COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[StrangeSox]

46 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Because they shut the entire region down using their army and police force for 2 months starting in January and made it a point to disinfect everything they could in order to get it under control 

If only we had first hand accounts of this, on this very thread. Oh well.

[The Beast]

1 hour ago, greg775 said:

Everything is so political. It's so tiring. Democrats and Republicans have never totally despised each other like this before. It's utter hatred. Everything is about politics. Sad.

And you’re just noticing this now? Where have you been? Bipartisanship, moderates and reasonable people are no more. It can’t happen with Trump in office, his base believing in whatever facts they want to believe in and money in politicians coffers pulling the strings.

[caulfield12]

7 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

I appreciate you being there at the epicenter...and we all pray for you Caulfied.  I've been to China many times and I'm familiar with the totalitarian state.   I'm sure they have Hubei completely locked down.  But there are 65 cities in China with more than a million people.  Hundreds of thousands left Wuhan on crowded planes, buses and trains to every region of China.  There are 13 cities in China with more people than NYC and NYC has 25,000 dead.  Something is missing.  

And they did the same in Beijing and Shanghai, especially to protect the capitol.  Months later, airplanes were still diverted to other cities despite the completion of yet another massive airport...there were about 12-13 second tier airports where if you wanted to eventually enter Beijing, you started off with a 14 day quarantine outside in another city...and perhaps even went through another quarantine upon entering the city.

 

At any rate, all these things will eventually come out in public/international investigations...but don’t particularly lead to any bipartisan solutions or trust right now in the US.    As far as MSM vs. Conservative Media, Benghazi and the email servers/“lock her up” are child’s play compared to the treatment Obama or Biden would get from Fox if the situations were reversed.   Very few read newspapers anymore.  Fox always outdraws CNN and MSNBC.   And Trump has about 6-8x as much money as Biden now.   Ironic, because he won in 2016 spending about 15-20% as much as the Clinton campaign. 

 

[The Beast]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-20200518-iht67oldlfhrnlju7dy4tkiad4-story.html
 

So, is he full of hot air or is he actually taking the drug?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/podcasts/the-daily/economy-coronavirus-jobs-layoffs.html

Also, should congress pass a bill for more money to save the economy? Jerome Powell seems to think so even if republicans in Congress don’t all think so. It makes me wonder if Trump will go after Biden saying there isn’t going to be money for his proposals even though Trump has added to the national deficit, going against what traditional conservatives believe.

 

[caulfield12]

10 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Spain, Italy, France, UK, Sweden, Belgium, Canada all have more deaths per capita than the US.  So to suggest we are the only ones stumbling in the dark on this thing is just wrong.  As I wrote earlier...we are also uniquely positioned to have it hit us hardly.  Seems like the villains in this drama are 1) China  2) CDC, 3) WHO (for getting billions in funding over the years and being completely flat footed on this).  If you want to put Trump and other EU leaders up there...fine.   

Criticizing your own CDC is like Joe Scarborough going on twitter to criticize Mika and Willie Geist.   There’s a direct line from Trump to Redfield.  He appointed a political hack who just happened to have DR. in front of his name.   You can say the same thing for Alex Azar at HHS.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

It was Trump who chose Robert Redfield to head the CDC in spite of widespread warnings about the former military officer’s controversial record. Redfield led the Pentagon’s response to HIV-Aids in the 1980s. It involved isolating suspected soldiers in so-called HIV Hotels. Many who tested positive were dishonourably discharged. Some committed suicide. A devout catholic, Redfield saw Aids as the product of an immoral society. For many years, he championed a much-hyped remedy that was discredited in tests. That debacle led to his removal from the job in 1994. 

One of the CDC’s constraints was to insist on developing its own test rather than import a foreign one. Dr Anthony Fauci – the infectious disease expert and now household name – is widely known to loathe Redfield, and vice versa. That meant the CDC and Fauci’s National Institutes of Health were not on the same page. “The last thing you need is scientists fighting with each other in the middle of an epidemic,” says Dr Kenneth Bernard, who set up a previous White House pandemic unit in 2004, which was scrapped under Barack Obama and later revived after Ebola struck in 2014.

The scarcity of kits meant that the scientists lacked a picture of America’s rapidly spreading infections. The CDC was forced to ration tests to “persons under investigation” – people who had come within 6ft of someone who had either visited China or been infected with Covid-19 in the previous 14 days. Most were denied. Few could prove that they had met either criterion. This was at a time when several countries, notably Germany, Taiwan and South Korea, gave access to on-the-spot tests, including at drive-through centres – an option most Americans still lack.

Advising Trump was like ‘bringing fruits to the volcano . . . You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason’

An administration official

[caulfield12]

7 minutes ago, The Beast said:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-20200518-iht67oldlfhrnlju7dy4tkiad4-story.html
 

So, is he full of hot air or is he actually taking the drug?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/podcasts/the-daily/economy-coronavirus-jobs-layoffs.html

Also, should congress pass a bill for more money to save the economy? Jerome Powell seems to think so even if republicans in Congress don’t all think so. It makes me wonder if Trump will go after Biden saying there isn’t going to be money for his proposals even though Trump has added to the national deficit, going against what traditional conservatives believe.

 

He does want negative interest rates (Trump, not Powell) for the first time in US history.  Not working well in Japan or Germany.

Politically, saying they’ve bankrupted the government so why vote for someone we hamstrung financially is smart politics...the problem is that people are going to begin to demand a better health care alternative to ObamaCare, and the GOP has nothing.  

Except the likelihood of future cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food/nutrition security for the poor (WIC/TANF) and children.   That’s why Trump has lost his huge margins in senior voters.   Covid threat, cost of living threat with 0% Fed rates, health care insurance threat, SS cuts threat....the combination of those four threats, simply killing Trump right now with older Americans and then there’s that trust factor.

[michelangelosmonkey]

10 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

And they did the same in Beijing and Shanghai, especially to protect the capitol.  Months later, airplanes were still diverted to other cities despite the completion of yet another massive airport...there were about 12-13 second tier airports where if you wanted to eventually enter Beijing, you started off with a 14 day quarantine outside in another city...and perhaps even went through another quarantine upon entering the city.

 

At any rate, all these things will eventually come out in public/international investigations...but don’t particularly lead to any bipartisan solutions or trust right now in the US.    As far as MSM vs. Conservative Media, Benghazi and the email servers/“lock her up” are child’s play compared to the treatment Obama or Biden would get from Fox if the situations were reversed.   Very few read newspapers anymore.  Fox always outdraws CNN and MSNBC.   And Trump has about 6-8x as much money as Biden now.   Ironic, because he won in 2016 spending about 15-20% as much as the Clinton campaign. 

 

That's interesting. It's amazing what a truly totalitarian state can do.   As you rightly say it doesn't offer much guidance to the swirling democracy we live in. 

I'm not sure it's fair to say "well if it would have been Obama it would have been worse."  I'm ideologically opposite of most of where President Obama stood...but I always thought he was elected and had a right to try and truly was good-hearted in his attempts at doing things I disagreed with.  Sure Fox news had negative stuff on him but only 30% of it was shrill.   But 90% of all news articles about Trump have been negative.  It's exhausting.  Honestly everything he's done has not been horrible. His responses to this virus have not been horrible.  But it seems there is no sense reason on the other side.  I used to love the Sunday political talk shows...not for the canned politicians reciting their talking points...but the moderators and talking heads dissecting the events.  Smart guys thinking and saying smart things in opposition but well thought out. Now it is just who can howl the loudest Trump hate.  

[Balta1701]

Just now, michelangelosmonkey said:

That's interesting. It's amazing what a truly totalitarian state can do.   As you rightly say it doesn't offer much guidance to the swirling democracy we live in. 

I'm not sure it's fair to say "well if it would have been Obama it would have been worse."  I'm ideologically opposite of most of where President Obama stood...but I always thought he was elected and had a right to try and truly was good-hearted in his attempts at doing things I disagreed with.  Sure Fox news had negative stuff on him but only 30% of it was shrill.   But 90% of all news articles about Trump have been negative.  It's exhausting.  Honestly everything he's done has not been horrible. His responses to this virus have not been horrible.  But it seems there is no sense reason on the other side.  I used to love the Sunday political talk shows...not for the canned politicians reciting their talking points...but the moderators and talking heads dissecting the events.  Smart guys thinking and saying smart things in opposition but well thought out. Now it is just who can howl the loudest Trump hate.  

OMFG yes they have been this is the definition of a horrible response. 

[michelangelosmonkey]

13 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Criticizing your own CDC is like Joe Scarborough going on twitter to criticize Mika and Willie Geist.   There’s a direct line from Trump to Redfield.  He appointed a political hack who just happened to have DR. in front of his name.   You can say the same thing for Alex Azar at HHS.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

It was Trump who chose Robert Redfield to head the CDC in spite of widespread warnings about the former military officer’s controversial record. Redfield led the Pentagon’s response to HIV-Aids in the 1980s. It involved isolating suspected soldiers in so-called HIV Hotels. Many who tested positive were dishonourably discharged. Some committed suicide. A devout catholic, Redfield saw Aids as the product of an immoral society. For many years, he championed a much-hyped remedy that was discredited in tests. That debacle led to his removal from the job in 1994. 

One of the CDC’s constraints was to insist on developing its own test rather than import a foreign one. Dr Anthony Fauci – the infectious disease expert and now household name – is widely known to loathe Redfield, and vice versa. That meant the CDC and Fauci’s National Institutes of Health were not on the same page. “The last thing you need is scientists fighting with each other in the middle of an epidemic,” says Dr Kenneth Bernard, who set up a previous White House pandemic unit in 2004, which was scrapped under Barack Obama and later revived after Ebola struck in 2014.

The scarcity of kits meant that the scientists lacked a picture of America’s rapidly spreading infections. The CDC was forced to ration tests to “persons under investigation” – people who had come within 6ft of someone who had either visited China or been infected with Covid-19 in the previous 14 days. Most were denied. Few could prove that they had met either criterion. This was at a time when several countries, notably Germany, Taiwan and South Korea, gave access to on-the-spot tests, including at drive-through centres – an option most Americans still lack.

Advising Trump was like ‘bringing fruits to the volcano . . . You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason’

An administration official

Come on Caulfield...CDC gets billions every year to prepare for this.  The president has no idea about viruses...he has a multi-billion dollar organization that has been running for decades and a pandemic comes along and the life long veterans that are there...gave this?  Institutions run irrespective of their leaders.  GM can have a bad CEO but the guys throughout the organization still understand cars.  The test launch is an embarrassment.   France has been worse.  UK worse.  Were they too stupid to copy the Koreans too?   The Canadians?   

[Quin]

35 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Spain, Italy, France, UK, Sweden, Belgium, Canada all have more deaths per capita than the US.  So to suggest we are the only ones stumbling in the dark on this thing is just wrong.  As I wrote earlier...we are also uniquely positioned to have it hit us hardly.  Seems like the villains in this drama are 1) China  2) CDC, 3) WHO (for getting billions in funding over the years and being completely flat footed on this).  If you want to put Trump and other EU leaders up there...fine.   

Actually according to data from the Global Health Security Index, we were the best equipped nation to handle a pandemic.

https://www.statista.com/chart/20629/ability-to-respond-to-an-epidemic-or-pandemic/

Before anyone asks, GHSI is from Johns Hopkins University.

[michelangelosmonkey]

7 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

OMFG yes they have been this is the definition of a horrible response. 

And those idiots in France...and those Idiots in Spain...and those idiots in Belgium...and those idiots in England...and those idiots in Sweden...if we could only have you as world despot there would have been zero deaths.   

[Balta1701]

9 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

And those idiots in France...and those Idiots in Spain...and those idiots in Belgium...and those idiots in England...and those idiots in Sweden...if we could only have you as world despot there would have been zero deaths.   

Frankly yes, several of those countries have done terrible jobs. England was awful, they had the wonderful "let's get to Herd immunity by letting it infect everyone" idea until their universities told them that's going to kill a million citizens. Sweden has had no official lockdowns, so saying they're idiots is describing exactly what we're doing right now. Spain and France got hit hard early, but they've also dropped their case loads down hugely since their peaks, which we have not done. 

There's no reason why the US had to have 100,000 dead people. We could have kept it to a few thousand with appropriate preparation and leadership, maybe even less. 

[caulfield12]

29 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Come on Caulfield...CDC gets billions every year to prepare for this.  The president has no idea about viruses...he has a multi-billion dollar organization that has been running for decades and a pandemic comes along and the life long veterans that are there...gave this?  Institutions run irrespective of their leaders.  GM can have a bad CEO but the guys throughout the organization still understand cars.  The test launch is an embarrassment.   France has been worse.  UK worse.  Were they too stupid to copy the Koreans too?   The Canadians?   

Except Trump has completely decapitated the “head of the snake” of the supposed deep state lurking in every agency...and replaced them with political operators.  Even Dr. Birx is perfectly suited for that role, failing to call out the disinfectant/UV comments right away.  Her only success has been getting Trump to reverse his support of the GA reopening.

Last time I checked, UK/Italy/France reached their peaks between 1850-1945.  We spend far more than any country in the world on health care, but across the board outcomes are right in line with our world public education rankings, between late 20’s and mid 30’s.

 

US Inspectors General Fired in last six weeks=4

Covid Deaths in Vietnam, New Zealand, Taiwan and Hong Kong=32

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

14 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Frankly yes, several of those countries have done terrible jobs. England was awful, they had the wonderful "let's get to Herd immunity by letting it infect everyone" idea until their universities told them that's going to kill a million citizens. Sweden has had no official lockdowns, so saying they're idiots is describing exactly what we're doing right now. Spain and France got hit hard early, but they've also dropped their case loads down hugely since their peaks, which we have not done. 

There's no reason why the US had to have 100,000 dead people. We could have kept it to a few thousand with appropriate preparation and leadership, maybe even less. 

Italy has more issues with underlying conditions, smoking and a decaying health care infrastructure and general economic malaise.

Finland and Norway have done much better...compared to Sweden.  It’s completely fair to compare those three countries, as they have multiple layers of similarity.

UK had a mostly political response, and panicked.

Spain does have more tourism, so increased travel is a factor there.  Same with France.

 

[southsider2k5]

33 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

And those idiots in France...and those Idiots in Spain...and those idiots in Belgium...and those idiots in England...and those idiots in Sweden...if we could only have you as world despot there would have been zero deaths.   

This reads like a Trump tweet storm in its efforts to deflect blame.  Only needs to work in Obama or Biden to make it an A+.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, The Beast said:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-20200518-iht67oldlfhrnlju7dy4tkiad4-story.html
 

So, is he full of hot air or is he actually taking the drug?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/podcasts/the-daily/economy-coronavirus-jobs-layoffs.html

Also, should congress pass a bill for more money to save the economy? Jerome Powell seems to think so even if republicans in Congress don’t all think so. It makes me wonder if Trump will go after Biden saying there isn’t going to be money for his proposals even though Trump has added to the national deficit, going against what traditional conservatives believe.

 

He either has Covid, or is lying about taking the drug. Either is plausible. 

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

He either has Covid, or is lying about taking the drug. Either is plausible. 

His Dr.'s could be lying to him/giving him a  very dilute dose also. 

[Jerksticks]

10 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Frankly yes, several of those countries have done terrible jobs. England was awful, they had the wonderful "let's get to Herd immunity by letting it infect everyone" idea until their universities told them that's going to kill a million citizens. Sweden has had no official lockdowns, so saying they're idiots is describing exactly what we're doing right now. Spain and France got hit hard early, but they've also dropped their case loads down hugely since their peaks, which we have not done. 

There's no reason why the US had to have 100,000 dead people. We could have kept it to a few thousand with appropriate preparation and leadership, maybe even less. 

Can you help me understand how it SHOULD have been done? 
 

You’re President Balta, it’s the end of January and Fauci is telling the American people between Jan 20-26 this is not something Americans need to worry about, that the risk over here is low, but that they are closely monitoring it.  Not sure what he’s telling Trump but that’s the message out there.  Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people are flying in and out of China and Wuhan.  
 

What do you do to ensure only a few thousand deaths?
 

 

[The Beast]

1 hour ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

That's interesting. It's amazing what a truly totalitarian state can do.   As you rightly say it doesn't offer much guidance to the swirling democracy we live in. 

I'm not sure it's fair to say "well if it would have been Obama it would have been worse."  I'm ideologically opposite of most of where President Obama stood...but I always thought he was elected and had a right to try and truly was good-hearted in his attempts at doing things I disagreed with.  Sure Fox news had negative stuff on him but only 30% of it was shrill.   But 90% of all news articles about Trump have been negative.  It's exhausting.  Honestly everything he's done has not been horrible. His responses to this virus have not been horrible.  But it seems there is no sense reason on the other side.  I used to love the Sunday political talk shows...not for the canned politicians reciting their talking points...but the moderators and talking heads dissecting the events.  Smart guys thinking and saying smart things in opposition but well thought out. Now it is just who can howl the loudest Trump hate.  

Even on Meet the Press or Face the Nation? Trump himself is exhausting, although if they ignore him, he will accuse the media of not covering him. They have an impossible task, hold him to the fire or ask him questions and he goes off the rails.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Jerksticks said:

Can you help me understand how it SHOULD have been done? 
 

You’re President Balta, it’s the end of January and Fauci is telling the American people between Jan 20-26 this is not something Americans need to worry about, that the risk over here is low, but that they are closely monitoring it.  Not sure what he’s telling Trump but that’s the message out there.  Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people are flying in and out of China and Wuhan.  
 

What do you do to ensure only a few thousand deaths?
 

 

1. January: recognize issue, ramp up production of masks, PPE.

2. Bring in the WHO tests in January, distribute widely. Work with the FDA to approve additional facilities to conduct tests. We were flying blind the entire month of February, missing probably 10,000 cases.

3. By late February, with adequate testing, we've realized we have hundreds of cases in CA and WA and thousands of cases in New York. Panic. Slam those cities shut. Shut down schools, the subway, taxis, restaurants. Cancel big events (there was a super-spreading event at a conference in Boston in late Feb.). Cancel spring break trips, begin imposing international travel limits. Regardless of what was said in January, no matter how many stocks Republican senators dumped, by the fact that we have testing we have information to go from.

4. Start setting up emergency quarantine procedures. People coming into the country are isolated by law for 14 days. GPS units or whatever it takes. Take over a whole bunch of Hotels and use them to begin quarantining infected people away from their families, with food, for free, so that you cut off familial transmission lines. 

5. Take all that testing capacity you built up by being responsible in February and throw it as hard as you can at NYC. Burn out those transmission chains. That is where the US outbreak came from. Every departure you get from there shuts down an outbreak somewhere in the country.

6. In March, start working for long-term containment. Encourage people to begin wearing masks. Local and state health departments gear up for contact tracing. Whenever a case pops up, trace it as aggressively as possible. This is going to be hard because you'll have to deal with popups in underserved communities, including native americans, undocumented immigrants, poor and uninsured people, but you have to do it. Start developing plans for how to keep industries functioning without outbreaks, 

7. Begin re-opening things around late April, particularly in places that haven't shown a case in 2+ weeks. Don't do it by states, do it by locality. When you have a flare-up, then you do additional shutdowns and quarantines as necessary. Note how much less the economic impact is at this point, because businesses are able to start recovering a month ago.

8. Consistent messaging led by scientists and the CDC so that we're reinforcing constantly that this is a serious situation but that by being responsible we are winning. 

This has worked in South Korea, Germany, this has New Zealand down to 0 cases. 

BTW, just to add, the second worst US politician in their response to this, behind Trump, was DiBlasio. 

[Dick Allen]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

His Dr.'s could be lying to him/giving him a  very dilute dose also. 

I’m skeptical. Is it just coincidence he announces this hours after Dr. Bright is on 60 Minutes, which Trump live tweeted?

 

[caulfield12]

7.  Scientists require observable data, not _______________, to support a hypothesis;  sound science is grounded in _______________ results rather than speculation.

 

A) induction…diminutive

B) experimentation…pragmatic

C) intuition…fiscal

D) bombast…theoretical

E) conjecture…empirical

[michelangelosmonkey]

18 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

1. January: recognize issue, ramp up production of masks, PPE.

2. Bring in the WHO tests in January, distribute widely. Work with the FDA to approve additional facilities to conduct tests. We were flying blind the entire month of February, missing probably 10,000 cases.

3. By late February, with adequate testing, we've realized we have hundreds of cases in CA and WA and thousands of cases in New York. Panic. Slam those cities shut. Shut down schools, the subway, taxis, restaurants. Cancel big events (there was a super-spreading event at a conference in Boston in late Feb.). Cancel spring break trips, begin imposing international travel limits. 

4. Start setting up emergency quarantine procedures. People coming into the country are isolated by law for 14 days. GPS units or whatever it takes. Take over a whole bunch of Hotels and use them to begin quarantining infected people away from their families, with food, for free, so that you cut off familial transmission lines. 

5. Take all that testing capacity you built up by being responsible in February and throw it as hard as you can at NYC. Burn out those transmission chains. That is where the US outbreak came from. Every departure you get from there shuts down an outbreak somewhere in the country.

6. In March, start working for long-term containment. Encourage people to begin wearing masks. Local and state health departments gear up for contact tracing. Whenever a case pops up, trace it as aggressively as possible. This is going to be hard because you'll have to deal with popups in underserved communities, including native americans, undocumented immigrants, poor and uninsured people, but you have to do it. Start developing plans for how to keep industries functioning without outbreaks, 

7. Begin re-opening things around late April, particularly in places that haven't shown a case in 2+ weeks. Don't do it by states, do it by locality. When you have a flare-up, then you do additional shutdowns and quarantines as necessary.

8. Consistent messaging led by scientists and the CDC so that we're reinforcing constantly that this is a serious situation but that by being responsible we are winning. 

This has worked in South Korea, Germany, this has New Zealand down to 0 cases. 

BTW, just to add, the second worst US politician in their response to this, behind Trump, was DiBlasio. 

I think many of your ideas are useful.  I think the next time we will be better prepared.  I think there are zero presidents in my lifetime that would have ramped up production in January for a virus unknown outside of China at that time....or end of February when twenty Americans had it.   I think outside of a few in the CDC most people in the US were not that freaked out about Viruses.  I asked my parents if they remember the 1957 outbreak (in their thirties at the time) they can't even remember it...and it was BAD.   I was a young kid in 1968 and remember the Hong Kong flu...but more as a comedy punch line than something I was "afraid" of.  Sars, Mers, Swine flu?  The annual flu?  Meh.  Only 40% of Americans were even bothering with the flu vaccine.  But NOW....every weird disease is going to be treated as if it is the big one.  I for one wouldn't mind seeing 10% of the $700 defense budget being shifted over to the CDC. Of course we are always fighting the last battle...five years from now it will be a super volcano and everyone will be saying the president is an idiot because he didn't prepare us for it...or alien invasion...or polar shift...or solar flares that knock out all electronics.  So many terrors out there.    

[Balta1701]

Just now, michelangelosmonkey said:

I think many of your ideas are useful.  I think the next time we will be better prepared.  I think there are zero presidents in my lifetime that would have ramped up production in January for a virus unknown outside of China at that time....or end of February when twenty Americans had it.   I think outside of a few in the CDC most people in the US were not that freaked out about Viruses.  I asked my parents if they remember the 1957 outbreak (in their thirties at the time) they can't even remember it...and it was BAD.   I was a young kid in 1968 and remember the Hong Kong flu...but more as a comedy punch line than something I was "afraid" of.  Sars, Mers, Swine flu?  The annual flu?  Meh.  Only 40% of Americans were even bothering with the flu vaccine.  But NOW....every weird disease is going to be treated as if it is the big one.  I for one wouldn't mind seeing 10% of the $700 defense budget being shifted over to the CDC. Of course we are always fighting the last battle...five years from now it will be a super volcano and everyone will be saying the president is an idiot because he didn't prepare us for it...or alien invasion...or polar shift...or solar flares that knock out all electronics.  So many terrors out there.    

At the end of February there were probably somewhere between a few thousand and ten-thousand cases, concentrated in New York. There were a few dozen cases known because we had run a few hundred tests total. 

[michelangelosmonkey]

3 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

7.  Scientists require observable data, not _______________, to support a hypothesis;  sound science is grounded in _______________ results rather than speculation.

 

A) induction…diminutive

B) experimentation…pragmatic

C) intuition…fiscal

D) bombast…theoretical

E) conjecture…empirical

F) models...repeatable double blind tested trial