Coronavirus General Discussion

[dualstow]

...
even better: What Shoppers are Buying
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/shoppe ... -covid-19/

What kind of Propaganda is this..
Where are the Guns and Ammo..

Aisle 3, just next to the cans of Chef Boyardee.

[shekels]

...
even better: What Shoppers are Buying
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/shoppe ... -covid-19/

What kind of Propaganda is this..
Where are the Guns and Ammo..

Aisle 3, just next to the cans of Chef Boyardee.

But i want my Gun NOW...

[dualstow]

Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, China Bans Domestic Trade of Wild Animals, but Offers Tax Breaks for Exports
China disapproves of ‘recklessly eating wild animals’ as its Finance Ministry offers incentives to ship them abroad
Oh, CCP. I'll take Biden any day of the week. No more complaining from me
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-coron ... 1586683800

Did anyone read the above, btw? It is truly disturbing.

A few choice cuts for those who don't have a subscription:

Less than a month later, China’s Ministry of Finance and tax authority said on March 17 they would raise value-added tax rebates on nearly 1,500 Chinese products, including offering a 9% rebate on the export of animal products such as edible snakes and turtles, primate meat, beaver and civet musk, and rhino horns, a Chinese government document shows.

And yet, even small amounts of exports could pose a risk, should wild animals prove to be the source of pandemics, as some Chinese reports suggest. The U.S. was the biggest importer of China’s animal products used in pharmaceuticals, such as civet and beaver, buying around $865,000 over January and February 2020, according to the data.

[Kriegsspiel]

Even I am astonished by these graphs. I was expecting to see something in the graphs by week 13, even if I wasn’t expecting anything scary. But there’s just nothing. And you can’t say the lockdown caused this, because the UK lockdown had only been going for four days by this time. We’ve locked down the country for a supposed mass killer that still isn’t visible in the stats even after the lockdown was declared. We locked the country down for something that at the time only existed in Neil Ferguson’s dodgy computer models. link

[vnatale]

One thing that seems to be unaffected by all of this is commercials!

On both TV and radio they seem to be as unrelenting as ever!

Many of them, though, are completely valueless to the advertisers. That leads me to the belief that contractually they had no way of getting out of them?

I'm surprised, though, that none of them are not seizing on what could be a great marketing opportunity. Telling us what a great company they are by the way they are treating their employees. Maybe they don't want to do so in case they end up being not so great in that aspect?

Vinny

[Mountaineer]

Here is some brighter news via Garage Theology re. the virus (depending on your beliefs of course):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4d16oFba7o

It's all good!

[dualstow]

With restaurant closures, urban rats are getting hungry and angry. I need some feral cats in the backyard, or maybe an owl. We get a hawk from time to time.
https://apple.news/AQ6sRdqQpRqmQ29wQXPBLZA

[Tortoise]

You know, I almost said something in response to your recent "happy birds in NYC" post, dualstow. But I didn't want to be a Debbie Downer.

I bet the birds in NYC are just as hungry as those rats.

[dualstow]

oh no, you still said it!
:-) I think you’re right, though. Robins get worms from my backyard, but I forgot about the pigeons.
Coronavirus affects so many things.

[Tortoise]

oh no, you still said it!

[vnatale]

Capture.JPG (58.92 KiB) Viewed 26777 times

[WiseOne]

I swear, the $50 Amazon basics bidet has already paid for itself! I'm glad I have no problem finding toilet paper but the stuff now costs a fortune.

So on another topic...what do y'all think of Trump's decision to withhold the US contribution to the WHO, which is the lion's share of its budget?

At first glance, this is as crazy as Bill Gates, the AMA, and others have said. WHO would obviously collapse without that funding. But then I thought...what have they actually done that was at all useful? They officially called it a "pandemic". Was that worth the $1 billion dues payment? (caveat: I vaguely remember that number, just tried to look it up to confirm but couldn't find the info online.)

They were a lot more useful during the Ebola virus outbreak, because they organized medical professionals to go to Africa to help. Nothing like that has happened with COVID. Also, would those medical professionals not have been able to go anyway, without WHO to arrange logistics? If WHO didn't exist some other group would have stepped in, since that was obviously a situation in which international help was needed.

In fact, the ideal group already exists: Doctors Without Borders. When I was in Kenya doing a medical student rotation during a cholera outbreak, we got a visit from DwB doctors from Spain who provided advice and a supply of rehydration salts as well as a recipe for a homemade version. The advice was invaluable. We had been rehydrating with IV solutions and were losing patients due to metabolic derangements - including a 5 year old boy who had been getting better. So I followed the advice, put down NG tubes and rehydrated with the salts. The patients treated that way all recovered.

So what DO we need WHO for? and is it worth the $1 billion that could otherwise have been spent on, say, manufacturing N95 masks? All good questions that it's about time were asked.

[shekels]

CCP Virus...

https://youtu.be/YBWhBHor9OY

[shekels]

I swear, the $50 Amazon basics bidet has already paid for itself! I'm glad I have no problem finding toilet paper but the stuff now costs a fortune.

So on another topic...what do y'all think of Trump's decision to withhold the US contribution to the WHO, which is the lion's share of its budget?

At first glance, this is as crazy as Bill Gates, the AMA, and others have said. WHO would obviously collapse without that funding. But then I thought...what have they actually done that was at all useful? They officially called it a "pandemic". Was that worth the $1 billion dues payment? (caveat: I vaguely remember that number, just tried to look it up to confirm but couldn't find the info online.)

They were a lot more useful during the Ebola virus outbreak, because they organized medical professionals to go to Africa to help. Nothing like that has happened with COVID. Also, would those medical professionals not have been able to go anyway, without WHO to arrange logistics? If WHO didn't exist some other group would have stepped in, since that was obviously a situation in which international help was needed.

In fact, the ideal group already exists: Doctors Without Borders. When I was in Kenya doing a medical student rotation during a cholera outbreak, we got a visit from DwB doctors from Spain who provided advice and a supply of rehydration salts as well as a recipe for a homemade version. The advice was invaluable. We had been rehydrating with IV solutions and were losing patients due to metabolic derangements - including a 5 year old boy who had been getting better. So I followed the advice, put down NG tubes and rehydrated with the salts. The patients treated that way all recovered.

So what DO we need WHO for? and is it worth the $1 billion that could otherwise have been spent on, say, manufacturing N95 masks? All good questions that it's about time were asked.

So far all I can tell that WHO has done with the Covid plague is to cover up China's malfeasance.
We would have been a lot better off without their doing that.
As for the amount the US has paid, I believe it's been about $500 million a year.

Looks like Investigations will continue.
https://youtu.be/9wcdm-55Xg4

[ochotona]

I'm on the board of a non-profit, and I'm ready to quit because we're deciding whether to have our meetings and conferences in May, and I think it's way too soon. If someone gets sick and dies, I don't want to be sued. I signed up to manage the technical program, not to be sued for everything I have. I can manage the technical program as lowly volunteer who is not a board member.

I also won't attend my own events! Do you blame me?

[Xan]

I'm on the board of a non-profit, and I'm ready to quit because we're deciding whether to have our meetings and conferences in May, and I think it's way too soon. If someone gets sick and dies, I don't want to be sued. I signed up to manage the technical program, not to be sued for everything I have. I can manage the technical program as lowly volunteer who is not a board member.

I also won't attend my own events! Do you blame me?

Surely whatever decision you make, if there's still a lockdown order in effect, it would have to be cancelled, right?

And if this decision absolutely must be made now, then the answer would have to be no, because it's quite likely there will be some form of lockdown.

[vnatale]

I'm on the board of a non-profit, and I'm ready to quit because we're deciding whether to have our meetings and conferences in May, and I think it's way too soon. If someone gets sick and dies, I don't want to be sued. I signed up to manage the technical program, not to be sued for everything I have. I can manage the technical program as lowly volunteer who is not a board member.

I also won't attend my own events! Do you blame me?

Does your non-profit NOT have Directors and Officers insurance? That would only address the financial side for you. Not the ethical / moral side.

Vinny

[ochotona]

I'm on the board of a non-profit, and I'm ready to quit because we're deciding whether to have our meetings and conferences in May, and I think it's way too soon. If someone gets sick and dies, I don't want to be sued. I signed up to manage the technical program, not to be sued for everything I have. I can manage the technical program as lowly volunteer who is not a board member.

I also won't attend my own events! Do you blame me?

Does your non-profit NOT have Directors and Officers insurance? That would only address the financial side for you. Not the ethical / moral side.

Vinny

I have been told we do, but I don't want to be a test case

[vnatale]

I'm on the board of a non-profit, and I'm ready to quit because we're deciding whether to have our meetings and conferences in May, and I think it's way too soon. If someone gets sick and dies, I don't want to be sued. I signed up to manage the technical program, not to be sued for everything I have. I can manage the technical program as lowly volunteer who is not a board member.

I also won't attend my own events! Do you blame me?

Does your non-profit NOT have Directors and Officers insurance? That would only address the financial side for you. Not the ethical / moral side.

Vinny

I have been told we do, but I don't want to be a test case

I think the courts are going to be quite lenient on the culpability of the decisions of non-profits.

Vinny

[Tortoise]

A hospital in NYC recently tested all pregnant women delivering babies and found the following:

Patients infected with SARS-CoV-2: 15%
Percent of infected patients who are asymptomatic: 88%

So this virus is apparently far more prevalent in the general population than we think. (1 out of 7 people in NYC.) Which seems to imply that the true rate of hospitalization and death as a percent of those infected is much lower than we think.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316

[ochotona]

A hospital in NYC recently tested all pregnant women delivering babies and found the following:

Patients infected with SARS-CoV-2: 15%
Percent of infected patients who are asymptomatic: 88%

So this virus is apparently far more prevalent in the general population than we think. (1 out of 7 people in NYC.) Which seems to imply that the true rate of hospitalization and death as a percent of those infected is much lower than we think.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316

I think this is a case where ratios are the wrong way to think about how good or bad the situation is.

I think the absolute value of how full the hospitals are and how many are suffering or dying matters.

We hear 30,000 are dead in the USA. That's not diminished or comforted by the knowledge that the true mortality rate is 1% or 0.5% or 0.2%. 30k dead is 30k dead.

[Tortoise]

We hear 30,000 are dead in the USA. That's not diminished or comforted by the knowledge that the true mortality rate is 1% or 0.5% or 0.2%. 30k dead is 30k dead.

Are we putting those 30,000 Covid-19 deaths in the proper perspective?

Annual Deaths and Mortality in the U.S. (CDC)

• Number of deaths: 2,813,503
• Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population
• Life expectancy: 78.6 years
• Infant Mortality rate: 5.79 deaths per 1,000 live births

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

[Xan]

We hear 30,000 are dead in the USA. That's not diminished or comforted by the knowledge that the true mortality rate is 1% or 0.5% or 0.2%. 30k dead is 30k dead.

It is hugely diminished or comforted. If 15% already have it, that means we're 1/7th through this already, at the absolute worst.

[ochotona]

Are we putting those 30,000 Covid-19 deaths in the proper perspective?

I think so, provisionally, because we don't know the upper bound yet. If we gain any visibility on an average annual death rate for the US, and it's comparable to many other causes of death, then we can dial back the worry.

[ochotona]

We hear 30,000 are dead in the USA. That's not diminished or comforted by the knowledge that the true mortality rate is 1% or 0.5% or 0.2%. 30k dead is 30k dead.

It is hugely diminished or comforted. If 15% already have it, that means we're 1/7th through this already, at the absolute worst.

I guess that's so.