Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus

Many US States are not counting nursing home deaths even when the deceased had the symptoms of Covid-19...I think this is the highest daily count of US deaths posted on worldometer...

View attachment 9515
It is the highest number of deaths on any day, but that's to be expected; the deaths will be the last indicator to flatten out:

ScreenHunter_2039 Apr. 15 00.24.jpg

The first indicator to reach the peak is the number of daily new cases, and it looks like that peaked about a week ago:

ScreenHunter_2041 Apr. 15 00.25.jpg

I've been keeping an eye on the number of active cases, and we can finally now start to see the flattening of the curve in the raw numbers, because at this point the growth rate in the US is less than 5% per day:

ScreenHunter_2040 Apr. 15 00.24.jpg

As long as that blue line is curving to the right, like it's doing now even though it's still on an upward trajectory, we're winning the war against this virus and it's only a matter of time before all the numbers start to decline each day.
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
Buddies and babies, second wave of food shortage is coming on, both in UK and in US. Food supply chains are disrupted because workers can not work in warehouses and processing plants. Go out and load everything you can find. Yeah, don't forget to buy some barbed wire, that you will need to fence off your garden.
 

pepe

Celestial
There was no shortage first time round, it was the hoarders and when their work was presented by national media it created a further unnecessary sense of urgency for those who were on the brink of going wild in the isles.

Second wave has breakers even if it were to happen, new retail policy here in the UK makes any attempt to hoard as redundant by limitations.
 

AD1184

Celestial
According to retail analysis of the grocery sector in this country, very few people were actually 'panic buying' and 'stockpiling' goods. Instead shortages were due to the fact that people are buying slightly more than usual, which is entirely rational due to the more limited opportunities to shop, as well as the risk to shoppers of each trip to the supermarket. Plus the fact that the restaurant sector is largely shut down (except for takeaways), and all that demand for food has to be taken up by the supermarkets instead.

Supermarkets are run in this country (as in most other developed countries) with just-in-time supply chains, and maintain very little stock in stores, which reduces operating costs. This business model does not deal well with instability, such as a disease pandemic, when demand increases suddenly. The principle issue was in getting stock from central distribution centres onto store shelves (although some products, like yeast and toilet paper, are facing a global shortage).
 

baleeber

Adept
Charles Lieber:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged-three-separate-china-related

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.

Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China
and

According to the indictment, Ye is a Lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On her J-1 visa application, Ye falsely identified herself as a “student” and lied about her ongoing military service at the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), a top military academy directed by the CCP.

In August 2018, Zheng entered the United States on a J-1 visa and conducted cancer-cell research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from Sept. 4, 2018, to Dec. 9, 2019. It is alleged that on Dec. 9, 2019, Zheng stole 21 vials of biological research and attempted to smuggle them out of the United States aboard a flight destined for China. Federal officers at Logan Airport discovered the vials hidden in a sock inside one of Zheng’s bags, and not properly packaged. It is alleged that initially, Zheng lied to officers about the contents of his luggage, but later admitted he had stolen the vials from a lab at Beth Israel. Zheng stated that he intended to bring the vials to China to use them to conduct research in his own laboratory and publish the results under his own name.

The US government has said that his arrest has nothing to do with COVID, but let's look closely:

Virus-Sized Transistors

This innovation is important, Lieber explains, because it indicates that when a man-made structure is as small as a virus or bacteria, it can behave the way biological structures do.

This is an article from 2007:
Spotlight on Wuhan : Naturejobs

The city's government has also invested heavily in the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Zone, colloquially known as the Optics Valley of China. ... In the past five years, Optics Valley has provided more than 1 billion RMB (US$161 million) to researchers looking for entrepreneurship opportunities in optoelectronics, biology, energy and environmental conservation,

This was the university's route to establishing the Joint Nano Key Laboratory, set up by Prof. Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University and Prof. Mai Liqiang, who is now the executive dean of WUT's International School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Since 2009, WUT has established several joint laboratories with overseas universities, including: the “WUT-Harvard Joint Nano Key Laboratory” in 2009, with Harvard University professor Dr. Charles M. Lieber, Fellow of the American Academy of Sciences, appointed as the Director of the joint laboratory.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was established in 1956. It is the only institute specializing in virology, viral pathology and virus technology among 19 other biological and biomedical research institutes in CAS.

WIV is the most active research entity in CAS that regularly provides advice on national key scientific research programmes and on strategies for the prevention and control of infectious diseases.

The research programmes, organized into Divisions, are focused on the priority of biosafety containment facilities and research platforms, which is one of the National Big Science Facilities. The programmes/Divisions include etiology and epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases, molecular virology, immunovirology, analytical pathogen microbiology, and agricultural and environmental microbiology. The programme of etiology and epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases is now world-renowned for virus surveillance in wild animals, and the origin of SARS coronavirus was first identified here.

Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens

2017. Nature has a disclaimer that this does NOT have to do with COVID-19, but consider everything:
A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens.

Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS,

The opportunities for international collaboration, meanwhile, will aid the genetic analysis and epidemiology of emergent diseases. “The world is facing more new emerging viruses, and we need more contribution from China,” says Gao. In particular, the emergence of zoonotic viruses — those that jump to humans from animals, such as SARS or Ebola — is a concern, says Bruno Lina, director of the VirPath virology lab in Lyon, France.

Now, look carefully at this:
Ex-Biogen Employee Who Hid Coronavirus Symptoms to Fly to China Faces Criminal Charges

A Biogen employee who allegedly flew from Massachusetts to Los Angeles to China and then tested positive for COVID-19 is under investigation in China for concealing her symptoms and putting fellow travelers at risk of infections

Note: Biogen is in Massachusets.
Editor's Corner: The China Conundrum - ASH Clinical News

Dr. Lieber is accused of failing to disclose that he has been a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China since 2011

After chemist Dr. Lieber’s arrest, Steven Holtzman, former Biogen Executive Vice President, told The Boston Globe, “You don’t want to get yourself into a climate where people will be so afraid of interacting with [foreigners] that they’ll stop coming [to the U.S.]. That was McCarthyism.”6

Well, why is a Biogen executive being interviewed for an article about Lieber?

Biogen Idec Forms First-of-Its-Kind Research Consortium to Identify ALS Drug Targets | Biogen

said Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, Ph.D., senior vice president, chief scientific officer, for Biogen Idec and Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School.

There was an article that said that a Chinese national working for Lieber had been found to have been taking biological samples from the US to Wuhan from September 2019, but I can no longer find the article.

This article has vague mentions of several similar incidents.
FBI warned about 'biosecurity risk' after Chinese nationals snuck suspicious vials into US

Now, this does NOT conclusively mean that Lieber was conspiring with the Chinese military to produce a weapons-grade coronavirus that was then smuggled back to the Wuhan lab where it escaped. But to me, it certainly seems suggestive.
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
According to retail analysis of the grocery sector in this country, very few people were actually 'panic buying' and 'stockpiling' goods. Instead shortages were due to the fact that people are buying slightly more than usual, which is entirely rational due to the more limited opportunities to shop, as well as the risk to shoppers of each trip to the supermarket. Plus the fact that the restaurant sector is largely shut down (except for takeaways), and all that demand for food has to be taken up by the supermarkets instead.

Supermarkets are run in this country (as in most other developed countries) with just-in-time supply chains, and maintain very little stock in stores, which reduces operating costs. This business model does not deal well with instability, such as a disease pandemic, when demand increases suddenly. The principle issue was in getting stock from central distribution centres onto store shelves (although some products, like yeast and toilet paper, are facing a global shortage).

Talking about UK, damage is going to come from the disruption in food processing supply, maybe because processing plants can't gather workers in during the lockdown. There were articles on BBC showing how farmers dumped milk because some problems with supply chain.
 

pepe

Celestial
Talking about UK, damage is going to come from the disruption in food processing supply, maybe because processing plants can't gather workers in during the lockdown. There were articles on BBC showing how farmers dumped milk because some problems with supply chain.

Have a think about how many milky coffee outlets there are across the nation and how many people were frequenting them almost religiously.
 
Charles Lieber:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged-three-separate-china-related
and
The US government has said that his arrest has nothing to do with COVID, but let's look closely:
Virus-Sized Transistors
This is an article from 2007:
Spotlight on Wuhan : Naturejobs
Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens
2017. Nature has a disclaimer that this does NOT have to do with COVID-19, but consider everything:
Now, look carefully at this:
Ex-Biogen Employee Who Hid Coronavirus Symptoms to Fly to China Faces Criminal Charges
Note: Biogen is in Massachusets.
Editor's Corner: The China Conundrum - ASH Clinical News
Well, why is a Biogen executive being interviewed for an article about Lieber?
Biogen Idec Forms First-of-Its-Kind Research Consortium to Identify ALS Drug Targets | Biogen
There was an article that said that a Chinese national working for Lieber had been found to have been taking biological samples from the US to Wuhan from September 2019, but I can no longer find the article.
This article has vague mentions of several similar incidents.
FBI warned about 'biosecurity risk' after Chinese nationals snuck suspicious vials into US
Now, this does NOT conclusively mean that Lieber was conspiring with the Chinese military to produce a weapons-grade coronavirus that was then smuggled back to the Wuhan lab where it escaped. But to me, it certainly seems suggestive.
It would probably be prudent to let the authorities untangle this mess; if there's a connection to this global outbreak then I'm sure they'll find it.

Given the recent State Dept. cable leaks about the coronavirus research going on in Wuhan - only ten miles from the wet market, I think we can no longer dismiss the possibility of laboratory involvement. In my mind that doesn't necessarily involve viral engineering; given the specific genetics of this virus it seems far more likely that the Chinese may have been collecting coronaviruses from bats and perhaps pangolins for study. And since the lab was supposed to be a level 4 facility but was only operating as a level 2 facility, a containment leak looks like a feasible theory.

That's all speculation of course, but then again I'm always very suspicious of coincidences, and a major virus lab only 10 miles from the Wuhan wet market being cited in State Dept. cables from 2018, specifically referencing safety concerns regarding their coronavirus research...that's three suggestive coincidences in one news story, which should give anyone pause, imo.

And honestly I find the characteristics of this particular virus to be troubling; not only does it have a remarkably long incubation time up to 14 days, but it seems that at least 50% of the infected (and highly contagious) exhibit no symptoms. If you wanted to make a virus that's remarkably well-suited to elude containment and sweep the globe, then this would be a really excellent choice. And although the case fatality rate appears to be significantly higher than early estimates (identified cases are showing a 4-6% fatality rate, minimum), if your intention wasn't to accrue fatalities but rather to shut down the global economy, then this virus is doing that very well, and with a grim 18-24-month outlook.

But I don't really see any winners in that scenario; every economy on the planet including China's is suffering severely over this. So if it is linked to that lab in Wuhan, then a leak makes more sense than an bioweapon attack.

The really shitty thing is that it doesn't really matter now; this pandemic is either a bioweapon attack from nature herself, or with some human involvement. Either way, it's a far more grave scenario than any terrorist attack in human history. And under the current circumstances, it's not at all unreasonable to fear that civil order itself could collapse within a few months...possibly a year. Once people can't eat, all bets are off.
 

AD1184

Celestial
I strongly doubt the bioweapon hypothesis of SARS-Cov-2's origin. I do not see that it would be of benefit to the Chinese state for a virus to have the characteristics of this virus, and I am sceptical of the idea that these characteristics can be easily engineered without repeated testing on large samples of human subjects.

However, the accidental release hypothesis is not so easily discounted. The close proximity of where the virus outbreak was first discovered and China's premier virology lab is quite a coincidence. China is not a free and open society, and the totalitarian state employs lies and secrecy in all matters. Its official refutations of an accidental leak mean very little, because we would expect the same from it if true, and it is unlikely that the Chinese will let an independent international investigation occur within their country.

Accidental lab releases of biological pathogens have happened before, even in the West, and in some cases have lead to quite extensive and damaging epidemics.

I remember in the summer of 2007 that there was an outbreak of bovine foot and mouth disease in the south of England. I took a holiday to the West Country that year, and there were requirements to socially-distance from cows at that time, and stations to wash one's shoes provided at many farmers' fields with public rights of way.

The outbreak is thought to have originated due to the discharge of effluent in the drainage system of the Pirbright Institute in Surrey (allegedly a 'category 4' laboratory). This caused a significant international response as well, with requirements for many travellers from the United Kingdom to have their shoes disinfected upon arrival in other countries (the threat was taken a lot more seriously than in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic), and temporary bans on imports of British beef and pork products.

2007 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak - Wikipedia

In 1977, there was a 'Russian flu' pandemic, which likely originated in China. This strain was the same as one that had not been seen since twenty years earlier, and which mostly affected young people when it came around again in '77. This is because older people had an immunity from the earlier pandemic. It is thought that the likely way that it could have appeared again is due to an accidental release from a laboratory in China (or Russia) as part of undeclared vaccine research. Given that the Wuhan laboratory has existed since 1956, and there were very few such facilities in China at the time, it may even have come from there.

A Dead Disease Still Lives in Lab Freezers. What Else Does?

In 1978, officially post-eradication, an accidental release of smallpox infected a medical photographer working above a laboratory at the University of Birmingham Medical School (in Britain again) where the virus was being studied. She died of the disease, and infected her father, who also died. This could easily have led to a large-scale outbreak of smallpox, but for sheer good fortune.

1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

In 1979, a maintenance error with a ventilation system at a Soviet military laboratory lead to the accidental release of weaponized anthrax which infected, and killed, a hundred or so workers at a nearby ceramics factory in the closed Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. This was embarrassing to the Soviet state because they had claimed to have destroyed their stockpile of biological weapons in response to a treaty agreement ratified in 1975.

Sverdlovsk anthrax leak - Wikipedia

The 2001 anthrax attacks in the US involved the deliberate use of anthrax from a US military biodefence laboratory by a researcher.

2001 anthrax attacks - Wikipedia

So this sort of thing has happened, and likely will happen again. Some researchers consider the threat of pandemic infection from laboratories to be an equal or even greater threat to that from nature.
 
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nivek

As Above So Below
I've been clear as a bell on my position about this: we should've locked down the entire country and deployed the national guard to all of our major cities to make sure that anybody on the road is either getting provisions or getting medical attention.

Perhaps we should have in the very beginning and in the beginning I was all for it, but now the winds are changing...

Sorry, but no way that could possibly work here. Totalitarian China maybe but here if you want civil unrest of epic proportions that's the way to get it.

Yep and its beginning, as I posted here How is The Coronavirus affecting your life? and here Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus this lockdown is beginning to have consequences and opening a great big can of worms...Americans don't take kindly to being locked down, even if its in their own homes and we certainly don't need wannabe king Trump telling the States his word is law over them...Winds are certainly changing and my views on this crisis are changing too...

...
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
However, the accidental release hypothesis is not so easily discounted. The close proximity of where the virus outbreak was first discovered and China's premier virology lab is quite a coincidence.

I would go with that one. It's quite a coincidence and that is why that Chinese virologist woman, who was a member of Communist party, tried the first version of the vaccine on herself. Possibly it leaked from the lab she was in charge and she felt guilty. Obviously, Chinese government didn't want to admit they were sloppy, so they blamed it on wet markets.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
In case some weren't aware, many of the more recent posts in this thread Food Crisis are also coronavirus related, and obviously by the title, solely in regards to our food supply...

...
 
Perhaps we should have in the very beginning and in the beginning I was all for it, but now the winds are changing...

Yep and its beginning, as I posted here How is The Coronavirus affecting your life? and here Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus this lockdown is beginning to have consequences and opening a great big can of worms...Americans don't take kindly to being locked down, even if its in their own homes and we certainly don't need wannabe king Trump telling the States his word is law over them...Winds are certainly changing and my views on this crisis are changing too...
...
Yeah at this point we have over 600,000 official cases and this thing is circulating around every city, town, village, and dog park in the country. I don't think we have anything close to the personnel or support infrastructure to lock down the entire country even if we wanted to now.

But if our country had responded swiftly and intensely, instead of pissing away the critical weeks before this virus infected thousands of American citizens, my point is that we could've halted it in its tracks before it blew up in our faces. The Australians are an excellent example of this - they locked down fast and hard, and right now they have 6,445 cases and only 63 fatalities.

And the Aussies love their freedom as much as we do, but right now they're looking at the rest of the world knowing that their severe restrictions have saved thousands of Australian lives. There's zero question that it was the right thing to do, and they know that now more clearly than ever.

I wanted us to be in that position right now. Instead we're like the retarded poster child of how to mishandle a deadly pandemic. Our population is 13.12 times greater than theirs, so if we'd handled this like Australia did, we'd only have about 827 deaths right now, instead of 24, 582.

But now that tens of thousands of Americans are dead, people realize how serious this is and they're doing an excellent job of self-isolating, without a need for enforcement - for the last two days the growth rate has been less than 5% per day. I doubt that we could do much better than that now even with the National Guard patrolling every city. In the first few weeks though, before people realized the gravity of this crisis, it could've made a gigantic difference...and frankly we'd all be feeling very lucky to have such wise leadership if we were looking at only 827 fatalities today while our closest allies are burying thousands of victims.
 

baleeber

Adept
I strongly doubt the bioweapon hypothesis of SARS-Cov-2's origin. I do not see that it would be of benefit to the Chinese state for a virus to have the characteristics of this virus, and I am sceptical of the idea that these characteristics can be easily engineered without repeated testing on large samples of human subjects.

Here's my theory in a nutshell.
1. It is a bioweapon.
2. It was designed in cooperation between Charles Lieber's lab, Biogen, and labs in Wuhan.
3. Charles Lieber and biogen's Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas did not know it was a bioweapon. They thought they were doing research on immunology and nanotechnology.
4. Lieber and Artavanis-Tsakonas, however, did know that their work was being shared with the Chinese government, but I believe Lieber did not know that one of his scientists was a Chinese military officer and spy.
5. Scientists from Lieber's lab and Biogen's labs had been taking samples of viruses back to China on commercial aircraft.
6. The virus was designed in the USA, but accidentally escaped in Wuhan.

that's my theory.

As for how a bioweapon virus would benefit China, it doesn't, any more than nuclear war benefits anybody. Doesn't stop us from having them. It's about Mutually Assured Destruction. In the words of Don Henley (from the song "Them and Us") ... "And if things go from bad to worse, we can still kill them if they kill us first."

As for how easily these things can be engineered, back in the 1990s, after the "fall" of the USSR, and the opening of Russia, there was a documentary that went to a former Soviet bioweapons lab, where scientists cheerfully showed them an engineered ebola virus that had been crossed with something else to make it an airborne virus.

You'd be surprised what people can dream up.

Lieber's lab in the past was documented as doing experiments with SARS to create new forms of coronaviruses for "study".

As others have said, COVID-19 has a lot of the qualities of an excellent bioweapon. If it's not a bioweapon, it certainly would do the trick.
  • It's ridiculously contagious.
  • It's technically not airborne, since it can't exist in purely gaseous form, but it can live in droplets of water and vapor, and can communicated just by breathing out. Exhalations can reach of the 10 feet, and it can float in the air up to 3 hours depending on conditions.
  • Once inside the body, the latency (the time between being exposed and actually being able to communicate the virus) is unknown. If you get it on your hands, you can communicate it immediately, but I'm not sure how long it would have to replicate inside the body before you could actively start infecting people with virus made from your own cells.
  • The incubation period (time between exposure and onset of symptoms) is officially 6-14 days. There have been estimates as high as 27 days, but the CDC now feels these may be examples of a second or even third exposure.
  • 80% of people infected with the virus may develop no more than light to moderate symptoms (mild cough, slight fever, etc.) https://www.startribune.com/when-is-covid-19-most-contagious-what-does-it-take-to-be-considered-recovered/569503421/
  • 25% to 50% of people infected with the virus may NEVER develop symptoms, but will still be contagious. They'll be walking around saying "What's the big deal? I feel FINE!" All the while Corona-Harry and Corona-Mary will be spreading the illness everywhere they go, leaving on surfaces where it can survive for hours, even days. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-carriers-transmit-without-symptoms-what-to-know-2020-4
  • Some people have already contracted COVID-19 two, even three times already. With influenza, a second infection is rare and only occurs when more than one variety is present within the same season. This is why an influenza vaccine works. Viruses are basically a strip of genetic information wrapped in lipids. They're parasites. Once inside the cell, they hijack the cell's machinery to replicate. It's like me sneaking in your house to use your copy machine. Each time they infect a person, depending on the cell machinery, there's a probability for mutation. Influenza has a very low mutation rate, which is why we have flu vaccines. Colds have a very high mutation rate, which is why there's no vaccine for colds. Officially, COVID-19 is supposed to have a lower mutation rate than influenza, and I've read reports indicated a vaccine would last for 3-5 years, unlike a flu vaccine which only works for one year. However, seeing how many people are getting second and third infections, it seems more likely to me that this has a mutation rate slightly below the common cold. In which case, we can forget trying to make a vaccine. There's also speculation that the NY virus may be much more aggressive than the Wuhan variety.
  • Places that have lifted quarantine restrictions are seeing a second wave, beginning with Hong Kong, then China, now Northern Japan (Hokkaido and Northern Honshu). Reports indicate the second wave is more aggressive than the first wave. This indicates that while quarantine can help control the virus, as soon as restrictions are lifted, it explodes all over again and everybody has to be locked down.
  • As the virus has mutated, the rules have changed. Early on, in Wuhan, it seemed people were only getting it if they had direct exposure. Later, it seemed they could transmit it to other humans. As time has passed, we've seen the virus passed to dogs, then cats, then hamsters. If it gets into wild animal populations, it could be a serious problem.
These factors don't mean it IS a bioweapon, just that if it isn't a bioweapon, it sure would make a good one! It also doesn't mean we can't beat the virus. I still hope we can, but it's going to be a difficult battle.
 
If there's anyone left who's foolish enough to still believe that this pandemic isn't worse than the annual deaths from the seasonal flu or heart disease or car accidents:

ScreenHunter_2096 Apr. 16 01.39.jpg
Not Like the Flu, Not Like Car Crashes, Not Like

Are the rest of you folks considering that this could spell the end of civil order on a global scale? Does anyone think that's an unreasonable concern (and if so, why)?

Because to me it looks like right now we need to orchestrate a massive global plan to produce millions of test kits daily, and flood billions of dollars into research aimed at treating this pandemic, or global civilization as we know it will collapse completely.
 

baleeber

Adept
If there's anyone left who's foolish enough to still believe that this pandemic isn't worse than the annual deaths from the seasonal flu or heart disease or car accidents:

View attachment 9522
Not Like the Flu, Not Like Car Crashes, Not Like

Are the rest of you folks considering that this could spell the end of civil order on a global scale? Does anyone think that's an unreasonable concern (and if so, why)?

Because to me it looks like right now we need to orchestrate a massive global plan to produce millions of test kits daily, and flood billions of dollars into research aimed at treating this pandemic, or global civilization as we know it will collapse completely.
1. I know a lot of Americans (personally ... my relatives) who believe this whole thing is a hoax for one reason or another. they won't listen to any view outside their narrow conspiracy theory, either, because of course the CDC and the WHO and everybody else are all in on it.

2. I think this will only spell the end of civil order if we let it. Unfortunately, for America, it's almost a given. For the rest of the world, maybe not.

3. I think in order to adapt, we're going to have to completely rethink our whole political and economic systems, particularly if COVID-19 just never goes away.

We may end up having to accept a communist world government.
 
1. I know a lot of Americans (personally ... my relatives) who believe this whole thing is a hoax for one reason or another. they won't listen to any view outside their narrow conspiracy theory, either, because of course the CDC and the WHO and everybody else are all in on it.
Maybe that's why the curve is flattening so gradually...the virus is still finding fresh avenues of infection among the many politically brainwashed people in this country.

2. I think this will only spell the end of civil order if we let it. Unfortunately, for America, it's almost a given. For the rest of the world, maybe not.
Unfortunately I agree with the general sentiment there. But even among the many countries who handled this pandemic much faster and better than the US, I don't see the prevalence of this virus dropping to zero anytime in the foreseeable future, which means that no country will be safe from rapid escalation phases if the lockdowns are lifted. So how can any country function under these conditions, without a very rapid and unprecedented global effort to make testing kits as readily available as a cup of coffee? I think we'll eventually develop a treatment or vaccine...if global civilization can function long enough under this threat. But until then the only hope that I can see of restoring function before the supply lines collapse, is an effort of that scale to make testing kits. And I don't even hear anyone proposing a plan of that magnitude. And with just a few more months of the current "let's wait and see what happens" non-plan that all world leaders seem to be choosing, it'll be too late to save the ship.

3. I think in order to adapt, we're going to have to completely rethink our whole political and economic systems, particularly if COVID-19 just never goes away.
But the global system is dominated by people who refuse to let the system change, because they're at the top of that old system - I seriously think they'd rather watch the world implode than relinquish control and let major changes happen.

We may end up having to accept a communist world government.
I'm not sure that would work - I'm not sure if any system can work under these conditions. The only hope I can see for any kind of recovery would require levels of intelligence, cooperation, and spending that appears to be politically impossible with the sociopaths who control all forms of power in the world today.
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
I AM GOING TO BE A DEVIL'S ADVOCATE AND SAY THIS:

NOWHERE IN THE WORLD PEOPLE PANICKED BECAUSE OF THE CORONAVIRUS. PEOPLE FOLLOWED GOVERNMENT'S INSTRUCTIONS WITH DISCIPLINE, THROUGH REAL HARDSHIP.

FROM THAT FOLLOWS THAT PEOPLE WOULD NOT PANIC IF THE FULL UFO DISCLOSURE WAS ANNOUNCED and PEOPLE HAD PROVEN THAT THEY CAN TAKE REASONABLE STANCE IF GIVEN OPPORTUNITY.
 

baleeber

Adept
But even among the many countries who handled this pandemic much faster and better than the US, I don't see the prevalence of this virus dropping to zero anytime in the foreseeable future, which means that no country will be safe from rapid escalation phases if the lockdowns are lifted.

I agree. Already Japan is falling into the grip of a second wave. Tonight Prime Minister Abe declared a nation-wide state of Emergency.

So how can any country function under these conditions, without a very rapid and unprecedented global effort to to make testing kits as readily available as a cup of coffee?

I don't think testing kits will work for the simple reason that I think most people are actually infected, but showing little or no symptoms. I was in a meeting today ... (smh) ... and half the people were coughing. I actually snapped my laptop closed and walked loudly out of the meeting after the guy behind me coughed on me for the fourth time. He had a mask, but kept pulling it down to breathe. Most people had that mild, dry cough that everybody here seems to have (including me), but two people had quite bad coughs. Why didn't they stay home.

Weird thing though ... I've had a mild, dry cough since JUNE. I thought maybe something was wrong with me and was considering going to a doctor for an x-ray but was waiting for my annual checkup. Now, everybody's got the same cough.
 
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