For background information including an explanation of the virus, please see China Locks Down 7 Cities as Deadly Virus Spreads.
Comparison to the Flu and Rebuttals
https://twitter.com/cherdt/status/1220481951288692736https://twitter.com/Zinnia1111/status/1220520074928443393
The fact that China has quarantined over 20 million people speaks to the perceived seriousness of the threat.
25 Deaths and 830 Confirmed Cases
WHO Official Via NYT: “Make no mistake. This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.”
Only five global public health emergency declarations have been made in the past. The decisions are fraught, with health authorities wary of causing panic, or of suggesting that governments cannot handle outbreaks on their own.
Collapsing on the Street
City of Taiyuan (4 million people) Hit
https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1220522430189445120
Ignore the BS about Trump in the above Tweet. Conspiracy theories of all sorts running rampant now.
Suspected Texa A&M Case
https://twitter.com/mom_cadet/status/1220527175289442305
Hospital Runs Out of Beds
https://twitter.com/BerkayTan10711/status/1220504641194119170
WHO Says No Public Health Emergency of International Concern Today
I suspect they will change their tune soon.
This is the Last Place I Would Be
Anyone in line who did not have it before, probably does now
Phase 4
Washington State
Conspiracy Theory of the Day
There are also Tweets blaming the CIA and a person I refuse to name for fear of spreading nonsense.
I scoff at such theories.
US Tests
NJ, CA, TX, WA all testing cases.
Word About Conspiracy Theories
Psychology Today addresses What Makes People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
Half of the US population believes in at least one political or medical conspiracy theory. So belief in conspiracy theories is far more “normal” than many of us might think.
The popularity of films like JFK, The Manchurian Candidate, and Conspiracy Theory illustrates how many of us can be drawn to a good conspiracy theory. Over the two past years, half of the country has been anxiously expecting that the Mueller report would reveal one of the biggest conspiracy plots in American history, while the other half believes that the conspiracy was the Mueller investigation itself. And of course, occasionally conspiracy theories turn out to be true!
All of us are susceptible to confirmation bias—the tendency to reinforce pre-existing beliefs when we look for information. With the amount of information available online that’s tailored to our interests and preferences, we’re now living in an era of “confirmation bias on steroids.”
Understanding the Scale
- The population of Chicago is 2.7 million.
- The Chicago metro area population is 9.5 million.
- The population of New York City is 8.6 million.
- The New York City metro area population is 20.1 million.
- The population of London is 8.8 million
- The London metro area population is 13.7 million.
- The population of Illinois is 12.7 million
“To my knowledge, trying to contain a city of 11 million people is new to science. It has not been tried before as a public-health measure, so we cannot at this stage say it will or will not work,” Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization’s country representative for China, said in an interview.
Tom Inglesby, an expert on epidemics who is director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said “large-scale quarantine efforts in the past have not been successful in changing the outcome of disease outbreaks.”
Because of its key role in domestic transportation, Wuhan is sometimes referred to as “the Chicago of China” by foreign sources.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I hope they’ll find a cure for Corona Virus, so many people have died because of this virus.
It is advised to just stay at home and play computer games like Survival Island: EVO 2 https://survivalisland.io/
You cant believe ANYTHING the Chinese government is saying. They want their government to be known for not being trusted and thats exactly what they have. I would like to point out the Y2K disaster, the running out of oil disaster, and dozens of other pieces of “disaster content” that substitutes for news these days … you cant have the weather segment eight times an hour forever. Find some real news and everyone stop panicking.
Chinese eating live mice and bats: https://youtu.be/myHCdK9OMec
Also, how long do people in Chinese cities stay quarantined? People will start to flee at some point.
Unless reasonable assurances of progress, or at least a better understanding of what they are dealing with, are made relatively soon, there is no way to contain that many people in a fundamentally open geography for long. No way will the 29.9million who believe they aren’t yet infected, hang around those who are, until they themselves get infected too, if this turns out to remain ”incurable” for any length of time.
Urged to stay home. Will the bills get paid? Will someone bring me food? If I get sick does my social score go to zero? Not hard to see what a disaster it could turn into.
Yes, flu kills 250K a year, but the problem is that there are flu shots, people have some immunity to the flu, and the death rate is like 0.1%.
This is possibly as contagious as the flu, has a current death rate of 3%, has no cure or vaccine. That 250k turns into 7.5 million……, if it gets widespread.
That is the fear. This has to be contained.
Not sure if it “has to be contained,” nor if it is even containable. But I can’t say I fault leaders with a reasonable shot at making a go at it, for trying.
Bought a couple boxes of surgical masks. For $40, it may be well worth it. Last time I did this, the masks were used up. I think my wife wears them when she cleans the bathroom.
Do they work against dust or actually protect you?
Mostly they help you not infect others if you become sick. They stop you from creating an aerosol when you sneeze and keep your spit from getting onto stuff. They do not do much to protect the wearer from becoming infected.
I was actually just testing the website. I can no longer leave a comment, only to existing comments. I have tried on various platforms and browswers, but I cannot get the comment dialogue for the main article back. So far haven’t discovered a place to leave a comment about a technical issue [?]
They’re supposed to stop the flu 99%. I think a lot depends on how it is transmitted. If the virus spreads in mist from coughs and sneezes, it will help a lot since it will catch almost all the mist. If it’s completely air borne, it may not help much. Either way, it’s better than nothing.
“…supposed to stop the flu 99%”
That is almost certainly a best case claim related to how much virus is stopped if it is sucked directly through a mask. There are likely other paths of exposure. If you get it on your hands and touch your face then you are exposed. If you get it in your eyes then you are exposed. If you get it on your shoes and then track it around, that may lead to exposure.
In the photo Mish posted above the people are wearing an ear loop mask, full face mask, goggles, disposable gloves, disposable boots, and disposable coveralls. They are probably also periodically cleaning surfaces with disinfectants. If these countermeasures are directly related to this outbreak and not just for practice, then they are not messing around. It would mean the bug is airborne and highly contagious. A mask alone that stops 99% of virus from passing through would protect others more than it would protect the wearer.
In more big news, Brexit is DONE.
I see that Labour is still labouring hard on destroying the last remains of Britishness from the UK.
Even without their “help”, UK may be already lost. The population is being replaced by “compatible” non-Europeans while the natives will eventually become a shrinking and hated minority.
Member all the “there will be no Brexit” posters on Zero Hedge
I miss those times
Mother Natures way of thinning out the heard. I bet the Chinese government would love to get rid of a few million(or more) of their people. Especially with their economy tanking.
Why would they do that when they can send the surplus people to Africa as colonizers?
Quite the opposite. They are ruing the effects of their 1-child policy.
As long as the Wu Tong Flu tears through China and the 3rd World thinning all in its wake – maybe Greta will finally be happy?
Or, perhaps she will have the sense to perhaps reserve a few moments of her cure-all solution; to panic; over the possible implications of forcefully stuffing ever more people, like sardines in a can, into “public transportation”; instead of allowing them the opportunity to roll down the road to their destination with a bit more distance to their blood coughing and collapsing fellow travelers.
this was much needed news to aware people about their contribution to the world i have also written about this on my website that i made using
hostgator”=””>https://www.thehostingstop.com/“>HostGator WordPress hosting plans
this has various plans and offers for hostings.
report on the BBC: building a new hospital with 1,000 beds to be ready in a week – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51230011
Hello Dr. Future
Long time no chat. Call me any time.
I read you every day – you’re the last of the independent thinkers. I’ve got a new book coming out now. Love to see you move here to Nashville.
Given how often diseases have started in China, if I were the Chinese government I’d know that if the quarantine turns out to be an over-reaction, then some of the down-side of the over reaction will be paid for by the experience gained from doing the quarantine.
perhaps they should not eat bats and snakes
Mother nature will push us back to a population density for which we evolved. Disease, war or environment will cull us down to sustainable groupings if current demographics and trends dont get there first.
Bat and snake eating is not so weird in calorie starved populations. The fact there are so many people now doing it and at density is the problem.
I’m waiting to see who has the “miracle cure” for the Virus of the Year this time:
“Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that’s now the most-sought after drug in the world.
Rumsfeld served as Gilead <“>http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?shownav=true&symb=GILD> (Research <“>http://cnnfn.investor.reuters.com/Reports.aspx?ticker=GILD> )’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld”. https://ahrp.org/sec-defense-rumsfeld-tamiflu-holdings/
Reports on weibo (chinnese social media), are claiming that the infection numbers in Wuhan are anywhere from the low thousands to 10,000+. People are saying that most infected are not even going to the hospital, and that you can be infected and not have a fever. The incubation time is not known, but is long, more than a week. There is widespread fear in China that the government is lying about the numbers
China fears social upheaval more than a simple outbreak of disease. They also tend to apply a “sledgehammer to kill a fly” approach to create the illusion of government power in action….because the illusion satisfies the needs of the CCP over the needs of the people….. every single time!
If you have the power to, short term, quarantine people during an outbreak of something of unknown seriousness; which happens to occur both in a/the main transportation hub serving the world’s busiest travel season, and in the middle of general flu season when “everyone” walks around sporting symptoms similar to the suspected outbreak; you do so.
Whether anyone ought to have that much power, is another question. But since they do, it’s hardly surprising that they make use of it, until they at least start having a better idea about what they are dealing with.
Trains, planes and now roads are being blocked to prevent travel .Road share companies are stopping operation. People are being urged to stay at home.
25 million people are being quarantined in.
So either this is a huge over reaction or the Chinese Government knows something we don’t know.
I suspect the actual count is way higher.
Filling hospitals
Since when did China give a shit about anything?
Around the same time “America” did.
As a rule, non sentient, rather arbitrary geographic aggregates don’t give shits.
Is the global pandemic happening before or after the war with Iran?
We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
Could happen together. Multiplier effect!
The fact that China has quarantined millions of people validates the idea the rest of the world should quarantine China.