Here we go: Texas is opening! Abbott: April 22: Restrictions on surgeries will be loosened State parks reopen Monday; visitors must wear face covering or masks & 6 feet apart if not family; cannot gather in groups larger than 5 Unsafe to allow students to gather in schools for foreseeable future; school closed for 2019-20 school year; Teachers allowed in classroom for video instruction or administrative duties or clean out classroom April 27: Announce additional ways to reopen Texas
Pointing fingers is distracting from government's own mistakes. Macron is doing it, Boris Johnson doing it and almost cost him his life.....
Hey folks, I wonder if the political decisions would fit better in one of the D&D threads? This thread has mainly been about the disease and its actual spread. I know it's a fine line b/c the two are so obviously interconnected. It hit me when I saw my last post was in Hangout and not in the discussion thread.
It's not a waste of time to point out the greatest success story explicitly ignored the WHO and China because they knew they were liars because they had been burned by them before. If we are trying to evaluate how we can better deal with pandemics in the future then this needs to be addressed. Also the wet market story as the origin of the virus is falling apart simply due to the genetics of the virus. I was going to talk about it in this thread, but thought it would get too political. For some reason questioning China's narrative as new details emerge gets divided among political lines which is ridiculous to me. Anyhow, check out this opinion piece out. I thought it brought up reasonable points that need to be remembered and focused on. https://thehill.com/opinion/interna...tLtZciesrJ91kDUFqxwERue0M4leD2hL1wDhKECZqv770 Taiwan: China's nemesis could be the WHO's salvation While schoolchildren in the United States and most of the world are learning their lessons remotely, schools in Taiwan reopened after the Lunar New Year holiday on Jan. 25. So did Taiwan’s businesses. Taiwan’s baseball season opened on schedule on April 11, though the fans, including President Tsai Ing-wen, have been watching the games on television and online and listening on the radio rather than sitting in the stands. But the rest of Taiwan’s society and commercial activity are humming along relatively normally, despite — or rather, because of — scrupulous compliance with social distancing; the wearing of surgical masks both inside and outdoors; special attention to hygiene through frequent surface cleaning and hand-washing; and temperature checks and hand sanitization before entering office buildings and shops. Taiwan’s can-do spirit has enabled it to stay healthy and safe without having to close down its economy. The population of 24 million has reported fewer than 400 cases of COVID-19 and only six deaths. The prudent, disciplined management of the crisis was made possible because the virus was largely kept out of Taiwan in the first place. Despite disinformation from China, and the apparent complicit misinformation from the World Health Organization, the government began screening passengers from Wuhan, where the virus originated, as soon as human-to-human transmission was detected there on Dec. 31. Taiwan ignored the representations from Beijing and the WHO that there was nothing to worry about, because it had seen this movie before, many times. Whenever an epidemic or pandemic either originated in China or was exacerbated by its mishandling of it — SARS, MERS, H1N1, avian flu, HIV/AIDS — China has used the same playbook. Chinese authorities would first deny or minimize the outbreak, then say it was under control, withhold critically-needed information from the international community, or fabricate it and mislead the world. In each case, China’s dishonesty confused and immobilized other countries from taking timely action as the diseases spread, sometimes “only” as an epidemic, at other times exploding into a full-blown pandemic. This time, Taiwan was prepared. Based on its prior experiences, it had stockpiled the necessary protective gear and resources for medical and frontline personnel. As the virus spread globally, it was even able to donate 10 million masks to the hardest hit countries, including 2 million to the United States. When Taiwan incrementally sealed off its borders from the affected areas of China, it considered not only the need to protect its own population. Acting in the same spirit of international civic responsibility it consistently shows as a democratic society, Taipei’s health officials immediately notified the WHO of the disturbing reports from Wuhan. Tragically for the world, the WHO’s leadership ignored Taiwan’s warning and continued to echo Beijing’s line. The WHO’s pathetic performance in enabling China’s massive deception contributed decisively to the eruption of the pandemic and stands in stark contrast to the competence and public-mindedness of Taiwan. Yet, in the bitterest of ironies, Taiwan, the model international citizen, is excluded from participation in the WHO because of China’s absurd objections. That the WHO’s leadership would carry what President Trump has called its “China-centric” bias to the extreme of rejecting critical reality confirms its moral and professional bankruptcy. When Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu spoke to the Hudson Institute last week, he outlined the methods that established the successful “Taiwan Model” for dealing with the pandemic. But he also noted how Chinese authorities are exploiting the very global crisis they created. “[F]rom conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus to fabricated government proclamations, China has clearly shown that they do not want this crisis to go to waste. I think the United States these days is also having a small dose of what we have been encounter[ing] in Taiwan for some time.” President Trump has shown that he recognizes what Beijing and its WHO ally did, and plans to take decisive action. He has said he will start by using the leverage inherent in Washington’s disproportionate financial contribution to the WHO. He has a range of available options, from cutting off funding, withdrawing and creating an alternative organization, or demanding that Taiwan be admitted as a full participating member despite China’s likely threat that it will not remain in the WHO if Taiwan is there. Another opportunity for reform of the WHO will be available next month when the World Health Assembly, its governing body, could appoint a new director-general. The incumbent, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, appears to have overtly colluded with China before and during the pandemic, has consistently supported Taiwan’s exclusion, and added insult to injury by accusing Taiwan of racism when it disclosed its December warning of an impending crisis. He needs to be replaced by a competent public health specialist who is experienced in pandemics and immune from China’s politicization. The perfect candidate could come from among Taiwan's many experts, including its team of Centers for Disease Control officials who detected and reported to the WHO the ominous signs from Wuhan. It would be fitting to replace someone who did almost everything wrong during the pandemic with a person who did everything right. Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.
I got clutch to ban me from the D&D pissing contest lol. If you say one word that get interpreted the wrong way in that forum then you have to spend 1000 words trying to correct it. It's just frustrating. I think we can have reasoned and well balanced conversations in here and I think we have been. Hugs and rainbows to you B-Bob and to everyone in this thread for being very well balanced and calm
Good luck Texas! It will be interesting to see how the mayors handle their individual cities. In California, LA has shelter in place extended through May 15th, although the state does not (not yet at least).
H-Tine Mayor defers and seems to think the Governor is his dad or something. What's good for Texas is not always good for all of the cities in Texas. He needs to man-up and make a decision.
I think it is fine, we are all grown ups, aren't we? We can suppress the urge to politicize everything.
I've been calling for Tedros' head for a couple of weeks. If his cozy relationship with China is a reflection as to how he conducts business worldwide, then this guy is a mortal danger to mankind and needs to be replaced asap.
Tillman needs to Shut the f@ck up and listen! This is too early to start opening up, and will just cause a second wave. Please have some patience
German city of Jena (100k inhabitants) introduced an obligation to wear masks in public like a couple of weeks ago or so. No new infections in the last 8 days. Similarly, Czech Republic introduced the same obligation almost immediately, and has been doing extremely well. I might have to start wearing one. Found it terribly uncomfortable, but...
I've known people who did 1929-1945 and we can't even do March-April. These reopening plans are not plans. There is no strategic thinking, no long-term analysis, no effort to identify as many unintended consequences as you can, and no consideration of resources needed to make it work. Not to mention that whole thing about people's lives. They are, instead, announcements and part of a PR campaign to assuage the ego of one man and reassure the investors and CEOs, who will remain firmly ensconced in their big, safe homes while encouraging the rest to go sacrifice themselves or their loved ones. When it does not work, the economy will be worse off than if we had stayed the course. Then what? Another PR assault on reality? The normal is no more and anyone who tries to make what was fit into now is to be feared and jeered. To fix the economy, you have to fix the public health crisis first, regardless of how long it takes. If we had any semblance of federal coordination, we might just be able to have rolling relaxations during July and August, but no. This reopening stuff is greed smothered with stupid and people will die. We're just setting ourselves up for a more significant second wave sooner. Let Abbott scrub some toilets at a state park after a busy weekend and then see how eager he is to reopen. Let Tilman go to work as as security guard greeting workers in a big building and then see how eager he is to reopen. The first rule of leadership is to not ask someone to do something you would not do. We have an absolute failure of leadership at all levels right now. Cowards all. Those of you who can, stay put. Those of you who can't, I'm sorry. It didn't have to happen this way. Good luck everyone.
The new normal is keeping distance with each other, wearing masks and limiting gatherings. Texas will slowly start re-opening, we knew this was coming. Link to get masks at a decent price.. it will at least take a couple of weeks to receive: https://www.snowjoe.com/products/kn95-protective-face-mask-ce-certified-gb2626-standard-5-pack
The French navy is investigating how the coronavirus infected more than 1,000 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, amid growing pressure on government leaders to explain how it could have happened. The ship, France’s biggest carrier and the flagship of its navy, is undergoing a lengthy disinfection process since returning to its home base in Toulon five days ago. Defense Minister Florence Parly told lawmakers that 1,081 of the 2,300 people aboard the Charles de Gaulle and its escort vessels have tested positive so far — nearly half the overall personnel. https://apnews.com/fd1996b64f4cc3aeaa92b352bb7f5cce
every time I see a Dr. Fauci interview, there are many comments talking about how he’s the real enemy, part of the Deep State, and is in bed with Bill Gates attempting to depopulate the world...it’s amazing
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/a...0206121&id=70206121&__twitter_impression=true Antibody research indicates coronavirus may be far more widespread than known Of 3,300 people in California county up to 4% found to have been infected. A critical question in the path towards the future is how many people actually have protective novel coronavirus antibodies and possible immunity? Two research teams in California -- backed by armies of dedicated volunteers -- set out to answer this very question and the first set of results are in. The first large-scale community test of 3,300 people in Santa Clara County found that 2.5 to 4.2% of those tested were positive for antibodies -- a number suggesting a far higher past infection rate than the official count. Based on the initial data, researchers estimate that the range of people who may have had the virus to be between 48,000 and 81,000 in the county of 2 million -- as opposed to the approximately 1,000 in the county's official tally at the time the samples were taken. “Our findings suggest that there is somewhere between 50- and 80-fold more infections in our county than what’s known by the number of cases than are reported by our department of public health," Dr. Eran Bendavid, the associate professor of medicine at Stanford University who led the study, said in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer. For the project, from just a finger prick, a drop of blood was used to reveal whether volunteers recruited through targeted ads online had protective antibodies in their blood left behind after the coronavirus. Volunteers were tested at three drive-through sites in the county. Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor, cautioned that the results for the California county are not necessarily representative of the U.S. population and noted the use of online ads to find participants could skew the candidate pool. But, he said, the work is "adding to this confirmation of what we've expected, which is a much larger number of cases than we ever anticipated." "There has been wide recognition that we were undercounting infections because of lack of testing or patients were asymptomatic," Brownstein said. Antibody tests are often touted by public health experts as a tool to help determine when Americans can get back to normal life, because they can determine not just whether someone has recovered but whether a person has been exposed to the virus in the past. And while there is no guarantee of total, long-term immunity even if a person has antibodies, doctors hope that those who do have them may have some degree of immunity protection. Experts hope that could be a tool to help determine who could potentially more safely re-enter the workforce -- and just as importantly -- when. Bendavid said the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggests that the large majority of the county, around 95%, is still without antibodies and for getting people back to work “what that means for things like, are we going to wait for people to get infected or get antibodies in order for them to get back to work... knowing that well upwards of 90% of the population doesn't have antibodies is going to make that a very difficult choice." The initial data is the first to provide greater clarity about where a community is in the pandemic. But Bendavid cautions that the work was more illuminating about what’s happening on the community level than it was for any one individual. “We have good confidence that we’re getting reliable information on the population. And that can be done because we know what proportion of the people who are positive we’re missing using this test,” said Bendavid. The results suggests more research and analysis is needed to know how many people who tested positive for antibodies never knew they had the virus because they had no symptoms. Public health experts are calling for more antibody tests and, until the U.S. has more widespread testing and contact tracing, say they still believe social distancing is a cornerstone to controlling the pandemic. Bendavid told Sawyer the most important thing a person who has tested positive for antibodies to do is to “keep following public health guidelines.” Scientists in California are moving quickly and carefully to mobilize testing with similar community antibody research underway in Los Angeles by Dr. Neeraj Sood at the University of Southern California. Sood told ABC News the information from these antibody studies will help “the nation figure out what’s happening with this epidemic."
