OT: Coronavirus VII: No Unrelated Politics Talk

[bucks_oil]

Anyone dying is clearly a bad thing. There are those close to the person who suffer with the loss. But if the hospitals are not being overwhelmed, and those sick that need care are getting it, is the pandemic being managed within the realm of responsible government, regardless of the death tolls? IMO governments use modelling to make decisions on the macro level, and each country (region) has different potential to manage. It seems like us in Canada are doing well, but we still have a lot of people dying from Covid 19, who otherwise would still be alive.

Yeah... I live in Boston. Nobody in the US (that I would know) is happy with how this is being handled nationally, but people in some states and cities are reasonably happy with the responses of individual leaders.

In Boston Gov Baker and Mayor Walsh have been out in front of this within reason... but at the outset they were caught off guard. A major biotech company here (oh the irony) Biogen, could trace 7-8 potential infections to a global management team meeting held here.... they plead with gov to get testing done for all 120 execs who attended the meeting, but the hospitals would only test those with a known exposure to a known infected individual as per the national protocol which at the time must have been intended to ration the available tests.... given none of the 7-8 were "confirmed positive", nobody else could be tested (for a couple days), which of course defeats any test of logic. Those 7-8 individuals were traced to about 90 of our first 100 infections. Since that time, the local leaders have been taking it seriously we've been trending (as a state) right along the numbers with all of Canada... today we both have 26K infections. Interestingly, we also have the same number of ICU beds in the city as all of Canada, so touch wood... both in reasonable shape atm.

I also think it is interesting that if you take Canada's numbers and multiply by 10... to balance for the population, we (I'm including myself here... still Canadian!!!) would have 260K infections, so about 1/2 of the US rate.... so hopefully that means doing twice as well (rather than just being 6-7 days behind).

 

[McGoMcD]

The kid stuff would be very hard to manage. Even without symptoms these kids can spread, likely for days of time. Are we testing these kids over and over to see if they got it and when they are not longer able to spread it? Gotta do test sweeps across schools over and over until every kid is checked off as immune? Who is taking care of these kids while they are able to spread it? Are they interacting with other kids outside school? Going to playgrounds, getting their hands all over stuff at stores, etc...

Would be a fun time with governments and parents/guardians trying to manage a country full of kiddos that we're letting a virus spread among where the vast majority will be spreading without any symptoms.

France announced they will open up once tests can be conducted on anyone with symptoms and everyone has access to a mask. France is regularly ranked as the top health care system in the world and I think this is a very good plan. Simply, ya you can test kids with symptoms, most won't have them, I agree, but they will first spread to their parents who can get tested. Of course, if their parents are not vulnerable, but healthy. Then when the kids or parents are exposed to a vulnerable group both parties have facemask on. The facemask do the majority of the protection after then you can isolate based on tests. This together will be more effective than what we are doing now.

Of course this relies on more tests and facemask, but realistically I think we are only a week or two away from that.

 

[bucks_oil]

Japan Spent over 2 Billion dollars moving their manufacturing out of China. Japan has been China's biggest trading partner up to this point.

Japan to Pay Companies to Move Production Out of China | National Review

The Dominoes were already falling before the outbreak. Many American companies moved their manufacturing to Vietnam. The trade war between America and China cost both countries billions of dollars.

The tin foil hat part of me would start assuming China hid the virus to tank the rest of the worlds economy on purpose. I am not saying the Virus was intentional but more like a happy accident, use it to their benefit.

Even your foil hat is on backwards...

Point 1 - Japan exiting China, negative economic consequence for China

Point 2 - American companies moving to Vietnam, negative economic consequence for China

Point 3 - Implying China views this as a "happy accident"... does not compute.

More likely would be they deliberately slowed reporting so as not to sound the alarm bells too soon (and hope to avoid damaging their own economy).

There was a very good paper written by the Munk School of Public Health in Toronto (which is a highly regarded institution) that accuses China of doing exactly that... slowing the flow of information on WeChat until they could get a handle on what they were looking at.

In the end, the timeframe for reporting it definitively (with sequencing, etc) to WHO is not unreasonable... but the lack of transparency when they weren't sure what they were looking at is lost time the world cannot get back... then again, most of our leaders did nothing with that information anyway, so there's that.

 

[bellagiobob]

 

[Fatass]

Nah you’re good. Just the people saying that Sweden’s approach has been so successful, but they have the most deaths of the Nordic countries.

75o million more people fall into poverty because of the world’s economic collapse caused directly by Covid 19 actions. 117 million children will not get measles vaccine this year as a result of our Covid 19 economic policies. There are two sides to every coin. Maybe Sweden is doing what’s best for everyone, which is managing their country’s Covid 19 issues while still keeping their economy going, and therefore contributing to the world’s economic welfare? It certainly appears that all governments are starting to open their economies, because the cure is becoming worse than the disease.

 

[LaGu]

pcm-dpc/COVID-19

Very good news. Italy has its lowest amount of new cases since March 13th

Report out today, Lombardy in itself are lagging 3-6 days behind in reporting...

That together with a complete run down of the numbers and why most of the stats is not reliable.

I dati ufficiali non avevano senso prima e non hanno senso adesso

Article in Italian, but real solid break down imho (and I am by nature extremely sceptical).

One thing, which is good for us here in Italy, is that basically the most important number is doing good. That is the number of patients in ICU's. Down from around 4000 to around 3000 in the last week. That is very good news and honestly probably means we are doing better than the numbers reported say.

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Even your foil hat is on backwards...

Point 1 - Japan exiting China, negative economic consequence for China

Point 2 - American companies moving to Vietnam, negative economic consequence for China

Point 3 - Implying China views this as a "happy accident"... does not compute.

More likely would be they deliberately slowed reporting so as not to sound the alarm bells too soon (and hope to avoid damaging their own economy).

There was a very good paper written by the Munk School of Public Health in Toronto (which is a highly regarded institution) that accuses China of doing exactly that... slowing the flow of information on WeChat until they could get a handle on what they were looking at.

In the end, the timeframe for reporting it definitively (with sequencing, etc) to WHO is not unreasonable... but the lack of transparency when they weren't sure what they were looking at is lost time the world cannot get back... then again, most of our leaders did nothing with that information anyway, so there's that.

This is what happens when you buy made in China tin, it just doesn't do as good of a job as the chip in my brain keeps sending alien signals once in a while.

We need good old fashioned American tin.

 

[yukoner88]

Heard some good news Trucking through Saskatchewan, new cases have been dropped to 2 a day and of the current cases about 60% have fully recovered. It's going so well there the Sask government is starting to brain storm ways of slowly opening things up as long as this trend continues over the next 2weeks.

 

[Frank the Tank]

The greatest move the lizard people made was replacing the tin in people's protective foil with aluminum, the latter which has a much smaller absorption cross-section of radiation/signals.

 

[yukoner88]

This is what happens when you buy made in China tin, it just doesn't as good of a shield as the chip in my brain keeps sending alien signals once in a while.

We need good old fashioned American tin.

Maybe you can bolster the power of the Chinese tin foil by throwing it in the microwave for a minute or 2. The charged particles after that will create enough resistance to block anything

 

[Paperbagofglory]

Maybe you can bolster the power of the Chinese tin foil by throwing it in the microwave for a minute or 2. The charged particles after that will create enough resistance to block anything

I think i saw that in a Macgyver episode once.

 

[oobga]

France announced they will open up once tests can be conducted on anyone with symptoms and everyone has access to a mask. France is regularly ranked as the top health care system in the world and I think this is a very good plan. Simply, ya you can test kids with symptoms, most won't have them, I agree, but they will first spread to their parents who can get tested. Of course, if their parents are not vulnerable, but healthy. Then when the kids or parents are exposed to a vulnerable group both parties have facemask on. The facemask do the majority of the protection after then you can isolate based on tests. This together will be more effective than what we are doing now.

Of course this relies on more tests and facemask, but realistically I think we are only a week or two away from that.

The mask thing would definitely be huge. Are we actually close to being able to give everyone a mask in Canada? I haven't seen any indication of that so far. Still looks like a free for all, and people are already buying up supplies to be able to sew home made ones. Not sure our federal government came close to the foresight needed to try to help secure a national strategy on masks, engaging and pressuring the private sector, to a point where you could assign people a quota to everyone for masks to go back about their daily lives. That would have been pretty impressive, but don't think it has come close to happening.

 

[McGoMcD]

Even your foil hat is on backwards...

Point 1 - Japan exiting China, negative economic consequence for China

Point 2 - American companies moving to Vietnam, negative economic consequence for China

Point 3 - Implying China views this as a "happy accident"... does not compute.

More likely would be they deliberately slowed reporting so as not to sound the alarm bells too soon (and hope to avoid damaging their own economy).

There was a very good paper written by the Munk School of Public Health in Toronto (which is a highly regarded institution) that accuses China of doing exactly that... slowing the flow of information on WeChat until they could get a handle on what they were looking at.

In the end, the timeframe for reporting it definitively (with sequencing, etc) to WHO is not unreasonable... but the lack of transparency when they weren't sure what they were looking at is lost time the world cannot get back... then again, most of our leaders did nothing with that information anyway, so there's that.

I am just jumping in here and maybe I need to read more, but I am not sure any of this has to do with getting out of China. Chinese wages have been going up, a good thing for them, for some time now people have been moving to even cheaper sources of production, to Vietnam, Africa etc. I don't think any of that is Covid related.

 

[McGoMcD]

The mask thing would definitely be huge. Are we actually close to being able to give everyone a mask in Canada? I haven't seen any indication of that so far. Still looks like a free for all, and people are already buying up supplies to be able to sew home made ones. Not sure our federal government came close to the foresight needed to try to help secure a national strategy on masks, engaging and pressuring the private sector, to a point where you could assign people a quota to everyone for masks to go back about their daily lives. That would have been pretty impressive, but don't think it has come close to happening.

It isn't as far along as it should be. I think we are close to all at risk people have a legit N95 mask and everyone else having a homemade one or something. Not ideal clearly, but, I think that is close enough.

 

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

Quebec's numbers as of today:
14,248 cases
435 deaths.

 

[McBeastMode]

It isn't as far along as it should be. I think we are close to all at risk people have a legit N95 mask and everyone else having a homemade one or something. Not ideal clearly, but, I think that is close enough.

David Staples: Masterminds behind Alberta's medical supplies surge to meet COVID-19 crisis | Edmonton Journal

 

[bucks_oil]

I am just jumping in here and maybe I need to read more, but I am not sure any of this has to do with getting out of China. Chinese wages have been going up, a good thing for them, for some time now people have been moving to even cheaper sources of production, to Vietnam, Africa etc. I don't think any of that is Covid related.

Maybe so, but I am sure we have all read the articles about moving toward "nationalizing" production of key goods and "de-globalization" which of course has been a growing (or rather resurgent) school of thought in the past few years that has been given SIGNIFICANT new voice by the pandemic because: 1) air travel spreads disease, 2) we are dependent on other nations for critical goods (see 3M and PPE), and resultantly our lack of self-sufficiency can create national security issues.

So back to @Paperbagofglory's tin-hat theory... my point is that a HEALTHY globalized economy is good for China. At this moment they are still a relatively source of cheap labor for highly valuable (and technical) manufacturing ... think iPhone... think pharmaceutical excipients (and moving toward pharmaceuticals themselves).

Down the line China could... once its GDP/capita rises and wages are no longer an advantage... they could then start to favor a more insular national economy given they have a billion people and huge wage disparity from top to bottom... still plenty of "efficiencies" to leverage.

But for now, every middle class job that they can create by foreign inflow of capital means $0.45/dollar going into the national coffers of the ruling party. Their top tax bracket of 45% kicks in at $18K/annum!!!... and if they can get their entire population working, that tax revenue would be far, far, far more lucrative a source of income than the 4-5% the USA is likely paying on their trillion dollars worth of national debt held by China (and any extension of that debt that might be triggered by a huge down-turn in the US/global economy).

TLDR: In short... I just don't see the incentive you are alluding to. China has HUGE incentive in a global economy, arguably moreso than countries with already high wages, since they are now technically advanced enough to compete with many economies for technically skilled jobs (which are largely financed by "Western" multinationals).

Tinfoil hat theories can be interesting when they've been thought out... creative thinking is of value! But I don't see this one holding any water.

EDIT: Sorry McGoMcD... I wrote this as though it were your theory. Whoops!

 

[Drivesaitl]

WTF are you guys talking about? Lizard people? Tin? I even tried googling this and no idea what this is, whats in reference to, origin etc. I'll probably be sorry I asked.

 

[bucks_oil]

This is what happens when you buy made in China tin, it just doesn't do as good of a job as the chip in my brain keeps sending alien signals once in a while.

We need good old fashioned American tin.

Lol... well, you jest, but this virus is going to impact a lot of serious debate about globalization vs nationalism. And if you want to put that in your tinfoil folder, it would definitely explain why China wants this whole thing to go away (hence incentive to under report)

 

[Skar]

WTF are you guys talking about? Lizard people? Tin? I even tried googling this and no idea what this is, whats in reference to, origin etc. I'll probably be sorry I asked.

I knew you were bad with technology, but this bad?

 

[Drivesaitl]

I knew you were bad with technology, but this bad?

Never heard of the term "lizard people" before today, before this thread, and I don't know why I would have. Theres some stuff on google but nothing clear in terms of how people would even heard of this crap? I guess I'm kind of curious where people hear of this. meme, show, whatever source.

I guess more the question is how anybody knows about mindless garbage like this enough to for some reason cite the garbage in an issue based discussion. I mean what does it have to do with anything?

 

[soothsayer]

WTF are you guys talking about? Lizard people? Tin? I even tried googling this and no idea what this is, whats in reference to, origin etc. I'll probably be sorry I asked.

Lizard people are humanoid shape-shifting aliens who are managing all the world's affairs. I imagine that someone heard the illuminati conspiracy theories and said to himself, "these are crazy, but not crazy as shit." An voila, some 12 million Americans believe in Lizard People.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Lizard people are humanoid shape-shifting aliens who are managing all the world's affairs. I imagine that someone heard the illuminati conspiracy theories and said to himself, "these are crazy, but not crazy as shit." An voila, some 12 million Americans believe in Lizard People.

Yeah, I think I've spent 30mins of my life looking up weird and pointless conspiracy theories. Most of that today, apparently. Thanks. Time I'm not getting back.

 

[Sanchez]

Lizard people are humanoid shape-shifting aliens who are managing all the world's affairs. I imagine that someone heard the illuminati conspiracy theories and said to himself, "these are crazy, but not crazy as shit." An voila, some 12 million Americans believe in Lizard People.

 

[Senor Catface]

Lizard people are humanoid shape-shifting aliens who are managing all the world's affairs. I imagine that someone heard the illuminati conspiracy theories and said to himself, "these are crazy, but not crazy as shit." An voila, some 12 million Americans believe in Lizard People.

Part of it also stems from the mini-series "V" which was a big cultural water cooler kind of show back in the day. That was in the 80's, not the rebooted version.