Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[Non-Expert!]

There's nothing remotely uncharted about this. Humanity's gone through plagues that wiped out way fucking more of the total population of the planet than the Panda Pandemic could ever hope to accomplish even in its absolute worse-case scenario. The Black Death potentially killed 1/3rd of the entire human population on the planet in 1350 for Christ's sake. The problem with the Shaolin Sniffles is that a modern society has completely lost its ability to gauge perspective and it's lost all respect for what we had to go through just to make it to where we are today.

Tuberculosis, dysentery, malaria, diphtheria, flu, typhoid, smallpox, syphilis, polio, tetanus, or even just basic-bitch, run-of-the-mill infections all used to be extremely commonplace and before the invention of vaccines and antibiotics, odds were basically a guarantee that at some point, some random disease would take you out of the picture well before your hair started to turn grey, and more likely would kill you sometime before you even turned 5.

The history of our entire species is steeped in death and rampant disease, and most third world countries still live like this. Did you ever wonder why it's so common for families in these impoverished nations to have so many kids? It's because most of them are going to die. If you go to rural villages in India or China or Africa you will still find people afflicted with "old world" diseases that modern society pushed to the fringes.

But that push is recent. It's so recent that you can still find people who were afflicted with these sorts of things walking the streets (Well, figuratively) in America today. Mitch McConnell had polio when he was a kid. There are still people who are living out what's left of their lives in an Iron Lung. Western societies are barely a generation removed from all of these afflictions and yet most of the people living in these societies act like they're all something that happened 1,000 years ago and have nothing to do with the modern world, completely oblivious to the fact that taking your malaria medication is a routine way of life in most undeveloped countries, and drinking the water from the village well has a significant chance of infecting you with a parasite or a virus that's going to make you shit yourself to death.

In the grand scheme of things, COVID-19 with even a 5% mortality rate is nothing. It would barely even be worth mentioning in the history books if it didn't cause a brief, economic crash from all of the panic. The only reason that people are losing their minds is because Western civilization has gone for so long without having to care about infectious diseases on a larger scale. That sort of thing is something that happened in the history books or something that happens in some tribe of Tongue-Clickers in the middle of Africa, not something that happens to "me."

Diseases have done a Hell of a lot worse to us in the past. Wash your damned hands and you'll be fine.

Got it. .... It has been worse.

However the fact that smallpox took out entire villages 500 years ago is no comparison to what is going on today.

That is like saying, that people in Argentina who were tossed alive out of planes during the Dirty War, or the villages who got bombed in Viet Nam, did not have it as bad as the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had it.

Sure, we could have been prisoners of war forced to dig our own graves before Russian or German soldiers shot us. We could be natives on the Trail of tears or victims of Pol Pot or the Armenian Genocide.

I could also be a homeless, black, transsexual, diabetic, combat-wounded Viet Nam Veteran in a wheelchair.

What is the point? The fact that the black plague almost wiped out Europe's population is not an acceptable yardstick, against which we mobilize against a pandemic.

I think that it is easy to confuse "panic" and "concern" and "uncertainty." Especially when we Don't know each other IRL, and have no other information about who somebody is, except for the image we have of them in our own minds.

But onto a more important subject, I bet you will never know what it is like to be an overweight Black Lesbian dog owner on SSI, who follows a strict vegan diet.

EDIT: I got that about some third world countries ... however if we are to continue to be a leading world power, we also need to act like one and not have mass plague, high infant mortality, low life expectancy, sanitation issues, etc.

 

[TurdFondler]

I think the panic stems from two things:
First, it's such a shitty way to go it makes a great news story.

Second, it's not that the virus will kill untold thousands, it's that it has the potential to incapacitate the health care systems. It's a disruption to the status quo. Not to mention first responders are more likely to be exposed to it for obvious reasons, so it could potentially impair fire fighting and law enforcement.

Keeping the status quo intact is why shelter in place is happening.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

Got it. .... It has been worse.

However the fact that smallpox took out entire villages 500 years ago is no comparison to what is going on today.

That is like saying, that people in Argentina who were tossed alive out of planes during the Dirty War, or the villages who got bombed in Viet Nam, did not have it as bad as the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had it.

Sure, we could have been propisoners of war forced to dig our own graves before Russiann or German soldiers shot us.

I could also be a homeless, black, transsexual, diabetic, combat-wounded Viet Nam Veteran in a wheelchair.

What is the point? The fact that the black plague almost wiped out Europe's population is not an acceptable yardstick, against which we mobilize against a pandemic.

I think that it is easy to confuse "panic" and "concern" and "uncertainty." Especially when we Don't know each other IRL, and have no other information about who somebody is, except for the image we have of them in our own minds.

But onto a more important subject, I bet you will never know what it is like to be an overweight Black Lesbian dog owner on SSI, who follows a strict vegan diet.

You mean entire towns 90 years ago? Because Smallpox wasnt wiped out until the 1970s. less then a decade before you were born. Smallpox and polio were still killing Americans in the 50s. My grandmother remembers loosing friends and family to both diseases, as well as mumps and measles.

Why are pandemics of the past no longer acceptable yardsticks, in your mind? And why do you post things like "if you go grocery shopping you will bring the disease to your family" and "it wont be funny when you see the death trenches being dug"? Those are the definition of hysterical panicking.

The point, since you need it rammed into your head with a 2x4 (you using red herring arguments in an attempt to counter the information being given to you makes this obvious), is that modern society has weathered far worse pandemics then BatAIDS. We will not be digging trenches to mass bury the dead with impunity while our entire families are wiped out before our very eyes. We didnt have to do that with smallpox, even with spanish flu we were able to get systems up and running again after the initial shock of running out of coffins/space. It didnt become commonplace for years, unlike what some doomers believe, and Spanish flu killed many more people, and vastly more young people, then Corona does. society is not going to fall due to the coof, and despite what you are now claiming, you have been spending the last few days screaming at any posters that isnt going full duck-and-cover.

Take a break. Seriously. You are blathering personal information and hysterically addressing everyone you disagree with. You have kids already, a new one on the way, and are obviously not coping with shelter in place and pregnancy hormones well, which we know because you have told all of us this. We all get negative from time to time, you've been stuck on it for days. Focus on your family, stop focusing so much on death, its not doing your mental health any good.

 

[No Ma'ams Land]

Watching the first world realize its not that far removed from the third world has been hilarious. These fucking people. You want a real party? Wait until the stay-at-homes lose power longer than a day.

I swear the sheer amount of panic will stress kill / lead to life-ending decisions far sooner than the virus will. "Civilized" people are so bad at reacting to shake-ups. I used to think kids eating tide pods was retarded. Maybe they learned it from their parents.

 

[Rudy Russo]

Hey so I think I can find answer as to why Italy's funeraries are collapsing. See. I decided to go ask the hospital staff because I couldn't understand it.

So, turns out in spain at the begining of the emergency many funeraries' haulers mutinied due to lack of PPE. Which I find irresponsible but can't really blame them, I know how it feels honestly. Point is in response the government sent people who wouldn't mutiny to fill the gaps. Namely the army, we've had armymen hauling corpses and taking orders from civilians since before the alarm state was declared.

Italy had the same issue with haulers saying getting corona ain't worth the pay. And instead of sending the army to haul corpses they... waited until they could find haulers to replace them. Yeah. That... ehm. Wat.

So as it turns out while my math made no sense, indeed, taking into consideration a backlog of corpses caused by lack of transport, well, yeah that'd explain why the funeraries have collapsed. Good old stupidity.

Seriously people, the army has a department literally trained to fill roles in case of emergency, here it's the UME but all countries have their version. Their job is literally to get called in to fix logistical, infrastructural and sanitary emergencies when shit hits the fan. Maybe, just maybe, when shit hits the fan, you should actually try giving them a call. It's their god damned job ffs!

 

[Cat Menagerie]

And lots of people are saying that this is bad. That this is an uncharted territory. Experts in the field, governors, heads of state.

[Laughs in Native American]

 

[Thistle]

Reminder: Don't trust china, china is asshoe!

China LIED In Order To Extract Critical Medical Supplies, Launches Propaganda Campaign To Exploit Us

China LIED In Order To Extract Critical Medical Supplies, Launches Propaganda Campaign To Exploit Us. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic China has b...

www.youtube.com

 

[Sweetpeaa]

You mean entire towns 90 years ago? Because Smallpox wasnt wiped out until the 1970s. less then a decade before you were born. Smallpox and polio were still killing Americans in the 50s. My grandmother remembers loosing friends and family to both diseases, as well as mumps and measles.

Why are pandemics of the past no longer acceptable yardsticks, in your mind? And why do you post things like "if you go grocery shopping you will bring the disease to your family" and "it wont be funny when you see the death trenches being dug"? Those are the definition of hysterical panicking.

The point, since you need it rammed into your head with a 2x4 (you using red herring arguments in an attempt to counter the information being given to you makes this obvious), is that modern society has weathered far worse pandemics then BatAIDS. We will not be digging trenches to mass bury the dead with impunity while our entire families are wiped out before our very eyes. We didnt have to do that with smallpox, even with spanish flu we were able to get systems up and running again after the initial shock of running out of coffins/space. It didnt become commonplace for years, unlike what some doomers believe, and Spanish flu killed many more people, and vastly more young people, then Corona does. society is not going to fall due to the coof, and despite what you are now claiming, you have been spending the last few days screaming at any posters that isnt going full duck-and-cover.

Take a break. Seriously. You are blathering personal information and hysterically addressing everyone you disagree with. You have kids already, a new one on the way, and are obviously not coping with shelter in place and pregnancy hormones well, which we know because you have told all of us this. We all get negative from time to time, you've been stuck on it for days. Focus on your family, stop focusing so much on death, its not doing your mental health any good.

The behavior of authorities, lock down's, panic buying and social distancing measures are evoking memories of pandemic films in people, especially Contagion and outbreak. People are thinking they can predict ''what may happen next'' based on the films and terrifying themselves. I've heard plenty of ''mass grave'' scenarios lately.

It wouldn't be difficult for an anxiety riddled person to fall victim to their imagination. Most of us who drive through our towns and cities will notice much of the streets are empty right now with garbage tossed out on the streets and general emptiness.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

These places have the highest population density and have immigrants from cultures that like to be around other people... and touch faces (Italian, Chinese, African, Latin, etc). Makes sense.

Ah yes. I didn't know that, that's interesting. I figured that the west would have more spots that were contaminated, but they're not. The Eastern spots have it bad and I was surprised to see so many cases in Indiana of all places.

 

[JosephStalin]

I think the panic stems from two things:
First, it's such a shitty way to go it makes a great news story.

Second, it's not that the virus will kill untold thousands, it's that it has the potential to incapacitate the health care systems. It's a disruption to the status quo. Not to mention first responders are more likely to be exposed to it for obvious reasons, so it could potentially impair fire fighting and law enforcement.

Keeping the status quo intact is why shelter in place is happening.

But this policy seems to lock down health care providers that could be spared and used in hot spots. Saw a pic of some medical people from the West Coast heading to New York.

I reiterate that "shelter-in-place" be used only for cities/areas designated hot spots. Believe the hot spots are becoming more apparent now. Let everyone go, back to school, back to work. This will ease a lot of stress. One size doesn't fit all.

Also will restate the four stages Americans go through after a major disaster, such as Pearl Harbor or 9-11.

1 - The sky is falling!
2- No, the sky isn't going to fall. Let's get cracking!
3 - We're handling it. Not always pretty, not always easy, but we're handling it.
4 - We're used to it now and factor it into our daily lives.

Some are still in stage 1. Many have moved to stage 2. Some have moved to stage 3. And some have moved to stage 4. These stages aren't clear-cut, but signify the overall attitude.

 

[Arctic Fox]

I don't know, most of the posts I see are basically doomer-posting that adds nothing of value even if I skim through them. Sure, there's some educational posts here and there but there's a huge difference from how the thread is now and the thread in the early days.

Oh yeah, the beginning of the thread is really really informative.

It's the internet. There's always shitposting. You just can't be bothered to find the more relevant info without whining about it.

 

[MrBlueSocks]

This will be horrific. The population density there is something we as westerners just don’t really grasp. Even in crowded western cities, it’s nothing like India and I presume China is similar. So many people, so little free space. When this gets into India and Pakistan, and Africa, Syria... the thought is staggering.

Here is the wiki for cities with highest population density.
Interesting mix. London's not on the list at all (but the tube must make up for it).
The Philippines take the top three spots. We've got a poster giving reports from there, and yet it doesn't sound too bad yet?
So, looking for dense cities in countries with old people, should we be looking for France, Belgium and Greece to start pumping up those rookie numbers?

That is a lot of certainties with no hard evidence to back them up. How do you know that a second, even deadlier wave is coming? Are we going off of china's reports again? How do you know this isnt already the second wave, that the bizarre cold-that-is-not-a-cold that was spreading from october on wasnt wave 1?


On the subject of mutations: disease gravitate towards a happy medium that is more infectious but less lethal. Look at swine flu, in 10 years H1N1 went from killing 60K Americans a year to being only one of several strains that killed 6500. We know, from decades of modern medicine, that a more infectious but less deadly strain will eventually muscle out the more serious strains, unless in the presence of artificial factors. SARS didnt mutate because we FUCKING KILLED IT. The disease was unable to achieve widespread infections, cutting its lifespan short. Hell, Corona is being considered SARS 2, and its WAY less lethal then SARS 1 was. Spanish flu only became more deadly thanks to prolonged exposure to an artificial mutagen, mustard gas, in the trenches of WW1, and became so aggressive it burned itself out int he wild for over 80 years until it made the jump from animal to human again. Antibiotic resistant bacteria continue to exist if medication is used, these resistant strains require more energy, and over time, if no medication is used, the resistant strains will begin to die off in favor of more infectious non resistant strains that can outproduce the resistant strains on limited resources (this is how cattle are treated now, the ones infected with resistant strains are allowed to die separate from the herd to contain spread rather then using antibiotics so more resistance doesnt grow.) Obviously you cant do that in humans, not without being EXTREMELY problematic, so the persistent strains persist and drive new innovations like copper touching surfaces and the use of UV sterilization.

Evolution, especially for viruses, is a giant numbers game, and the more infectious but less lethal strains will continue to spread faster and become less deadly until they hit a level where they get so mild they cant spread without the immune system killing them first, thus you find your baseline for how aggressive the disease will typically be. Corona will become less deadly over time, especially as social distancing and quarantine will favor easier to catch but less deadly strains.

You're also making assumptions without evidence about the number of mild/asymptomatic cases. All those figures are spun out of very limited data. I mean they're the best guess we've got, but still. Likewise for the evolutionary pressures towards more virulent but less damaging strains. This is generally true, but the timescales are quite long, and our weird modern interconnected world and medical treatment may change things.

About the mustard gas mutating the Spanish Flu. What? Have you got a source for this, preferably not a website that would make Alex Jones raise an eyebrow? Mustard Gas + virus = Mustard gas as far as I know.
I think the synergy with WW1 was a) Huge numbers of weakened injured people from living in a cold wet muddy hole eating rats for 4 years . b) large movement of people around the world and other ecosystem disruption.

I agree that this thread has a fair bit of spergy doom posting, mainly by people with no previous experience of assessing scientific medical papers & jargon suddenly being overwhelmed with speculative shit studies.

But:
- The leaders of communist China , who don't give fuck about people, do care a lot about money , voluntarily trashed their economy over this.
- The leaders of the West, who are entirely beholden to big businesses and who worship the economy voluntarily trashed their economies over this.
- It's safe to assume that those two groups between them have better info and analysts than we do here.

So, it's not quite time to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside. But we should take it seriously.


Sorry, one more thing I just want to mention. The flu bros like to point out how the numbers of dead are still negligable compared to Cancer, Heart disease, violent death. In the US and UK that's still true. But Italy and Spain, the WuFLu deaths are affecting their overall death rates, they're not all replacement deaths now.

Italy:
Population 60,000,000
Normal Death rate 1670/day
Current Corona rate 750/day conservative estimate.
This has pushed the whole's country's rate up by 20%, even though most of the Corona deaths are in Lombardy.



We're all doomed /Private Frazer

 

[Rudy Russo]

Yeah, Baltimore and Boston, for sure, same situation as NYC.

Can also see the same issues in Russia. From what little I have seen there are many large apartment buildings in Russian cities. Add the general state of Russian health care and the population's health and I can see the ChiCom Flu taking a toll.

You can also see the CA model in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico. Cities tend to grow outward rather than grow upward.

We'll be able to tell our grandchildren of the 2020 Wu Flu and how urban sprawl saved us all.

 

[simulated goat]

I don't know, most of the posts I see are basically doomer-posting that adds nothing of value even if I skim through them. Sure, there's some educational posts here and there but there's a huge difference from how the thread is now and the thread in the early days.

Well to be fair the early thread had lurid chinese animal torture and mass weldings. There aren't enough New Yorkers collapsing and twitching yet to keep up that high caliber of horror porn information. Hopefully this thread bores itself to death as this becomes a nothing burger, but there is a morbid curiosity to it, wanting to see how it all turns out... the fact we are all stuck at home now doesn't help.

 

[ADHD]

For some perspective, from the task force briefing currently airing:


We may have the highest number of confirmed cases, but we don't have anywhere near the highest number of deaths. We're doing ok.

 

[Arctic Fox]

Here is the wiki for cities with highest population density.
Interesting mix. London's not on the list at all (but the tube must make up for it).
The Philippines take the top three spots. We've got a poster giving reports from there, and yet it doesn't sound too bad yet?
So, looking for dense cities in countries with old people, should we be looking for France, Belgium and Greece to start pumping up those rookie numbers?


You're also making assumptions without evidence about the number of mild/asymptomatic cases. All those figures are spun out of very limited data. I mean they're the best guess we've got, but still. Likewise for the evolutionary pressures towards more virulent but less damaging strains. This is generally true, but the timescales are quite long, and our weird modern interconnected world and medical treatment may change things.

About the mustard gas mutating the Spanish Flu. What? Have you got a source for this, preferably not a website that would make Alex Jones raise an eyebrow? Mustard Gas + virus = Mustard gas as far as I know.
I think the synergy with WW1 was a) Huge numbers of weakened injured people from living in a cold wet muddy hole eating rats for 4 years . b) large movement of people around the world and other ecosystem disruption.

I agree that this thread has a fair bit of spergy doom posting, mainly by people with no previous experience of assessing scientific medical papers & jargon suddenly being overwhelmed with speculative shit studies.

But:
- The leaders of communist China , who don't give fuck about people, do care a lot about money , voluntarily trashed their economy over this.
- The leaders of the West, who are entirely beholden to big businesses and who worship the economy voluntarily trashed their economies over this.
- It's safe to assume that those two groups between them have better info and analysts than we do here.

So, it's not quite time to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside. But we should take it seriously.


Sorry, one more thing I just want to mention. The flu bros like to point out how the numbers of dead are still negligable compared to Cancer, Heart disease, violent death. In the US and UK that's still true. But Italy and Spain, the WuFLu deaths are affecting their overall death rates, they're not all replacement deaths now.

Italy:
Population 60,000,000
Normal Death rate 1670/day
Current Corona rate 750/day conservative estimate.
This has pushed the whole's country's rate up by 20%, even though most of the Corona deaths are in Lombardy.



We're all doomed /Private Frazer

I think what's he's talking about in regards to mustard gas was victims being more susceptible to diseases that attack the lungs. Since mustard gas damaged the lungs of it's victims, among the myriad of other problems it caused. I think I remember reading an article like that. I'll try to find it.

 

[Fareal]

This is going around doctors’ FB groups captioned “Guidelines for use by orthopaedic consultants transferred to ICUs”

 

[Flaming Carrot]

I think the conventional wisdom on wearing masks in the United States is about to shift.

http://archive.li/Ln1WX

http://archive.li/rHSnM

https://archive.li/dErw8

We should have been wearing masks from the start. I know they want to save them for the healthcare workers, but if homemade masks can help, then lets start encouraging that instead of trying to keep the entire country under house arrest.

I don't think the lockdowns are sustainable, and I think the powers-that-be know it too. This is what's happening in New Jersey and New York City,

https://archive.li/d1EXM

https://archive.li/PQxVi

http://archive.li/6Qs2Z

If they can't get people to stop doing this in the hardest-hit part of the country, then how are they going to enforce it for the rest? Do we start allowing the government to track our cellphones -

http://archive.li/w1YBo

How do we make sure people who are infected stay under quarantine? Ankle bracelets? Do we start welding them into their homes? If the restrictions on infected people are too onerous, then is anyone going to submit to be tested? And do we get to vote on this at all? Right now, it's just governors throwing their weight around and issuing proclamations, and if you don't agree public parks and libraries are not essential but that liquor stores and vape shops are, well then I guess you just want someone's grandmother to die. We have to stop the world-ending plague, but also 80 percent of the people who get it will experience only mild, if any, symptoms. Are we going to end up like England, where people are calling the cops because their neighbor left the house for the second time that day -

https://archive.li/0l6TF

Is the ACLU ever going to weigh in on any of the decisions made my any politician? Is there no lockdown policy too absurd? Is anything too far? I'm doing my best to follow the rules, but I think they're going to start having people wear masks, wash hands, and stay away from nursing homes, because the lockdowns are going to tear this country to pieces if they go on for too long.

 

[ADHD]

And Trump just announced they're extending the "2 weeks to slow the spread" until April 30th. Wow.

well yeah, we have a higher testing rate than other countries. and we know china is lying about their numbers.

Right. I meant we shouldn't freak out about having the highest reported number of infections.

 

[Thistle]

For some perspective, from the task force briefing currently airing:
View attachment 1207754View attachment 1207755

We may have the highest number of confirmed cases, but we don't have anywhere near the highest number of deaths. We're doing ok.

well yeah, we have a higher testing rate than other countries. and we know china is lying about their numbers.