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

[Brisketexan 105142]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

You mean what HAS happened. Twice. From the exact same situation.  I really don't get the push back on this.  

Dude - we can't even agree to keep regulations on known dangerous carcinogens and emissions on our own soil that are known to cause and/or hasten death of thousands of people each year.  Rules for thee, but not for me - that's our motto.  We are only interested in blaming other people, not in taking any responsibility -- ANY.  ZERO responsibility for our own fate, that's the amount we'll take.....but if there's a third party to blame, for anything in any degree, well, we'll wave the flag and DEMAND ACTION!

Edited April 24, 2020 by Brisketexan

[pacman 7355]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

For all of those posting "fuck China," here is the reason some of us are pushing back.  It has nothing to do with wanting to absolve the Chinese government for its transparent propaganda or culpability in failing to contain the outbreak in the first place (or causing it).

It's this.

  Reveal hidden contents

The novel coronavirus pandemic has Americans across the country fearful for their personal health and well-being, but for Asian Americans, the virus has stirred up another threat: a wave of verbal and physical attacks.

Jeff Yang experienced what he calls his own “breathing while Asian” moment last week while shopping at his local grocery store in Los Angeles. Even as the host of a podcast about being Asian in America, Yang says he was taken aback when a woman leaving the store noticed him — the only Asian in line — and started shouting profanities.

“She pulled down her mask, coughed theatrically in my direction, pulled up her mask, walked away, got into a car and drove away,” Yang recalls. “I was too shocked to do anything.”

“It really was a bit of a gut punch,” Yang added.

For Jeni Erbes-Chan, an architect in New York, it was a trip on the subway on March 10, her last day in the office before the citywide stay-at-home order, that shook her.

“A man sort of lurched at me and shouted, ‘You people brought the virus. Go back to China.’ I was a little in shock,” Erbes-Chan said. “I just put my head down and tried not to make any eye contact after that.”

Like so many others, she went about her day and didn’t report the incident to law enforcement.

“You just bury your head and you move forward because no matter how hard you work, how successful you are, what friends you make, you just don’t belong,” she said. “You will always be looked at as foreign.”

Incidents like these have been on the rise in recent weeks, and some have escalated beyond these verbal assaults. A family of three were stabbed outside a store in Midland, Texas, last month. The FBI says the man who was arrested after that incident may face federal hate crime charges. The FBI is also warning local law enforcement around the country of a potential surge in hate crime incidents against Asian Americans because of coronavirus fears, according to an FBI analysis obtained by ABC News.

... (edited for DT)

Lee, the author of “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States,” says fear of disease from immigrant groups has long been part of American history, going back to the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s, which put severe restrictions on Chinese immigrants that she believes the country later came to regret.... (edited for DT)

“Future historians will look upon this period as the absolute high point of xenophobia in our history,” Lee said.

It was an increase in day-to-day accounts of shunning, spitting and other verbal and physical attacks in the wake of the pandemic that led some Asian American groups to create hate crime reporting websites to better document the unfolding situation on the ground.

Stop AAPI Hate, one tool created by California-based advocacy organizations, collects reports of hate incidents in seven languages. In the nearly three weeks since its launch, the website has received more than 1,200 reports, escalating to a rate of about 100 per day. Organizers say the rate of reporting is likely a severe undercount of the actual incidents taking place every day across the country.

“I’ve committed myself to read every single account. It’s hard to keep up,” said Cynthia Choi, the co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, one of the groups behind Stop AAPI Hate. “We knew things would start to get a lot worse before things get better. Unfortunately, our predictions are coming true.”

An analysis from the website’s second week found verbal harassment made up about two-thirds of the reports. Nearly ten percent were of physical assaults. More than a third of all incidents reported occured in California, where Asians make up about 15 percent of the state’s residents.

For Choi, the most upsetting accounts she’s read have targeted health care workers on the front lines battling the coronavirus. In one instance, a doctor on his way to work was told to “go back to f****** China.” In another, a nurse delivering medicine to a sick patient was spit on.

For Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council, another organization that created the website, the attacks on children are among the most upsetting. Children are the target of about six percent of all reports, according to the analysis.

One of the worst incidents she recalls hearing about occured in the weeks before schools across the country closed en masse. A 12-year-old was taunted at school by a classmate who yelled at him to “go back to China,” Kukarni recalled. When the student protested, the bully punched him in the head 20 times.

“This is unfortunately part of our new reality, along with tremendous fears of contracting the virus,” Kulkarni said.

* * * * (edited for DT)

Kulkarni, a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles, has also had her own first-hand experiences with “racist rhetoric” in the weeks since the first cases of coronavirus were reported in California. During a trip to the hair salon, she says two women at the washing station next to her were blaming Chinese people — “these people” as she recalls them saying — for “what they eat” being the cause of the virus.

“I was shocked and visibly shaken, and I do this for a living,” she said.

The work of Stop AAPI Hate and two other reporting tools that have emerged in recent weeks has gained the attention of members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat whose district in Queens, New York, is near the current epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., introduced legislation last month to condemn anti-Asian racism and require the government to collect data about coronavirus-related hate crimes.

“I’ve often thought of discriminatory actions and rhetoric as part of our American history, something that was in the past and not something that affected us today,” Meng said during a virtual news conference last week. “As we’ve seen today with what people are doing and saying against fellow Americans, there is a lot of fear in our communities.”

Even with increased awareness about the hate being directed toward their community and with more outlets to report anti-Asian incidents emerging, both Kulkarni and Choi worry about the lingering effects of the pandemic. They say the mental wounds exposed by the coronavirus may not heal until long after the virus’ threat has been mitigated and people return to work or school.

“I worry that our concerns mostly are about the fear of the contagion of the disease and that we’re not adequately afraid of the spread of racism,” Kulkami said. “Racism is a part of the fabric of American life.”

“When we return to normalcy, we know that stigmatization will continue,” Choi added. “Just because we are able to go back to our normal lives doesn’t mean that there’s no more resentment.”

Also, csb, my wife mentioned to me just this morning that the owner of the nail salon she uses (she's friends with outside of getting her nails done) has told her of several occasions over the last two months where she was spat at and given nasty looks or comments of "go back to China"  (she's Vietnamese).

Chinese citizens have done the same to Africans living in China. SOme rumor around there started that Africans were the source of covid.

[David Dennison 18860]

3 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Thanks for your magnificent input. Please return to the hole.

You're welcome.

[Poe It Up 126]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Yeah, good luck with that. 

Damn, what’s your aversion to American made dildos? 

[po elvis 2070]

Definitely a few people on here that are not realists and don't understand the complexities of a country built on the freedom of its people having to take a lot of those freedoms away and at what point those people will allow their freedoms to be taken away.

[Dahobbs 17534]

5 minutes ago, Hate said:

What part of "plenty of blame to go around" and "we could have done things better" don't you get?  I didn't absolve the US response, but that response has been years and years in the making but you and the CR cabal really want to make it a 2 month issue.  The fact of the matter is that if China has been truthful about this from the beginning, we could have stopped all travel coming into the US and prevented this from ever reaching what it has. 

That is a pretty questionable conclusion. It isn't like Chinese government knew about the virus and the extent of the problem at the exact instant the very first person was infected. Just like for us, it took sometime for the virus to become prevalent enough to even be noticed AND then some more time before the seriousness of the disease was apparent. Presumably, during that delay the virus could have spread to the US or Europe or wherever. Hell, that genetic sampling that of the strains of the virus around the world showed that almost all of the cases from here in the United States were more closely related with cases in Europe and Canada, not the Chinese outbreak. 

[David Dennison 18860]

Just now, Poe It Up said:

Damn, what’s your aversion to American made dildos? 

De-industrialization has resulted in America losing its ability to manufacture quality dildos at competitive prices.

[Leeroy Jenkins 2404]

1 hour ago, bluto said:

LEEEEROY JEEEEEEENKINS

No.  Fuck that shit.  

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

. Hell, that genetic sampling that of the strains of the virus around the world showed that almost all of the cases from here in the United States were more closely related with cases in Europe and Canada, not the Chinese outbreak. 

Where did those cases originate?

[stone oak 639]

poooooooooooor aggy china

[GringoSalado 1651]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude - we can't even agree to keep regulations on known dangerous carcinogens and emissions on our own soil that are known to cause and/or hasten death of thousands of people each year.  

Upthread there is an article that explains that Pharm mfg went offshore because FDA regulation just couldn't be as onerous/effective (take your pick) in China.

 

edit: so the point is that in some cases regs have driven industries overseas, either directly or indirectly by imposition of more costs etc. I'm not saying fuck the planet or whatever but all those dangerous carcinogens we "banned" are just made in China under even less oversight.

Edited April 24, 2020 by GringoSalado

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

1 minute ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Where did those cases originate?

[TXSG8R 3362]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Let's run with the wet market origin story.  H5N1, SARS, and COVID all emerged from an environment where live wild animals were kept in a wet market. After SARS, china restricted the practice.  Then the wildlife showed back up when they relaxed the restrictions.  Then COVID emerged in a wet market where live wildstock was kept.  

This is not really rocket science here Bozo. 

This was completely preventable. China had put the regulations in place to prevent it.  Then they relaxed those regulations. And here we are. 

I agree completely that we need to really think about how we interact with the natural world, commercial farms and ranch practices, etc.  But don't wave that shit around as a distraction when we have a very clearly preventable example right at hand.  

 

Here is an article from 2007.  

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-foodmarket/china-market-may-be-breeding-ground-for-deadly-viruses-idUSHKG27143120071210

Ok, so lets carry that thread out.  China bans the wet markets, so the wet markets go underground.  Just like the dog meat market in SK does every time they try to get rid of it.  Its a cultural issue, and law enforcement wont solve it, even the draconian law enforcement China can bring to the table.  China bans wet markets, people still buy bats for soup, pangolin dicks, shark fins, etc, they just don't do it in the Wuhan megamarket, they do it at some side door at someone's house.  That doesn't stop the practice, anymore than banning the ivory trade has stopped elephants from being poached.  Speaking of which, China banning their wet markets does fuck all for similar practices in Africa, so saying this was preventable is beyond simplistic.  

The more realistic option is to use intelligence to get as much forewarning as possible on viruses, which we have.  China lies, they lie all the time, we know they lie, they know they lie, so the reliance on China being forthcoming is as realistic as relying on the banning of wet markets to stop Chinese people from practicing eastern medicine.  Its why the blaming of the WHO is also pretty ignorant.  They are a body that relies entirely on receiving data from foreign governments, they cant compel anyone to do anything.  They are the NCAA of medicine.  We have a robust intelligence service for stuff just like this.  That's why its there, use it. 

In addition, set up firewalls (travel bans, quarantine processes, etc) to slow the spread, which we don't really seem to have a complete playbook for (and in fairness, no one really does, but hopefully we learn), and the stockpiling/massive production ramping of PPE so we can offer some level of protection to slow the spread while we get our arms around whatever comes next and gives us time to develop tests, vaccines, etc.  The latter is the biggest hole in our response.  Part of that is institutional, but its also a cultural thing.

The long term wearing of masks in public is a cultural change that we would need to look at, just like we are asking China to do wrt eastern medicine.  Its pretty common in Asian countries, partially due to air quality, but also because they have known for a long time that it helps reduce the spread of airborne illnesses.  SK still has a big problem with TB, so people wear masks.  Anyone that has it, wears a mask.  Anyone that's paranoid about it, wears a mask.  Anyone that feels ill, wears a mask.  That helped SK get in front of their response, PPE was widely available for the few people that didn't have it on hand.  I know there are large differences in population numbers, footprint, etc, so we need to figure out the best alternative to that. 

I believe we scale our response methods to the places with the highest risk.  Big ports of entry, population density, high tourism?  Big firewall response and massive PPE deployment, closure of mass transit, etc.  Bumfuck Georgia?  Social distancing, hit people that move between towns and/or handle stuff from out of town with PPE and put them on watches for quarantine.  Testing has a place in there, but its always going to lag behind the initial response.  That's the part we need to focus on unless we are willing to go to war with foreign countries to change their cultures permanently.  

[GHOSTUSER 361]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

For all of those posting "fuck China," here is the reason some of us are pushing back.  It has nothing to do with wanting to absolve the Chinese government for its transparent propaganda or culpability in failing to contain the outbreak in the first place (or causing it).

It's this.

  Reveal hidden contents

The novel coronavirus pandemic has Americans across the country fearful for their personal health and well-being, but for Asian Americans, the virus has stirred up another threat: a wave of verbal and physical attacks.

Jeff Yang experienced what he calls his own “breathing while Asian” moment last week while shopping at his local grocery store in Los Angeles. Even as the host of a podcast about being Asian in America, Yang says he was taken aback when a woman leaving the store noticed him — the only Asian in line — and started shouting profanities.

“She pulled down her mask, coughed theatrically in my direction, pulled up her mask, walked away, got into a car and drove away,” Yang recalls. “I was too shocked to do anything.”

“It really was a bit of a gut punch,” Yang added.

For Jeni Erbes-Chan, an architect in New York, it was a trip on the subway on March 10, her last day in the office before the citywide stay-at-home order, that shook her.

“A man sort of lurched at me and shouted, ‘You people brought the virus. Go back to China.’ I was a little in shock,” Erbes-Chan said. “I just put my head down and tried not to make any eye contact after that.”

Like so many others, she went about her day and didn’t report the incident to law enforcement.

“You just bury your head and you move forward because no matter how hard you work, how successful you are, what friends you make, you just don’t belong,” she said. “You will always be looked at as foreign.”

Incidents like these have been on the rise in recent weeks, and some have escalated beyond these verbal assaults. A family of three were stabbed outside a store in Midland, Texas, last month. The FBI says the man who was arrested after that incident may face federal hate crime charges. The FBI is also warning local law enforcement around the country of a potential surge in hate crime incidents against Asian Americans because of coronavirus fears, according to an FBI analysis obtained by ABC News.

... (edited for DT)

Lee, the author of “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States,” says fear of disease from immigrant groups has long been part of American history, going back to the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s, which put severe restrictions on Chinese immigrants that she believes the country later came to regret.... (edited for DT)

“Future historians will look upon this period as the absolute high point of xenophobia in our history,” Lee said.

It was an increase in day-to-day accounts of shunning, spitting and other verbal and physical attacks in the wake of the pandemic that led some Asian American groups to create hate crime reporting websites to better document the unfolding situation on the ground.

Stop AAPI Hate, one tool created by California-based advocacy organizations, collects reports of hate incidents in seven languages. In the nearly three weeks since its launch, the website has received more than 1,200 reports, escalating to a rate of about 100 per day. Organizers say the rate of reporting is likely a severe undercount of the actual incidents taking place every day across the country.

“I’ve committed myself to read every single account. It’s hard to keep up,” said Cynthia Choi, the co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, one of the groups behind Stop AAPI Hate. “We knew things would start to get a lot worse before things get better. Unfortunately, our predictions are coming true.”

An analysis from the website’s second week found verbal harassment made up about two-thirds of the reports. Nearly ten percent were of physical assaults. More than a third of all incidents reported occured in California, where Asians make up about 15 percent of the state’s residents.

For Choi, the most upsetting accounts she’s read have targeted health care workers on the front lines battling the coronavirus. In one instance, a doctor on his way to work was told to “go back to f****** China.” In another, a nurse delivering medicine to a sick patient was spit on.

For Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council, another organization that created the website, the attacks on children are among the most upsetting. Children are the target of about six percent of all reports, according to the analysis.

One of the worst incidents she recalls hearing about occured in the weeks before schools across the country closed en masse. A 12-year-old was taunted at school by a classmate who yelled at him to “go back to China,” Kukarni recalled. When the student protested, the bully punched him in the head 20 times.

“This is unfortunately part of our new reality, along with tremendous fears of contracting the virus,” Kulkarni said.

* * * * (edited for DT)

Kulkarni, a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles, has also had her own first-hand experiences with “racist rhetoric” in the weeks since the first cases of coronavirus were reported in California. During a trip to the hair salon, she says two women at the washing station next to her were blaming Chinese people — “these people” as she recalls them saying — for “what they eat” being the cause of the virus.

“I was shocked and visibly shaken, and I do this for a living,” she said.

The work of Stop AAPI Hate and two other reporting tools that have emerged in recent weeks has gained the attention of members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat whose district in Queens, New York, is near the current epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., introduced legislation last month to condemn anti-Asian racism and require the government to collect data about coronavirus-related hate crimes.

“I’ve often thought of discriminatory actions and rhetoric as part of our American history, something that was in the past and not something that affected us today,” Meng said during a virtual news conference last week. “As we’ve seen today with what people are doing and saying against fellow Americans, there is a lot of fear in our communities.”

Even with increased awareness about the hate being directed toward their community and with more outlets to report anti-Asian incidents emerging, both Kulkarni and Choi worry about the lingering effects of the pandemic. They say the mental wounds exposed by the coronavirus may not heal until long after the virus’ threat has been mitigated and people return to work or school.

“I worry that our concerns mostly are about the fear of the contagion of the disease and that we’re not adequately afraid of the spread of racism,” Kulkami said. “Racism is a part of the fabric of American life.”

“When we return to normalcy, we know that stigmatization will continue,” Choi added. “Just because we are able to go back to our normal lives doesn’t mean that there’s no more resentment.”

Also, csb, my wife mentioned to me just this morning that the owner of the nail salon she uses (she's friends with outside of getting her nails done) has told her of several occasions over the last two months where she was spat at and given nasty looks or comments of "go back to China"  (she's Vietnamese).

Cry me a fucking river. I was a kid growing up in Houston and had to put up with abuse for the Iran hostage situation which my family had nothing to do with. Back then no one gave a shit about someone in my position. No Asian-American should have to put up with abuse; however, there is nothing wrong at all with saying "fuck China". The vast majority of people in the US are smart enough to distinguish between the Chinese Communist bat eaters and our friendly Asian neighbor down the street. A few nasty comments by idiots doesn't mean that there are pogroms going on.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Iconoclast Texan

[Dahobbs 17534]

1 minute ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Where did those cases originate?

All cases originated from a single point of infection in China. I'm just saying (1) even if China acted reasonably, the infection could have easily spread past its borders before anyone could have done anything about it, and (2) the US shutting off travel to China wouldn't have done anything to stop infections that spread to us from Europe, which appears to be how it actually got here. 

[dcar00 14210]

7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

That is a pretty questionable conclusion. It isn't like Chinese government knew about the virus and the extent of the problem at the exact instant the very first person was infected. Just like for us, it took sometime for the virus to become prevalent enough to even be noticed AND then some more time before the seriousness of the disease was apparent. Presumably, during that delay the virus could have spread to the US or Europe or wherever. Hell, that genetic sampling that of the strains of the virus around the world showed that almost all of the cases from here in the United States were more closely related with cases in Europe and Canada, not the Chinese outbreak. 

yep. we should have shut off Europe the same day we did China. but we have turned 2.2M into potentially less than 100K and didn't overrun the hospitals so there is that.

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13091]

2 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Too soon?

Not too soon. There’s actually a very short window between too young and this:

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

3 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

That's the part we need to focus on unless we are willing to go to war with foreign countries to change their cultures permanently.  

We are, we're just not very good at it. The changing part, the war part we're pretty good at.

[Hate 20108]

That is a pretty questionable conclusion. It isn't like Chinese government knew about the virus and the extent of the problem at the exact instant the very first person was infected. Just like for us, it took sometime for the virus to become prevalent enough to even be noticed AND then some more time before the seriousness of the disease was apparent. Presumably, during that delay the virus could have spread to the US or Europe or wherever. Hell, that genetic sampling that of the strains of the virus around the world showed that almost all of the cases from here in the United States were more closely related with cases in Europe and Canada, not the Chinese outbreak. 

Two months after the first reported case of this virus China was still telling the world that it couldn’t be transmitted person to person.

[dcar00 14210]

has the different strain thing been medically confirmed by CDC?

[Anastasis 23469]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

All cases originated from a single point of infection in China. I'm just saying (1) even if China acted reasonably, the infection could have easily spread past its borders before anyone could have done anything about it, and (2) the US shutting off travel to China wouldn't have done anything to stop infections that spread to us from Europe, which appears to be how it actually got here. 

When he said "stopped all travel coming into the US", I interpreted that to mean both US and European travel, not just travel from China.

I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

[dcar00 14210]

Just now, Anastasis said:

When he said "stopped all travel coming into the US", I interpreted that to mean both US and European travel, not just travel from China.

I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

xenophobe!

[TXSG8R 3362]

20 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

We should treat them the same way that we would treat a rogue nuclear state.  Sanctions until they regulate the situation, international inspection regime, etc. Sorry that you won't have cheap dildos to chew on. 

We dont have a lot of rogue nuclear states that have us completely by the balls wrt to trade.  Even if you can find some painless way around the mountain of import and export issues they could fuck us on, the rare earth element production would completely fuck us if they decided to turn off the spigot.  You think its hard for us to ramp up PPE production on demand?  Try standing up rare earth mining and refinement.  You like applying binary solutions to very complicated problems.  

[Dahobbs 17534]

2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

yep. we should have shut off Europe the same day we did China. but we have turned 2.2M into potentially less than 100K and didn't overrun the hospitals so there is that.

I just don't think containment with a disease this virulent is a viable strategy. You may be able to slow when it gets to you, but it will get to you. If we had perfect information (i.e., knew the moment was someone was infected), sure we could stop it. I just don't see that ever being possible. 

[Hate 20108]

When he said "stopped all travel coming into the US", I interpreted that to mean both US and European travel, not just travel from China.
I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

There was no interpretation necessary. I said stop all travel into the US. Spinners gonna spin though.

[Hate 20108]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

When he said "stopped all travel coming into the US", I interpreted that to mean both US and European travel, not just travel from China.
I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

Stupid double post.  I think the Surly servers have the Wuhan this morning.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Hate

[Brisketexan 105142]

And, a report from ABIA (my wife had to travel today -- she's going to say goodbye to her aunt/surrogate mom, who is in her final days (not COVID)) -- a surprisingly decent-sized line at security, but it moved efficiently.  She was stunned by how many people there were NOT wearing masks....and she also observed that almost all of the no-mask crowd was male.  

She's worn at least one layer of mask (and sometimes two -- an industrial dust mask covered by a cloth mask) the whole time, and has a bag full of bleach wipes she's using on everything she touches.  There's risk there that neither of us likes, but it's a risk that we both agreed was worth it.  If you can get to someone in their final days to say goodbye, you really need to.

Now, back to blaming China while making sure not a word of criticism is stated about the US response.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

42 minutes ago, stone oak said:

Someone left the cloak room door open again

If by door you mean grease trap, the yes.

[dcar00 14210]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

And, a report from ABIA (my wife had to travel today -- she's going to say goodbye to her aunt/surrogate mom, who is in her final days (not COVID)) -- a surprisingly decent-sized line at security, but it moved efficiently.  She was stunyned by how many people there were NOT wearing masks....and she also observed that almost all of the no-mask crowd was male.  

She's worn at least one layer of mask (and sometimes two -- an industrial dust mask covered by a cloth mask) the whole time, and has a bag full of bleach wipes she's using on everything she touches.  There's risk there that neither of us likes, but it's a risk that we both agreed was worth it.  If you can get to someone in their final days to say goodbye, you really need to.

Now, back to blaming China while making sure not a word of criticism is stated about the US response.

yep. Fuck China.

[Bozo_Casanova 26462]

24 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

You mean what HAS happened. Twice. From the exact same situation.  I really don't get the push back on this.  

Wow, did you ever miss the point.
 

Ironic that a burn it down guy, who is skeptical of government in general and particularly skeptical about the good we can do overseas,  and confirms that skepticism by cheering for the fall of the norms and institutions that support our own effectiveness, should ALSO imagine that we can somehow do away with a very specific set of  conditions in one location on the other side of the world, but not prepare for the inevitable domestically.

[dcar00 14210]

4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I just don't think containment with a disease this virulent is a viable strategy. You may be able to slow when it gets to you, but it will get to you. If we had perfect information (i.e., knew the moment was someone was infected), sure we could stop it. I just don't see that ever being possible. 

who said we could stop it?

[Dahobbs 17534]

 

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

When he said "stopped all travel coming into the US", I interpreted that to mean both US and European travel, not just travel from China.

I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

 

1 minute ago, Hate said:

There was no interpretation necessary. I said stop all travel into the US. Spinners gonna spin though.

 

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

I just don't think containment with a disease this virulent is a viable strategy. You may be able to slow when it gets to you, but it will get to you. If we had perfect information (i.e., knew the moment was someone was infected), sure we could stop it. I just don't see that ever being possible. 

I'm not spinning anything. I'm just pointing out the reality that it is was always going to be difficult to stop a disease that spreads this readily, doesn't make itself apparent immediately, and leaves the majority of people with only minor symptoms that are consistent with a dozen common ailments. Maybe we stop it from spreading if China acts perfectly. Maybe. I just don't think it is a given whatsoever. I mean fuck, how long did it take us to realize it was readily spreading here even after we knew it was a thing? Even if China acts perfectly, it isn't detecting this thing until after it has had a good amount of time to spread past China. 

[Brisketexan 105142]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I think this is one of the lessons to take away.  Given the quick global nature of travel today, targeted travel restrictions are not sufficient. You have to be willing to close down all international travel. And quickly. 

Unless we sharply curtail international travel in general -- make it a royal pain in the ass to get here from any foreign country, at all times -- there's no way to just close down all international travel quickly (and again, the logistics of having hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded abroad is a nightmare....as is the fact that if the disease is where they are, they may be carrying it already).  A shutdown on travel may slow the spread, but that's about it.  It WILL get here, and it WILL get into the community.

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

I just don't think containment with a disease this virulent is a viable strategy. You may be able to slow when it gets to you, but it will get to you. If we had perfect information (i.e., knew the moment was someone was infected), sure we could stop it. I just don't see that ever being possible. 

It isn't.  Except in one very narrow circumstance: contain it right when it starts.  That's it.  That's how you can contain a disease this virulent.  Contain it right when it starts.  Which emphasizes the need for the US to have a stout medical intelligence apparatus, AND a good working relationship with every nation where this sort of thing can crop up.  I don't care if China is our enemy or friend -- when a common foe crops up in the next Wuhan, I would much rather we know about it as it happens, and throw everything we've got at stamping out the disease right there, before it spreads. 

The best -- and often ONLY -- place to fight a wildfire is right at its starting point, when it's small.  Once it's at 500 acres with a 30 mph wind, you're fucked.  You'll get control of that fire when mother nature decides you will.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

49 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What I love is that we absolutely can and should talk about the culpability of the party that caused the fire to start and escape local containment (and there's clearly significant culpability there).....but it's taboo for us to talk about the culpability of the party responsible for preventing the arrival and spread of the fire on our shores.

Makes me chuckle a bit.  Do continue.

Yep, and you're biting your tongue I know, and you can blame lots of people in just about every friggin' western nation.  You can blame folks right here in the good ol USA.  

[David Dennison 18860]

8 minutes ago, Hate said:

Two months after the first reported case of this virus China was still telling the world that it couldn’t be transmitted person to person.

Trust but verify, brah.

[Brisketexan 105142]

2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Wow, did you ever miss the point.
 

Ironic that a burn it down guy, who is skeptical of government in general and particularly skeptical about the good we can do overseas,  and confirms that skepticism by cheering for the fall of the norms and institutions that support our own effectiveness, should ALSO imagine that we can somehow do away with a very specific set of  conditions in one location on the other side of the world, but not prepare for the inevitable domestically.

Well, see, when you talk about using political and governmental action to go after another country, that's just good talking, but if you talk about domestic action or preparation, THAT'S POLITICS GO BACK TO THE CR!!!

[Brisketexan 105142]

1 minute ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Yep, and you're biting your tongue I know, and you can blame lots of people in just about every friggin' western nation.  You can blame folks right here in the good ol USA.  

Not on this board you can't.  You can blame literally ANYONE ELSE (see the last few pages -- that's 90% of the posts)....but if you say a word about folks here in the USA (and really, that's restricted to just the folks in the executive branch of the federal government -- you can shit all over governors of democratic states all you want), well, GO BACK TO THE CR.  That you don't see the absurd conversation that double standard creates is amusing in itself.

[Anastasis 23469]

6 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

Ok, so lets carry that thread out.  China bans the wet markets, so the wet markets go underground.  Just like the dog meat market in SK does every time they try to get rid of it.  Its a cultural issue, and law enforcement wont solve it, even the draconian law enforcement China can bring to the table.  China bans wet markets, people still buy bats for soup, pangolin dicks, shark fins, etc, they just don't do it in the Wuhan megamarket, they do it at some side door at someone's house.  That doesn't stop the practice, anymore than banning the ivory trade has stopped elephants from being poached.  Speaking of which, China banning their wet markets does fuck all for similar practices in Africa, so saying this was preventable is beyond simplistic.  

The more realistic option is to use intelligence to get as much forewarning as possible on viruses, which we have.  China lies, they lie all the time, we know they lie, they know they lie, so the reliance on China being forthcoming is as realistic as relying on the banning of wet markets to stop Chinese people from practicing eastern medicine.  Its why the blaming of the WHO is also pretty ignorant.  They are a body that relies entirely on receiving data from foreign governments, they cant compel anyone to do anything.  They are the NCAA of medicine.  We have a robust intelligence service for stuff just like this.  That's why its there, use it. 

In addition, set up firewalls (travel bans, quarantine processes, etc) to slow the spread, which we don't really seem to have a complete playbook for (and in fairness, no one really does, but hopefully we learn), and the stockpiling/massive production ramping of PPE so we can offer some level of protection to slow the spread while we get our arms around whatever comes next and gives us time to develop tests, vaccines, etc.  The latter is the biggest hole in our response.  Part of that is institutional, but its also a cultural thing.

The long term wearing of masks in public is a cultural change that we would need to look at, just like we are asking China to do wrt eastern medicine.  Its pretty common in Asian countries, partially due to air quality, but also because they have known for a long time that it helps reduce the spread of airborne illnesses.  SK still has a big problem with TB, so people wear masks.  Anyone that has it, wears a mask.  Anyone that's paranoid about it, wears a mask.  Anyone that feels ill, wears a mask.  That helped SK get in front of their response, PPE was widely available for the few people that didn't have it on hand.  I know there are large differences in population numbers, footprint, etc, so we need to figure out the best alternative to that. 

I believe we scale our response methods to the places with the highest risk.  Big ports of entry, population density, high tourism?  Big firewall response and massive PPE deployment, closure of mass transit, etc.  Bumfuck Georgia?  Social distancing, hit people that move between towns and/or handle stuff from out of town with PPE and put them on watches for quarantine.  Testing has a place in there, but its always going to lag behind the initial response.  That's the part we need to focus on unless we are willing to go to war with foreign countries to change their cultures permanently.  

I agree that we need a robust, international infectious disease surveillance network. And you are right that we will have to make some cultural changes ourselves. 

9 minutes ago, TXSG8R said:

China bans wet markets, people still buy bats for soup, pangolin dicks, shark fins, etc, they just don't do it in the Wuhan megamarket, they do it at some side door at someone's house. 

Likely, yes.  But removing the practice from the megamarkets substantially decreases the risks.  Fewer species intermingled, fewer animals being processed on location, fewer individuals transiting the market, fewer opportunity for zoonotic transmission.

[dcar00 14210]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Not on this board you can't.  You can blame literally ANYONE ELSE (see the last few pages -- that's 90% of the posts)....but if you say a word about folks here in the USA (and really, that's restricted to just the folks in the executive branch of the federal government -- you can shit all over governors of democratic states all you want), well, GO BACK TO THE CR.  That you don't see the absurd conversation that double standard creates is amusing in itself.

people have been shitting on Abbott in this very thread.  It must suck when the cloak room goes cold...

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Not on this board you can't.  You can blame literally ANYONE ELSE (see the last few pages -- that's 90% of the posts)....but if you say a word about folks here in the USA (and really, that's restricted to just the folks in the executive branch of the federal government -- you can shit all over governors of democratic states all you want), well, GO BACK TO THE CR.  That you don't see the absurd conversation that double standard creates is amusing in itself.

Politics has been kept out of here as much as possible. What you, and the cabal want to do is make this yet another condemn Trump/ other guys party thread.  He has blame, and so do other agencies, heads of agencies, and other governments all over the world.  Have state govs/ been attacked using politics as the motivating factor here ?

 Anyone pushing back on that would be attacked, and jihaded, and the whole thread would turn into the shit hole CR has become.  

[MNLonghornFUKM 8817]

Today Minnesota has its largest spike in cases now that they’ve begun to pump out tests over 2k a day which soon should be 5-10k a day.

Nobles county(pop 21k) had a meat plant outbreak just recently after the Sioux falls one. It now is ahead of Ramsey county(St.Paul/pop 550k) in total cases.

[Bozo_Casanova 26462]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I agree that we need a robust, international infectious disease surveillance network.

A burn-it-down guy says "what?"

[Dahobbs 17534]

On 3/21/2020 at 6:50 PM, Incredulity said:

I will bet you $1,000 right now the coronavirus US death toll is less than 50,000 on April 30 2020 according to Johns Hopkins

 

On 3/21/2020 at 8:08 PM, Incredulity said:

Again, of course you won’t.

I will gladly take the bet, Johns Hopkins website shows greater than 50,000 deaths in the US from COVID 19 on April 30 and I will post a donation receipt from The Red Cross.  Less than 50k you post Receipt of donation to Red Cross.

I’m not going to argue about the veracity of “daves foodbank” or some shit.

 

On 3/21/2020 at 8:47 PM, Dahobbs said:

Deal. I really hope you win because it'll be a win for us all. 

Now for bad news, US now at 84 new deaths today, 7,686 new cases, with several hours to go. 

• Mar 10 = 4
• March 13 = 8
• March 16 = 18
• March 19 = 57
• March 21 = 84

 

50,066 on Johns Hopkins map as of 11:59 am central time, April 24, 2020. 

[David Dennison 18860]

4 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

people have been shitting on Abbott in this very thread.  It must suck when the cloak room goes cold...

You're making his point.

[gecko 1104]

[Bozo_Casanova 26462]

7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

\Likely, yes.  But removing the practice from the megamarkets substantially decreases the risks.  Fewer species intermingled, fewer animals being processed on location, fewer individuals transiting the market, fewer opportunity for zoonotic transmission.

of course. Everyone knows that black markets are both safer and more sanitary than those that operate openly.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

 

50,066 on Johns Hopkins map as of 11:59 am central time, April 24, 2020. 

maybe it drops in the next week? who knows, but it's interesting to consider.

[Bozo_Casanova 26462]

6 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Politics has been kept out of here as much as possible. What you, and the cabal want to do is make this yet another condemn Trump/ other guys party thread.  He has blame, and so do other agencies, heads of agencies, and other governments all over the world.  Have state govs/ been attacked using politics as the motivating factor here ?

 Anyone pushing back on that would be attacked, and jihaded, and the whole thread would turn into the shit hole CR has become.  

[Kyle 207]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke

[BabaYaga 15298]

8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

It isn't.  Except in one very narrow circumstance: contain it right when it starts. 

Which was the point made earlier many times.  We know where it started.  We also know how much obfuscation happened on the part of bad faith actors.  We even have a rough ability to  quantify the fallout (95% initial mitigation possibility referenced earlier)

 

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

That's how you can contain a disease this virulent.  Contain it right when it starts. 

Like we said earlier.  We know where it started.  We also know China lied its ass of, even going so far as to utilize  coordinated operatives with other bad faith actors (Russia and Iran) to disseminate false information and spread fear and panic.  

 

12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Which emphasizes the need for the US to have a stout medical intelligence apparatus

Of course.  But also bear in mind PRIOR to the outbreak the US had more available beds and ventilators per capita than any other impacted developed nation.  

 

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

AND a good working relationship with every nation where this sort of thing can crop up

We know China lied.  We know China lies.  We know they continue to lie.  They are not, nor have they been our friend for quiet a while.  On the surface, we have a "working" relationship, but we know their own negligence engendered a pandemic that cost the world trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.  #bothsides isn't appropriate on such a scale.

 

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I would much rather we know about it as it happens, and throw everything we've got at stamping out the disease right there, before it spreads. 

So would every other industrialized nation.  Is China pissed at us, hiding the truth, but cutting Germany back-door intelligence updates?  Of course not.  Russia is inscathed because they LOCKED DOWN their border like a drum.  Everyone else is suffering because China willfully withheld vital information and continues to do so (unless you believe their casualty rates)