Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[JosephStalin]

You say that, but if anything I've seen nothing but the opposite just about everywhere I look. It's genuinely disturbing how brainwashed people already are to be used to this extremely quick and drastic change in lifestyle. Any hint of somebody suggesting movement to open things up again and they're immediately branded as selfish idiots at best to criminals worthy of the death sentence at worst. And the TV ads you see anymore is shit straight out of every dystopian film out there with lines like "the new normal" and celebrities telling us commoners that we're "fighting the good fight" by being good little livestock and staying locked in our pens.

I'm sure there's a silent majority that's chomping at the bit to actually get life back to normal, but the bootlickers are screaming loud as all hell for the time being.

That's exactly why the pushbacks will continue. More and more people are waking up. More of those calling people selfish are being called out themselves. No option but to keep pushing back. Just hope things will stay peaceful, because the anger is rising, quietly for now.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

If I have to go to a hospital I am scrawling DO NOT VENT NO CONSENT in magic marker all over my chest.

When reports came out that the mortality rate of patients on ventilators was 80% and more I wrote my loved ones and made it clear I didn't want to be intubated because the odds of surviving this thing were higher otherwise in NYC. The idea that politicians would badmouth a treatment, even ban it because OrangeManBad is absolutely criminal. I hope Trump follows through on making hydroxychloroquine (edited to fix auto correct) OTC.

That woman in the video is "my friend says" but it sounds plausible given what we already know to be true. Cuomo and De Blasio are both shit, they are the main reason I am GTFO out of this shithole. Their bungling of this directly led to people dying. I've stated as much here several times. Both of them are grifters and I hope they become the subject of Federal criminal investigations that will drain them both of their ill-gotten money.

Edit: Cuomo doesn't know if the China virus came from Italy or his butthole, he needs to shut the fuck up.

We also can't ignore the fact that Hydroxychloroquine is an incredibly inexpensive drug. Infinitely cheaper than ventilators.

We all know that the FDA and big pharma don't like inexpensive solutions.

 

[737 MAX Stan Account]

The absolute state of Sweedish Politics sumarized in one post. Fuck me that's horrifying.

How has that country not gone under yet?

 

[Barnard]

https://twitter.com/iwona_sol/status/1254790486965071872

Apparently this fucker is 100 years old, caught the coofs and lived to tell the tale. So there, we have our own miracle story.

 

[Freya]

The biggest takeaway from this whole thing for me has been realizing how reetarded and worthless the average person is.

These motherfuckers will buy up all the essentials at a store and then call the cops on you if they see three cars in your driveway.

Undercover Cops Arrest 2 Women for Operating Home Beauty Businesses In Violation of Coronavirus Lockdown Order

Lockdown enforcement is becoming more authoritarian.

reason.com

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

You say that, but if anything I've seen nothing but the opposite just about everywhere I look. It's genuinely disturbing how brainwashed people already are to be used to this extremely quick and drastic change in lifestyle. Any hint of somebody suggesting movement to open things up again and they're immediately branded as selfish idiots at best to criminals worthy of the death sentence at worst. And the TV ads you see anymore is shit straight out of every dystopian film out there with lines like "the new normal" and celebrities telling us commoners that we're "fighting the good fight" by being good little livestock and staying locked in our pens.

I'm sure there's a silent majority that's chomping at the bit to actually get life back to normal, but the bootlickers are screaming loud as all hell for the time being.

Or more "disturbingly" the silent majority make up the majority of what you call bootlickers. A lot of WW2 spirit and iconography has been used here in bongland for excellent effect. It's the "pushbackers" that look like the absolute lunatics right now.

Couple it with the talk of it not being permanent and there seems to be a lot of tinfoil hatting that absolutely nothing will ever go back to normal ever again, I think this talk is... well.

Really silly.

For all the dystopian wanking and tossing off of talk we're having (much like the doomers we did before hand) you'd be looking at far too fundamental a change to a system that lots of people vote for and find rather comfortable. Coronachan threatens the global order almost as much as it threatens lives and like any antibody system, it will fight off this change.

This is why, despite the rather generous money given by the UK government they've made it perfectly clear these things are loans and they plan to get the damn stuff back one way or another.

Because otherwise money is meaningless as it's just 1's, 0's and mythical "confidence". Which would collapse a hell of a lot more economically than this rather moderate interruption we're currently experiencing.

Kind of imagine, I dunno, pick a hideous, hideous historical event involving a lot of money collapse, war, etc like The General Crisis.

 

[737 MAX Stan Account]

Also, wouldn't Self-Isolating actually weaken our immune systems? Alot of this shit doesn't add up. To take a quote from WWII, there's something phony about this pandemic.

 

[moocow]

The biggest takeaway from this whole thing for me has been realizing how reetarded and worthless the average person is.

These motherfuckers will buy up all the essentials at a store and then call the cops on you if they see three cars in your driveway.

Undercover Cops Arrest 2 Women for Operating Home Beauty Businesses In Violation of Coronavirus Lockdown Order

Lockdown enforcement is becoming more authoritarian.

reason.com

That'll be a fun one for a wily lawyer to take on. That's gotta be constitutional violation of some sort ... open/free commerce or some such, freedom of association, etc.?

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

Also, wouldn't Self-Isolating actually weaken our immune systems? Alot of this shit doesn't add up. To take a quote from WWII, there's something phony about this pandemic.

The amount of time you'd have to stay isolated for that to be true is measured in years. Tone down the paranoia a bit.

 

[coolkille]

But if that report is correct their talk of listening to science is just that, empty talk, and as soon as they don't like the data they cut the feed. Fucking hell I've seen this before. In ISCIII no less. Back with Rajoi he pulled some bullshit with that... I won't go into another tismfit, but suffice to say it was yet another of that man's many failings. And how did it end? With him cutting healthcare during flu season, overloading the system, and causing untold unnecesary deaths. That's how.

Anyone that is more knowledgeable about the situation is free to correct me.

Regarding the first article, I believe Anders Wallensten (FHM/Public Health Authority) has stated that gap between their assessment of deaths and Socialstyrelsens/The National Board of Health will narrow as time passes. The deaths that FHM count are all confirmed, whereas Socialstyrelsen also counts the deaths of persons that have been evaulated by doctors to be infected with the virus.

The second article is locked and I haven't had the patience to thoroughly read through the seemingly Google-translated version that was posted, but the second article seems to have to do with the symptoms of people infected with the virus.

The FHM/Public Health Authority hasn't cancelled/cut anything, except for the data gathering or an app(?) on Corona symptoms and infections, as it apparently has to be made available for everybody in the country, not just 1 or 2 regions.

Somewhat unrelated, but I honestly hope we shut down religious/cultural events and bars, etc. Valborg is coming up and Ramadan has already begun. The former event might be smaller in scale since it's an indigenous event, but I don't really trust most muslims to heed recommendations and warnings...

EDIT: Off-topic, but the amount of completely unjustified whining that has come from some immigrant groups regarding ''oppression'' and ''racism'' because how of how overrepresented they are in the death toll, makes me not being too bothered about them getting together and infecting each other, in some aspects. Those who are not hip to how ignorant, arrogant and stupid some of these people are, will be hip to it. Nobody's asking you to move here and live off welfare, while living together with 8 persons in one apartment and deciding to not give a flying fuck about public health.

 

[JosephStalin]

That'll be a fun one for a wily lawyer to take on. That's gotta be constitutional violation of some sort ... open/free commerce or some such, freedom of association, etc.?

Folks, there are already lawsuits wending their way through various state and Federal courts re violations of civil rights due to these statewide house arrests. Believe there will be many more suits coming in May. The fallout from these lawsuits could affect or maybe even prevent statewide house arrests in the future.

Here are two very interesting op-eds.

Opinion | America Shouldn’t Have to Play by New York Rules

A national lockdown is bad medicine and worse politics.

www.nytimes.com

https://archive.vn/5a048

The scab & the wound beneath by Victor Davis Hanson

On painful realities in the age of the coronavirus.

newcriterion.com

https://archive.vn/gUAr8

Throwing this in, just for shits and grins. Hope it comes out.

https://patriot.imgix.net/090c692cef5c9c37627bec843b0a05657674b458945613b3f89a3e724d6ffa2e.jpg?w=720&auto=format

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

UK Daily:

719,910 Tested (+37,024)

157,149 Positive (+4,310)

21,092 Dead (+310)

The monday drop is enormous. We were typically seeing 600 or so at the peak after Sunday's figures came out.

It does seem like light is beginning to peak in the tunnel's mouth.

=======================

So here's a great clip from today's briefing. Robert Peston is the journalist who takes forever to ask an idiotic question about some insurance companies gypping people or something, he takes so long and drones for so long nobody gives a fuck. Hancock is becoming quite the entertainer when they do this stupid.

He then promptly whined about the government just sidestepping useless bastards like him over on Twitter the comment chain to the tweet is absolutely great and shows that even on Twitter the echo chamber is rather shallow...

 

[Cat Menagerie]

It’s a limited opening, so I don't think it's going to be too bad. I'm furloughed through May, so I won't have a reason to go into the city though.

I'm definitely not worried here in the city, either. Restaurant lobbies will reopen this Friday, but they'll have to space seating etc. to comply with CDC guidelines. Like you said, it'll be limited in scope and split up in phases. COVID is already in a good number of our nursing homes so there's nothing more to prevent on that front.

The truth is, we have more pressing concerns here, like our imminent revenue failure, energy industry collapse, and weather. We are in for some bad times for sure but that's how it goes here. Speaking of weather, keep an eye on the forecast for tomorrow.

 

[Plague Dog]

I'm a bit late, but am I the only one not surprised nor impressed with the nurse's claims?

• Ppe is low so they're only changing outer gloves when going from room to room. - Yeah, that makes sense, the smock and booties have a lot less contact with the patients than anything else. This seems like the best they can do with limited supplies.
• Limiting going into patient rooms. - No shit, they don't have ppe.
• The use of ventilators over other breathing apparatus - while I don't know all the particulars of the other respiratory options, she was saying that there isn't sufficient ppe for every room, so you'd want a closed system, not one that sprays viruses everywhere?
• Leaving some people to die - yeah, that's triage. The order of triage is: urgent, not urgent, dead anyway. I read elsewhere that people on vents only recovered 50% of the time normally.

I'm not claiming that everything is absolutely hunky dory (I don't know what to think about the healthcare workers in hotels or the precise medicines), but to me a lot of it sounds like what I'd expect. It's an overworked system because it's a catastrophe. Without enough ppe, measures are being taken to reduce the spread and focus on the people that can be saved. It doesn't sound as nefarious to me as she makes it out to be.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

Based Czechs.jpg

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

The scab & the wound beneath by Victor Davis Hanson

On painful realities in the age of the coronavirus.

newcriterion.com

https://archive.vn/gUAr8

Victor Davis Hanson is always a pleasure to read. I like his bit on how the EU's attempt at supranational governance melted away during the coronavirus crisis, just like it melted in the Euro crisis and the migrant crisis.

The virus also exposed the absurdities of transnational utopianism more generally. For decades, the European Union has been held up by progressives as a model that had ossified old national rivalries and chronic European wars. The original and inspired European Common Market, in comparison, appeared to elites as a Neanderthal effort of only haphazardly integrating a few autonomous European economies. In contrast, the European Union would create an economic colossus comparable to the United States. But it would be guided by postmodern humanitarianism, sustained by wind and solar energy, and defended by heralded “soft” power. In fact, it was soon run and financed by a new Germany that increasingly sounds as we would expect an old Germany to sound.

Nonetheless, boundaries were to disappear. A common currency and common protocols would create a European new man. All-knowing, all-wise technocrats in Brussels and Strasbourg would adjudicate what exactly qualified as a banana on Crete. But then suddenly something happened to pan-European ecumenicism. The virus arrived and most of Northern Italy turned into something nightmarish, right out of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Spain began to suffer a viral death rate of over 2,500 fatalities per million population, as if it were the beginning of 1348 rather than of 2020.

Borders slammed and have remained shut. The much-lauded Schengen Area Agreement that had abolished all passport control and border checkpoints among twenty-five European countries—a postmodern pact often contrasted with the supposedly paranoid and premodern U.S. border wall with Mexico—was suspended in a few minutes.

What was to be the fate of so-called undocumented migrants who sought an enlightened European refuge from the horrors of Africa and the Middle East? The logic of Camus’ La Peste took over. Interned in Turkey and Greece, the migrants were now quarantined and treated as suspect illegal aliens that should go home to North Africa.

Did German banks step up to relax repayment schedules to their near-bankrupt Mediterranean brothers, hit hardest by the virus? In the euphemistic language of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the notion of issuing “corona bonds” was not “the view of all EU countries.” Translated, that meant EU brother nations with cash and fewer dead were certainly not going to lend money to EU nations without it but with more dead.

Surely medical supplies such as ventilators and masks were common EU property, a humanitarian version of the common Euro that reflected pan-European brotherhood? Not quite, as the ancient creed of every nation for itself supplanted the European Convention on Human Rights before the European Union announced a transnational medical stockpile. Germany abruptly stopped all shipments of key medical supplies before later opening up exports. It tightened its borders. It turned back French shoppers who had skipped across to hoard at better-stocked German supermarkets. The virus should remind Europe that if a war ever came, any EU-abiding country that shared its arsenal and headed for the front would suffer the fate of the virtuous citizens in the plague chronicles of Thucydides and Procopius who died first.

So here's a great clip from today's briefing. Robert Peston is the journalist who takes forever to ask an idiotic question about some insurance companies gypping people or something, he takes so long and drones for so long nobody gives a fuck. Hancock is becoming quite the entertainer when they do this stupid.

I like Hancock's expression. You can tell he's thinking 'Jesus. Who gives a shit?'

 

[Nykysnottrans]

"In this video, I discuss the most important drugs that are being investigated in Randomized Control Trials for Coronavirus aka COVID19"

Spoiler: Videos of interest - please do not archive

23 year old NYC EMT commits suicide:

Substance abuse support groups/addiction treatment centers see a spike in admissions:

Caracas, Venezuela is fucked basically: "Only 70% of hospitals have running water and soap", fuck it, I would just stay home.

Brazil is also fucked:

80% less commerce at the stores in Mexico:

This was quite an uncomfortable news segment to watch. The newscaster sounded flustered and was audibly coughing in the background while the Public Health expert from Johns Hopkins was speaking:

News on Virgin Airlines in the UK:

Here is the open letter from Richard Brandson referred to in the video above:

I’ve seen lots of comments about my net worth – but that is calculated on the value of Virgin businesses around the world before this crisis, not sitting as cash in a bank account ready to withdraw. Over the years significant profits have never been taken out of the Virgin Group, instead they have been reinvested in building businesses that create value and opportunities. The challenge right now is that there is no money coming in and lots going out.

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/open-letter-virgin-employees

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

Victor Davis Hanson is always a pleasure to read. I like his bit on how the EU's attempt at supranational governance melted away during the coronavirus crisis, just like it melted in the Euro crisis and the migrant crisis.





I like Hancock's expression. You can tell he's thinking 'Jesus. Who gives a shit?'

"Spain began to suffer a viral death rate of over 2,500 fatalities per million population,"

I think he's exagerating by a bit there. Agree with the rest. But... 2 fucking THOUSAND per million? Does this guy think Spain has a population of 10 million? Even then it wouldn't be the rate, not even the total but either way. I think he should recheck his math. My best guess is he meant to use "2.5" instead, I guess.

 

[CeleryStalks]

Michigan, USA

Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D)'s emergency authority is set to expire on April 30th. She claims she does not need the legislature's approval to keep her emergency executive orders in force past that date. The legislature claims she does.
Governor Whitmer said today that she will probably reopen construction businesses and the like next. The legislature will be meeting Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. I don't plan on posting articles until something is official.

Since there's not much interesting news today, have some personal anecdotes:
The prisoner I know says his prison nipped its Corona outbreak in the bud, and most of the prison is off of lockdown and doing fine.

Back in the early days of this unpleasantness, I saw a pickup truck parked outside our grocery store with a skeleton in the driver's seat and an "essential worker" paper in the windshield.

At a different grocery store this morning, almost as soon as they opened, mostly old people were there, most people had masks on. Most food was in stock, but there were some areas (toilet paper, pasta sauce) nearly stripped.

On the way out, the bulletin board had two skeptic flyers, one with some stats about the death rate being much lower than claimed and with examples of people who had died of other diseases being counted as COVID deaths, and one was a flyer from these people, #MayDayMutiny:

May Day Mutiny

www.facebook.com

(archive)

Spoiler: Michigan Recap

SHUTDOWNS
Shelter-in-place order and shutdown of everything non-essential from Tuesday March 24 to Monday April 13. Friday, May 1, Friday, May 15 (archive) (executive order saved on KF) Marijuana shops are open. Tobacco shops are closed (archive). K-12 schools suspended for remainder of year, but alternate learning plans will be implemented (archive) (archive). Facial coverings are required in enclosed public spaces starting Monday, April 27, but there is no criminal penalty for not complying.
Lawsuits against the shutdown order are multiplying (archive). However, "all deadlines applicable to the commencement of all civil and probate actions and proceedings" are suspended until the end of the states of emergency and disaster. (archive). Major protest at the State Capitol April 15 (A&N thread). Minor protest outside Governor's Mansion April 23 (archive).
The Big Three Auto manufacturers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) have closed all factories in the USA, putting well over 150,000 workers out of work. This figure does not include workers at supplier factories, which were also obliged to close. (archive) (archive) (archive). They are still making a small number of parts for emergency vehicles, and production of ventilators, etc. has begun (archive- GM's ventilators, April 17.) Ford is preparing to reopen (archive - April 26).

ECONOMY AND MISCELLANY
Over 1 million unemployment claims filed = 10% of the total population of the state, nearly 25% of the workforce (Archive - April 16).
Big Brother is watching, and he approves. Massive phone-tracking project reveals Michigan travel down by 45%, compared to 40% nation-wide (website) (news article archive).
Car crashes are down, fatal car crashes are down, and overall death is actually down. (archive - April 12)

FREE STUFF!
Evictions suspended while the state of emergency lasts (archive)
Water will be turned back on for all households while the crisis lasts (archive)

HEALTH CARE
Hydroxychloroquine banned by governor's order (archive). Nevermind LOL! Now she's asking the federal government for it and claiming the ban was a mistake in the first place. (archive). Detroit-area hospitals are testing the drug's effectiveness as a preventative on first responders and health-care workers (archive).
Elective surgeries are banned. This does not include abortions (thread).
Up-to-date count of available hospital beds, etc. in the State (the Detroit area is "Section 2, North and South.")(government website)
Detroit field hospital admits first 8 Corona patients. It will only be taking the less-serious cases. No one on ventilators.(archive - April 14)
Another field hospital in Detroit scaled back after drop in cases. Original plan was to open with 1,100 beds. Now they are only going to open with 250, planned to open April 20. (archive - April 11).
Our statistics are inaccurate, because deaths are being both overcounted and undercounted (archive).

LAW AND ORDER
All localities given more discretion to release prisoners early (archive). The State prison system is not currently releasing inmates early.
Lansing (the capitol) police are not physically responding to minor crimes such as larceny, property damage, and break-ins to unoccupied buildings, including garages. Other police are adopting similar policies (archive) (archive).
Detroit crime still down (archive - April 12); Muskegon police report crime is up (archive).
Breaking the lockdown is a misdemeanor, punishable by $1500 fines and 90 days jail time. Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) has stated there will not be a "ramp up" of police enforcement (archive). The attorney general has left it to local law enforcement to close businesses, as her hands are full with price-gougers and con artists (archive).
The police cannot, at present, pull drivers over simply for being out during the shutdown (archive). Local police in the rural north and in Detroit suburbs have alike stated they will not be enforcing parts of the order (archive).

OFFICIAL DEATH TOLL

The State of Michigan reviews deaths and adds overlooked cases to the official statistics three times a week.

Regular reviews of death certificate data maintained in Vital Records reporting systems are conducted by MDHHS staff three times per week. As a part of this process, records that identify COVID-19 infection as a contributing factor to death are compared against all laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Michigan Disease Surveillance System (MDSS). If a death certificate is matched to a confirmed COVID-19 case and that record in the MDSS does not indicate the individual died, the MDSS record is updated to indicate the death and the appropriate local health department is notified. These matched deaths are then included with mortality information posted to the Michigan Coronavirus website.

Detroit Metro (pop. 3,860,000 total; 1,796/sq. mi.; 694/sq km):*

28,030 confirmed / 2,780 dead
27,879 confirmed / 2,720 dead yesterday
(i.e. 60 new deaths, up 38 from previous day)
Normal Detroit Metro Death Rate: 104 per day.**

Other Michigan (6,120,000; 65/sq. mi.; 25/sq km):

10,180 confirmed / 627 dead
9,899 confirmed / 595 dead yesterday
(i.e. 32 new deaths, up 13 from previous day)
Normal not-Detroit Death Rate: 167 per day**

All Michigan (9,990,000; 103/sq. mi.; 40/sq km):

38,210 confirmed / 3,407 dead
37,778 confirmed / 3,315 dead yesterday
(i.e. 92 new deaths, up 51 from previous day.)
Normal Michigan Death Rate: 271 per day.**

Death toll doubled since: April 13.
We have been locked down since: March 24.

Detroit Metro Daily Deaths Last Seven Days:
199*** / 92 / 135*** / 76 / 166*** / 22 / 60 = 750***

State Government site, daily - today's archive;
State Gov site, total, includes breakdowns by sex, age, race and ethnicity - today's archive.
*Here defined as the City of Detroit, and Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties, minus state prisoners, who are not counted towards any county's cases, but are kept in a category of their own.
** As of 2018.
*** 95, 55, and 58 statewide deaths, respectively, were added on these days upon State review. Presumably most were in Detroit, but I don't know exactly how many.
Also one Ann Arbor man allegedly killed by his roommate in a Corona-related dispute (archive). The suspect has been released from custody while the investigation continues (archive).

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

"Spain began to suffer a viral death rate of over 2,500 fatalities per million population,"

VDH is a classicist. He can point out parallels between modern institutions and those of Classical Athens or Sparta but it doesn't surprise me he'd make a mathematical typo like that.