redskins59

I know their diplomats are doing that. Not Xi directly. An ambassador from South Africa was one. Also, trolls on twitter spreading propaganda, who propably work for the Chinese government. They are not going to do that unless the higher ups decided to do that.

Anybody notice that Germans are dying at a much lower rate than, say, Spaniards, even though they are getting 1000+ cases? What are they doing differently? Look, the Chinese are floating conspiracy theories, claiming that the virus originated in the United States. If they are going to use conspiracy theories like that, I think we need to call it the Chinese virus.

The Giants close to me doesn't even have regular milk. I guess people decided to grab them all. Never seen this before.

China more or less controlled the virus to Wuhan, though of course it leaked to other countries. Not much in Beijing, for example. In our case, it appears that it has spread to almost all states. How are we going to control that? I would think at least a million cases in total when all is said and done. I hope I am completely wrong. They can't test everybody right now due to testing issues.

Darn, 95 new cases in New York.

Italy has 260+ deaths only today. Based on the number of cases and total deaths, they have a death rate of 7%. Italy is the oldest country in Europe. I read that 23% of the population is over 65. We need to do everything possible here. We don't know the exact death rate. What number should we believe, South Korea or Italy? South Korea has death rate of 0.7%. Here we need to take into account the sensitivity of the test used. For example, if a PCR test is 95% sensitive, 5 out of 100 will be false positive. So one has to wonder if South Korea has a lot of false positives because they tested whoever wants to get tested. This would decrease the death rate.

It's time that the federal government allows people to work from home. The federal government is the largest employer in the United States.

196 dead in Italy. 2300+ cases. That is just bad.

South Korea can test 15k people a day, but we can't. We are a bigger country with more resources. That is leadership failure. Zero preparation. In situations like this, you need to prepare for a pandemic.

Cases in Boston jumped by 50+. Just read on twitter. Maybe somebody can post here.

A better comparison for the United States would be Italy. China is authoritarian, so I don't think that's a good comparison. They can do things that we can't do.

I think Dr Fauci was suggesting that 15-20% of cases need intensive care. Italian doctors are saying 10% require intensive care. That's a BIG number, because I am reading that only 1% of flu cases require intensive care. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-italy-doctors-intensive-care-deaths-a9384356.html

The question is, how easy is it to create a vaccine for this virus? Any company can claim to create a vaccine. I mean, we have many viruses out there for which we don't have any vaccines. If I had to guess, it will take 5 years. 1 to 2 years is the optimistic timeline. Yes, the federal government will increase funding to fight the virus, but even with that, good luck getting a vaccine soon. Coronavirus is already part of the cold/flu season. Why no vaccine? We had the SARS/MERS issue before. Research takes time.

Think of it this way. Let's suppose that the COVID-19 death rate ends up being 0.1%, and it is as contagious as the flu. Wouldn't you essentially double the death rate per year? So let's say flu kills at a rate of 0.1%, and COVID-199 kills at the same rate, one would expect the overall cold/flu season death rate to jump. If flu kills 10,000, COVID-19 kills another 10,000. Maybe not a double, it would go up.

You can see right here. https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html So influenza's death rate is 0.1%, whereas they estimated COVID-19's death rate at 2.3% (WHO upgraded the number to >3). The other number to look at is R0, which is how easily the virus spreads. The flu R0 is calculated to be 1.3, whereas they have it at between 2-3 for COVID-19. So it appears to spread more quickly. Now, let's say the death rate settles at 0.5%. That's still 5 times higher than Influenza's death rate. The other issue is vaccine. At least with the flu, we have a vaccine, although it isn't 100% effective, but it is known to reduce the symptoms. Here, we don't have any vaccines.

Some common cold types out there appear to already be due to coronavirus. Nonetheless, the death rate of covid-19 is too high for this one to be just a "decent cold". Older people dying at a high rate. Some of us have family members with diabetes or other preexisting conditions, so we have to be worried. Perhaps I will survive, but that's not going to be the case for everybody I know.

How do you calculate the fatality rate? If you look at closed cases only, the death rate appears to be 8%. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Of the active cases, 18% in critical condition.

Well, I think that due to unpopularity of Trump, some people will blame America. I should call my cousin in Canada and ask him what the thinking is there.

Interesting article about how Canada will react. Obviously, Iran is the main culprit, but the relationship with America may go downhill because America provoked Iran, according to this article. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/world/canada/iran-plane-crash-ukraine.html

Dead American civilians(3000 total).

How can you not see the difference between somebody like Bin Laden and the Revolutionary Guard?

The Americans they attack hardly have been civilians. Even the missilies they launched recently were at a military base.

Of course it was a regional attack. Basically warfare.

I was talking about the revolutionary guard. They were designated a terrorist organization only this year. Nonetheless, I don't think Soleimani is a terrorist even if he was designated a terrorirst in 05. He hasn't attacked us here. Regional attacks are all warfare.

Okay then, why were they designated a terrorist organization only this year? They have existed for decades. A terrorist is somebody like Bin Laden who killed innocent people. Isis does the same thing. Ask yourself this. Is the revolutionary guard's main target even America? I doubt that. How come terrorists who come here to kill Americans never from Iran? When did that happen?