COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, Dick Allen said:

China and President Xi have also been doing a great job. Very transparent.

 

Donald J. Trump

 

@realDonaldTrump

·

Jan 24

 

China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!

I vote we start calling it the Trump Virus.

[StrangeSox]

China did do a pretty good job, though.

[Dick Allen]

This is classic.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Just now, StrangeSox said:

China did do a pretty good job, though.

Not really if you follow the document dump that CNN did the other day.  All they did was finally completely lock everything down and use human rights violations to stop people's movements.

[StrangeSox]

That document dump didn't really have anything that groundbreaking that we haven't seen from plenty of western countries. Oh, they underreported by a few thousand cases sometimes? Double their total 2020 case count and we are still surpassing it every single day. Yes, they had bureucratic screw-ups, and politically motivated public disclosures. But they also sequenced the virus and made that public very early on, which allowed Corbett's team at NIH (and others at other labs around the world) to develop their spike protein target by February so that we're looking at effective vaccines being widely available globally next year. There is certainly things to criticize about China's handling, but many western countries have done much, much worse. They had flawed testing that slowed down clinical diagnoses? Take a look at the CDC's initial fuck up where they insisted on developing their own test rather than using an already proven one, and oops, it didn't work!

 

They did lock everything down, and it worked. So did some other countries. Australia's Victoria province just got out of a strong two-month lockdown. Even relatively poor countries like Vietnam were able to get things under control with actually meaningful lockdowns and strong public health responses. It worked. Meanwhile, we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas and we're hitting 3k deaths a day before we get the Thanksgiving and Christmas tsunamis that will finally overwhelm our health care capacity across the country. We're staring at many more months of this. They're partying in the streets.

It's not that there's nothing to criticize about China's handling, or the handling by any of the other governments that have done well with this. Nothing is ever perfect, and there is always something to learn and improve. But they got this under control in a reasonable timeframe. The US's response has been catastrophically bad, and we will be paying the price for this for a long time to come.

What were the human rights violations China used to stop people's movements?

Edited December 3, 2020 by StrangeSox

[southsider2k5]

5 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

That document dump didn't really have anything that groundbreaking that we haven't seen from plenty of western countries. Oh, they underreported by a few thousand cases sometimes? Double their total 2020 case count and we are still surpassing it every single day. Yes, they had bureucratic screw-ups, and politically motivated public disclosures. But they also sequenced the virus and made that public very early on, which allowed Corbett's team at NIH (and others at other labs around the world) to develop their spike protein target by February so that we're looking at effective vaccines being widely available globally next year. There is certainly things to criticize about China's handling, but many western countries have done much, much worse. They had flawed testing that slowed down clinical diagnoses? Take a look at the CDC's initial fuck up where they insisted on developing their own test rather than using an already proven one, and oops, it didn't work!

 

They did lock everything down, and it worked. So did some other countries. Australia's Victoria province just got out of a strong two-month lockdown. Even relatively poor countries like Vietnam were able to get things under control with actually meaningful lockdowns and strong public health responses. It worked. Meanwhile, we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas and we're hitting 3k deaths a day before we get the Thanksgiving and Christmas tsunamis that will finally overwhelm our health care capacity across the country. We're staring at many more months of this. They're partying in the streets.

 

What were the human rights violations China used to stop people's movements?

Not sure where you got that by recognizing that China had screw ups that the US did not, but OK.

[Jack Parkman]

5 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

That document dump didn't really have anything that groundbreaking that we haven't seen from plenty of western countries. Oh, they underreported by a few thousand cases sometimes? Double their total 2020 case count and we are still surpassing it every single day. Yes, they had bureucratic screw-ups, and politically motivated public disclosures. But they also sequenced the virus and made that public very early on, which allowed Corbett's team at NIH (and others at other labs around the world) to develop their spike protein target by February so that we're looking at effective vaccines being widely available globally next year. There is certainly things to criticize about China's handling, but many western countries have done much, much worse. They had flawed testing that slowed down clinical diagnoses? Take a look at the CDC's initial fuck up where they insisted on developing their own test rather than using an already proven one, and oops, it didn't work!

 

They did lock everything down, and it worked. So did some other countries. Australia's Victoria province just got out of a strong two-month lockdown. Even relatively poor countries like Vietnam were able to get things under control with actually meaningful lockdowns and strong public health responses. It worked. Meanwhile, we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas and we're hitting 3k deaths a day before we get the Thanksgiving and Christmas tsunamis that will finally overwhelm our health care capacity across the country. We're staring at many more months of this. They're partying in the streets.

It's not that there's nothing to criticize about China's handling, or the handling by any of the other governments that have done well with this. Nothing is ever perfect, and there is always something to learn and improve. But they got this under control in a reasonable timeframe. The US's response has been catastrophically bad, and we will be paying the price for this for a long time to come.

What were the human rights violations China used to stop people's movements?

They'd kidnap people and take them to jail if they left their home for any reason at all. 

In a civilized world, where people are rational everyone would use their brain and choose to stay home. 

Unfortunately, people either choose to be ignorant, pretend like it isn't happening or both. 

 

[StrangeSox]

1 minute ago, Jack Parkman said:

They'd kidnap people and take them to jail if they left their home for any reason at all. 

In a civilized world, where people are rational everyone would use their brain and choose to stay home. 

Unfortunately, people either choose to be ignorant, pretend like it isn't happening or both. 

 

Or they have to go to work or face homelessness and starvation because their government has failed them.

[StrangeSox]

58 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Not sure where you got that by recognizing that China had screw ups that the US did not, but OK.

I'm responding to the idea that China didn't do a good job handling this. Good job doesn't mean perfection. Nothing in the CNN story contradicts the idea that China did a good job containing the coronavirus outbreak in their country.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

People should remember that all of the rules are really about probability risk curves, and nothing is 100%. 6 feet isn't some magical barrier.

 

 

 

edit: my wife's district is still planning on going back to in-person in January. Unless you're within 6 feet of someone who tested positive for more than 15 minutes without masks, you won't be notified. The message from administration is "we're allowing enough spacing, so we don't even have to worry about contact tracing!" This is similar to several other SW surburban district policies. Massive coverup of transmission within schools.

Edited December 3, 2020 by StrangeSox

[Jack Parkman]

14 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

Or they have to go to work or face homelessness and starvation because their government has failed them.

Yes, this is the appropriate framing of that issue. 

I expected the government to put people over profits during a public health crisis. Shame on me. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Jack Parkman

[southsider2k5]

 

[Danny Dravot]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

I'm responding to the idea that China didn't do a good job handling this. Good job doesn't mean perfection. Nothing in the CNN story contradicts the idea that China did a good job containing the coronavirus outbreak in their country.

Eh, I'd question the numbers out of China, honestly, and moreover, it's not surprising that an authoritarian government would have better pandemic outcomes than a democratic one. Just like I'd be less worried about street crime in Pyongyang than I would in Chicago.

People should take this seriously. People should wear masks, socially distance, and stay home if possible. At the same time, I support the Constitution and individual freedom, and in this country, we have to maneuver between the two sides in a way that China does not.

[Dick Allen]

The US death toll yesterday was higher than Japan's total for the entire pandemic.  I give Trump an A.

[StrangeSox]

5 minutes ago, Danny Dravot said:

Eh, I'd question the numbers out of China, honestly, and moreover, it's not surprising that an authoritarian government would have better pandemic outcomes than a democratic one. Just like I'd be less worried about street crime in Pyongyang than I would in Chicago.

People should take this seriously. People should wear masks, socially distance, and stay home if possible. At the same time, I support the Constitution and individual freedom, and in this country, we have to maneuver between the two sides in a way that China does not.

China took what now look like extreme measures in January and February, when the world knew much less about what's going on. If there was still a raging epidemic there, there would be signs of it. Even if you quadrupled all of China's numbers, we'd still be blowing by them on a nearly daily basis. There's no basis to assume that China did not actually manage to effectively contain the spread and that they haven't taken very proactive measures whenever there have been a handful of new cases.

 

Other, more democratic countries also took necessary and effective public health measures which included actual lockdowns compared to the joke response we got here. They had the benefit of a little bit of forewarning and a little bit more knowledge than China did.

 

The tradeoff in handling public health crises isn't "freedom vs. not having massive piles of dead bodies."

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

China took what now look like extreme measures in January and February, when the world knew much less about what's going on. If there was still a raging epidemic there, there would be signs of it. Even if you quadrupled all of China's numbers, we'd still be blowing by them on a nearly daily basis. There's no basis to assume that China did not actually manage to effectively contain the spread and that they haven't taken very proactive measures whenever there have been a handful of new cases.

 

Other, more democratic countries also took necessary and effective public health measures which included actual lockdowns compared to the joke response we got here. They had the benefit of a little bit of forewarning and a little bit more knowledge than China did.

 

The tradeoff in handling public health crises isn't "freedom vs. not having massive piles of dead bodies."

Again, seeing problems in China's approach doesn't mean there weren't problems in the Trump approach.  Not sure why you are defending China like you have a trade deal on the line, but proceed.

[StrangeSox]

I said they a pretty good job, not that there was nothing to criticize. 

It's pretty hard to argue that isn't representative of a good job, given how things are going in so many other places around the world. Australia did a good, but not perfect job. So did New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and many other Asian and African countries. Nobody's response has been perfect, but all things considered, China's was "pretty good." The information in the CNN story doesn't change that.

[Danny Dravot]

46 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

The tradeoff in handling public health crises isn't "freedom vs. not having massive piles of dead bodies."

Where's the line, then? How far would you go and when would you stop?

When it comes to fixing a domestic problem, the Chinese government has it easy. For a pandemic, people are going to stay in their homes and they're going to be steadfast about it, because it's not like the CCP is going to hit them with a measly fine that can be endlessly disputed in court.

I'm pro-mask, pro-social distancing, pro-staying at home, but anti-lockdown. Do you want police checkpoints making sure every driver is an essential worker or a doordash driver? We need to be responsible, we need leaders to promote responsibility and duty, and we even need some law enforcement responses for certain types (huge parties, people who won't wear a mask yet refuse to GTFO the store, etc). But we've objectively got more to grapple with than Beijing.

 

[Dick Allen]

2 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

I said they a pretty good job, not that there was nothing to criticize. 

It's pretty hard to argue that isn't representative of a good job, given how things are going in so many other places around the world. Australia did a good, but not perfect job. So did New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and many other Asian and African countries. Nobody's response has been perfect, but all things considered, China's was "pretty good." The information in the CNN story doesn't change that.

But Trump mentioned their containment. Of course the question could be what could they possibly have done to keep it from going worldwide. 

The other issue is Trump now blames China for his lack of action. He was soft because he was afraid his trade deal would fall apart for one thing, and who knows what else. He is Mr. Projection and has mentioned many times how Biden is in China's pocket. So I suspect Trump must be.

[southsider2k5]

3 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

But Trump mentioned their containment. Of course the question could be what could they possibly have done to keep it from going worldwide. 

The other issue is Trump now blames China for his lack of action. He was soft because he was afraid his trade deal would fall apart for one thing, and who knows what else. He is Mr. Projection and has mentioned many times how Biden is in China's pocket. So I suspect Trump must be.

Trump owes money to the Bank of China, so he quite literally is.

[StrangeSox]

Just now, Danny Dravot said:

Where's the line, then? How far would you go and when would you stop?

When it comes to fixing a domestic problem, the Chinese government has it easy. For a pandemic, people are going to stay in their homes and they're going to be steadfast about it, because it's not like the CCP is going to hit them with a measly fine that can be endlessly disputed in court.

I'm pro-mask, pro-social distancing, pro-staying at home, but anti-lockdown. Do you want police checkpoints making sure every driver is an essential worker or a doordash driver? We need to be responsible, we need leaders to promote responsibility and duty, and we even need some law enforcement responses for certain types (huge parties, people who won't wear a mask yet refuse to GTFO the store, etc). But we've objectively got more to grapple with than Beijing.

 

There are plenty of democratic countries that enforced strict containment measures that have worked and this has meant that their populations are now free to engage in more or less normal life and without the substantial, ongoing, no-clear-end-in-sight economic damage we're seeing in the US. China isn't the only country that managed to get a hold of this. It's not just authoritarian one-party states.

Victoria state (Melbourne) in Australia went into a tight lockdown for two months when they hit 100 cases a day. It sucked for the people there, but it was actually enforced and their government was able to help people get through it. You can't just point to the scary CCP and say that strict lockdowns aren't possible in democracies.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/victoria-australia-manitoba-analysis-1.5804343

 

Meanwhile, many of us are still essentially in self-imposed lockdown because a deadly pandemic is raging across the country and particularly in the Midwest. I'd much, much rather the US had gone through two months of tough restrictions in the spring so that we're not staring at another 55,000 or more dead Americans by Christmas day and no real end in sight after that.

[southsider2k5]

7 minutes ago, Danny Dravot said:

Where's the line, then? How far would you go and when would you stop?

When it comes to fixing a domestic problem, the Chinese government has it easy. For a pandemic, people are going to stay in their homes and they're going to be steadfast about it, because it's not like the CCP is going to hit them with a measly fine that can be endlessly disputed in court.

I'm pro-mask, pro-social distancing, pro-staying at home, but anti-lockdown. Do you want police checkpoints making sure every driver is an essential worker or a doordash driver? We need to be responsible, we need leaders to promote responsibility and duty, and we even need some law enforcement responses for certain types (huge parties, people who won't wear a mask yet refuse to GTFO the store, etc). But we've objectively got more to grapple with than Beijing.

 

This in combination with GPS tracking on a forced phone app is quite literally the Chinese approach to this.

[StrangeSox]

5 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

This in combination with GPS tracking on a forced phone app is quite literally the Chinese approach to this.

Checkpoints were also a key part of the Australian approach:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/16/ring-of-steel-melbourne-residents-face-5000-fines-for-trying-to-flee-to-regional-victoria#:~:text=There are now seven permanent,established on the Mornington Peninsula.

 

 

 

[Danny Dravot]

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

This in combination with GPS tracking on a forced phone app is quite literally the Chinese approach to this.

Genuine question, @StrangeSox, is this what you would want?

That's a bridge too far for me. It's a vast violation of privacy. Who determines if I'm essential or not? Who monitors all of these phones? What happens if I just want to drive around on dark country roads to get the kids to sleep, which I often do?

I've been doing the right thing and I'm ready to get back to normal, but I also don't find this that restrictive. I'm looking forward to going back to the airport more than anything else, but that time will come. No way am I going to step this up to government officials tracking my phone.

[Danny Dravot]

Just now, StrangeSox said:

Checkpoints were also a key part of the Australian approach:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/16/ring-of-steel-melbourne-residents-face-5000-fines-for-trying-to-flee-to-regional-victoria#:~:text=There are now seven permanent,established on the Mornington Peninsula.

No way. Wear your mask, stay six feet apart, refrain from going to dine-in restaurants and bars, but no way am I going to demand that police imprison us in our homes and neighborhoods.