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At least 15,000 people who may have caught the coronavirus from a 'super-spreader' guru are under strict quarantine in northern India after the Sikh religious leader died of COVID-19.
The 70-year-old guru, Baldev Singh, had returned from a trip to Europe's virus epicentre Italy and Germany when he went preaching in more than a dozen villages in Punjab state.
Trump already failed. Over 2000 deaths now. Trump should have been doing what he is doing now at least two months ago. Didn't have to be a fortune teller to know what was coming, only look at what was happening in China and Italy. Now, all we can do is try to minimize deaths.
People were always gonna die. That much was inevitable. Nobody managed to keep the virus out of their country. If you can think of any exceptions, please feel free to share them. Russia and Mongolia did rather hardcore border and travel shutdowns with China. They got it anyways. So at this point, success or failure is down to success at flattening the curve, keeping up with the onslaught and nobody dying for lack of treatment.
The oddball thing is that when I attempt to lay the blame for the mounting fatalities where it actually belongs -- China -- then I tend to hear a song and a dance and a sermon about, "That's in the past and it won't help us now." So why is anything that's already happened relevant at all? It won't help us now, am I right? No, I completely reject that notion. China deserves a reckoning for their incredibly irresponsible handling of the initial outbreak, just as Trump is on the hook for the US response up to this point.
Trump did better than pretty much all of Europe in his early response. He closed travel from China in the face of accusations of xenophobia, bigotry and racism from all sides. That was the right move. The test kits we started with were garbage, and that's a huge strike against him. Did they come from China or were they 100% made in the USA? I'm a little fuzzy on that. Absolutely everyone was downplaying it and minimizing it for most of February and Trump was one of them. So was Cuomo, pretty much ever governor, all the Dems and all of the mainstream media. Surprisingly, Tucker Carlson was the only MSM voice that I'm aware of that got it right early on. So that's another strike against him for listening to the overwhelming consensus opinion. He was wrong along with everyone else, but it must be admitted that it was the same things everyone else was saying at the time. Would it have actually mattered? Every affluent industrialized nation on the planet has failed to keep COVID-19 out. All of them got it. Even Russia is starting to see a rapid uptick of cases now, despite their rather draconian travel restrictions.
Honestly, I'm a lot more interested to see how Trump does from this point going forward. We are still in the same ballpark as Germany for deaths per million citizens. Hopefully we can keep it there and don't go the way of Italy, Spain and Iran. The difference seems to be whether or not you manage to keep up. If there are sufficient medical supplies, you save lives. If there aren't then you have to make the terrifying decisions like Italy telling everyone over 60, "No you can't have a ventilator. Sorry, if you need one, we'll just let you die." Can Trump keep that kind of nightmare scenario at bay? History will judge him largely on his success or failure there.
In a macabre way the virus might shift the population makeup towards a pyramid again as mostly older people die and the quarantine might lead to a baby boom as couples spend 24/7 with each other
Quick math, 340,000,000 people in USA...320,000,000 people in the top 5 countries in Europe...Spain, UK, France, Italy, Germany. 272,000 cases in Top 5 European countries vs. 120,000 in USA. Tell me again why the USA is the epicenter? Not to mention half of those are in the NY,NJ metro.
Because we are a few weeks behind Europe on the exponential growth rate. It is called math.
""In the literal sense of 'is it changing genetically,' the answer is absolutely yes," says Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard University. "What is in question is whether there's been any change that's important to the course of disease or the transmissibility or other things that we as humans care about."
So far, "there is no credible evidence of a change in the biology of the virus either for better or for worse," says Lipsitch.
Coronaviruses — like all viruses — change small parts of their genetic code all the time."
So I guess a lot...or at least quite a bit...of the questions you asked are answered for now. It changes but not a lot.
In fact, the same article says change is probably BAD because it means that vaccines and other things we create to fight it are less likely to work against a "massively mutated" strain.
For now I am going with the Science, but with what you or I think or guess....at this level of thing. Differences in mortality and such so far all seem to make some kind of sense based on various normal criteria.
Okay fair enough. So what information do we have at this moment about which strain of the virus is active in which country right now? I have absolutely no idea and I don't see any reporting on it. It strains credibility to assume that any virus would remain unchanged all the way through February and March. It had indeed developed two distinct strains between December and late January. Two months. February and March is also two months, so the same amount of time there. All I've found is mostly generalities that the S strain is widely believed to the one that got out to the wider world. I've not heard a peep about anyone specifically identifying any changes since then. I'm sure that somebody must have, but I honestly don't know where to look. When I see massively different numbers depending on which corner of the world you happen to live in, I can't help but suspect that the virus mutated. Perhaps it got worse in one place and less deadly elsewhere. I'd certainly like to know the facts, but I don't know if anyone actually has them right now.
Why can’t people just stay inside their houses right now? Don’t go outside unless it is absolutely necessary.
People need to understand what it takes to stop spreading this virus. It is called sacrifice.
Americans have gotten soft. They don't sacrifice. They are used to getting what they want. Plus there is no unified message from the states and feds. Just a lot of bickering and finger pointing.
Quick math, 340,000,000 people in USA...320,000,000 people in the top 5 countries in Europe...Spain, UK, France, Italy, Germany. 272,000 cases in Top 5 European countries vs. 120,000 in USA. Tell me again why the USA is the epicenter? Not to mention half of those are in the NY,NJ metro.
I have been making that point for days. Europe is the epicenter. We are simply a bigger population than any country in Europe. The way its going we might pass them in a week or two but not yet.
Americans have gotten soft. They don't sacrifice. They are used to getting what they want. Plus there is no unified message from the states and feds. Just a lot of bickering and finger pointing.
No, I already explained it (direct link to post) and isn't being "soft." We just simply are individualists not collectivists. People complain if they can't do things their way. There are a number of decent friends who post first World complaints about this. I know we have to sacrifice, I'm having to, but I don't think it is a thing of "being soft."
Last edited by mkpunk; 03-28-2020 at 10:13 PM..
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