Covid-19 News

There are rumors (note rumors) that prisons in China are seeing sustained local transmission.

Quote from Curbina

It is probably stupidity, but in this case, is ill willed stupidity.

It is hard to know, isn't it? They spring from the same mindset. Stupid people tend to do underhanded, unethical or at least ill-advised things. The situation resembles the opposition to cold fusion. Countless times I have been accused of advocating "conspiracy theories" because I say there is a great deal of opposition to cold fusion. I always respond by saying the definition of a conspiracy is (for example): "an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot" (dictionary.com). The opposition to cold fusion is nothing like that. It is not unlawful; not a bit surreptitious or secret, but rather openly and boldly carried out in the mainstream media; and it is not planned as far as I know. It is just ordinary opposition to a new idea, which is common.

Perhaps there is a secret cabal opposed to cold fusion. As I often say, if there is, they don't invite me to their monthly planning session. Frankly, if there is a cabal, they are inept. I could do a better job tearing down cold fusion than Robert Park ever did. (Mike McKubre often says this. He could do an even better job!)

Getting back to coronavirus, anyone can see that the Chinese officials began by suppressing the evidence. They even arrested the doctors who warned that might be a dangerous new disease. That is what many bureaucrats do. Their first response is to cover up problems, hoping they are not real or they will go away. They don't want to rock the boat.

The Japanese bureaucrats did the same thing, and so did U.S. bureaucrats and the head of HHS, who tried to fire his top expert when she pointed out that people hired to deal with the Diamond Princess patients had no protection, no medical training, and they were sent home without being tested on ordinary flights. If you deliberately set out to trigger a nationwide epidemic, this is how you would do it. Obviously, those bureaucrats are idiots, without even a grade-school level understanding of disease. The resemble the scientists attacking cold fusion who do not understand the difference between power and energy. They were not trying to trigger an epidemic. They are not evil. Unfortunately, I expect they are still in control of the situation, and still making incredibly stupid mistakes, because those are the kinds of people Trump promotes. He fires competent people.

Trump and Pence are mainly interested in false reassurances, putting a lid on it, keeping the stock market high, and hoping for a "miracle" (as Trump put it). Not because they are evil, but because they are clueless and they know nothing about science. Trump appears to have little knowledge of anything. At Pearl Harbor he reportedly asked someone "what happened here?" Pence is actively opposed to science. He claimed that smoking does not cause death. He does not believe in evolution. Putting him in charge of anything relating to biology is like putting someone who does not know where electricity comes from in charge of energy policy. Nothing good will come of this. These people are not capable of dealing with the situation. The best we can hope for is that Pence will realize he should leave this up to the experts, because if it fails disastrously, and hundreds of thousands of people die, he will be blamed.

There will be disruptions, I am sure. Whether hundreds of thousands die or not is a matter of choice. If we do what the Chinese have done in the last few months, that can be avoided. If we don't, it will be inevitable. That was what Dr. Aylward said in his superb presentation. Everyone who wants to know the facts about the epidemic should watch his presentation closely. As he said, people claim we Americans can't do this. Why not?

Quote from oldguy

There are rumors (note rumors) that prisons in China are seeing sustained local transmission.

Those are not rumors. That was reported in the Chinese press, by the Chinese government.

The Chinese government is more open and honest than people realize. Yes, it is an oppressive, totalitarian government. But even such governments have be honest to a degree, or they will fail disastrously, as we saw at the beginning of the epidemic. And in the early stages of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union. They also must respond to public pressure, or they will fail and be overthrown. It is not widely appreciated, but Stalin was immensely popular in the Soviet Union. Many people hated him, and everyone feared him, but millions of people loved him.

(That's what I have heard anyway. I heard it from some people who probably knew what they were talking about. My parents were posted to the U.S. Embassy in Russia during WWII, and growing up I knew many experts from the Embassy, including George Kennan's top aid, who told me that. Plus I have read it in books, but I don't recall which ones.)

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it even looks like result of failed vaccination for me: the immune cells are raging for enemy in their proximity which they all were trained for - but they cannot find one. - Link please or it is highly improbable. I think you are anthropomorphizing. If that is a word!

The influence of COVID-19 on the human body is like a combination of SARS and AIDS as it damages both the lungs and immune systems. The suspiciously symmetric (artifical?) HIV inserts Covid-19 virus are probably culprit of this behaviour: it still attracts immune cells at distance but it remains invisible at proximity. HIV envelope protein has an unusually long tail, an element that distinguishes it from similar viruses. It also brings application for immunization experiments, which possibly failed when virus escaped into wild.

The Coronavirus Was Engineered by Scientists in a Lab Using Well Documented Genetic Engineering pShuttle Vectors That Leave Behind a “Fingerprint”
Jan. 30 science paper published in The Lancet concludes that, “recombination is probably not the reason for emergence of this virus.” In other words, this did not occur through natural mutations in the wild. Another Jan. 27th study by five Greek scientists who also concluded the coronavirus has no lineage to other viruses in the “family tree” that’s found in the wild.
Researchers pinpoint facility near Wuhan seafood market as possible ground zero. But Wuhan outbreak was first reported in late December 2019, when bat species are hibernating. Second, no bats were sold or found at the Huanan seafood market, whereas various non-aquatic animals (including mammals) were available for purchase. Wuhan CDC has 600 bats in capture. Researcher attacked by bats may be Wuhan virus origin The sequence identity between 2019-nCoV and its close relatives bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 was less than 90%. Hence, bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 are not direct ancestors of 2019-nCoV.

Quote from JedRothwell

but Stalin was immensely popular in the Soviet Union. Many people hated him, and everyone feared him, but millions of people loved him

but not many in the Ukraine……..Holodomor

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One of my friends from Northern Italy is taking this very seriously- here he is with his Ozone gun....

Ozone is smelly and a bit radical, but hydrogen peroxide fumed at public places (together with free Plaquenil pills) could enable safe public meetings and travelling in trains and planes.

During the Battle of Britain, someone checked with the RAF training establishment and discovered they were not training any more pilots than they had been in 1939. There was no sense of urgency. Or, I suppose, there were no orders from the top telling them to expand the number of pilots and facilities. I expect Churchill blew up and issued one of his memos with the red stamp, "ACTION THIS DAY."

The same kind of attitude has dogged the U.S. response to the coronavirus. Precious time has been lost. Probably, thousands of cases have developed, but only a few hundred test kits were made available. I do not know how this came about. No doubt history books will someday describe what happened and whose fault it was. But let me imagine a plausible scenario. The sort of thing that has often played out in history. Orders come from the top to develop a test kit. Inquiries are sent China to other countries about their test kits, but the answers are lost in the shuffle. Someone asks, "how many should we make?" Answer: "There is no budget for this. The president says there are only 7 cases and all of them have recovered. I see no reason to break the bank, or rush. Make 250. We'll keep people from wasting them by setting a rule that only people who have been to China can be tested." I don't suppose they intended to make 100,000 kits and only managed to make 250.

In January 1942, someone at a planning session in the War Department said "we need 200,000 parachutes this year." The other people in the room said that's absurd. We have been buying of few thousand a year at most. There is no way we can make that many, and where did you come up with that outlandish number? The person said, "the president said we are going to make 50,000 airplanes this year. The average airplane has 4 crew members. That's 200,000." In other words, FDR set the sense of urgency. He set the goal, and made it on a scale large enough to meet the needs of the emergency. That is what must be done in a dire emergency. And this is a dire emergency. Or it is turning into one before our eyes, like a slow-motion train wreck.

FDR did not say don't worry, keep shopping (the way Bush said in the Iraq war), everything will be fine, don't overreact.

Later in the war, during testimony in Congress, an army general was asked "Do we really need all these tanks?" He replied: "better to have a thousand too many than one not enough."

Quote from JedRothwell

But let me imagine a plausible scenario. The sort of thing that has often played out in history. Orders come from the top to develop a test kit. Inquiries are sent China to other countries about their test kits, but the answers are lost in the shuffle. Someone asks, "how many should we make?" Answer: "There is no budget for this. The president says there are only 7 cases and all of them have recovered. I see no reason to break the bank, or rush. Make 250. We'll keep people from wasting them by setting a rule that only people who have been to China can be tested."

Let me reiterate: that is purely imaginary. I have no idea how this actually went down. I offer this imaginary example because it resembles what has often happened in history. I think this kind of scenario is more plausible than an evil high official saying:

"There are probably thousands of cases, but we don't want the public to know. So let's make only 250 test kits. And we'll say that only people who have been to China get one, so as to keep the other cases hidden."

That would be an extreme example of what Curbina described as "ill willed stupidity." Extremely stupid, because even without tests, after a few weeks, thousands of cases would emerge and everyone would know it. You can only "cover up" the epidemic for a short time by not distributing test kits. After that you will be blamed.

No doubt this was stupid, but ill will seems less likely to me than plain old stupidity. Coupled with no sense of urgency -- as I said. Those qualities are what I see everywhere in the administration, from the president down to the Department Secretaries and other appointees. Yes, they are ill-willed. They do not have our best interests at heart. But they would not deliberately sabotage the production of test kits just to maintain the illusion that there are only 7 cases in the U.S. (as Trump was bragging a few days ago). That just wouldn't work. Even these people must be able to see that.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

The influence of COVID-19 on the human body is like a combination of SARS and AIDS as it damages both the lungs and immune systems. The suspiciously symmetric (artifical?) HIV inserts Covid-19 virus are probably culprit of this behaviour: it still attracts immune cells at distance but it remains invisible at proximity. HIV envelope protein has an unusually long tail, an element that distinguishes it from similar viruses. It also brings application for immunization experiments, which possibly failed when virus escaped into wild.

The Coronavirus Was Engineered by Scientists in a Lab Using Well Documented Genetic Engineering pShuttle Vectors That Leave Behind a “Fingerprint”
Jan. 30 science paper published in The Lancet concludes that, “recombination is probably not the reason for emergence of this virus.” In other words, this did not occur through natural mutations in the wild. Another Jan. 27th study by five Greek scientists who also concluded the coronavirus has no lineage to other viruses in the “family tree” that’s found in the wild.
Researchers pinpoint facility near Wuhan seafood market as possible ground zero. But Wuhan outbreak was first reported in late December 2019, when bat species are hibernating. Second, no bats were sold or found at the Huanan seafood market, whereas various non-aquatic animals (including mammals) were available for purchase. Wuhan CDC has 600 bats in capture. Researcher attacked by bats may be Wuhan virus origin The sequence identity between 2019-nCoV and its close relatives bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 was less than 90%. Hence, bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21 are not direct ancestors of 2019-nCoV.

Conspiracy theories are always interesting, but what good are they doing on the ground? It is time for everyone to stop blaming, criticizing what the people in charge did in the past, etc and start doing something now to prevent a catastrophe. It should start with people on different political sides, countries, and science establishments uniting together. I am so sick of the partisanship and bickering. The current election is making me sick, On one side you have Bernie Sanders saying his Obamacare for all is the solution. On the other Trump saying in a rally that this is no big deal. Meanwhile the Climate Change industry is still pumping that as the most important issue. Guess what, large scale decreases in human population due to pandemic will lower carbon footprints. Is that what you want? Sorry to get on a soapbox for a second

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It is time for everyone to stop blaming, criticizing what the people in charge did in the past, etc and start doing something now to prevent a catastrophe.

But how to prevent future catastrophe, if we don't learn from (origin of) previous one?
I guess, the origin of disaster which killed at least 3.000 people should be prosecuted in similar way, like let say origin of Bhopal gas tragedy and to draw consequences from it.
IMO it's time to outlaw genetic research of viruses in similar way, like for example eugenic, because the consequences of future outbreak can get only worse.
Sometimes less activity is more: we just cannot try whatever sh*t possible, just because some people will get money for it.

Quote from Alan Smith

As of 9am 3 March 2020, a total of 13,911 people have been tested:

Here are the stats for other countries:

Coronavirus Testing: Criteria and Numbers by Country

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

South Korea has the most tests per capita, which may be one reason they have found so many cases.

I highly recommend reading this interview with B. Aylward

China’s cases of Covid-19 are finally declining. A WHO expert explains why.

“It’s all about speed”: the most important lessons from China’s Covid-19 response.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/2…coronavirus-covid19-china

Quote from Alan Smith

Chinese hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients a few weeks ago now have empty beds.

Yup, same story. That's what Aylward said. He was part of the W.H.O. mission.

Here is an administration official refusing to say whether or not he thinks the coronavirus is a "hoax." This is the kind of attitude the causes delays and mistakes. People have to take the problem seriously before they can fix it. When you are hostile to the idea the problem exists, you cannot understand it or deal with it. Anti-cold fusion scientists have the same problem.

Quote from JedRothwell

Here is an administration official refusing to say whether or not he thinks the coronavirus is a "hoax." This is the kind of attitude the causes delays and mistakes. People have to take the problem seriously before they can fix it. When you are hostile to the idea the problem exists, you cannot understand it or deal with it. Anti-cold fusion scientists have the same problem.

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Very true, I would say "anti energy paradigm shift" scientists to show better. A more realistic cross section of the situation that would include more. With this situation, we can overcome what we choose to see!