Jump to content

Coronavirus : Country readiness


BruceVC

Recommended Posts

This new forum is not tablet friendly...

 
But yeah, the death rate in Northern Italy is currently at like 6.5 %... and this is when they feel they are still able to treat everybody who needs treatment, which they estimate they might not in two weeks.
 
Finnish govt is in full ”we should only be afraid of panic” mode. Advised by the local health authority - staffed with people who believe that limiting access to alcohol will cure all ills - who just a month and a half ago said the disease would not hit Finland at all.
 
As an added bonus, gf (who I haven’t seen in a week and a half due to trip and isolation) has picked up a high fever...
 
Things are going to get really ugly here in a couple of weeks. 
Edited by Nepenthe
Stupid forum software

You're a cheery wee bugger, Nep. Have I ever said that?

ahyes.gifReapercussionsahyes.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice of Jack Ma to send medical aid to a poor nation. 😛

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a kinda curious national emergency declaration filled with self congratulatory puffery and a wealth o' misleading statements. anytime trump stopped reading direct from his pre-written content, he descended into doggerel. 

President didn't take any responsibility for current lack o' testing available and the slow start on making improvements to the previous testing scheme. if the administration had not marginalized the significance o' the current coronavirus for so long, testing changes woulda' been implemented earlier than last week. recall, the first evidence o' community outbreak in usa were late january. 

trump flat-out lied 'bout nsc reorganization. 

"i can't think of a bad relationship," were his claim in reference to state governors?

oh, and during the Presidential announcement, the chief executive, who has had direct contact with those who has tested positive but has nevertheless not been tested himself, were shaking hands and violating any number o' social distancing recommendations.  trump were bizarre obtuse 'bout his personal testing.

trump says he ordered many more ventilators. from where? the problem has been described as one o' the hard reality the ventilators do not exist to supply the need. 

etc.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited by Gromnir

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Volo how do define " over reaction "  when people die? Is it really an over reaction when its your grandparents who get very sick? :

 

You do realize people die from the 'common cold' right?

 

This doesn't mean we ignore advice from doctors. Quaratine yourself if you need to (traceled over seas /have symptoms) but don't go the store and my a trunk full of toilet paper. Don't go spewing racist nonsense over it.

At my work, we've given a list of things to do thing (like more cleaning) which makes logical sense and told to absolutely stay home if we aren't feeling well but none of this doomsday scenario.

 

And, I agree. It should be takens eriously because the people it is most dangerous to are those who are already more fragile (elders, little children, already sick people, et al). 

Be safe. Wash your hands (wich you should always do anyways).

 

But, don't act like it is Armageddon and its the end of times.

  • Like 2

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

harry-truman-buck-stops-here-96816088-fo

  • Like 2
Quote
“Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.”
 
-Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>>
Quote

"The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete."

-Rod Serling

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We're going into lockdown. All venues and businesses except pharmacies and groceries stores must close. The gov't has decreed a state of alarm which restricts personal freedoms such as free movement and gives it power to requisition goods, assume direct control of all security forces and deploy the army as it sees fit. This will undoubtedly work well, as it has in Italy, without any risk of mass layoffs. No sirree.

Meanwhile in South Korea, smart application of tech, widespread and efficient testing and a well-organized bureaucracy seem to have managed to defeat the epidemic without having to resort to CCP methods.

But hey, both left and right agree on this, so we'll call it high statesmanship instead of simply recognizing that both sides are equally blithely incompetent and stupid, and when push comes to shove, they both give strictly zero ****s about the open society.

  • Thanks 2

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess South Korea and Taiwan learned from SARS, very impressed with the way they handled it.  Went to the grocery today, no pasta, rice, cold cuts on the shelves - first time I've experienced something like that, heh.  Not quite sure it is all that necessary but I guess school's closing was the catalyst for some people to realize things got real.  

Did eventually find basmati rice, $9 for 2 lbs, sheesh.  And had to check 4 places for it - funnily enough lots of jasmine, white and parboiled rice available.  I guess all the panicking people have tastes that supercede desperation 😛

  • Like 2

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Zealand has basically gone full Madagascar- technically we haven't shut down all inward travel, but a 14 day quarantine is going to stop pretty much everyone who isn't a returning NZer (or Pacific Islander for some reason). Can't see any tourist, sport and business visitors coming. Guess politically it has to be done, but I very much doubt it's going to do anything other than delay the virus's large scale arrival.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

new low/high for fox news gaslighting is tucker carlson blaming liberal media for underreporting coronavirus.

what?

first stories we are able to recollect distinct (am confident there were other earlier articles, but am referencing stuff we recall) were bloomberg and washington post

China Pneumonia Outbreak Spurs WHO Action as Mystery Lingers

Specter of possible new virus emerging from central China raises alarms across Asia

initial reported US cases were january 21, 2020, almost a week before first time tucker carlson ever mentioned coronavirus on tv or radio, and from that date almost every major media outlet save a few state media stand-ins were giving daily coronavirus updates, along with queries as to why the US were so slow to react to the clear growing threat.

the thing is, for folks who only watch fox, they are gonna believe tucker... and trump.

aside, and given the lack o' buck stops here from trump...

Trump administration budget cuts could become a major problem as coronavirus spreads

"The cuts started in 2018, as the White House focused on eliminating funding to Obama-era disease security programs. In March of that year, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, whose job it was to lead the U.S. response in the event of a pandemic, abruptly left the administration and his global health security team was disbanded.

"That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was forced to slash its efforts to prevent global disease outbreak by 80% as its funding for the program began to run out. The agency, at the time, opted to focus on 10 priority countries and scale back in others, including China.

"Also cut was the Complex Crises Fund, a $30 million emergency response pool that was at the secretary of state’s disposal to deploy disease experts and others in the event of a crisis. (The fund was created by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)"

Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response

"In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced."

I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it.

" It’s unclear whether the decision to disband the directorate, which was made in May 2018, after John Bolton became national security adviser, was a tactical move to downgrade the issue or whether it was part of the White House’s interest in simplifying and shrinking the National Security Council staff. Either way, it left an unclear structure and strategy for coordinating pandemic preparedness and response. Experts outside government and on Capitol Hill called for the office’s reinstatement at the time.

" Its absence now is all too evident. In his remarks Wednesday night, the president talked about travel bans and the resilience of the U.S. economy but made little specific mention of the public health crisis unfolding across America — exactly the kind of detail a dedicated NSC pandemics infrastructure would have pushed to address. A directorate within the White House would have been responsible for coordinating the efforts of multiple federal agencies to make sure the government was backstopping testing capacity, devising approaches to manufacture and avoid shortages of personal protective equipment, strengthening U.S. lab capacity to process covid-19 tests, and expanding the health-care workforce. " 

now the stuff 'bout former regulations from the obama admin being the cause o' delayed testing, which trump were insisting 'til today were not delayed, is pinocchio worthy in the extreme, but it is true the fed testing scheme (which had nothing whatsoever to do with swine flu standards as swine flu were FLU and delays, such as they were, were all related to vaccine development and not testing) were indeed ill-suited for the current needs given the scope o' covid-19. with initial cdc failed test release and the lack o' urgency related to covid-19, problems with the scheme were compounded. even if trump had acted sooner there woulda' been unfortunate delays insofar as testing is concerned. however, if the administration had started their efforts in january as 'posed to end of february, problems coulda' been overcome much sooner. buck stops.

and keep in mind that folks such as bill gates were sounding alarm bells early in the trump administration

Bill Gates Warns Of Epidemic That Could Kill Over 30 Million People

The Trump administration is ill-prepared for a global pandemic

...

am knowing nobody is gonna read all this, but whatever. 

parting shot is to note that while it seems like we are singling out trump on this, we ain't. as somebody who never passed up a chance to complain 'bout obama blunders, we complained when obama did the exact same f'ng thing early in his admin. bush had made pandemic and disease issues part o' the fundamental nsc structure post 9/11 and early in his administration, obama gutted the nsc presence, though not the cdc as has trump. took the ebola scare to motivate obama to undo initial stoopid. oh, and bush had removed the nsc pandemic personnel early in his admin and only brought such folks back post 9/11. wtf is wrong with these guys? 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited by Gromnir
clarification: noted the first reported US case were january 21, 2020. no doubt the initial case were actual much earlier.
  • Like 1

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ThreadReader - Prof.Ian Donald

A whooole lot of assumptions if that is the strategy.

Quote
1. The govt strategy on #Coronavirus is more refined than those used in other countries and potentially very effective. But it is also riskier and based on a number of assumptions. They need to be correct, and the measures they introduce need to work when they are supposed to.
2. This all assumes I'm correct in what I think the govt are doing and why. I could be wrong - and wouldn't be surprised. But it looks to me like. . .
3. A UK starting assumption is that a high number of the population will inevitably get infected whatever is done – up to 80%. As you can’t stop it, so it is best to manage it.

There are limited health resources so the aim is to manage the flow of the seriously ill to these.
4. The Italian model the aims to stop infection. The UKs wants infection BUT of particular categories of people. The aim of the UK is to have as many lower risk people infected as possible. Immune people cannot infect others; the more there are the lower the risk of infection
5. That's herd immunity.
Based on this idea, at the moment the govt wants people to get infected, up until hospitals begin to reach capacity. At that they want to reduce, but not stop infection rate. Ideally they balance it so the numbers entering hospital = the number leaving.
6. That balance is the big risk.

All the time people are being treated, other mildly ill people are recovering and the population grows a higher percent of immune people who can’t infect. They can also return to work and keep things going normally - and go to the pubs.
7.The risk is being able to accurately manage infection flow relative to health case resources. Data on infection rates needs to be accurate, the measures they introduce need to work and at the time they want them to and to the degree they want, or the system is overwhelmed.
8. Schools: Kids generally won’t get very ill, so the govt can use them as a tool to infect others when you want to increase infection. When you need to slow infection, that tap can be turned off – at that point they close the schools. Politically risky for them to say this.
9. The same for large scale events - stop them when you want to slow infection rates; turn another tap off. This means schools etc are closed for a shorter period and disruption generally is therefore for a shorter period, AND with a growing immune population. This is sustainable
10. After a while most of the population is immune, the seriously ill have all received treatment and the country is resistant. The more vulnerable are then less at risk. This is the end state the govt is aiming for and could achieve.
11. BUT a key issue during this process is protection of those for whom the virus is fatal. It's not clear the full measures there are to protect those people. It assumes they can measure infection, that their behavioural expectations are met - people do what they think they will
12. The Italian (and others) strategy is to stop as much infection as possible - or all infection. This is appealing, but then what? The restrictions are not sustainable for months. So the will need to be relaxed. But that will lead to reemergence of infections.
13. Then rates will then start to climb again. So they will have to reintroduce the restrictions each time infection rates rise. That is not a sustainable model and takes much longer to achieve the goal of a largely immune population with low risk of infection of the vulnerable
14. As the government tries to achieve equilibrium between hospitalisations and infections, more interventions will appear. It's perhaps why there are at the moment few public information films on staying at home. They are treading a tight path, but possibly a sensible one.
15. This is probably the best strategy, but they should explain it more clearly. It relies on a lot of assumptions, so it would be good to know what they are - especially behavioural. Most encouraging, it's way too clever for #BorisJohnson to have had any role in developing.
 
 
 
Edited by Raithe

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

solution:

have cnn, washington post and nyt do full length articles confirming existence aliens complete with interviews from air force generals and overnight 2/3 o' the tinfoil hat brigade who current believe a government coverup o' alien contact will be arguing with us 'bout media conspiracies and the impossibility o' alien contact. 'cause legitimacy ruins the conspiracy?

is how it worked with coronavirus after all. have early washington post and bloomberg articles warning americans o' coronavirus issues being undersold by china and 'cause the schizotypy, undereducated losers distrust the media to a pathological degree, the loons ignore dangers. if coronavirus warnings had remained blog fodder, the k00ks mighta taken more serious?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/editorial/opinion--trump-fans-believe-him-over-the-media-on-coronavirus-this-is-dangerous/2020/03/10/950cac91-39ad-458c-a9c2-a44da0bbcb82_video.html

on a positive note, am needing give ted cruz a rare positive acknowledgement as he has recent recognized the administration's failures insofar as implementing rational and reasonable coronavirus testing. 'course his acknowledgement came while he were needing maintain self-quarantine, so would look kinda obtuse if he didn't, but is curious how he is an exception as 'posed to rule.

HA! Good Fun!

  • Like 1

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

UK seems to be treating things rather lightly so far. Whenever, this approach is reasonable or not, I don't know. 

I am really concerned by how difficult it is to get hand soap... does that mean that people don't wash their hands on regular basis, or do they stockpile it on mass hoping to make the profit by reselling it? Facebook marketplace is full of toilet paper with inflated prices. 

EDIT. Oh, as a side note, one can get a free 30days long access to Digital Concerthall of Berlin Phil... in case on has a decent sound system and feels like listening to the one of the top ensambles in the world.
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/titelgeschichten/20192020/digital-concert-hall/?fbclid=IwAR2Pts8yxLYn6TARVrKZrskhGBPH2FMxcx04cILDsI-h_E9XM8rDOH2JEfQ

Edited by Wormerine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trump Caught Google Off Guard With a Bogus Coronavirus Site Announcement

"A source at Google tells WIRED that company leadership was surprised that Trump announced anything about the initiative at the press conference. What he did say was also almost entirely wrong. There will be a coronavirus testing site, not from Google but from Alphabet sister company Verily. “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing,” Google tweeted in a statement. “Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”

"Even that, though, was not the original plan. The Verge reported Friday afternoon that Verily had intended the site for health care workers only. After Trump unexpectedly publicized the effort, Verily decided it will let anyone visit it, but can still only provide people with testing site information in the San Francisco area."

would be nice if we could get through a Presidential announcement w/o trump indulging in the old razzle-dazzle. even today, trump and pence refused to walk back claims 'bout the website.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

89864799_2823794487707292_44523704944143

  • Haha 1

"While it is true you learn with age, the down side is what you often learn is what a damn fool you were before"

Thomas Sowell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bad decision. Scarcity of TP is going to keep driving value up. They could probably get a few cases in exchange for all that TP in a few days. Can't expect people to make rational decisions in the face of panic beer, news at 11.

 

ESdDI-eVAAE-n0H.jpg

  • Like 1

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well some stuff I learned about my Bananistan country while in Quarantine. Somewehere in the end of January or politicians helped few of their business firends to buy ****loads of medicinal stuff needed for treating epidemies, they made ****loads of money, and now, our country has not enough stuff to supply the hospitals and police... we are in lockdown, no flights allowed in, no people without Slovak passport are allowed in by cars. People here are either in panic or are completely retarded idiots, who were going to ski two days after our government decided to go full quarantine on schools... currently around 40 infected people, but being able to be tested is almost impossible, if you have no fever over 38. So my statistical guess is around 300-500 infected, and most of them do not know about it and are spreading it, while trying to buy the last pack of flour or toilet paper. Just for a comparison. I was in Slovenia on business trip in a hospital, when 1st patient was tested. In a week, they got 140 infected people. When I get back, I put myself into voluntarily quarantine and asked for home-office without the need of government instructions, but when I tried to get me tested, I was denied despite haveing 7 out of 10 most common signs of the infection. I feel now completely fine, just getting bored a lot 😛 in Slovakia in 1 week, we had less than 20 confirmed cases, and this smells of incompetent handling of the situation... Thankfully, company for which I work has made a deal with one of the biggest laboratories in country, to get free testing for all of the employees, starting on Monday. My biggest fear now is my girlfriend, she still needs to go to work, because she is owner of restaurant, and people still need to eat, because now, for a lot of people it is safer to eat in restaurant where there is maximum 10 people at once, than going to some big mall, where still hundreds of people go each day. Still if our government does not make some kind of fiscal help to small and middle businesses, she will probably end up bankrupt in two to three months 😕 ****ty situation indeed. Thanks for reading my rant 😉 

 

ps. Statistically, I think we will get in next two weeks crazy high numbers, and my guess will be very similar to the Italian progression of the disease, because people here are not disciplined, are selfish so a lot of them are still ignoring the precautions, and our politicians did funnelled billions of Euros from the hospitals to their own pockets in the last 25 years, and because of that our hospitals is on one of the lowest standards in EU... compared to Czechia, every year died up to 3000 people on curable diseases (5000compared to Austria)... and now imagine how the pandemics will **** with the people in these hospitals...

Edited by Mamoulian War
  • Sad 1

Sent from my Stone Tablet, using Chisel-a-Talk 2000BC.

My youtube channel: MamoulianFH
Latest Let's Play Tales of Arise (completed)
Latest Bossfight Compilation Dark Souls Remastered - New Game (completed)

Let's Play/AAR Europa Universalis 1: Austria Grand Campaign (completed)
Let's Play/AAR Europa Universalis 2: Xhosa Grand Campaign (completed)
My PS Platinums and 100% - 29 games so far (my PSN profile)

 

 

1) God of War III - PS3 - 24+ hours

2) Final Fantasy XIII - PS3 - 130+ hours

3) White Knight Chronicles International Edition - PS3 - 525+ hours

4) Hyperdimension Neptunia - PS3 - 80+ hours

5) Final Fantasy XIII-2 - PS3 - 200+ hours

6) Tales of Xillia - PS3 - 135+ hours

7) Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 - PS3 - 152+ hours

8.) Grand Turismo 6 - PS3 - 81+ hours (including Senna Master DLC)

9) Demon's Souls - PS3 - 197+ hours

10) Tales of Graces f - PS3 - 337+ hours

11) Star Ocean: The Last Hope International - PS3 - 750+ hours

12) Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - PS3 - 127+ hours

13) Soulcalibur V - PS3 - 73+ hours

14) Gran Turismo 5 - PS3 - 600+ hours

15) Tales of Xillia 2 - PS3 - 302+ hours

16) Mortal Kombat XL - PS4 - 95+ hours

17) Project CARS Game of the Year Edition - PS4 - 120+ hours

18) Dark Souls - PS3 - 197+ hours

19) Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory - PS3 - 238+ hours

20) Final Fantasy Type-0 - PS4 - 58+ hours

21) Journey - PS4 - 9+ hours

22) Dark Souls II - PS3 - 210+ hours

23) Fairy Fencer F - PS3 - 215+ hours

24) Megadimension Neptunia VII - PS4 - 160 hours

25) Super Neptunia RPG - PS4 - 44+ hours

26) Journey - PS3 - 22+ hours

27) Final Fantasy XV - PS4 - 263+ hours (including all DLCs)

28) Tales of Arise - PS4 - 111+ hours

29) Dark Souls: Remastered - PS4 - 121+ hours

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a sign of how yuppie Toronto is, there was a fist fight in a bakery over bagels.  Of all things for people to lose their civility over in a crisis.

  • Haha 2

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

In a sign of how yuppie Toronto is, there was a fist fight in a bakery over bagels.  Of all things for people to lose their civility over in a crisis.

I have yet to see shortages of food here. Masks and hand sanitizers are hard to come by though. 

But yeah, no fight over food. We Iranians were civil the whole time, who knew! :p

 

I am scared sh*tless though, some of the people who are very close to me are over 70. :(

 

Edited by Katphood
Typo

There used to be a signature here, a really cool one...and now it's gone.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...