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side to make a little extra cash. Or, in some cases, a lot of extra cash. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made a million dollars selling his monkeys and rats on the live animal market, where they eventually wound up in someone’s stomach.

Also fueling suspicions about SARS-CoV-2’s origins is the series of increasingly lame excuses offered by the Chinese authorities as people began to sicken and die.

They first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of Virology, even though the first documented cases of Covid-19 (the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they pointed to snakes, bats and even a cute little scaly anteater called a pangolin as the source of the virus.

I don’t buy any of this. It turns out that snakes don’t carry coronaviruses and that bats aren’t sold at a seafood market. Neither are pangolins, for that matter, an endangered species valued for their scales as much as for their meat.

The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus may have been carried out of the lab by an infected worker or crossed over into humans when they unknowingly dined on a lab animal. Whatever the vector, Beijing authorities are now clearly scrambling to correct the serious problems with the way their labs handle deadly pathogens.

China has unleashed a plague on its own people. It’s too early to say how many in China and other countries will ultimately die for the failures of their country’s state-run microbiology labs, but the human cost will be high.

But not to worry. Xi has assured us that he is controlling biosecurity risks “to protect the people’s health.” PLA bioweapons experts are in charge.

I doubt the Chinese people will find that very reassuring. Neither should we.

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by clapclapclap

[atomheartbevo 89,732]