Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

You need to prioritize. You should first disengage with China on medical equipment, medicines and medical supplies. We should not trust a communist government, especially one with a history of developing contagious viruses with the potential to become pandemics, with supplying these things to us.

We should boot out the majority of their college students and professors, if they are on China's payroll to steal our technology.

Then we should negotiate with them as to whether we should disengage with them on manufacturing our high-tech devices, cell phones, etc. Yes, some U.S. corporations would be hurt by this. I doubt they would be hurt to the point of bankruptcy, but it would be costly for them to move their manufacturing back to the U.S. or to another country in Asia. We should insist that China stop stealing technology, stop claiming the South China Sea as their property, modernize both their biological labs and their wet markets, and limit their investment in their military. If Europe is with us, China will find a way to comply with our demands. It would be devastating for China to lose their two largest customers almost overnight. Far more painful than it would for our companies to have to leave China.

 

While there is no doubt China "lied", and probably fudged their numbers, this really isn't all that different from what Trump or Fox News tried to do? The only real difference, there is actually some real media in the U.S., whereas Trump only had Fox and the far right media (so about half the media will bend to his will and distort the facts at all costs). Xi has almost total control over their state media and internet and even has influence over the academic research that gets out, and it's difficult to get real information over there if the Chinese authorities don't want their population to have it. But even then, it's not like we were unaware there was a serious crisis going on in China. Some information was getting out, and many people were aware this virus was some serious shit (as if China quarantining an entire province, effectively locking down their whole country to travel, and having to dig mass graves shouldn't have all clued us in - it's not like they could hide any of that). I think universally, the rest of the world put too much faith in it being "contained" in China, and not enough defensive measures were taken to screen travelers who may have gotten out in advance of their lock-down. But that is all of our fault as much as it is China's.

Remember that poster Fever, funnily enough when it was convenient for him as a Trump sycophant, he used to dig up all the worst stuff he could find about the early days of the pandemic in China. He was "working" his butt off, scouring twitter, to try and find data points to paint China in a dubious light and make the outbreak seem worse than it actually was. Then, when the virus came here, this user spent all his time trying to downplay it or suggest it would top out at 1000 cases or 1000 deaths. His attitude took a 180 based on this sick political expedience. No source too dubious if it fit his narratives. There are a number of posters still on here in that same boat, though perhaps not to that extreme degree (even if a few do get close).

 

I have spent the better part of a year of my life in China, and I have a fair number of friends and business associates (and a few relatives) over there. I don't think the Chinese people are well-served by their government. I don't think that a large communist government will ever be trustworthy--it's far too easy to control the will of the people, and it's too prone to corruption. The people of China deserve better.

Why would China share their COVID information? They seem to enjoy watching the free world struggle with it too much. And besides, there is probably no way they could make full disclosure without making themselves look bad in some way. If nothing else, the truth would expose their previous lies. And China would keep a lid on the information just for P.R. purposes.

 

Weren't the scientists in question Chinese that took bats to Australia but were somewhat funded by Australia. From the Guardian the other day: "China sees Australia as frontrunning – yet again in Beijing’s eyes – on an issue deliberately constructed to isolate, condemn and humiliate China. It contends the inquiry is a political witch-hunt, engineered by Washington. From Australia’s perspective, the Chinese response appears a dramatic overreaction to an entirely legitimate international concern to understand the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak. The response appears, to Canberra, like an attempt to deflect responsibility, or worse, to shift blame elsewhere".
There were some pretty harsh words going back and forth between those two countries. Where did you see that Australian scientists and doctors disagreed?

 

China may have a modified communist system, but the government there is the country. Cross that government at the risk of disappearing.

 

Trump is just one liar. He is not the entire U.S. government. And his lies are routinely contradicted by the media. And the severity of Trump's lies are not even on the same level as China's lies. China could have reduced the number of deaths from this coronavirus to a fraction of what they are had they been more forthright with their disclosures and sounded the alarm earlier. Trump's lies are more along the lines of "we have plenty of tests". How does a lie like that cause death and destruction that could be comparable to China's big lie?

 

Sadly, we are dependent on China for supplies. PPE etc. The masks and gloves I ordered from different places are all held up in China before delivery. We need to change this dynamic. But, we do need a unified approach to China. The TPP was supposed to do that, and provide leverage, it we quit that and went on our own.

 

The probability of this virus getting out of that lab by accident before it infected a person or animal and passed is much more credible than you are giving it credit for. The National Review did a very good story on the and scientists working there last fall have disappeared with no explanation. And we had advisors through Predict on Wuhan because of this lab and it was known to need advisers because it’s procedures were lax. And of all places, Wuhan where this lab is and the virus came from? It doesn’t matter much where it came from and we may never know for sure, but don’t discount this story. There was a thread on this that collected the information.

 

The lab there worked with USAID and Predict studying these viruses. Predict was pulled and then this virus started. And they don’t trust Trump. So they lied rather than asking for our expertise and help. This might have been contained, but China’s actions ended any chance if that. And now it is making money from the need for medical and other supplies to fight this. The perfect storm.

 

Poor Fever tried his best to convince himself that what he was saying was legit. However, he looks to be a little closer to the actual death count than yours and Trickster's Leap Day prediction on Feb 29th: Just ribbing you guys a little.....and I know about all the "ifs" but there was no way on this Earth that those numbers where going to be a reality.
Trickster:
And Mother Earth is working mightily to rid itself of the worst parasite. When this pandemic is over, up to a billion of us could be wiped out. (This is an estimate based upon its current rates of infection and mortality.)
Bling:
A billion?

Totally uneducated guess, but based only on numbers might end up a million deaths in U.S. *if* it gets really bad, since our govt will be totally ineffective containing it (already is most likely). I think your math is off (suggesting way above 10% mortality). Maybe you shifted a decimal, if the thing gets totally out if control it could kill 100,000,000 globally.

Hopefully when the weather heats up that could slow it down well short of that. For once we can pull for some global warming.

 

Do you know why Predict was pulled?

 

They cut the budget. After this happened, they extended it. I will locate a link.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sto...-pandemic-program-viruses-detection?_amp=true

 

A million U.S. deaths was actually lower than some of the models that were based on "no social distancing". That's what I meant by "totally unchecked". I wasn't even fathoming social distancing then, since that post was 2 weeks before the NBA even shut down. As it turned out, I was correct thinking our govt had totally failed to contain the virus getting here. Though the people did react to it (NBA was the wakeup call) and I think our natural reaction (hopefully) stops us well short of a million dead.

I was responding to the poster who predicted a BILLION globally, out of 7 Billion, so I figured he shifted a decimal. Even in a worst case with this particular bug (as in no social distancing anywhere in the world), the death toll would be more like 100,000,000. But obviously, the world isn't going to just sit by and not adjust their habits. I was actually assuming places like India and Africa and South America would make up the most of the dead. I certainly didn't predict that the U.S would get the worst of it.

 

Which gives us a fatality rate of just over 1%

 

a lawyer, now thats funny.

 

Reaper gonna reap.

 

shall we que blue oyster cult?

 

If you can determine the latter part of this suggestion, fine. Otherwise, it's crazy to imagine we could boot out the majority of their college students and professors. Maybe I'm over-interpreting your suggestion.