BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[stoshuaj]

This should officially stick a fork in the premise that people, yes particularly Americans, are inherently good, kind and caring of their fellow man.

 

Seems the majority of people are stupid, selfish and dense.

 

Shocker there

[Fresh8686]

1 hour ago, stoshuaj said:

This should officially stick a fork in the premise that people, yes particularly Americans, are inherently good, kind and caring of their fellow man.

 

Seems the majority of people are stupid, selfish and dense.

 

Shocker there

I’d say that depends on a mixture of character and the varying levels of culture a person is influenced by. Unfortunately, American culture doesn’t seem to hold higher values of sharing, caring, and critical thinking in much prominence. 

[bcl05]

 

 

People are awful and stupid.  

[skinsmarydu]

^^^ That, very literally, blows my mind.  My mom (retired RN) dropped off the chipped beef gravy at my sister's on the porch on Christmas Eve, said hi and went back home.  (Sis's extended family was all coming over and mom said NO to all of that.)  She turns 75 next Saturday, and is in line for vax, more than willing to get it...all this despite being a trump voter in '16, I didn't ask about this election  because she seemed very angry about the situation...so maybe all of my ranting did some good, after all. 

 

 

[Long n Left]

1 hour ago, bcl05 said:People are awful and stupid.  

Perfect example of why this country was, is, and will be, at least for the foreseeable future, ****ed.

[China]

CDC testing requirements for UK travelers are like 'a chain link fence to keep out a mosquito,' experts say

 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced new testing requirements for travelers arriving from the UK, but research by the agency's own scientists shows the rule may have only a small impact on the spread of the new UK strain of coronavirus.

 

Starting Monday in the UK, passengers must have a negative Covid-19 test within three days of boarding a flight to the United States.

A CDC press release Thursday hailed the new changes.

"Today, President Trump is taking another step to protect the health of the American people," according to the statement.

 

But according to researchers on the CDC's Covid-19 response team, testing three days before a flight might not accomplish very much -- reducing the risk of spreading the virus by just 5 to 9%.

Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said the new testing requirement "is like putting up a chain link fence to keep out a mosquito."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Ontario confirms Canada's first two cases of COVID-19 variant discovered in UK

 

The province's associate chief medical officer of health said in a news release that the strain of COVID-19 was identified in a couple from Durham Region, just east of Toronto, who have no known travel history, exposure or high-risk contacts.

 

"Durham Region Health Department has conducted case and contact investigation and Ontario is working in collaboration with our federal counterparts at the Public Health Agency of Canada," Dr. Barbara Yaffe said in a statement. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Springfield]

23 hours ago, bcl05 said:

 

People are awful and stupid.  

 

Probably explains why the first one was intubated.

[EmirOfShmo]

Japan Will Ban Entry to Most Foreigners to Fight Virus

 

The Japanese government will ban entry to most foreigners through the end of January as coronavirus cases reach record highs there and the nation confirmed its first cases of the new, more infectious Covid strain.

The restrictions will be implemented on Monday, the government said in a statement. Japanese nationals and foreigners with residency who are returning from short business trips will no longer be exempt from 14-day quarantine, according to Saturday’s statement.

The move comes amid mounting concerns over the spread of a new variant of the virus at a time when cases in Tokyo have reached new highs. The variant, which emerged in southeast England in September and is spreading rapidly in the U.K., is much more infectious than previous strains. Germany, France, Switzerland, Ireland and Sweden are among the nations that have confirmed the presence of the new variant.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-26/japan-to-ban-new-entry-by-all-non-nationals-to-fight-coronavirus

 

[The Evil Genius]

At what % inoculation will we see the case rates dramatically decrease here? I've read heard immunity is at 70-80% level, is the same principle applied to the inoculations?

Edited December 27, 2020 by The Evil Genius

[Jabbyrwock]

14 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

At what % inoculation will we see the case rates dramatically decrease here? I've read heard immunity is at 70-80% level, is the same principle applied to the inoculations?

 

60-80% is generally accepted as the range for "herd immunity" which will "starve out" the virus...it really depends on a number of factors other than just the number of people with immunity.  Does innoculation=immunity, no...but right now it seems to be 90% effective or so.  Also realize after inoculation there is a four week delay or so to develop immunity, at least for the vaccines we have now.  Also realize, even if you develop a level of immunity, it is unclear how well this suppresses your ability to carry the virus (i.e. you have it, your immune defense keeps you safe, but you still transmit virus).

 

[Jabbyrwock]

Also I should point out for the interested, the way these predictions are done are through models, like the SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered) model.  The introduction of vaccine alters the percent susceptible (in simple models it moves vaccinated people to the recovered column and then ignores them but this is by no means unique).

 

For those of you asking the obvious question...yes...in simple versions of this model "dead" is also considered "recovered".  

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by The Evil Genius

[skinsmarydu]

I'm ready. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

50 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

I'm ready. 

Luckily @Bangwarned us to be.

[skinsmarydu]

Just now, TheGreatBuzz said:

Luckily @Bangwarned us to be.

He didn't have to warn me. 

I was always on the team to not be screwed. 

[LD0506]

[Dan T.]

Here is Marco Rubio courting the moron demographic:

 

 

[Jabbyrwock]

1 minute ago, Dan T. said:

Here is Marco Rubio courting the moron demographic:

 

"Many in elite bubbles believe the American public doesn’t know “what’s good for them” so they need to be tricked into “doing the right thing”

 

Well...we've just confirmed Marco Rubio does not possess self-awareness.

[China]

Russia admits to world's third-worst Covid-19 death toll

 

Russia said on Monday that its coronavirus death toll was more than three times higher than it had previously reported, making it the country with the third-largest number of fatalities.

 

For months, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has boasted about Russia’s low fatality rate from the virus, saying earlier this month that it had done a better job at managing the pandemic than western countries.

 

But since early in the pandemic, some Russian experts have said the government was playing down the country’s outbreak.

 

On Monday, Russian officials admitted that was true. The Rosstat statistics agency said that the number of deaths from all causes recorded between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared with the previous year.

 

“More than 81% of this increase in mortality over this period is due to Covid,” said the deputy prime minister, Tatiana Golikova, meaning that more than 186,000 Russians have died from Covid-19.

 

Russian health officials have registered more than 3m infections since the start of the pandemic, putting the country’s caseload at fourth-highest in the world.

 

But they have only reported 55,265 deaths – a much lower fatality rate than in other badly hit countries.

 

Russia has been criticised for only listing Covid deaths where an autopsy confirms the virus was the main cause.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

HIDING COVID-19: HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SUPPRESSES PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE PANDEMIC

 

AS COVID-19 TORE through the United States in the spring, a senior official in the Trump administration quietly reinforced a set of guidelines that prevented journalists from getting inside all but a handful of hospitals at the front line of the pandemic. The guidelines, citing the medical privacy law known as HIPAA, suggested a nearly impossible standard: Before letting journalists inside Covid-19 wards, hospitals needed prior permission from not only the specific patients the journalists would interview, but also other patients whose names or identities would be accessible.

 

The onerous guidelines were issued on May 5 by Roger Severino, who worked at the conservative Heritage Foundation before Donald Trump appointed him to direct the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. The guidelines made it extremely difficult for hospitals to give photographers the opportunity to collect visual evidence of the pandemic’s severity. By tightening the circulation of disturbing images, the guidelines fulfilled, intentionally or not, a key Trump administration goal: keeping public attention away from the death toll, which has surpassed 300,000 souls.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

So much for quarantining and staying home for the holidays:

 

TSA screens highest number of travelers since pandemic began

 

The Transportation Security Administration screened 1,284,599 people at airport checkpoints around the U.S. on Sunday, according to agency data.

 

Why it matters: It's the highest number of travelers the TSA has recorded since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March.

 

It's also the sixth day in the last 10 that more than a million people have flown, suggesting huge numbers of people are traveling for the holidays despite the CDC urging Americans to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The TSA screened 2,575,985 people at checkpoints on the same weekday last year, per agency data.

The big picture: The number of COVID-19 infections confirmed in the U.S. surpassed 19 million on Sunday, per Johns Hopkins. The U.S. death toll stands at over 333,000 — meaning that roughly one in every 1,000 people in the U.S. has died from the virus.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[mcsluggo]

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[visionary]