BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[ClaytoAli]

11 hours ago, skinny21 said:

If they are ‘interring’ animals... that’s a hard pass for me.  

Typo - got me

[Mr. Sinister]

1 hour ago, techboy said:

 

I'm sorry, but people are fixed in my mind when I first get to know them. I can't accept you as having expertise on anything beyond hockey and 90s sitcoms.

 

Yeah, time does fly. A lot guys like me and sticks were just kids when we initially signed up.

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[Mr. Sinister]

Good. Fine these people to oblivion. Getting tired of this insanity.

 

Finally saw one of them today at Home Depot throw a fit because she wasn't allowed in.

[zCommander]

3 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

I think scientists do recognize that there is a problem. Research and development of therapeutics and vaccines take a lot of time to get out to the population. Anyone who thinks that it's going to happen in September or October is kidding themselves and listening to bull**** from Trump, who doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

One should not listen to Trump. But do pay attention to what the scientist are doing though. It is happening now. 

 

Maryland man may be first person successfully vaccinated against COVID-19

https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/maryland-man-believes-he-may-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19/

 

Here is your vaccine tracker. One has already been approved. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

 

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by zskins

[visionary]

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

1 hour ago, zskins said:

 

One should not listen to Trump. But do pay attention to what the scientist are doing though. It is happening now.

If / when we have a proven, viable vaccine we will all know it. It will be THE story and will be covered by every outlet.

[bcl05]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[ggarriso]

22 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

I have been a Trump mark for the last 3.75 years, all in - he lost me here here with COVID. I honestly cant imagine a worse response and reaction and then doubling and tripling down when lives are at stake.  Whats sad is if we had handled this right the first time, we might be able to open up soon, now it looks like we are going to have to close down

 

[spjunkies]

3 minutes ago, ggarriso said:

 

I have been a Trump mark for the last 3.75 years, all in - he lost me here here with COVID. I honestly cant imagine a worse response and reaction and then doubling and tripling down when lives are at stake.  Whats sad is if we had handled this right the first time, we might be able to open up soon, now it looks like we are going to have to close down

 

 

I give you credit for waking up and noticing his BS.

[TheDoyler23]

5 minutes ago, ggarriso said:

 

I have been a Trump mark for the last 3.75 years, all in - he lost me here here with COVID. I honestly cant imagine a worse response and reaction and then doubling and tripling down when lives are at stake.  Whats sad is if we had handled this right the first time, we might be able to open up soon, now it looks like we are going to have to close down

 

 

Perhaps now is the time to reflect on the policies and actions of those 3.75 years. And additionally, the prior years of racist and sexist behaviors and actions he demonstrated. 

[Llevron]

Probably not

[TradeTheBeal!]

4 minutes ago, TheDoyler23 said:

 

Perhaps now is the time to reflect on the policies and actions of those 3.75 years. And additionally, the prior years of racist and sexist behaviors and actions he demonstrated. 

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

57 minutes ago, ggarriso said:

I have been a Trump mark for the last 3.75 years, all in - he lost me here here with COVID. I honestly cant imagine a worse response and reaction and then doubling and tripling down when lives are at stake.  Whats sad is if we had handled this right the first time, we might be able to open up soon, now it looks like we are going to have to close down

Glad you’ve seen the light. I hope the same happens for some fraction of the tens of millions of people who still treat his crotchal area like an 8 bit Nintendo cartridge that you’re trying to make work.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Virginia cases are starting to show a noticeable increase.

[Springfield]

1 minute ago, TryTheBeal! said:

Non-Northern Virginia cases are starting to show a noticeable increase.

ftfy

 

Also, testing has increased as well.

[redskins59]

Cases going up in many states.  Texas, California and Florida hitting triple digits or close to it.  Arizina will soon follow. Then if you look at states like Georgia and South Carolina, cases have appreciably gone up.   

Here in MD, we are doing okay, but I have a feeling it will go up here too.  

 

[purbeast]

45 minutes ago, redskins59 said:

Cases going up in many states.  Texas, California and Florida hitting triple digits or close to it.  Arizina will soon follow. Then if you look at states like Georgia and South Carolina, cases have appreciably gone up.   

Here in MD, we are doing okay, but I have a feeling it will go up here too.  

 

I just ran to Potbelly for lunch to pick up a sandwich and at a red light there was a construction crew putting cement down.  There were probably 9-10 guys all standing around each other and not one of them was wearing a mask.  They are all talking loud and joking around and having a jolly good time.  But no masks.  I had to shake my head at that.  This was in PG county right off route 1.

[gbear]

49 minutes ago, redskins59 said:

Cases going up in many states.  Texas, California and Florida hitting triple digits or close to it.  Arizina will soon follow. Then if you look at states like Georgia and South Carolina, cases have appreciably gone up.   

Here in MD, we are doing okay, but I have a feeling it will go up here too.  

 

A rising tide raises all boats?  Sigh

[China]

Larry Brilliant on How Well We Are Fighting Covid-19

 

IT SEEMS LIKE a century ago that I first interviewed Larry Brilliant about the novel coronavirus. But it’s been just a little over three months since I spoke to then-75-year-old Brilliant, an epidemiologist who aided in the eradication of smallpox, and who for years has been warning the world of a pandemic that looks very much like the one we have now. 

 

Brilliant’s vita includes roles with the World Health Organization, Google, and the Grateful Dead, but his life’s work has been anticipating and dealing with pandemics. (He is currently CEO of Pandefense Advisory, a team of experts assisting in responses to the coronavirus.) So it was vital that I return for a second conversation, to update what is both the biggest story of our time and the most baffling.

 

WIRED: We talked 100 days ago. What is different about the pandemic now?

Larry Brilliant: A hundred days ago we didn’t really understand the pathophysiology—the way the virus and the human body interact, the illness as opposed to the epidemic. The unexpected things that it’s doing are not epidemiological—they are virological. In March, we were just beginning to see these horrific CT scans or x-rays of people with ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome, where they had these big circles of holes in their lungs, and we were thinking this is pretty much a respiratory disease. Since then we have learned that this virus attacks almost every organ in the body. The joke is that it’s from nose to toes, because you lose your sense of smell and you can get "Covid toes," the swelling of your toes and your fingers that look like frostbite. There is still a lack of clarity on how it chooses entry points in the cells.

 

You paint quite a picture.

This is a big ****ing deal. If I would not be excommunicated from the world of science, I would call this an evil virus, but I can’t do that because I can’t impugn motives to it. But if I could, I would call it that. It’s certainly pernicious. This is the worst pandemic in our lifetime. And it is the first time we have had a pandemic in the United States in which we have had such a total, abysmal failure of our federal government.

 

Click on the link for the full interview

[China]

Is Your State Doing Enough Coronavirus Testing?

 

The number of daily coronavirus tests conducted in the United States is only 39 percent of the level considered necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus, as many states struggle to ramp up testing to outpace the record number of cases in recent weeks.

 

An average of 634,000 people per day were tested over the past week, according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project, far below the current nationwide target of 1.6 million daily tests. The target, which is based on a methodology developed by researchers at the Harvard Global Health Institute, is different for each state and varies over time as infection rates change.

 

Click on the link for details

 

 

[bcl05]

This is the biggest governmental failure of my lifetime, probably longer.  I blame every idiot that voted for an obviously incompetent and unqualified anti-intellectual bigot to the most powerful position in our land.  You all share the blame for the dead.

 

Look at our case rates and death rates compared to the EU.  We have fewer citizens, with lesser population density, and a more uniform governmental structure, and yet our rates are >10x theirs.  Pathetic.

 

It was obvious to all who cared to know early in 2020 that this virus was an extremely dangerous threat.  We saw what it did in Wuhan and in Italy, and knew that it could cause terrible havoc here.  We had an opportunity to save lives by taking dramatic, difficult steps.  We did nothing of the sort.  We didn’t really react until it was already widespread (though in small numbers) here.  And when we did react, it was not coordinated, organized, thoughtful, or effective.

 

We “shut down” the economy for a number of weeks, which theoretically should have bought time to set up widely accessible, organized, coordinated testing and contact tracing.  Lots of testing got produced, but there was no organization or coordination, and no systemic contact tracing.  If we had that, we could open where the virus is suppressed and keep the restrictions tight where it is prevalent.  Unfortunately, our leaders were too stupid, incompetent, and obstinate to do the obvious hard work that was needed.

 

After we got bored of sitting at home, Trump and his ilk just started opening things up.  Not because the virus was eliminated, or because we were ready (with contact tracing, etc), but… just because.  We could have done far more to support small businesses and families economically to make the shutdown easier to tolerate longer, but chose not to do the obviously needed thing.

 

Now that we are open, we have politicized mask wearing to an extent that far, far too many idiots are not wearing masks.  It wasn’t obvious in February that masks were needed, but now the evidence is overwhelming.  No one should be in public without a mask, but we see it all the time.  Because Trump made wearing masks a mark of liberalism (for no earthly logical reason), we now have far more spread and ultimately far more death than we needed to.

 

It is now July, and we are closing in on the time for schools to theoretically come back.  There is basically nothing more important that our society does than school.  Schools are critical for children’s education, socialization, and outcome.  It is also critical for the economy that parents have a safe and reliable place for their kids to spend the day.  As soon as we “shut down,” we should have been putting every available resource and effort into figuring out a way to safely get kids (and teachers) back to school.  This was never going to be easy, but it is the most important thing.  But we have Betsy DeVos in charge of the Education department, an anti-science zealot who doesn’t believe in government or public education.  

 

Schools should have been the first thing to re-open.  Instead, we opened bars and restaurants (and everything else).  Bars are nice (I sure miss my favorites), but nowhere near as important as schools.  We wasted our risk budget on bars, and now schools are going to be far more dangerous and difficult to open, because there is so much more community spread.  Whatever budget we had for risk we had, we spent on boredom and fun, not on our kids.  Stupid, shortsighted, and selfish.  Our kids will be paying for this. 

 

Handling this virus “right” would never have been easy.  It would take hard, difficult decisions from caring, empathetic, smart leaders.  It would take cooperation, data sharing, and sacrifice.  These issues were obvious in February.  It was not and should not have been partisan – the virus doesn’t care.  I think any president (or presidential candidate – including the fringey weirdos) of my lifetime would have done vastly better than Trump and his minions.  At least they would have tried.  Trump has done nothing except bloviate about himself.  He has given up by never actually working the problem.    

 

We have no effective leadership and no effective plan.  The failure is a catastrophe.  And it’s getting worse, not better.  The medical community is despondent. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

2 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

Virginia cases are starting to show a noticeable increase.

 

2 hours ago, Springfield said:

ftfy

 

Also, testing has increased as well.

Looks like nearly all the increase is in the Hampton Roads area.  Too much beach fun, I think.