Coronavirus: Pandemic and Panic

[Alcuin]

Here in Middle Tennessee there is no toilet paper, no alcohol (well, beer, wine, and whiskey), no sanitizer, few household cleaners. People are in a panic. There were 32 cases of coronavirus as of last night in this part of Tennessee, 17 in Davidson County (Nashville), 14 in Williamson County (Franklin), and 1 in Rutherford County (Murfreesboro). The mayor of Nashville has asked all the honky-tonks (the word has lost its meaning: these are expensive, upscale bars and eateries, not the sometimes-dangerous dives they were when I was young) in Nashville to close: one of the owners (he owns several bars downtown) has already announced his defiance and intention to remain open.

I do not know the severity of the virus. There is a website, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/, that tracks daily updates: these are official numbers, mind you, not unofficial figures. Of closed cases today, mortality is 8%, with the rest recovered or discharged. According to the site, there were 7,131 fatalities as of yesterday worldwide. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, there were in 2017 in the United States 2,813,503 deaths, or 863.8 deaths per 100,000 people. The leading causes of deaths for Americans were:

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

Laying aside attempts by the Chinese to blame the Americans for what appears to be a categorical case of China’s ill-fated efforts first to conceal the disease and then to hide its severity from everyone else including their own citizens, not to mention that they arrested the doctor who courageously tried to warn the world the rest of the world and later died of the illness himself, it still isn’t clear how many people are actually ill, how many have died, and how many are seriously ill.

CDC screwed up the first testing kits – a remarkably unusual error. Then the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blocked independent laboratories from testing for the virus, though they are certainly capable and competent to do that. At least the US is not in the same situation as Italy, the worst-hit nation in Europe. But matters look rather grim.

New Rochelle, New York, is now in a “containment zone”, though officials there said 12 March that

contrary to false rumors, there is no change in daily life. Except for individuals subject to quarantine, residents are free to come and go, and businesses are open

How is the rest of Entmoot experiencing this event?

[Valandil]

Glad you started this - I was thinking of doing so myself.

It seems like things in the US started to change really quickly about last Wednesday. Is that when the NBA suspended their season and the NCAA announced that there would be no basketball tournament? Then all kinds of things started getting cancelled. We were asked to not meet in groups of over 500, then over 250, then over 50, then over 10. Those last two changes happened one day after the other (Sunday & Monday). Many colleges extended Spring Break from one week to two, and many are (or seem like they're planning to) switch over to online coursework after break. Graduations are cancelled. In many places (including here) - this is extending to grade schools and high schools.

Many are not able to work - as so many places have closed. Many are working from home. I still go in to work - but they've been preparing us to switch over to working remotely.

My sons are all home! Also, one brought his girlfriend. And my wife is off work this week - she's working at a school and they're on spring break now, she'll start working from home next week. The spring breaks were not originally going to overlap - but now they have!

Still relatively few known cases out here. But with the incubation period before symptoms begin to show, it's hard to tell how many more have it and don't know it yet - or haven't been able to get tested yet.

All in my circle are safe. I know people who know people - who have had it and have died.

Tennessee just had some bad tornados recently as well - right? Someone from my high school, a couple years older than me, just had one tear through the other end of her street in Cookesville (did I spell that right?). She and her family are safe - many houses were destroyed and a number of lives lost.

[Valandil]

My initial thoughts were that a lot of this was over-reaction. But it's hard to tell just how far it has spread yet. And how many would have been affected - who will not be now - if we had just continued everything as before.

I guess if we don't have a major disaster on our hands - we'll never know what we were spared by the measures being taken.

But a lot of people are out of work. A lot of business is not happening. And it's hard to say what that fallout will be.

I know a man who recently took his own life. He had been on a prolonged job search and had many interviews and things that looked good - but none of them worked out. His wife and two teenage sons are devastated. I wonder if we will - and hope we won't - see much more of this.

My youngest son is an asthmatic. His older brothers are not really afraid - but are both very serious about all the precautions being taken. Both say that it's largely for his sake. They don't want our family getting it, out of fear that we'll lose our youngest.

The political blame game - hardly surprising, these days. But I wish it wasn't the case.

People being advised to stock up on necessities in preparation of hunkering down for awhile. But the stores don't carry enough for people to all stock up at once. If the CDC is making these particular recommendations (I'm not sure if that's where it's coming from), they need to soften them. Let people catch up, let the stores catch up.

Lots to think about. Many factors.

Hope all our Entmoot friends - and all their loved ones - are fine.

[The Gaffer]

Unprecedented stuff. Not that we weren't warned!

We don't actually know yet how bad it is, from an individual perspective. Case fatality estimates vary hugely because we don't know how many cases are oiut there.

We do know those graphs are terrifying and probably everyone will get exposed to the virus sooner or later. We also know it's much worse than previous flu pandemics. It seems the illness is just mild enough to enable people to spread it around but has a high mortality rate compared to previous flus.

We've got folk with pre-existing conditions in the house so we are taking extreme care from here on in.

One of my friends (a doctor) has it. He describes it as weird feeling, doesn't feel as bad as normal flu. He suggests there is a 48-hour point after which you either get better or go downhill.

Schools are finally suspended here from tomorrow. Our govt has lagged behind a wee bit, but in fact people and organisations have been doing it themselves.

Then there is the economic impact. Millions of people live from month to month. If they are to self-isolate, we need to pay them, or else they are going to go kick off.

This is very, very, Hollywood disaster movie serious and I hope everyone is well, social distancing, washing their hands and hunkering down for the long haul.

[Valandil]

The Dark Plague... mid 3rd Age Middle Earth!

What do you folks think of the notion that this is a biological weapon that escaped from a lab? I heard about this a long while back, just googled it yesterday - saw an old story about it, and a story a few days later claiming that this was debunked.

But... I think we have a lot of Chinese apologists in our national media (and many who hate President Trump more than they fear or distrust China). I have heard that there is a biological research lab in Wuhan (the city where the virus originated), and I think there's a connection there with the Harvard scientist who was recently arrested for taking money from China and working to help their biological research.

Also - there's the way China handled this initially... denials, cover-ups, retribution to those internally who tried to be forthcoming about the situation (one of those who was on the receiving end of this was a doctor who died of the virus). Seems like the actions of a country trying to cover-up that something escaped from a lab.

And now... China claims no new infections, etc. But I just don't automatically believe anything that China says - so I'm inclined to be skeptical.

What about the rest of you?

[Alcuin]

There have been several “debunking” papers. Here is a fisking of one published in Nature. Almost two weeks ago, China began a campaign to smear the United States as the originator of the Wuhan virus. The United States Department of State made a face-to-face formal complaint to the Chinese Ambassador, summoning him to the offices of the State Department, about official Chinese accusations that the US was the source of the pandemic.

What is interesting here is that as soon as the Communist Chinese complained about being blamed for the virus outbreak and declared that calling it “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus” was “racist,” the US mass media immediately turned on a dime, declaring that calling the virus “Wuhan virus” for its point of origin was “racist,” when just the day before they had been using the same terms themselves. Who do these “journalists” serve? Not the truth: of that we can now be certain! Even Wikipedia, ever a cesspool filled by Leftist editors, is debating renaming the Spanish Flu epidemic the “1918 Influenza”. Who pipes for these pigs? And yet the New York Times has the unmitigated gall to complain that people no longer trust the news industry. What a shame, what a shame.

But in fact, China’s own scientists declared over a month ago that the virus originated in China’s principal biogenetics laboratory in Wuhan. Exactly how it escaped is unclear: the scientists are well-paid and looked-after; but the workers – cleaners, clerical attendants, and the like – are less-well paid, and it is possible that one of them sold a laboratory animal scheduled for cremation at the local food market. It may be that the virus was carried out by a worker who was accidentally infected, or it may have escaped from the facility through faulty air systems or contaminated refuse. But escape it has.

The Chinese government knew for nearly 40 days that the virus was in the wild but concealed that fact. Their deliberate malfeasance made the outbreak of a dangerous virus a global pandemic, and the leadership of China, Xi Jinping and all his crafty cronies, bear all responsibility for it.

Their toadies in the West, particularly in the media but also in academia, where major universities have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in money they are legally required to report yet consistently failed to do so, besides individual professors who gave the Chinese sensitive research but illegally concealed their cooperation and remuneration (i.e., they (allegedly) were bribed), including (allegedly) the Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Harvard, would appear by their actions to be accessories.

But why would they seek to hide the outbreak of such a serious illness, one that threatens their own population as well as the rest of mankind? Because China deliberately manufactured the virus. For the more technically-minded at Entmoot, I commend to you the detailed article “Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19)”. For the less technically inspired, an easier article to read is “Visualizing The Secret History Of A Coronavirus Bioweapon”, which includes this excellent graphic:

Yes, Covid-19, the Wuhan virus, is a bioweapon. It escaped containment in the laboratory, how we do not know, and the Communists tried to hide the fact. We are fortunate it is not more deadly than this. China’s government is the same government that slaughtered one in every eight of its citizens under Mao Tse-Tung. They have no regard for human life, and like all Marxists, they cannot be trusted – ever.

The only difference between a Nazi and a Bolshevik is his excuse for murder.

[Earniel]

Guys, this would be hilarious if this case wasn't so serious. Frankly, I'm disgusted.

A bioweapon? Ah sweet mother of unicorns, as if that urban myth doesn't get trotted out every time there's an epidemic somewhere.

This sort of paranoid thinking is what helps dangerous diseases spread! You are not doing anyone favours, these sort of ill-advised rumours spread distrust of actual medical personel and their advice, and hinders effective quarantine measures and treatments and kills. Yes, it kills. We've seen it. It happens.

Seriously, guys, don't spread lies that will get people killed. I thought higher of you than this. I am ashamed to see this stuff bandied here on the Entmoot.

Yes, China could have handled it better if they weren't so invested in being dictatorial asses but did the EU, the UK, or the USA learned any lesson from it? Nope, we were so stupidly assured in our moral superiority that we could handle this soooo much better than those 'dirty' Chinese and look were we are.

LOOK!

Yes, our racism is biting us in the ass. COVID-19's everywhere. People in their thousands have died. People in their thousands more will die. This is not some little flu as some still keep on pretending. America has currently a higher infection rate that even China had.

It's not China's fault we waited so long before we took equally hard measures. This is on us. WE are the stupid ones and the equally stupid politicians that we picked.

So please, do continue calling it 'the Chinese virus' as it that changes ANYTHING except showing your misplaced nationalist pride is clouding your judgement. And your basic human decency.

Do you even see the irony of accusing China of not caring who dies when America has botched her handling of COVID-19 so unbelievably badly that so many of your politicians are now yelling in the media to just get on with it and sacrifice the poor, the elderly, the vulnerable ones for the greater good of the economy and the wealth of the millionaires. You haven't begun quarantine yet and they're already yelling it's too costly and how much cheaper it'll be to just let people die already!

If that's caring for human life, I have news for you: even the Chinese appear to value human life more than the greatest Christian nation on earth. Why aren't you telling me how the only difference between a communist and a capitalist is his excuse for murder?

But just remind me, which country is the one that has so seriously botched their testing that they have no idea how many cases they actually have? Ignorance is bliss, perhaps? If I pretend it isn't there it'll all go away? And which otherwise developed and rich country has such an atrocious healthcare system that it is less capable of weathering such an epidemic than much poorer nations such as Italy?

Seriously guys, just who's in denial here?

[Alcuin]

Eärniel, you know I like you personally and in the forum, and I have always respected you. Kindly do not call me liar or a racist. EVER. I take great offense to both aspersions.

I listed my sources. You obviously did not check them, so here they are again:

For the more technically-minded at Entmoot, I commend to you the detailed article “Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19)”. For the less technically inspired, an easier article to read is “Visualizing The Secret History Of A Coronavirus Bioweapon”…

Now, maybe you’re not up to reading through those – and they are only a few of the available resources, but the two I cited – but I am. I studied 5 years for a triple major in chemistry, molecular biology, and chemical engineering. I ran PCR experiments, and my friends and colleagues did genetic experiments to splice human insulin genes into e-coli. Yeah, the SARS gene that’s in Covid-19 might be from local bats (bats are known to be notorious reservoirs of viruses that are novel to humans) or from pangolins, though it’s a bit of a stretch; but the HIV envelope gene, too? That’s one too many genetic accidents: it stretches credulity.

As for the origin of the genes, the genomes of all these viral strains are well-established, and all you have to do, if you have the skill (remember Saruman’s description of reading the Ring inscription?) is to sequence the RNA (coronavirus is an RNA virus, which is transcribed in host cells to negative or mirror-image RNA, which is then processed for viral replication) and compare it to known RNA viral sequences. The source of this virus is known: it came from Toronto, Canada. The SARS gene is known. The HIV gene is known. This much is not guesswork: the origins can be identified with extraordinary specificity: DNA and RNA can be used for both positive identification in court and to eliminate persons from legal jeopardy, to determine ancestry, to reckon protein folding and shaping. And of course, PCR is one method used to identify a coronavirus infection.

Believe what you like: That is your prerogative, and it not my place to tell you to believe something else. Nor is it your place to call me a liar or accuse me of being a racist. I resent those accusations. If you don’t like my conclusion that I draw from the work of others – I didn’t do them myself and cannot vouch for them – that’s fine. But you are not entitled to assign any epithets to me for my opinion, which is, in my not-very-humble opinion, informed, in that I am at least able to read a laboratory or research report and draw my own conclusions about it without help from anyone else.

And yes, it is China’s fault that this mess has become such a problem! They lied, they arrested their own physicians, they covered up the nature and severity of the problem, and then the Chinese accused other nations of racism when those countries closed their borders to Chinese citizens! Were you aware that you were reciting Communist propaganda when you accused me of being a racist liar? You were. And you know what? I don’t like it, and I’m calling you out on it.

Was the United States ready for this? No. Was Belgium? Gee, I don’t know – aren’t there places in Belgium where the police can’t go? Were you Belgians ready? Was Italy ready? Was the UK? Was Russia? No? No one was? How about that. You don’t like Donald Trump? That’s ok by me: I loath Herman Van Rompuy, and I frankly don’t care if that’s ok with anyone or plan to change my opinion of that odious little man anytime soon. Neither your opinion of Trump nor mine of Van Rompuy has any effect upon the world. But I won’t call you racist or a liar if you voted for Van Rompuy. I can’t stand Elizabeth Warren, but I have friends who supported her Senate run and her recent presidential campaign, and as of last week, we were still friends, even though they know what I think of her: my love for them as my friends extends well beyond any differences in politics. But then, none of them have called me “liar” or “racist”.

You can disagree with my conclusions about the virus. You can say none of this is China’s fault, although I personally find that position utterly indefensible on any basis. But I resent being called a liar or a racist, as I just posted to Gaffer a moment ago. My grandchildren, who are legally black (yes, there is a still a legal definition of “black” in America, and it’s American blacks who demand it be kept – irony is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t it!) would be very surprised to discover that, so why don’t we just keep it secret? Or maybe – just maybe – I’m not really racist after all, and you clubbed me with the same cudgel Gaffer used.

It does seem that people who lean Left resort to hollering “racist!” at the drop of a hat, and they’ll drop that hat every time at the slightest provocation. I’m going to propose this: From now on, anyone who calls “racist!” is someone I’m not going to debate any more. They lost the argument, regardless of anything else they have to say. It’s cheap, it’s thoughtless, it’s childish, it’s intellectually lazy, and quite honestly, it’s morally repugnant.

I am offended. Seriously, majorly offended. Not that it matters: you have every right to offend me if you think it necessary, or if it just strikes your fancy. But I am boiled.

Oh, and I waited a while to respond so that I didn’t rip into you, because I really, really like you, and I think the world of you, Eärniel. This is the politest post I could come up with. Don’t resort to calling anyone “racist”. It is offensive and, quite honestly, reveals a complete lack of intellectual effort regarding the subject at hand or the person you are debating, unless they are making an overtly racist statement, like, “It’s offensive to say, ‘It’s ok to be white!’” That’s what real racism sounds like.

And one last thing: Racism is an equal opportunity affliction. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Whites, and yes, even Chinese! can be racists. It’s just a flaw among us human beings, and we all equally risk sharing in it to some degree.

[Earniel]

I have the greatest respect for you, Alcuin, and that has not changed.

But Alcuin, you also know me.

And then you also know I would never say such things if I did not think they needed saying. I am glad you took time to formulate a reply before 'ripping into me', but I do notice some comments like 'communist propaganda' that I know were meant to hurt. I understand you're lashing out at me for what I said, and I am sorry I have hurt you. But I do think you have taken my post for accusations that were not intended as such.

But to be entirely clear, I did not call you a a racist. I said "our racism is biting us in the ass". Meant to include the entire western world and myself. Frankly, up until that point I did not think of you personally as racist at all. I was speaking generally. It's a funny thing but turns out I am aware other people in other nations and other cultures than my own can be racist too. Shocking, I know. I am not excempt myself either. Heck, I know that too, have, and will freely admit it.

But that doesn't mean I should stand by and let racist things slip by unchallenged. People can see themselves as not being racist and still say racist things. Again, not meaning you personally and again, I'm no exception myself. I try to do better. But especially in fraught times like these, these comments can be dangerous, not to me, but to others who do not always have the support I might have.

I think it's a good thing you take offense at being called a racist, but I would invite you to take a good look at what you were linking to and repeating in that previous post and how it they might feel, well, like racist to another. Like the insistance of tagging the chinese-epitapth to the virus. Does it really matters so much where a pandemic virus originated? Why are you so keen on insisting Wuhan remains linked to the virus? You took offense at renaming the Spanish flue (and while I would agree it no longer has a point to rename it so long after the fact, there is something to be said about with the global travel and trade it is no longer being useful to tag origins to virusses) Knowing, no doubt as you do, that these things play right into extremists hands and are now used today to discriminate and even attack chinese people in America and other places? So why insist, knowing it will be misused?

Even in the case that China purposefully created a virus, what exactly does it matter in the fight against it now? Does it do at all something that will help us make a vaccine or cure? No. But what it does is create a lot of resentment towards China, strenghtening the devision between East and West, and making it more difficult to work together to combat this. I don't know about you but, me, living here in Europe and seeing the rise of fascism at home and across the world, the idea of a return to Germany '39 and how easy that would be, is never far away. I am not going to participate in bringing it about again.

I did not call you a liar either. But I did ask you to not spread what I consider harmful lies. That still stands. In times like these when fake news abounds, it can be dangerous to repeat it.

But no, I did not read your links, and no, I am not going to. There is a link on the internet of every thing. I know how attractive conspiracy theories are and I do in fact do not possess enough chemical or medical background to sparse them on my own, so I am not ashamed to say I will rather follow the lead of scientists here. And those here seem to agree that COVID-19 is not lab-made. Another thing that may be of interest is cybersecurity firms tracking Russian bots, have noted that the Russians are happy to boost the man-made theory and give it credence. That alone would be enough for me to stay away from it.

What either of us believe and whether that may or may not be true may indeed be not at all important in the greater scope of things. But we live in a wider world, and we influence it and I rather influence it for the better.

Were you Belgians ready?

*hysterical laughter* Hell, no. Did I say at all we were? I don't like Van Rompuy that much either, although I do not know what that has to do with anything... But judging by the comment about the police not going into certain places in Belgium, I can tell what sort of news you consume, and I say I now understand through which lense you view Belgium and its policitians.

[Earniel]

For a little levity in these dark times, I saw this video and thought of you guys.

What did Obama ever do to stop this.

I hope you all are safe.

[katya]

So, I was actually working as a nurse at the hospital when covid first hit. I volunteered for the covid unit and worked there every day I worked until I finally got fed up with the mess that administration made of the whole hospital and quit in June. So, it was pretty interesting seeing things from the inside. I saw a lot of people, young and old, get really, really sick. At any given time, the majority of patients would be in their 50s and 60s with some older some younger. Most people who get infected do fine, of course. But it is definitely not the flu!

I also got to see in real time everyone trying to figure out how to treat it. At first we just didn't know much about it at all. Then we started trialing our first patients on remdesivir. Then everyone started getting remdesivir (and possibly tocilizumab, but definitely NOT hydroxychloroquine!). Then we started giving people dexamethasone. We saw it work its way through the nursing homes. Then we saw it hit the mexican population, and all of a sudden half the patients on the floor didn't speak english.

I remember the first time someone got tested someone asked me if I thought they would be positive and I was like, I have no idea. But now, I know what it looks like. Someone can have a test come back negative and I'll be like, "that test is wrong. this person has covid, I guarantee it." Lots and lots of false negatives. We had one guy test negative 4 times before they finally tested the actually fluid in his lungs and hey guess what it's positive, just like we thought based on his presentation.

[Earniel]

I want to thank you, katya. Because it's thanks to people like you, who stood on the front line and did their best at figuring this thing out, that I can go outside now. (Masked of course, but after a lockdown of three months in spring, I'm happy to take it.)

It's interesting you raise the point of false positives. I've been hearing more and more mentions about that lately. And I do wonder how much they're holding us back of effective combatting this thing.

[katya]

Yeah, there's been a few people who have tested negative but all the signs point to them being positive. Their chest x-ray, their symptoms, their labs (abnormal ferritin, d-dimer, LDH, a couple others), and the fact that otherwise healthy people kept requiring more and more oxygen, basically the doctors started calling them "clinically positive" and treating them as if they are are positive.

Also, during the nursing home surge, we had to get two negatives in a row for someone to be able to go back to the facility. We had lots of patients who would test negative, then the next would be positive, then the next negative, then positive, etc. and it's like, they didn't keep getting and recovering, the only explanation is that the negatives were false negatives. I have also talked to several people who tested negative but their antibody tests came back positive.

[Earniel]

Yikes, I can see how that complicates treatments greatly. Must have been very difficult for staff too to figure out if they have been exposed or not.

[katya]

I was on the covid unit, so we treated everyone as if they were positive (they were all either confirmed positive or being ruled out), so I was protected all the time. The people on the other floors, not so much.

I'll tell you what though, after a long shift working in that mess, it was a real slap in the face coming to my other job and hearing one of the doctors there say it's just like a bad flu and we should just let everyone get it and masks are stupid etc.

[Earniel]

Gaah, fail doctor, big fail! How can some people, whom one could reasonably consider smart, be so stupid at the same time. Gaaah.

This is NOT a disease where natural herd immunity is going to safe us.

[The Gaffer]

So, anti-vaxxers to the back of the line is it?

[Earniel]

I'm thinking anti-vaxxers are not going to want to be in this line at all.

That said, I believe I recall we'll need a vaccination rate of around 70% to acchieve artificial herd immunity, so we probably don't need them to vaccinate for the rest of us to be safe.

I'm guessing I should be happy if I can get vaccinated by next fall or so. Healthy people like me are already at the back of the list. I understand all that but all the same the preparations our government are taking do not fill me with much confidence that the vaccinations will be rolled out as efficiently as possible. I like to wrong about this, though!

It's going to be a long wait anyhow.

[katya]

I'm hoping they will give it to me soon since I'm a front line healthcare worker.

[Earniel]

It looks like they're speeding up vaccine distribution in a lot of places. So I'm hoping for you!

Here, they've changed their minds from starting the second week of January, to right after Christmas, if possible.

That will be just in time, because after a nice free-fall across earlier December, infections are picking up again and they don't know why. Can hardly believe we're going from 2000 cases a day to 2500 in a week just because of lock-down parties.