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

[Loco 3,754]

Coronavirus at Smithfield pork plant: The untold story of America's biggest outbreak

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52311877

 

Holy shit...  yup we got this open'er back up!

[KYHorn 17,634]

5 minutes ago, Homercles said:

Has anyone posted any links to this outside that video?

Yes, a couple days back. It was it yesterday? Or are those the same thing? Multiple outlets reporting different aspects of the story, some overlapping. It was a pretty limited discussion when the initial video was posted because it was obscure, but has gotten a bit more traction this week because more mainstream sources have reported on it.

[bolverk 30,366]

12 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Whats the source for the bats not being sold at the Wuhan wet markets?

Those wet markets don’t strike me as having robust supply chain tracking capabilities.

Last I had heard prior to the lab thing was that scientists had determined it'd probably gone from bats to pangolins to the market where those were eaten.

Edit: Google just led to this article: https://www.sciencealert.com/more-evidence-suggests-pangolins-may-have-passed-coronavirus-from-bats-to-humans

Edited April 17, 2020 by bolverk

[clapclapclap 9,000]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.

What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

“During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable, which was drafted by two officials from the embassy’s environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists. (The State Department declined to comment on this and other details of the story.)

The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous...

Spoiler

...As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.

“Most importantly,” the cable states, “the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention...”

...The research was designed to prevent the next SARS-like pandemic by anticipating how it might emerge. But even in 2015, other scientists questioned whether Shi’s team was taking unnecessary risks. In October 2014, the U.S. government had imposed a moratorium on funding of any research that makes a virus more deadly or contagious, known as “gain-of-function” experiments.

As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.

“The cable tells us that there have long been concerns about the possibility of the threat to public health that came from this lab’s research, if it was not being adequately conducted and protected,” he said.

There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, which operates at biosecurity level 2, a level significantly less secure than the level-4 standard claimed by the Wuhan Insititute of Virology lab, Xiao said. That’s important because the Chinese government still refuses to answer basic questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus while suppressing any attempts to examine whether either lab was involved...

Spoiler

Sources familiar with the cables said they were meant to sound an alarm about the grave safety concerns at the WIV lab, especially regarding its work with bat coronaviruses. The embassy officials were calling for more U.S. attention to this lab and more support for it, to help it fix its problems.

“The cable was a warning shot,” one U.S. official said. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”

No extra assistance to the labs was provided by the U.S. government in response to these cables. The cables began to circulate again inside the administration over the past two months as officials debated whether the lab could be the origin of the pandemic and what the implications would be for the U.S. pandemic response and relations with China.

Inside the Trump administration, many national security officials have long suspected either the WIV or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab was the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to the New York Times, the intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm this. But one senior administration official told me that the cables provide one more piece of evidence to support the possibility that the pandemic is the result of a lab accident in Wuhan...

“...The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the official said.

As my colleague David Ignatius noted, the Chinese government’s original story — that the virus emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan — is shaky. Research by Chinese experts published in the Lancet in January showed the first known patient, identified on Dec. 1, had no connection to the market, nor did more than one-third of the cases in the first large cluster. Also, the market didn’t sell bats.

Shi and other WIV researchers have categorically denied this lab was the origin for the novel coronavirus. On Feb. 3, her team was the first to publicly report the virus known as 2019-nCoV was a bat-derived coronavirus.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared...

Spoiler

...On Feb. 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new biosecurity law to be accelerated. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Chinese government has placed severe restrictions requiring approval before any research institution publishes anything on the origin of the novel coronavirus.

The origin story is not just about blame. It’s crucial to understanding how the novel coronavirus pandemic started because that informs how to prevent the next one. The Chinese government must be transparent and answer the questions about the Wuhan labs because they are vital to our scientific understanding of the virus, said Xiao.

We don’t know whether the novel coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab, but the cable pointed to the danger there and increases the impetus to find out, he said.

“I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory. I think it’s a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered,” he said. “To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future.”

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/how-did-the-coronavirus-start-where-did-it-come-from-how-did-it-spread-humans-was-it-really-bats-pangolins-wuhan-animal-market

...But there is uncertainty about several aspects of the Covid-19 origin story that scientists are trying hard to unravel, including which species passed it to a human. They’re trying hard because knowing how a pandemic starts is a key to stopping the next one.

Prof Stephen Turner, head of the department of microbiology at Melbourne’s Monash University, says what’s most likely is that virus originated in bats.

But that’s where his certainty ends, he says.

On the hypothesis that the virus emerged at the Wuhan live animal market from an interaction between an animal and a human, Turner says: “I don’t think it’s conclusive by any means....”

Edited April 17, 2020 by clapclapclap

[Eskimohorn 5,682]

ha.  pure chaos got us from 2.2M to 68K, can you imagine without pure chaos.

Not going to go there. My observations are on verifiable actions, communications, and systems we need to address a 50-state and global catastrophe. I see and hear chaos and about a thousand different strategies. I see unpreparedness and surprise for things experts have known about for years. And I see very sloppy communications.

Take your “ha” and shove it or step up and document specific actions the federal and international community took to prepare for and respond to this crisis in an organized way. Christ!

[rage-a-holic 4,744]

35 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

For every post in here with a political inclination there's two or three whining incessantly. Neg and move on. If you think it's attention seeking trolling, don't engage. That's a universal rule.
 

per blacklab, the proper procedure is to report it and move on.

[Sbbruin 22,146]

48 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

Maybe we can shift the discussion to these two important topics.

1) We have businesses that may/may not be income producing at the moment unable (maybe unwilling for those doing the WFH home thing) refusing to pay rent which in turn makes folks like Bruin (building owner?) unable to pay his investors/lenders. Is the Fed the backstop that they would go to? If so, then are we the taxpayer on the tab?

 

Well, yes, the next layer is the lenders.  Investors/partners just have to sit tight.  We have cut distributions across the board to conserve capital.  But lenders will have to play ball, because they won't be able to foreclose on hundred of thousands of defaulted loans, and won't want to.  But the feds can't let the banks and insurance cos fail, so guess who picks up the tab?

[GreenspointTexas 9,990]

New high for reported deaths in a single day

[EuroHorn 3,295]

16 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Clearly, quarantines are a bad idea then. When this thing started, I was working out regularly and was pretty thin. Now I have nothing better to do than cook and eat. I would include sex, but that generally takes two unmarried people. Anyway, at this point, my scale gives me a dirty look and clearly thinks, "You better not step on me, motherfucker".

So you cant have sex unless it’s a threesome ?

Edited April 17, 2020 by EuroHorn

[Loco 3,754]

12 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Last I had heard prior to the lab thing was that scientists had determined it'd probably gone from bats to pangolins to the market where those were eaten.

Edit: Google just led to this article: https://www.sciencealert.com/more-evidence-suggests-pangolins-may-have-passed-coronavirus-from-bats-to-humans

And before we knew it was really 5G...

[LebongJames 1,921]

Testing update:  Lots of questions out there.
2 different kinds of tests:
1.       Molecular (PCR)-offered by public health labs for dx.  SARS-COV-2 RNA detection on respiratory specimens from nasal or throat swabs.  Determines active infection.  Pro’s:  not a blood test, ID’s those who are infectious.  However, can test + in some after recovery

 

Cut off a lot but I think this would explain a lot of the re positive test in South Korea. This was from DSHS conference call from today

[bolverk 30,366]

10 minutes ago, clapclapclap said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

 

Okay, maybe they were testing the bat virus on pangolins that then jumped to humans, because the studies show it likely needed an intermediary host.

Also, please/por favor, do a paste special/plain text for us dark moders. Thanks.

[LebongJames 1,921]

6 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

New high for reported deaths in a single day

This was to be expected. Also shitty data

[Royalfan5 2,384]

One side note to all the meat packing stuff, Cargill’s unionized plants have been solidly kicking everyone else’s ass on production and keeping workers healthier so far. 

[dcar00 14,995]

16 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

Not going to go there. My observations are on verifiable actions, communications, and systems we need to address a 50-state and global catastrophe. I see and hear chaos and about a thousand different strategies. I see unpreparedness and surprise for things experts have known about for years. And I see very sloppy communications.

Take your “ha” and shove it or step up and document specific actions the federal and international community took to prepare for and respond to this crisis in an organized way. Christ!

Ha. I cant because it was pure chaos. Satan!

[Dahobbs 18,378]

6 minutes ago, LebongJames said:

This was to be expected. Also shitty data

Yeah, the number is probably bigger. 

[EuroHorn 3,295]

IHME model now showing Texas peak resources on April 15 and  deaths on April 19

Edited April 17, 2020 by EuroHorn

[DDD Dad 14,661]

1 minute ago, EuroHorn said:

IHME model now showing Texas peak resources on April 15 and  deaths on April 19

[Wulaw Horn 19,598]

16 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Okay, maybe they were testing the bat virus on pangolins that then jumped to humans, because the studies show it likely needed an intermediary host.

Also, please/por favor, do a paste special/plain text for us dark moders. Thanks.

Isn’t it almost always the pig that’s the intermediate host?

[Not a cat 5,819]

56 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Read my post to JS about context. You misread that completely.  I wasn't saying corona deaths equal traffic deaths. I was saying Americans can ignore lots of deaths when they feel like it. 

To wulaw's point, how many here had heard of the pandemic of 1957 before this?  116,000 Americans died at a time when the population was half what it is now, so it would be equivalent to 230,000 today.  My parents went through it as teenagers and I'd never heard of it.  Without social media and constant news reports, people don't notice shit.

[Incredulity 11,880]

1 hour ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

I'm guessing this meat-head doesn't know a 6 foot radius from a 6 foot diameter. 

 

 

Or maybe he is 9ft tall?

[Wulaw Horn 19,598]

Just now, Not a cat said:

To wulaw's point, how many here had heard of the pandemic of 1957 before this?  116,000 Americans died at a time when the population was half what it is now, so it would be equivalent to 230,000 today.  My parents went through it as teenagers and I'd never heard of it.  Without social media and constant news reports, people don't notice shit.

Thanks man- that was literally the extent of the point I was making. I think there was also one in 1966 or something like that which will probably fit in pretty much with where we end up at with this thing. 

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13,436]

13 minutes ago, Not a cat said:

To wulaw's point, how many here had heard of the pandemic of 1957 before this?

I’m going to need to look up who was in charge at that point in time so I can determine whether our leadership failed us or not.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Casual Encounter

[Iceman 2,981]

1 hour ago, gmr548 said:

 

 

 

For every post in here with a political inclination there's two or three whining incessantly. Neg and move on. If you think it's attention seeking trolling, don't engage. That's a universal rule.




Millions would notice the loss of their parents, grandparents, kids, siblings, other family, friends, co-workers, whatever. But yeah beyond that I guess no one would care.

Of course the world keeps spinning but that's not a reason to shrug off preventable deaths.

 

 

We do it repeatedly and continuously on a far bigger scale than CV-19 ever dreamed of hitting...even with trumped up death counts.

[F250 29,204]

3 hours ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

NYT Article on obesity and Covid-19 spoilered below.

There has been a bit of chatter around here about why it's hitting some people really hard and others are asymptomatic, and it's something I'm really interested in beyond age and underlying immunosuppressed conditions. There's probably some genetic component that isn't understood at this time or most likely, a combination of factors driving the variable responses to the disease, but it appears that the Rona is hitting fat folks the hardest.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Obesity Linked to Severe Coronavirus Disease, Especially for Younger Patients

Young adults with obesity are more likely to be hospitalized, even if they have no other health problems, studies show.

 

 

 

 

A patient arrived at Elmurst Hospital Center in Queens, N.Y., this month.Credit...Kathy Willens/Associated Press

By Roni Caryn Rabin

• April 16, 2020
• •  
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Obesity may be one of the most important predictors of severe coronavirus illness, new studies say. It’s an alarming finding for the United States, which has one of the highest obesity rates in the world.

Though people with obesity frequently have other medical problems, the new studies point to the condition in and of itself as the most significant risk factor, after only older age, for being hospitalized with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Young adults with obesity appear to be at particular risk, studies show.

The research is preliminary, and not peer reviewed, but it buttresses anecdotal reports from doctors who say they have been struck by how many seriously ill younger patients of theirs with obesity are otherwise healthy.

No one knows why obesity makes Covid-19 worse, but hypotheses abound.

Some coronavirus patients with obesity may already have compromised respiratory function that preceded the infection. Abdominal obesity, more prominent in men, can cause compression of the diaphragm, lungs and chest capacity. Obesity is known to cause chronic, low-grade inflammation and an increase in circulating, pro-inflammatory cytokines, which may play a role in the worst Covid-19 outcomes.

 

Some 42 percent of American adults — nearly 80 million people — live with obesity. That is a prevalence rate far exceeding those of other countries hit hard by the coronavirus, like China and Italy.

Obesity is defined by a measure called body mass index, which is based on a formula that divides one’s weight in kilograms by the square of one’s height in meters. Someone who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 203 pounds would have a B.M.I. of 30, which is considered obese.

 

• Help us report in critical moments.

Subscribe today to support The Times

 

The new findings about obesity risks are bad news for all Americans, but particularly for African-Americans and other people of color, who have higher rates of obesity and are already bearing a disproportionate burden of Covid-19 deaths. High rates of obesity are also prevalent among low-income white Americans, who may also be adversely affected, experts say.

More than half of Covid-19 deaths in the United States so far have been in New York and New Jersey, but the new findings mean the coronavirus could exact a steep toll in regions like the South and the Midwest, where obesity is more prevalent than in the Northeast.

“If obesity does turn out to be an important risk factor for younger people, and we look at the rest of the United States — where obesity rates are higher than in New York — that will be of great concern,” said Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We may see a lot more younger people being hospitalized.”

 

Dr. Gulick’s review of data from the first 393 Covid-19 patients admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital identified obesity as a risk factor for admission. He also found that among adults under the age of 54, half live with obesity, though the New York City obesity rate is only 22 percent.

 

One of the largest U.S. studies to identify obesity as a prominent risk factor analyzed data from more than 4,000 Covid-19 patients who sought care at NYU Langone Health between March 1 and April 2.

“Obesity is more important for hospitalization than whether you have high blood pressure or diabetes, though these often go together, and it’s more important than coronary disease or cancer or kidney disease, or even pulmonary disease,” said Dr. Leora Horwitz, the paper’s senior author and director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone.

Obesity also appears to be a factor for higher risk of death from Covid-19, though to a lesser degree, Dr. Horwitz said

She cautioned that the findings were preliminary, noted that some of the data was still incomplete and emphasized that the paper had not been peer reviewed.

Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the coronavirus outbreak.

 

 

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Scientists are still somewhat puzzled by the impact of obesity on the course of the disease, but Dr. Horwitz said the implications for patient care were clear.

“It means that as clinicians, we should be thinking a little more carefully about those patients with obesity when they come in — we should worry about them a little bit more,” she said.

 

Another NYU Langone study, which focused on patients under the age of 60, found that those with obesity were twice as likely to be hospitalized and were at even higher risk of requiring critical care. The association between obesity and more severe disease was not seen in patients over the age of 60.

The severity of the illness often comes as a surprise to younger adults, and “provides another layer of shock to this disease,” the paper’s author, Dr. Jennifer Lighter, said.

Studies highlighting the risks of obesity have been conducted in other countries as well.

Though most of the early reports from China pointed to risk factors like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, which are common in people with obesity, scientists in Shenzhen, China, reported in The Lancet this month that Covid-19 patients with a high body mass index were at more than double the risk of severe pneumonia than those with a lower B.M.I.

Another study from China, which looked at outcomes among a group of 112 Covid-19 patients, reported that of the 17 patients who died, 15 were either overweight or obese.

More recently, a French study reported that nearly half of 124 Covid-19 patients in Lille, France, had obesity, twice the rate of a comparison group of intensive care patients hospitalized for other reasons last year. The study also reported that the need for mechanical ventilation increased with higher body weight.

At Ochsner Health, a system with 41 hospitals in Louisiana and southern Mississippi, Dr. Leo Seoane, the company’s senior vice president, said that 60 percent of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 had obesity and that obesity appeared to nearly double their risk of requiring a ventilator.

“We in the U.S. have not always identified obesity as a disease, and some people think it’s a lifestyle choice. But it’s not,” said Dr. Matthew Hutter, director of the Weight Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. “It makes people sick, and we’re realizing that now.”

 

Conventional wisdom has traditionally explained excess weight as a simple caloric imbalance that can be addressed by eating less and exercising more. Prominent medical groups have reconsidered their approach, however, and now recognize obesity as a medical disorder caused by a complex web of underlying factors, which in turn predisposes people to other serious medical problems.

Some doctors consider obesity a marker of poor health associated with poverty, reflecting a combination of social and economic factors, from inadequate education and limited job opportunities to impoverished neighborhoods where access to healthy food, medical care and opportunities for exercise are scarce.

Obesity’s link to chronic diseases is well known, but the experience with H1N1 influenza in 2009 revealed that people with obesity are also more vulnerable to infectious diseases. Studies have also shown that they do not get the same protection from influenza vaccinations that others do.

Physicians say patients with obesity can be harder to manage in the hospital setting. They require special beds and imaging equipment, and they are harder to intubate and harder to assess when removing a ventilator.

Advocates for people with obesity say they may also delay seeking care, deterred because they have been treated poorly by health care providers in the past.

“They worry: ‘If I go to the hospital, am I going to be triaged based on my body mass index? Is the skinny person next to me going to get the ventilator, not me?’” said Dr. Donna Ryan, associate editor in chief of the journal Obesity.

Doctors in the trenches treating critically ill coronavirus patients say they expected to see old and elderly patients become acutely and critically ill, but the young patients becoming severely sick have unnerved them.

 

Of the 14 Covid-19 patients recently in Dr. Sanam Ahmed’s critical care unit at Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side, she said, 12 were at least 50 years old and had complex medical problems. The two younger patients, who were in their 30s, had obesity and no other diseases.

“It looks like, for them, obesity is the risk factor,” Dr. Ahmed said.

[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]

 

Half of Surly reading this article.

 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8,985]

IHME model now showing Texas peak resources on April 15 and  deaths on April 19

From 61k to 68k down to 60k

[Wulaw Horn 19,598]

8 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

I’m going to need to look up who was in charge at that point in time so I can determine whether our leadership failed is or not.

Ike. That guy couldn’t lead his way out of a paper bag. 

[bolverk 30,366]

15 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Isn’t it almost always the pig that’s the intermediate host?

I don't pretend to understand the science at all, but that link pointed to the "spike" on this virus indicating that it matched up well with something associated with pangolins. Go back up and check the link.

Apparently, the characteristics of the virus carries traits of the intermediary animal before jumping to humans. For example, they cite MERS as going through camels, which makes sense, given it first showed up in the Middle East.

Edited April 17, 2020 by bolverk
Carrie's

[Lurch 5,950]

My beaches just opened up. At high tide. At 5pm on Friday.

It’s going as poorly as you might imagine.

[bolverk 30,366]

Just now, Lurch said:

My beaches just opened up. At high tide. At 5pm on Friday.

It’s going as poorly as you might imagine.

Whereabouts?

[Incredulity 11,880]

Owning a beach sounds pretty fucking good.

 

assuming I could fence out the riff-raff at 5 on a Friday 

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

18 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

 

So the only reason I see for continuing this discussion is to lay blame on someone else and divert attention from more pressing issues.

This is such a bizarre comment. Yes, let's not find out what happened, and the topic of finding out the Who, what, when, where, and why is just stupid, and needless. 

That's actually really kind of one of those Journalism 101 thingys........... Well it used to be.

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Onboard 2.0

[DDD Dad 14,661]

1 minute ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

This is such a bizarre comment. Yes, let's not find out what happened, and the topic of finding out the Who, what, when, and why was just stupid, and un needed. That's really kind of one of those Journalism 101 things.      Well it used to be.

 

I'm not going to let you pull me into a CR discussion on this.  If you want to talk about agendas there's a place for that.

[Lurch 5,950]

Whereabouts?

Jacksonville Beach, FL. I’m surrounded by morons.

[EuroHorn 3,295]

5 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

This is such a bizarre comment. Yes, let's not find out what happened, and the topic of finding out the Who, what, when, and why was just stupid, and un needed. That's really kind of one of those Journalism 101 things.      Well it used to be.

 

He’s a cloak room moron. 

[dcar00 14,995]

12 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Ike. That guy couldn’t lead his way out of a paper bag. 

exactly. what a fucking joke he was. clown was not prepared.

[dcar00 14,995]

10 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Owning a beach sounds pretty fucking good.

 

assuming I could fence out the riff-raff at 5 on a Friday 

I assumed it was a typo and he meant My Beyotches were opening up.  you know...like South Austin's mom.

[gmr548 16,704]

I"m not making a value judgement about whether or not we should or should not shrug off preventable deaths, what I'm saying is that its demonstrative fact that we, collectively, as a society, do exactly this. If we didn't then we'd all be basket cases and totally and completely be unable to get anything accomplished. The world is a nasty, awful terrible place full of all manner of death and depravity, and if you could feel the weight of that every day it would crush you physically, mentally and spiritually.  So, we shrink the world down to people in our social circle that we care a lot about and another social circle that we care a little about and then everyone else that we do little more than pay lip service to, or that we emote with if it somehow gets brought into our circle. It's like watching the ripples in a pond after you drop a rock in there- it's just how we are wired.
And that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to prevent all sorts of bad shit wherever we can. I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing against the idea that we can't/won't collectively shrug this off and get on with our life b/c the world does keep on spinning. It just is. And that tweet got that wrong. Not in a moral sense but in an  absolute sense. 

Well, yeah. World keeps spinning. I don't think anyone would argue that. Humans are good at ignoring things beyond what's right in front of their face, sometimes to a fault.

Depends on what you mean by collectively shrug off. Go on living? Obviously. There will be a legacy in pubic policy, business planning, etc.

To wulaw's point, how many here had heard of the pandemic of 1957 before this?  116,000 Americans died at a time when the population was half what it is now, so it would be equivalent to 230,000 today.  My parents went through it as teenagers and I'd never heard of it.  Without social media and constant news reports, people don't notice shit.

Yeah, people are historically illiterate and information is widely available now. The reporting on it was almost certainly different during that event. Adults remembered smallpox.The polio vaccine had just been developed. Measles, mumps, etc. had not yet been eradicated. People were scared shitless of a Russian nuclear attack, even if that was a bad risk calculation. The context was just different.

Modern technology makes it hard for things like that to fly under the radar. It also makes people's bubbles a lot bigger than the local newspaper and maybe a national network newscast. Despite a lot of noise out there I'd day the availability of information in today's world is a good thing. And for what it's worth, with waves over the next year or two we're likely to end up in the same realm of deaths as 1957-58, or with more, despite the restrictions in place now.

[gmr548 16,704]

We do it repeatedly and continuously on a far bigger scale than CV-19 ever dreamed of hitting...even with trumped up death counts.

Yes, undoubtedly true, but I meant that in terms of how we approach this situation.

[0xdeadbeef 1,704]

Today's update for Travis County came out a few minutes early today.

1074 confirmed cases.  A jump of only 45 from yesterday. 

The trend is pretty linear for the entire month of April. We're averaging about 48 new cases a day in April.

 

 

 

 

[Anastasis 23,719]

10 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Today's update for Travis County came out a few minutes early today.

1074 confirmed cases.  A jump of only 45 from yesterday. 

The trend is pretty linear for the entire month of April. We're averaging about 48 new cases a day in April.

Linear is good. 

[dcar00 14,995]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Just getting around to adding the context you removed from this quote. Fauci's full statement was:

Pushing the line that "Fauci said we didn't have anything to worry about" is absolutely pushing a propaganda line. That whole thing started out of twitter from a congressional candidate that was retweeted by the president, and became fuel for the #FireFauci activity last week.

just getting around back to this.   Fauci said go on about your business but things could change(well no shit sherlock).  its not propaganda he actually responded to the guys question.  I never said he said we didn't have anything to worry about, you said that.  He could have said people need to change, social distance, avoid crowded areas, etc.  but he didn't. 

Fauci(the god of all infectious disease science, who thank God was there to be the adult in the room, savior of us all) at the very beginning of March just 6 weeks ago said don't change what you are doing at this time. Yet people act like us not shutting down in February was pure bumblefuck from our leaders and we sat on our hands until mid march when the guy who was driving the "SCIENCE, OMG the SCIENCE" said at the beginning of March don't change what you are doing now.

by the way, it was his fucking guys(you know science) that fucked up the test.

Why was he saying to go about your business but things could change, just 6 weeks ago?

Edited April 17, 2020 by dcar00

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

32 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

I'm not going to let you pull me into a CR discussion on this.  If you want to talk about agendas there's a place for that.

Yeah that's what I'm trying to do. Determining The Who what when where and why of this isn't political, Better luck next time. I've never talked about any agenda, not even sure where you're getting that. 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8,985]

just getting around back to this.   Fauci said go on about your business but things could change(well no shit sherlock).  its not propaganda he actually responded to the guys question.  I never said he said we didn't have anything to worry about, you said that.  He could have said people need to change, social distance, avoid crowded areas, etc.  but he didn't. 
Fauci(the god of all infectious disease science, who thank God was there to be the adult in the room, savior of us all) at the very beginning of March just 6 weeks ago said don't change what you are doing at this time. Yet people act like us not shutting down in February was pure bumblefuck from our leaders and we sat on our hands until mid march when the guy who was driving the "SCIENCE, OMG the SCIENCE" said at the beginning of March don't change what you are doing now.
by the way, it was his fucking guys(you know science) that fucked up the test.
Why was he saying to go about your business but things could change, just 6 weeks ago?

I thought his guys were saying 240,000 deaths 4 weeks ago

[atomheartbevo 90,669]

5 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

Yeah, that’s why governments need emergency plans and experts in place before a crisis. And be empowered to implement. Then those plans come in stages, which would include travel restrictions, clearing scientific channels, readying supply chains, communication to leaders, etc, etc.

The shelter in place is the retreat phase, but I cant say for sure would or wouldn’t be inevitable. But a professional emergency communicator would know when to communicate those orders and seek to be as transparent about it as possible.

My perception now is pure chaos and I’ve seen very little that a well-trained fire chief or other safety professional leader couldn’t unclutter - even at a national level- immediately if empowered. we’d see results in a month. And we’d be able to do most things in 4 months with or without vaccination or treatment breakthroughs.

We just need to put HEB in charge.  

[achooloco 1,087]

5 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

Need a ruling on sidewalk/trail etiquette.  I'm about ready to start tripping every runner that insists on passing only a foot or so around us.  Temp divert onto the grass or street to get past others.  You're the one open mouth huffing and puffing your viral load onto everyone, far more so than the walkers.  Yes it is outside, but get close enough and it's still a risk.

Am I being unreasonable, or are they the new bike phags?

Depends. I try to stay as far away from people while running and definitely do divert onto grass or street while passing others if they are alone or single file. I'd say thats like 90-95% of the time I get anywhere near people.

But if they are two or three and walking side to side with space between them thus taking up the entire sidewalk, fuck them. If you are walking next to someone, be aware and move to single file if runners/people are approaching or you can hear someone coming up behind you. Being considerate goes both ways. 

I try to be considerate and move over but if walkers are not being observant and are discourteous by taking up the entire walking space that we both have a right to, then i'll go within a foot or two. We both have a right to the space, so it takes both of us to make an effort to create the necessary 6 ft. But thats just my asshole opinion.

[Wulaw Horn 19,598]

31 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

 

Well, yeah. World keeps spinning. I don't think anyone would argue that. Humans are good at ignoring things beyond what's right in front of their face, sometimes to a fault.

Depends on what you mean by collectively shrug off. Go on living? Obviously. There will be a legacy in pubic policy, business planning, etc.
 

 

The tweet I was responding to was basically arguing against the concept of “world keeps spinning”. That’s what I was reacting to. There is a strain of thought in the millennials that if something gets too tough you just curl up in a ball and sit in the corner. 

I actually like millennials a whole hell of a lot. But man, collectively they could stand to toughen up a little bit. There’s more grit in America (I think) than what that tweet encapsulates. That- and the numbers aren’t all that big to be able to notice by the naked eye. 

Lets say 250k die in America. That seems like a number higher than where I’d bet we end up but not crazy high, and if I’m low it’s not by orders of magnitude. 

Translated to my town of 90,000 that would be 69 deaths. Do you think it is at all likely that you would be able to tell if 69 extra people died in your town this year, as opposed to last year, without looking it up?  No way man. No way. 

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

19 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

just getting around back to this.   Fauci said go on about your business but things could change(well no shit sherlock).  its not propaganda he actually responded to the guys question.  I never said he said we didn't have anything to worry about, you said that.  He could have said people need to change, social distance, avoid crowded areas, etc.  but he didn't. 

Fauci(the god of all infectious disease science, who thank God was there to be the adult in the room, savior of us all) at the very beginning of March just 6 weeks ago said don't change what you are doing at this time. Yet people act like us not shutting down in February was pure bumblefuck from our leaders and we sat on our hands until mid march when the guy who was driving the "SCIENCE, OMG the SCIENCE" said at the beginning of March don't change what you are doing now.

by the way, it was his fucking guys(you know science) that fucked up the test.

Why was he saying to go about your business but things could change, just 6 weeks ago?

It'd be hard to like this anymore, without making it kind of....... sticky.

[atomheartbevo 90,669]

5 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

Even found 2 packs Charmin Ultra Soft!  (20 minutes after HEB opened, but still.  Glad they don't do the olds only first hour, the Golden Hoarders keep cleaning out the good stuff at Kroger.  Maybe I should hire InstaGrannies.)  

Get a bidet like the rest of us on Surly.   It may not have the impact of South Austin’s mom blowing Jägerbombs up your ass, but it’s cleaner and your bathroom doesn’t end up wrecked.  

[Wulaw Horn 19,598]

3 minutes ago, achooloco said:

Depends. I try to stay as far away from people while running and definitely do divert onto grass or street while passing others if they are alone or single file. I'd say thats like 90-95% of the time I get anywhere near people.

But if they are two or three and walking side to side with space between them thus taking up the entire sidewalk, fuck them. If you are walking next to someone, be aware and move to single file if runners/people are approaching or you can hear someone coming up behind you. Being considerate goes both ways. 

I try to be considerate and move over but if walkers are not being observant and are discourteous by taking up the entire walking space that we both have a right to, then i'll go within a foot or two. We both have a right to the space, so it takes both of us to make an effort to create the necessary 6 ft. But thats just my asshole opinion.

You should shoulder check them on your way by.