Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

China took drastic/draconian steps to stop it, at least in the Wuhan area. I don’t know about “millions dead”, but I’m sure containing it to the extent they did kept their infections way down from worst case.

 

But did it? Look at the new cases popping up in the USA. It's not like the people infected were traveling all over the USA and yet sporadic reports are happening. How is this possible?

Certainly the Chinese didn't lock down the individual Wuhan carriers because they couldn't know who had the virus or not by the time they closed the city. Also, the numbers have dropped in Wuhan but they didn't isolate every citizen just the city. One could surmise that yes this had a value in keeping the virus limited from moving outward but why have the numbers dropped in the affected area? Logically the virus would just continue circulating among the population as each made contact with each other. As confusing as my explanation is I am lost as to how a virus can reduce its impact in a closed area where contact with both infected (knowingly or not) and non infected still existed. There are over 11 million residents of Wuhan..so the numbers could not be restricted or reduced if the virus spreads by human contact.

 

It's been a long time since I've read that and I had to do a brief summary but I agree. It's strange how fact can often actually imitate fiction.

 

Chinese scientists find second corona virus strain

Coronavirus is mutating. Chinese scientists find second strain

 

The answer is pretty obvious. The media gets people worked up into a frenzy to drive clicks and ad buys. Once the people fall in line, then the politicians have to react or else it'll look like they don't care. It's easy for the media to play the card, because it's a new virus and it's somewhat an unknown quantity. So they play on the fears of the unknown and thirst for drama that pervades our culture these days.

 

Yes, obviously China didn’t contain it totally. I didn’t say that. People got out before they started locking down Wuhan. That’s how it spread to Italy and elsewhere.

But obviously in essentially closing down that city, it slowed the spread from the epicenter and the further spread within that immediate area. It didn’t magically just slow down, they basically put the city under martial law.

 

The China situation simply illustrates the impotency of the virus. There were enough people infected in Wuhan that no government action would have been able to stop a much more massive infection rate. As it stands, people need to realize than LESS THAN 1% of the residents of Wuhan contracted the virus. And these are people that basically live on top of each other and had been walking around with it for weeks before the draconian measures were taken. The virus is obviously pretty selective about whom it infects and most of the ones it does infect are asymptomatic. It's a bunch of hype to get people worked up.

 

Check this out! Serious WTF.

 

It has an R0 of 2.28 according to the latest research. That is considerably higher than flu. It means that for every case that tests positive, you will expect about 2.28 people to get the disease.

 

The only thing proven is that Louisville’s prognostication ability is quite poor. It’s a hoax to harm the Donald, ok it’s real but it’s not spreading and cases are falling, ok it’s spreading but it’s not serious. I’m waiting for the ‘ol “this would have been so much worse under Obama” line.

 

About 20,000,000 people get the flu each year in the United States and that's with a "flu shot" that even in the worst year, still stems the spread at least a little. When we get to 20,000,000 Coronavirus cases, let me know...

 

We are engaging in a different level of public health interventions. 20,000,000 people wouldn't get the flu if we quarantined the first flu cases. It has a much lower R0. If we didn't engage in public health interventions, 20,000,000 would be a very low estimate. It does appear though that the goal here is to not test people so as not to raise the number of found cases.

 

And there goes any credibility that you may have had left. Do you really believe the CDC are being co-opted by Trump and intentionally keeping numbers low? This is where TDS gets really weird.

 

It took H1N1 6 months to get to 20,000,000. By the time it finished with us, 57 million had it, and 12 thousand had died. I would prefer that we don't wait until we hit 20 million cases before we take covid19 seriously.

 

There is basically 100% consensus the CDC has screwed up the testing process royally. Our capacity to test is like 1% of other countries. Is it intentional? Who knows, but the longer the testing is slow-rolled the farther the disconnect will be between “reality” and the official numbers.

 

That is a like a very vague statement and totally untrue. If you think the CDC is doing Trump's bidding, you're smoking dope.

 

Korea has tested 140,000 people. 2000 people in the U.S. with several reports of doctors having to “fight” to get their patient tested.

There has not been capacity to test in the U.S. This is a statement of fact not in dispute. The CDC has botched the process.

I’m not arguing this is on Trumps orders, if that’s what your hang up is in defending all things Trump, though I don’t doubt his incompetence could have infected the CDC, so to speak.

 

Who said we're not taking it seriously? Nobody has suggested we don't confront the virus, but the panic (at least at this stage) is unwarranted when you consider how many people die in this country every day from various other things we'd never consider giving up, let alone spend two seconds fretting about it.

 

Coronavirus Context: Michael Dominguez Presents the Facts

From the link:

Your risk of contracting the virus is 1 in 100,000. Your risk of being struck by lightning is 1 in 3,000. This is not an attempt to make light of the virus, but to offer perspective around the risk.