Posted on 03/04/2020 6:40:52 AM PST by dangus
Way back, in January, BEFORE Xi's announcements, I noted that the novel Coronavirus (nCov) had reached an inflection point and would soon be declining. I had even waited a few days to confirm the trend. Over the last few days, there have been only 10 official cases outside Wuhan province, and only a few hundred each day inside Wuhan. The great Chinese lie wasn't that nCov wasn't destroying civilization; it was that it wasn't nearly as contagious as the Chinese were letting on.
We can see that now in South Korea and Italy. There's less data, and it's less centralized, so the data is "noisier" than in China. But it seems that on March 3 and March 4, Korea had fewer cases (1,286) than on February 29 and March 1 (1,399). And I may be jumping the gun in Italy, but there were fewer cases on March 2 and 3 (342 and 466) than on March 1 (566).
There are no great factories of incineration. To all the people who think that sulfur compounds in air pollution means burning bodies, coal and oil also have sulfur. So if Chinese cities quit importing gas and fall back on coal and oil, there's your sulfur.
So how did it spread through the Diamond Princess? Well, I'm not privy to any inside information, but coronaviruses are colds. Colds take a long while before they cause symptoms. My guess is that nCov had swept through the ship BEFORE the quarantine.
We're seeing this in Washington state. The virus has been there for six weeks, running unchecked, and only now, we're finding out about it... and in nursing homes.
nCov is a serious matter. Viruses swap technology, and we now have something I've feared since I was a college student in the 1990s: a cold virus has some AIDS technology. And 2% of the people who contract this virus will die. (Or maybe less... it strikes smokers hard.) We learned a LOT of lessons from real-world drills. But when you read about it sweeping America, remain calm folks.
I suspect that quarantine measures like those are why it’s getting better in Italy.
I have read that the draconian Chinese quarantine. - sealing up the well with the ill - actually resulted in many more deaths and infections than if they had simply quarantined the verifiably sick. So Im not sure they handled it all that well.
They were mostly busy trying to cover their backsides and prevent information from getting out. They would not release a sample of the virus to the US, which is one of the things that slowed down our research, and wouldnt permit any investigation into its source, and kicked out foreign reporters. Not for their safety, but for the safety of the regime.
My view is there are still a few more weeks of panic left to work out of the economy and markets, but that this is correct, the virus is settling down, and all is right as rain.
Do you see the bump in China on February 15? That was when they changed the testing criteria in China. It resulted in 14,000 new cases.
About a week ago, they rescinded that, and removed the 14,000 unit gain.
Where is the 14,000 unit dip corresponding to taking those cases out of the count.
My point is the numbers are all over the place.
Containment works. Now that is ending in China. It will be interesting to see evidence of recovery in Hubei Province. The latest atmospheric evidence still shows the area to be shut down. There is evidence of recovery in Beijing.
Time will tell.
I’m breathing a breath of relief because Trump’s main opponent at this point is the virus.
You don’t think released this on purpose to muddle up the US election?
Iran’s going to keep “other” bending upward for a while. :-(
And...short of a huge breakout, I think he is getting ahead of it. My faith in the CDC, and Congress as a whole, is not so strong.
I though the Iranian elite (Doctors with western education for example) were pretty bright.
The way they are handling the virus is simply bizarre. They encourage people to visit ground zero. Where they kiss the walls. Just nuts.
I’ll worry once it skyrockets in Seoul.
No, because the release was much more intense in China itself. Why would China wish to hurt their own country first? Since the virus got prematurely released in Wuhan population first, I have to believe it was an accident. China tried to hide it for weeks until the numbers became too large to hide and the virus began spreading all over China, Hong Kong, Macau, etc.
Since China can not effectively retaliate US tariffs, because we import 4 times more from them than China does from us, what are the “proud” Chinese supposed to do? Attack US internet? Attack US infrastructure? Military attack?
All above would be impossible to hide origin of attack. The best method would have been infect a few Chinese travelers to US, while the virus was unknown to the world. Let the virus spread in US rapidly and cause economic dislocations in US. That would have been effective retaliation for hurting China with tariffs.
No matter how bright US educated Iranians are, the medical infra-structure in Iran is probably a disaster.
Its not as bad as Indonesia. They declared last week that they had been spared though praying to Allah. He said, We are praying hard. Very hard.
They announce their first two cases yesterday.
I think they just started testing.
If that is true, it explains everything, doesn’t it?
Why inject facts of proportionality into a good old panic?
LOL God gave us a brain for a reason, to think for ourselves, and not run to him for help every time without using our magnificent brains.
The human brain is beyond amazing. I can still remember vivid scenes from my oldest sister’s wedding complete with a superbly decorated elephant procession to bring the groom to the wedding venue, and I was riding inside the little buggy mounted on top of that huge elephant. I was like 4 years old at the time, and now 75 years later those scenes are still stored in my brain somwhere! How does the brain do it???
Thanks for this. All the Henney-Penney’s here are really getting tiresome.
I understand how satisfying it can be to run with the concern crowd and show your true virtue, but as Joe Bite-me says, come on, man.
Oh bull. You’ve certainly had your say on this. He can have his!
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