The Covid-19 virus

Roxxsmom

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I hope its spread is starting to slow, at least, and warmer weather will put the brakes on the epidemics, the way it tends to with seasonal flu. The scary thing about this outbreak is how the situation changes daily. The economic impact is already pretty serious.

https://www.who.int/docs/default-so...ation-reports/20200218-sitrep-29-covid-19.pdf

I know some of our members live in China and in other parts of the world harder hit much harder by this virus than the US and Europe have been so far. I hope all of you and your loved ones are well
 

ElaineA

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Interesting article in WAPO yesterday about the fight between the State Department and the CDC about bringing home the 14 infected Americans from the cruise. Naturally, because this is the Dumb Administration, the CDC lost and the 14 infected people were put *on a plane* with the other cruise-ship-exposed (but not testing positive for the virus) and flown home. They think because they put the infected ones in a part of the plane they'd separated with plastic sheeting it would all be fine.

In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers.

Did no one tell them about air circulation on a plane? I'm dumbfounded. The worst part is, they didn't notify the other passengers they were flying with infected people. So those folks who had been held offshore for 2 weeks on the ship, cleared, and were being taken home, have all been re-exposed without their knowledge. (Putting a long quote here since WaPo is behind a paywall)

Eventually the buses arrived at the airport, and once again, everyone waited while top officials in Washington argued about the test results, according to a senior administration official.

“Nobody anticipated getting these results,” said another U.S. official involved in the evacuation.

During one call, the CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, argued against taking the infected Americans on the plane, according to two participants. She noted the U.S. government had already told passengers they would not be evacuated with anyone who was infected or who showed symptoms. She was also concerned about infection control.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was also on the calls, recalled saying her points were valid and should be considered.

But Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response for the Department of Health and Human Services and a member of the coronavirus task force, pushed back: Officials had already prepared the plane to handle passengers who might develop symptoms on the long flight, he argued. The two Boeing 747s had 18 seats cordoned off with 10-foot-high plastic on all four sides. Infectious disease doctors would also be onboard.

“We felt like we had very experienced hands in evaluating and caring for these patients,” Kadlec said at a news briefing Monday.

The State Department made the call. The 14 people were already in the evacuation pipeline and protocol dictated they be brought home, said William Walters, director of operational medicine for the State Department.

As the State Department drafted its news release, the CDC’s top officials insisted that any mention of the agency be removed.

“CDC did weigh in on this and explicitly recommended against it,” Schuchat wrote on behalf of the officials, according to an HHS official who saw the email and shared the language. “We should not be mentioned as having been consulted as it begs the question of what was our advice.”

She wrote that the infected passengers could pose “an increased risk to the other passengers.”

Schuchat declined to comment.

About an hour before the planes landed in California and Texas, the State Department revealed that the 14 evacuees had tested positive and did not mention the CDC.

Mendizabal, the retired nurse, said she learned about the infections only when she landed at Travis Air Force Base in California and talked to one of her five children, who had seen a news report.

“We were upset that people were knowingly put on the plane who were positive,” she said Wednesday in an interview from the military base. She said she and her husband had already completed 12 days of quarantine on the ship and both were healthy.

“I think those people should not have been allowed on the plane,” Mendizabal said. “They should have been transferred to medical facilities in Japan. We feel we were re-exposed. We were very upset about that.”

After the planes landed, the infected passengers were retested. On Thursday, the CDC confirmed that 11 were indeed positive and two tested negative. One passenger is still awaiting results.

Wow. Just Wow.

Adding my +1 to what Roxxsmom said about wishing everyone in the more seriously impacted places good health to you and your friends and loved ones.
 

neandermagnon

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Re air circulation on a plane, please see this video by a pilot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldm3n0hEsd4 - explains how much air is circulated (much of the air on a plane is fresh air, otherwise everyone would suffer from CO2 poisoning after a while including the pilots which would be catastrophic) and how the circulated air is thoroughly filtered before going back on the plane. The video also covers what the risk is if a passenger with a virus sneezes - it's only the people up to about 2 seats away that are at risk, because they breathe the air containing the infected droplets before it's removed and filtered.
 
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MaeZe

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I have a lot to say. This is not medical advice, it's nursing advice based on being an occupational infectious disease specialist and an infection preventionist (new word for infection control) for the last 30years.

COVID-19 has been around long enough now we can draw many tentative, but informed conclusions about the virus.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

First, there is only a minuscule chance now that the lid can be kept on this thing. Too many cases are being spread by people before they develop symptoms. And too many bureaucrats like on the Diamond Princess failed to get professional help managing the quarantine. Worse, they are still denying they mishandled things, stupidly claiming all the new cases were simply initial cases that were caused before the quarantine was initiated.

Now it is long past the 2 weeks of quarantine and new cases are still emerging.

Don't be afraid of these people coming back to their/your countries, the US, Canada, Australia. They are being properly monitored, cultured and quarantined. Safety in Japan and some of the other countries remain to be seen. And for my friends in Hong Kong, your country/territory has experience that will help.

It is worrisome that India, Indonesia, and most countries in Africa claim to not have a large number of cases. Like on the Diamond Princess, the chances are high that rather than few cases the band is playing on.

We just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, the virus itself is not that bad. Most cases are mild. Most severe and fatal cases are in the elderly and/or in people that have other conditions. Unfortunately that applies to some of us including myself.

Here's a run down of risk factors from a major study. Ignore the men more vulnerable than women, the difference is barely statistically significant.

CNBC: Coronavirus is more fatal in men than women, major study suggests

Keep in mind when you see things like cardiovascular disease increases one's risk of dying, it's still only 10% meaning 90% are going to recover.
Cardiovascular disease was the preexisting condition most associated with increased fatalities, with the study reporting a fatality rate of 10.5% in patients who suffered with the condition. Diabetes sufferers had a fatality rate of 7.3%, while the frequency of fatalities was also higher than the overall rate in people with chronic respiratory disease, hypertension and cancer.

So what do you do to protect yourself?

Wash your hands often and use a liberal amount of alcohol based hand sanitizer (60% or more) more often in between. Most of that shit in the stores doesn't have any alcohol in it at all. All those wipes they dispense at the carts in grocery stores are not better than a wet towel. And it does appear that alcohol is effective against coronavirus.

And keep your hands strictly away from your face. Start practicing now.

People still do not understand the basics. There was a line of people on the news, somewhere (could have been anywhere), passing by a person with a hand pump hand sanitizer giving everyone a single squirt as they walked past. it was not enough. Why didn't someone tell that person with the squirt bottle? Who is advising them?

Wet your hands completely with the hand sanitizer then rub your hands until the sanitizer evaporates.

Same with hand washing, don't just wet your hands and dry them. Get them fully wet and soapy before rinsing them off. It drives me crazy to see people wet their hands and dry them.

Social distancing is an equally important measure. That includes staying at least three feet away from a person's face that is talking. And pay attention to all the surfaces people are contaminating: railings, doorknobs, keyboards, the shopping cart handle, almost anything shared.

You can't avoid everything, that's where the hand sanitizer comes in. Remember, use enough to fully wet your hands.

If you are going to wear a respirator (mask) understand what you are doing. There are a lot of mixed messages out there about masks.

We don't know yet if the virus is only droplet spread or if it is truly airborne. A mask only offers partial protection. If it is an N95 (PR masks in many countries) and is properly fitted (air will follow the path of least resistance) then it will filter out larger droplets. But the smaller droplets and free floating virus will not be filtered out.

Then there is the problem of your eyes. You can prevent inhaling some droplets with a mask, but respiratory viruses can enter through the eyes. Glasses might block some droplets but goggles are better.

One thing a mask and glasses can do is keep you from putting your hands to your face. Start training yourself right now to keep your hands away from your face.


If you prevent contracting the infection, you also protect the people downstream from getting it.

I'm keeping up on the pandemic (might as well call it that now) and on the status of antiviral treatments and vaccine development.

I think that's it for now. If anyone has any questions I'm happy to try to answer.
 
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MaeZe

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Re air circulation on a plane, please see this video by a pilot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldm3n0hEsd4 - explains how much air is circulated (much of the air on a plane is fresh air, otherwise everyone would suffer from CO2 poisoning after a while including the pilots which would be catastrophic) and how the circulated air is thoroughly filtered before going back on the plane. The video also covers what the risk is if a passenger with a virus sneezes - it's only the people up to about 2 seats away that are at risk, because they breathe the air containing the infected droplets before it's removed and filtered.
Good post.

We know from tuberculosis spread on planes that only the people seated near the infected passenger are at risk.

The jury might be out re 100% safety, but people are, for the most part, safe. Also keep in mind that hopefully, people identified as infected will be wearing a mask keeping the number of particles they are exhaling down considerably.
 

ElaineA

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The point is the passengers weren't told. They weren't allowed to decide for themselves. Most of them, given the opportunity--with full disclosure and expert medical information--would likely still have chosen to get on the plane. But for people who had already been exposed in a closed environment, quarantined in suboptimal conditions, and then cleared, subjecting them to uninformed re-exposure, no matter how small the risk, seems like malpractice to me. They deserved to be told. The CDC did not back the decision, for whatever that's worth. That the State Department overrode the CDC is also problematic.

I have as much fear of Covid-19 as I do of the seasonal flu, which kills far more people: minimal to none. I am not in any compromised category, and I get my shot. I truly don't understand the frenzy with Covid-19, nor why the media needs to make this look like something far worse than it currently is. But in individual situations, such as those from the cruise, I do think people deserve more consideration.
 

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I have as much fear of Covid-19 as I do of the seasonal flu, which kills far more people: minimal to none. I am not in any compromised category, and I get my shot. I truly don't understand the frenzy with Covid-19, nor why the media needs to make this look like something far worse than it currently is.

The simplest answers are usually right. In this case, greed and innumeracy. Panic sells media, media sells ads. And most Americans are bad with numbers, the average reporter is too, and “thousands infected” or “hundreds dead” from a single cause sounds scary if you don’t understand numbers (the percentages) or comparable death rates from other everyday infections.
 

neandermagnon

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The simplest answers are usually right. In this case, greed and innumeracy. Panic sells media, media sells ads. And most Americans are bad with numbers, the average reporter is too, and “thousands infected” or “hundreds dead” from a single cause sounds scary if you don’t understand numbers (the percentages) or comparable death rates from other everyday infections.

I have this phone app that brings me news articles from various sources. The other day it illustrated perfectly the difference between the Daily Express and the Guardian's attitudes. (sorry can't remember the exact words)

Daily Express: 18% of Covid-19 patients become critically ill

Guardian: 4 out of 5 Covid-19 patients only get a mild disease

The difference between scaremongering and trying to reassure people. However both headlines say the same thing.
 

MaeZe

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The point is the passengers weren't told.
That's one point, and an important one.

A separate point is 'what are the facts' because people are still getting on planes.

And yes, the news media's business model is absolutely 'report hype, not facts'. That's the disinformation*. But don't overlook the ignorance of the reporters and other 'officials' involved in dealing with this virus. That also plays a big role in spreading misinformation**.

*Dis as in purposeful
**Mis as in not purposeful
 

Roxxsmom

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One thing that's tough about compiling statistics is the number of asymptomatic cases, or cases where the symptoms are so mild and transitory they feel more like a mild cold. These people might be able to spread the virus.

According to the WHS, there's been a decline in new cases in China over the past few days. It's possible local epidemics will start to wane, as do cases of cold and flu, as the weather grows warmer. It's possible this virus could have a "seasonal" nature, but experts aren't sure yet. Hopefully so.

There's still a lot we don't know. Good hygiene is always smart. Face touching is a hard thing to guard against, though. It's such a ubiquitous natural human (and primate) behavior, one that seems to help mediate cognitive overload and stress. It's almost impossible not to do it unless one is on guard every moment, and even so, stress levels likely increase as a consequence. One thing about masks, even the loosely fitting ones that don't do much to protect the wearer from incoming virus particles, is that the constant feeling of semi-suffocation and that glasses-fogging-hot-flash-inducing discomfort serves as a reminder not to scratch one's nose or rub one's eyes etc.

I have as much fear of Covid-19 as I do of the seasonal flu, which kills far more people: minimal to none. I am not in any compromised category, and I get my shot. I truly don't understand the frenzy with Covid-19, nor why the media needs to make this look like something far worse than it currently is. But in individual situations, such as those from the cruise, I do think people deserve more consideration.

I feel similarly, though COVID-19 does appear to have a higher mortality as a percentage of total cases--around 2%--than typical seasonal flu. I can't find data on the overall, average percentage people infected with flu who die of it, probably because most flu cases go unreported, and death rates vary greatly from year to year anyway. There are also vaccines for flu, which can reduce severity in people who get it anyway. I believe it is well under 1%, though. Still, tens of thousands die of influenza each year, and hundreds of thousands are typically hospitalized. Most people dying of COVID-19 are elderly or immune-compromised, but there are a few people who die even though they don't fit the profile, even with medical care. The time frame for dying of this virus seems to be around 2 weeks from becoming symptomatic for the worst cases.

I don't worry as much for me, but there are some I am concerned about, though. My 80-year-old mom who has psoriatic arthritis and is on drugs for this, for instance. She's currently in the hospital because she has shingles in her right eye and is in such excruciating pain she wasn't eating and developed dangerously low sodium levels (she's been on a low sodium diet and basically is delicately balancing a number of health issues). If people with the virus start coming into the emergency department where she is still hospitalized (because they don't have a normal room available with adequate cardiac monitoring at UCI MC yet), she's at risk. I worry about flu too. She's had her flu and pneumonia vaccines (not the newer, more effective one for shingles, evidently), but since her immune system is compromised right now, ergh.

I think we all have elderly friends or relatives with health issues who could be at greater than average risk for both flu, and also for this virus if an epidemic starts in the US.
 
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MaeZe

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Update re Japan: Japan says 23 passengers mistakenly left virus ship before testing
Around 100 more passengers have been allowed to disembark from the coronavirus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship over the weekend as Japan's health minister apologised after 23 others were allowed to leave without being properly tested.

The news came as a Japanese woman who left the ship on Wednesday [19 Feb 2020] tested positive for the virus after returning home to Tochigi Prefecture, Kyodo news agency reported, citing the prefectural government. She is the 1st person to have tested positive for the virus among the group of approximately 970 passengers who disembarked earlier this week, it said.

The 100 passengers who left on Saturday [22 Feb 2020] had been in close contact with infected people on board, local media said. They included the last group of Japanese passengers to leave the ship, while some foreign passengers were still waiting on board for their governments to send chartered aircraft. They will be quarantined for 2 weeks near Tokyo, officials said.

An official apology
At a news conference on Saturday [22 Feb 2020], Health Minister Katsunobu Kato apologised for 23 passengers having been allowed to leave the ship without undergoing all the required tests. "We deeply regret that our operational mistake caused the situation," Kato said, adding that the passengers would be tested again.

With the latest disembarkation, a 14-day quarantine is expected to start for more than 1000 crew still on board. Many of them were not placed in isolation as they were needed to keep the ship running, preparing food and delivering meals to cabins. Critics have charged that they were inadvertently spreading the virus throughout the ship, which has seen more than 600 cases of the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease.
 

MaeZe

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Addition to my previous post.

After seeing that a school lunch worker in Japan has spread the virus to some of the kids despite wearing gloves and a mask, I recognized what was likely going on.

People need training (online or in person) how to don, use gloves and remove gloves without contaminating them.

This is an excellent video for putting on and removing personal protective equipment.

If you might be exposed already, you have to put those gloves on without touching the outside. Then you have to be aware of any place those gloves might touch a contaminated surface.

Regarding the masks, when you take them off, don't forget the outside of the mask might now be contaminated.


Another thing I found out pursuing information, freezing preserves the virus, it does not destroy it. That's unfortunate because it means you can't freeze contaminated items to disinfect them. It also means in cold environments the virus will most likely remain viable on contaminated surfaces like doorknobs for days, maybe even weeks .
 

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What MaeZe said. There's a technique to using gloves and masks, and just distributing them without instruction isn't too helpful.

I don't think there's any way to put this metaphorical genii back in its bottle. We're pretty close to it being a pandemic, and the more cases slip through the cracks, the harder it's going to be to stop its spread. Given what you said about cold temps preserving the virus, maybe our unseasonable heat wave in some parts of the US are a good thing then? It feels like late April here.

I just hope people stay level headed about this and our health care system is up to dealing with an influx of cases.
 
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The panic has more to do with the potential for a zoonotic-origin easily-transmissible highly-pathogenic virus breaking out with catastrophic consequences. This is probably not it, but it could have been. So now we look to the next one in the queue while waiting for the next round of high-path avian influenza in the spring which will lead, again, to millions of animals being depopulated and everyone hoping it never cracks human to human transmission. Then there is a starvation looming in some countries being caused by African swine fever, another good candidate, etc. By the time it actually happens people will think it is a cry-wolf.
 
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As a first choice option wash your hands with soap and water. Frequently.

Hand sanitizer is an option when soap and water isn't really an option. If you use sanitizer, wash your hands with soap and water as soon as you can because sanitizer works really well with some disease agents, and soap is better for others.

And when I say wash your hands, I really mean wash your hands. Here's how to wash your hands.

Because I'm the care giver for my mom, and I can't drive, I'm stocking up on household staples just in case. Things like toilet paper, dish soap, hand soap, food that will last (rice, dried pasta, dried beans, canned soups, etc.). Not out of panic, but because I can't afford to get sick at all, and I certainly don't need to be a vector for her.

And it's not too late to get a flu shot!
 

Roxxsmom

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I think it's wise to be prepared. I wish you and your mom the best.

I've got an ill mom with a weak immune system right now, and it's very frustrating and hard to know what to do, because she is in Southern CA and I'm in northern CA (and have a contractual job as an adjunct college instructor with no long-term leave, aside from not working and not getting paid). She's currently hospitalized, in a lot of pain (shingles in her right eye) and not being entirely cooperative with efforts to get her moving around and recovering and out of the hospital. My brother (who lives in Southern CA) and I are still trying to figure out what her long-term prognosis is, and how we are going to make sure she continues to get the care she needs. She's got some visual issues but lives alone still, with a caregiver coming a couple of times a week to drive her on errands and to help with tasks that require visual acuity. She's also got a housemate who rents the upstairs rooms in her home. The thing is, this ailment has weakened her physically, where she used to be pretty robust, so she doesn't have a lot of reserves. She's also very depressed because of her ongoing health issues, and the pain she is currently in has made it worse--to the point where she's being uncharacteristically helpless/hopeless.

My brother is an MD--an oncologist, not an epidemiologist to be clear--and he's already resigned to this virus moving into our communities. He doesn't seem all that concerned about it, which surprises me. It won't be deadly for most of us, but of course he deals with patients who are immune-compromised because of the cancer drugs they are taking. Maybe he's just being sanguine in the face of things he can't control--something he's had to learn as an oncologist.

There's still a lot we don't understand about this virus--many unanswered questions. How do people vary in terms of natural immunity and vulnerability to the virus? Will people develop lasting immunity when they recover? If so, the disease may die out on its own, once most people have had it and recovered. Is a vaccine plausible, and if so what is the time frame? Will it mutate the way seasonal flu does? Will it be affected by season?
 
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Lyv

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Thank you for speaking to the importance of handwashing.

When I was in nursing school, I learned how important proper hand-washing is. When I was studying for my nursing boards, one of the most common pieces of advice I got was, "If one of the multiple choice options is hand-washing, it's the correct answer." I rarely see people wash their hands properly. It really is worth learning how nurses and other medical professionals wash their hands.

I like this visual aid of proper technique. I haven't worked as an RN since 2001, but I still wash my hands like this. It's muscle memory and with my feeble immune system, I'm sure it's saved me from illness more than once.

My city has a high Chinese population and a lot of white bigots, so local businesses are taking a hit. Fortunately, thanks to the mayor who is determined to overdevelop our city mostly with housing, we're getting a bit more diverse so there is a groundswell of support as well. We had a huge dim sum event with local businesses and my friends and I are giving as much business as we can to local Chinese-owned businesses.

Stay safe and healthy, everyone. And wash your hands. Again. Better.
 

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There’s something darkly, marvelously apt that our acting director of Homeland Security recently asked Twitter for help in finding information on COVID-19.

Ken Cuccinelli said:
"Has the Johns Hopkins map of the coronavirus stopped working for other people, or just me?" Cuccinelli wrote, including a link to the map. "I just tried again, and it looks like Johns Hopkins put the information behind a membership wall of some kind. Seems like bad timing to stop helping the world with this (previously) useful resource. Here's hoping it goes back up soon."

I suppose Ken’s confusion is understandable. After all, when your boss fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command in 2018 and proposes to cut the budget of the department of Health and Human Services (which includes the CDC) by 9% in 2021, it’s probably hard to know where to go for vital information on what will likely soon be declared a global pandemic? So, where better to turn to than Twitter, boundless fount of all information that is true?

At least your boss will see your quest there, and applaud how well his administration is handling this perfect response, as we all wait for the arrival of April, when these things miraculously go away?

This truly is the stupidest of all possible timelines in the multiverse.
 

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It's wrong of me to sort of wonder - given the deliberate sabotaging of the CDC and the total botching in how this is being handled - if the regime (which already seems to be functioning on death cult policy) thinks a little pandemic or two will weed out the "useless eaters" and Others and make a stronger economy/America, while offering a great excuse for "lockdowns" and other erosion of free movement and liberties (and, say, protests)...

It's really, really wrong of me...
 

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I just wonder how many people will develop symptoms but because they can’t afford their copays, coinsurance or deductible, will hope it’s not this and wait until the last possible moment to get checked out.
 

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It's wrong of me to sort of wonder - given the deliberate sabotaging of the CDC and the total botching in how this is being handled - if the regime (which already seems to be functioning on death cult policy) thinks a little pandemic or two will weed out the "useless eaters" and Others and make a stronger economy/America, while offering a great excuse for "lockdowns" and other erosion of free movement and liberties (and, say, protests)...

I suspect it’s simpler and stupider than that: A combination of Republican zeal to gut government (because Pandemics’R’Us could do such a better/cheaper/faster job of responding & profiting than the CDC), and Tmurp’s germophobe nature (he just doan wanna hear abouddit, okay?).

I just wonder how many people will develop symptoms but because they can’t afford their copays, coinsurance or deductible, will hope it’s not this and wait until the last possible moment to get checked out.

This will absolutely be happening, along with immigrants (legal or not) not seeking medical care (and thus spreading COVID-19) because they rightfully fear getting ICEd at every interaction with authority figures.

It’s the stupidest timeline, it really is. And I despair at how many Americans still loooooove Tmurp. He’s got a good chance of being re-elected, assuming we actually have elections, or of refusing to leave office if he loses, and having the gutless GOP back that.
 

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It's wrong of me to sort of wonder - given the deliberate sabotaging of the CDC and the total botching in how this is being handled - if the regime (which already seems to be functioning on death cult policy) thinks a little pandemic or two will weed out the "useless eaters" and Others and make a stronger economy/America, while offering a great excuse for "lockdowns" and other erosion of free movement and liberties (and, say, protests)...

It's really, really wrong of me...
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. (I think that's how that goes.)


I've been arguing with friends for three years on another forum that Trump was dangerous in many more ways than just an accidental nuke attack. We are about to find out.

I've been slowly stocking up on food every time I go to the grocery store. Today I bought gloves, hand sanitizer, and masks because the distributors are running out and I don't want to be stuck without them. The gloves and sanitizer I use, so those I needed to be sure I have enough. The masks were probably overkill and useless but I have a bit of a chronic cough and I don't want everyone to be afraid of me if I cough out in public. I might get mobbed.:mob
 
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MaeZe

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Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is being grilled by Congress and his ignorance is blatantly on display. He can't answer the most basic questions like how is the virus transmitted other than to say person to person. He has no idea if the country is prepared.

And the Republicans are just as pissed off as the Democrats. Yay bipartisanship. :rolleyes:

Apparently Congress was briefed in secret this morning and the Democrats are angry it was needlessly secret. Both Republicans and Democrats are letting a lot of it leak out by saying, "that's not what we heard this morning" when it came to questions of preparedness.
 
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