Thursday, January 30, 2020

Don't Be Those Guys



Kindly pay attention, folks.
Some stuff I know because I read...nearly everything. Always have.
Some stuff, because I've studied it intensely, either from necessity, or avid interest.
Some stuff I know because my analytical skills are pretty finely honed, and even more so doing it for a living.
And some stuff I know because I not only read about it, and practice analyzing it ever other day, but because I've been doing it for twenty-five-plus freaking years. M'kay?

You can't short-circuit that to get to the answer you want just because you, too, have a keyboard and an internet connection, no matter how much you wish it were otherwise.

I put out what I told people last week regarding corona virus.
And using the same informed judgement I did during two different Ebola outbreaks.
(Where, if I was doing random blind guessing, I had a 3/4ths of 1% chance - .0075 - of getting it exactly right, which I did.)
But the reaction of the Headless Chicken Posse in all three instances can best be summed up as follows:
"We sang a song and you didn't dance,
we played a dirge and you didn't mourn."
In short, some people are so deliberately contrary, owing to an inability to digest logic, that if they fell in a river and drowned, you should look for the body upstream.

So what?

Well, so this kind of happy horsesh*t:
 and any eleventy versions of it on the intarwebz. To Paraphrase Jayne Cobb's math:
"...bullsh*t, times bullsh*t, carry the bullshitsh*t...equals bullsh*t."
 
Two twats twittering about what they don't know they don't know, then forming opinions about things far beyond their paygrade is not the same things as wee little things like data, analysis, or reasoned conclusions. It's like getting your stock picks from two retarded kids based on how the windows of the respective companies taste when they're licking them.

So, once again, for the brighter lights out there:

1) All data from China is based on information received from one of the most managed and controlled infolie-formation sources on the planet.
The exact number of how many cases of corona virus, when and where they happened, and how many fatalities they have noted, from China, may be expressed with maximal accuracy as "a lot".

No further precision is possible.

Not by me. Not by you. Not by the CDC. Not by ABCNNBCBS, or the lesser minions of media fucktardation who are hard-pressed to discuss nuclear anything without pronouncing in "nuke-yuh-lar", let alone grasp the finer points of anything as scientific as freezing water to make an ice cube. You'd think you might have learned what utter morons most reporters and editors are by now (let's be serious, these are the kids who were too stupid to get into engineering, business, medicine, or legal graduate studies, which should have been a big clue). And sure as hell not by Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber on sociopathic media. Fucktards gonna fucktard.

2) Blair Witch Project shaky-cam YouTube videos, with sensational build-ups, and breathless "I'm sitting here in my hotel room and I'm scared shitless" color commentary by Suzie Stupid whose visit to the Great Wall was interrupted this week tell you Jack and Shit about anything. It's noise and heat, but no light.

What you can say about this outbreak boils down to pretty much what I told you before:

1) There is an outbreak. It appears to be a corona virus.

2) The Chinese have known about it for at least a month-plus before they deigned to let anyone else in on the secret.

3) Anything they tell you about it now has been pre-digested, sanitized, altered, spun, folded, and mutilated beyond all recognition, and no one from the king to the village idiot can tell you the who, what, when, where, why, how, or how much, anywhere on the planet. You would get more information if they had released it via barks from Lassie, while you tried to interpret the statement from collie to English.



So srsly:  fuck off with telling or extrapolating anything from that steaming pile. You're trying to predict pony location and quantity based on a mound of horseshit.

4) The "quarantine" in China started after half the local population had self-evacuated. Unlike, say Liberia or the Congo, the number of Chinese who can afford international air fare is literally legion, as 30 countries and as many U.S. States can attest.

5) Pointing an IR FLIR at people's faces for 30 seconds, for a virus that can incubate for 2-14 days is like trying to stop a football team from scoring by putting all 11 defenders on the line of scrimmage, and then looking stupidly surprised when Team Virus lobs a 2 to 14 yard pass over their heads, and scores a touchdown every play.
This is the "genius" response of the CDC to the outbreak.
(cf.: Ebola 2014. Different presidents, same assholes in charge of the communicable disease chicken coop. SSDD.)

6) Yes, the Chinese admit to having bio-research facilities in Wuhan. Like cops and counterintelligence agencies, I'm not a big believer in coincidence, but beyond that, no one who says, knows, and no one who knows, is saying. So park the Speculation-Mobile in the Bat Cave (which is probably where this virus, like Ebola, came from originally too. But even that, nobody knows.)

7) If you get Ebola, somewhere between 6 out of 10 and 9 out of 10 times, you're going to die. That's only based on every outbreak of it since the 1970s.

7b) But, the experimental (because doing double-blind placebo testing is unethical to the same degree as Dr. Mengele's concentration camp science experiments) RSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine is 95+% effective against Ebola. Unlike ever before.

8) Corona virus, OTOH, will kill you between 3 and 5 times out of 100, not 10, by contrast.
That's bad - especially for the dead ones - but not planetary extinction bad, m'kay?
Now, look and find exactly nowhere where I said it's not a problem at all, then STFU.

8b) But there's no vaccine for it. Like always, and for most viruses.
(Hey, kids, good with chemistry, biology, and want to help mankind and make a great living? Medical school awaits!)

9) And, like influenza and other viruses (all of which are currently epidemic in the U.S., and will be until after Easter, when the sun comes out and people go outside instead of staying inside and coughing and slobbering their germs all over their entire families, co-workers, and fellow students), corona virus is much easier to catch than Ebola is.

10) Especially when it's had a two-month head start, and "control" measures best described as idiotic, bordering on moronic.

All of which means that since school started in September, you should have been washing your damned nasty hands frequently, particularly before you eat or drink anything, and should also stop touching your face. (The average person touches their face 250 times a day and touches surfaces and their cell phones 2000 to 5000 times a day). Gee, I wonder where the problem could be? And let's remember that youngsters don't just touch their faces, they go deep-mining for booger nuggets, sticking half their hands in their mouths, and their friends' mouths, and suck their thumbs.

What about handwashing? Take this as a reliable indicator: every touchscreen at 8 McDonald's locations in the UK tested postive for fecal bacteria (that would be sh*t, boys and girls). Which means people don't even wash their hands after they wipe their asses. Think about that when you grab a store or office door handle, shopping cart, or use an ATM.

Let me know when the penny drops.

And corona virus is smaller than fecal bacteria, and easier to transmit.

I repeat, yet again, wash your goddam filthy hands, you hairless baboons.
They don't beat this rule into doctors and nurses with a zeal usually reserved to Jesuit priests for nothing. It saves lives and prevents millions of infections every day.

Handwashing has saved more lives in hospitals than antibiotics and surgery, swear to God.
You could look it up.

Washing your hands, provided you have intact skin, obviates the need for gloves.
(Proper glove use requires handwashing before and after, in hospital protocols.)
But if you want to indulge your OCD, go for the gloves.
(And stop touching your face.)

An N95 mask in public situations, if the virus becomes a pandemic here, will be more than sufficient for most of the droplets you're worried about.

Now, for the half-informed Anonymous keyboard commandos in comments, in 3, 2...:

Yes, the N95 won't filter out viruses per se, which are far smaller in size than what it's intended to stop.
But, my little half-informed wingnuts, the virus isn't floating around free, it's contained in droplets from sneezes and coughs, and those vapor droplets are big enough to handily get trapped by the N95 filtration. If you're panicky, get an N100.

And you're free to wear goggles if you're an utter maroon, but unless you're standing toe-to-toe with someone sneezing and coughing, droplet to eye transmission among the general public is so low it can't be measured with existing instrumentation.

The CDC recommends eye pro for medical personnel, who routinely deal with hordes of the infectious all day long, and perform close proximity procedures, some of which generate even more aerosolized virus loads, whereas Joe Average does not. But no one's stopping you if you're hyper-spastic paranoid. At the end of the day, it's your ass, do as you like. And if you're caring for a sick relative with a suspicious infection, then, by all means, you have become "medical personnel", and the rules apply to you.

Corona virus is here. More of it is going to get here. It will kill between 3 and 5% of those infected.
Most will overwhelmingly be under 12, over 65, or immune-compromised (transplant patients, chemo patients, etc.).

And I remind you, yet again, that from 1/1/2019 through 12/31/2019, common garden variety influenza, just in the U.S., probably killed between 8000 and 20000 people, as it has annually since fucking ever, and no one lost their collective minds, nor did breathless around-the-clock live broadcasts of how many bodies hit the floor.


Learn a freaking lesson, would ya please? Breathless hyperventilating panic isn't going to help you, and it's pissing me off.

Now, you want to make sensible preparations, for any one of a dozen possible problems, in case this thing gets to full-blown pain-in-the-ass level?

Like having a few months' cash on hand in case you can't go to work for a month or three?
Like having food, water, and all -all!- the other necessities of life, to deal with three to six months of being self- (or mandatorily-) quarantined in your domicile?

YES!
Now you're talking.
Common sense.
Foresight.
Thoughtful planning.
Adapt-Improvise-Overcome.
And not being a headless chicken.
Which are only good for digestion, not cogitation.
ROWYBS

Nota bene, when Noah was charged to build an ark, he started collecting wood. AFAIK, he did not, for one example, make graphs to explain to his neighbors the dangers of a sudden flood.

None one gets out of here alive anyway.


And the CDC is right there, saying "More cowbell."


Proof that some unknown percentage of people will grasp none of what I said will follow along presently. I have every confidence that the 10% of those of you determined to be That Guy will demonstrate your lack of common sense in comments. Like always. More cowbell, geniuses.

58 comments:

Peter B said...

This is not relevant to what you're talking about in terms of precautions and mindset, but it's interesting:

Single-cell RNA expression profiling of ACE2, the putative receptor of Wuhan 2019-nCov


Lung tissue from eight different organ donors was analyzed for the presence of RNA coding for a particular virus receptor that was part of SARS' virulence; the 2019-nCov virus has been reported to share this receptor. This receptor is present in a particular cell type in the alveoli in the lung, which the authors speculate may account for the permanent lung damage which can result from the infections.

The male donors had more of the RNA, and so were expressing the gene more extensively than the female, and the one Asian male sample had a lot more.

N=8 is a pretty small sample size, and it's a Chinese paper, but if it pans out it might have a bearing on the spread of the disease in different populations. But when it gets down to n=1=you the precautions are what you need to pay attention to regardless of your ethnicity.



Hat tip: Vox Day

Anonymous said...

"All data from China is based on information received from one of the most managed and controlled infolie-formation sources on the planet. The exact number of how many cases of corona virus, when and where they happened, and how many fatalities they have noted, from China, maybe expressed with maximal accuracy as "a lot"."

While this true, it is reasonable to suspect that the Chinese ministry of health related propaganda in 2003 is roughly equivalent to the Chinese ministry of health related propaganda in 2020. If so, the number of coronavirus cases has now exceeded the number of SARS cases in 2003 (by about a thousand, yesterday)

Current global chartie:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

nick flandrey said...

Hey Aesop, if you didn't get this thru channels, and you wanted to hear what the CDC has to say first hand,

2019 Novel Coronavirus Stakeholder Listening Session Today 4:45 pm ET

On Thursday, January 30 at 4:45 pm ET the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is conducting a stakeholder listening session on issues surrounding the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). During the call, we will discuss medical countermeasures challenges as well as next steps and opportunities to strengthen health security during this outbreak. We invite you to participate in this important event on behalf of your organization.
Speakers

Dr. Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
Dr. Rick Bright, Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, ASPR
Leaders from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other partner federal agencies

Register Today!

Please register in advance for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Stakeholder Listening Session by submitting an email to ASPRStakeholder@hhs.gov. We will reply prior to the event with the dial-in information. Notes will be available after the call.

Additionally, we invite you to submit any questions or specific concerns you would like to have addressed on the call. Please submit your questions no later than 10:00 am ET on Thursday, January 30th to ASPRStakeholder@hhs.gov.

n

Linda Fox said...

Why am I concerned?

Because China is acting like this is their last chance before the Armageddon. They are quarantining more than 10 million people!

If someone is telling you not to worry, it's just a small concern - WHILE FRANTICALLY PACKING UP THE CAR TO BUG OUT - it's a BFD.

A VERY BFD.

Tobias said...

I have started wearing safety glasses at work (healthcare) not because I am worried about getting a goober in my eye but as a reminder not to rub my eyes (or touch my face). Now is the time for the dress rehearsal. When you have full of coughing patients is not the time to brush up on your PPE usage skills.

bobbookworm said...

Here is a link to a Lancet article...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext

...study of 99 patients at a Chinese hospital from first part of Jan. Ran an 11% mortality rate...FWIW. Looked for but can't find a twitter thread (linked from Zero Hedge) I saw from a Chinese epidemiologist from Harvard. Two take-aways that I remember from the thread...first, it is an RNA bug so it tends to mutate faster that a DNA bug...they had a family of six and each one had a different virus...second, where they would normally expect to see combinations of RNA from various existant viruses mushed together in new combinations, 50% of this one is brand new, never seen before. He was catching hell from some in the field for putting out info that the 'conspiracy theorists' could grab onto, but he replied basically...'Hey, that is what the study said...Live with it.'

Anonymous said...

Thanks once more for talking to the children, Brother.
BG

Charles in VA said...

Aesop,

What do you calculate the odds being of mass media using the corona virus as a distraction from their failing impeachment effort and the test bed VA gun grab?

Is it just me, or does it seem like they are actively trying to cause a panic (on a national or global level)?

You'll notice, I hope, that I've studiously avoided this topic since the initial kerfuffle. I also remember the last few false alarms.

I've taken your opinion to heart, and in doing so I'm left with an even more jaded attitude towards the media...both main stream and alternative. Once you catch someone lying to you, their credibility is permanently damaged for all practical purposes.

We're all adrift on a sea of lies, agendas, and manipulations these days.

Thanks for being a somewhat of a safe harbor.

Anonymous said...

I read this carefully like all Aesop's stuff. And know what? If you were to take out a few phrases and substitute some nouns this would apply to every outrage, usurpation, crime, and legal definition of Treason perpetrated against the Heartland certainly over the past three decades. And if I'd care to think on the time before, that damn too.

MTHead said...

Oh thank god! I'm only 64. So I'm safe, right?

James M Dakin said...

You probably shouldn't fear a pandemic. What I fear is an economic collapse. It already started in September, in what I view as a derivatives implosion endangering banks. The closing of factories in China threatens out JIT Inventory. Add to the already in play liquidity crisis. You can throw money at most of the companies that make up the stock market, but what happens when they have no product to move? What happens when mass layoffs get even worse? What happens when critical parts aren't shipped? I think it was deliberate, from China herself ( but, obviously, conjecture ). Far more foolproof than am EMP, just not as fast.

Charles in VA said...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-presidents-coronavirus-task-force/

You can all rest easy now. Trump has top men working this crisis.

T O P M E N

bwahaha!

We're from the Government...and we're here to help!

nick flandrey said...

Person to person here in the US.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/6000-quarantined-italian-cruise-ship-due-virus-scare-russia-closes-border-china

"the CDC said Thursday afternoon they have confirmed human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus in Chicago - meaning the US has now joined Germany, Japan, South Korea and Thailand in having confirmed human-to-human transmission outside China.

One of the five prior cases confirmed by the CDC apparently managed to pass the virus to her husband. The new patient is the spouse of the woman being treated in Chicago. It appears there are now six cases confirmed in the US."

--since hubby wasn't on lockdown, and they're pretty sure you can spread it before being symptomatic, it's probably loose in Chicago now, right?

--it may not be headless chicken time, but in just two weeks we've sure come a long way.... wonder where we'll be in two more weeks?

--I'm going out to get some more food, and maybe some gloves, and bleach.

nick

Survivormann99 said...

Hey, Aesop, I hear what you're saying, but there is an expression, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

One of the primary concerns of the Chinese government is saving face. Not one of us likes to be embarrassed, but the Chinese obsession with it is a particularly "Asian kind of thing.: It explained the coverup connected to the SARS outbreak. Admitting that the "dear leaders" of the PRC were not in control of the outbreak was something that would instill skepticism in a billion Chinese sheep who ordinarily contentedly grazed in the communist paradise. The "deal leaders" could have none of that. Like embezzlers who had removed considerable money from the bank vault and who hoped that that the auditors would never show up, the dear leaders simply just hoped for the best with outbreak control efforts.

What we seem to be seeing now is a delayed reaction to the coronavirus with some of the same undercurrents involved in the SARS outbreak, except that now it is no longer possible to hide the reality of the virus. Nevertheless, if history teaches anything, it is that the Chinese government will lie about the actual seriousness of whatever facts it reluctantly reveals.

I am no one's epidemiologist. Information contained in the study reported by The Lancet, perhaps the most respected medical journal in the world, about the mortality rate of the Wuhan coronavirus are of serious concern, however.

In general, I tend to agree philosophically with Linda Fox's comments (above). If someone who is frantically packing their car tells you that a potential threat is not a BFD, I am inclined to think that it really is a BFD. I will continue to watch the news very closely.

Charles in VA said...

@ survivorman99,

"What we seem to be seeing now..."

I'm pretty sure Aesop's point is that we don't KNOW what we're seeing yet.

What we DO know is that we're not being told the factual truth by pretty much any and everyone.

How is that different from any other day of life on planet Earth?

Let me ask you this:

How do you know for a fact that there is REALLY widespread panic in China over this?
A couple dozen photos and videos circulated on the internet? Even if true, does "widespread panic" from the uneducated masses in China constitute absolute proof of anything of a scientific nature?

And as a follow up, what has the MSM done to show you their concern for your well being? Besides lying to you constantly, I mean.

First rule of survival...

NEVER underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups.

Adino said...

When I was getting my 2nd degree in Business Admin. I had a Finance professor tell me the key to successful financial planning was to consider and incorporate three scenarios in your thought process/planning:

1) The best case scenario
2) The worst case scenario
3) The most likely scenario

We were then instructed to consider how to handle each of the three scenarios.

Each scenario would have different responses to it to retain desired organizational goals, and therefore require different approaches, strategies, and tactics. But each scenario's response also has similarities.

Winnowing decisions for inputs and logic dictated outputs for your thought process considering the differences and similarities for each scenario helps you to not only plan for each, but be fleet footed enough to alter strategic response to all three scenarios. Resulting in successful achievement of the organization's goals.

I have found the analytical process cultivates successful planning for pretty much every decision, not just financial ones.

We are still in an information vacuum. Inputs for decision making are limited. That leaves lots of people camping out on one scenario and thinking it all the way thru and leaves them scratching their heads at those camped out on a different scenario. Conflict and disagreement inevitably arise.

In the end it is not the people camped out on a different scenario that are the problem it is the uncertainty resulting from the info vacuum.

Exacerbation should be focused on determination instead. Determination to think this through and deal with it the best we can. Determination to prepare for each scenario, worst, best, most likely.

Determination to do the best we have with what we have.

Anonymous said...

How do you know for a fact that there is REALLY widespread panic in China over this?
A couple dozen photos and videos circulated on the internet? Even if true, does "widespread panic" from the uneducated masses in China constitute absolute proof of anything of a scientific nature?


We know that the Chinese government reported a total of around 5300 SARS cases in 2003.
As of today, there are over 8000 reported cases of coronavirus in China (only 143 recovered, 171 deaths so far).
Since (as I mentioned above) essentially the same Chinese government, with the same interests at stake, reported both figures, this makes the comparison with SARS numbers useful.

Survivormann99 said...

Charles in VA,

If you have been surfing the web like I have, you will have seen many videos that reveal that things certainly aren't normal in China, e.g. abandoned streets, abandoned freeways, fistfights over food, fistfights over attempts of outsiders to enter villages, jampacked hospitals, waiting lines to enter hospitals, etc. I suppose that some of these videos could have been faked. Some might have been archived images totally unrelated to present events. To see one high ranking Chinese official after another who is wearing a mask when actually conducting news conferences is of serious concern, however.

A buddy who is very interested in preparedness is married to a Chinese woman. His sister-in-law is a doctor in China. She called his wife this past Saturday and was crying on the phone in a Face Time conversation about conditions there. The call was abruptly terminated. Coincidence? Maybe. Given the level of Chinese censorship, she may alreadt be in a re-education camp as far as I know.

I trust little that the Chinese government says. I am also highly skeptical of what our own government sometimes says at times. "We don't want to start a panic" seems to be the modus operandi. People of a "certain age" might remember that when the Three Mile Island incident happened, there was a serious lapse in time before local residents were warned of the radiation leak because of concern about "causing a panic."

I am reminded of Leslie Nielsen at the end of a "Naked Gun" movie. A fireworks factory is exploding behind him because the car he was chasing plowed into it. All hell was breaking loose. As lookie-loos run toward him, Leslie starts waving his hands above his head, saying, "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Nothing to see here." Is that the case here? Diary this issue and you tell me in 30 days.

Charles in VA said...

@ Survivormann99, 12:35,

Yeah. I'd be more than happy to check in with you in a month.

In the mean time, you won't see me walking around with a modified car boy duct taped to my head. It ruins my sight picture.

You're free to do whatever you think is prudent...as always.

Stay healthy and stay skeptical.

Charles

Spin said...

Aesop:

You are right but Id like to add a few data points I received from natives on the ground in the Shanghai area with relatives in Wuhan. The Chinese have the roads blocked to Wuhan and are keeping everyone they can inside. The Holiday is extended 10 days. The number of cases I got from him was 6000 two days ago so I think the 8000 number is low. The real problem is how the manufacturing world is structured over their. If you work at a factory you live at the factory in 10 to a room dorms. The virus getting loose in one of these manufacturing units and I've been to dozens would cripple the plant from producing anything for a while. People work, eat and sleep together 24/7 and only go home to see relatives at the New Year break. Thats the time bomb for the world. No parts. This might take a year or two to sort out after the virus burns out.

Spin Drift

Anonymous said...

This thing has already gotten long legs. As more Chinese fly the coup, you'll see cases turning up in Chinatowns across the globe. Places like SoCal, SFO, New Yawk, Chicongo, and other Blue Hives will be hit first. The Frogs are already turning on the Chinese in their country, even the ones who are French citizens. To paraphrase Al Jolson: "We ain't seen nothing, yet." Plan accordingly and stay vigilant. DWEEZIL THE WEASEL.

Aesop said...

Viruses spread.
It's what they do.

Prudent preparations: yes.
Headless chicken horseshit: no.

People who cannot tell the difference between one and the other are usually the problem, not the solution, and they're usually picking their noses with contaminated hands when they do it.

This is going to kill stupid people in droves.
Like Ebola did in West Africa in 2014.
Just like heroin laced with carfentanil wipes out addict populations.

Not everyone will see either epidemic as a problem as much as a solution.

CoastalEvergreenFarm said...

Wouldn't it be ironic if this media-hyped nonsense created some blow back when it's hypothetically discovered our Southern border was a major artery to infectious carriers freely flooding the sanctuary zones and those so AgainstTheWall presently, found themselves placed in that precarious position of decrying that something must be done.

Just an amusing thought in a comedy of errors...

John said...

"It's like getting your stock picks from two retarded kids based on how the windows of the respective companies taste when they're licking them."

Priceless. Also, don't give Silicon Valley ideas - soon enough there will be a app for that - LickrPickr or something similar.

Ominous Cowherd said...

Aesop, we are seeing two numbers reported daily: number of confirmed cases and number of deaths. If we pretend the numbers are meaningful, we could divide today's deaths by last week's confirmed cases to get a mortality rate. What lag seems appropriate for the denominator? There is a huge difference between the result if you use a ten day lag versus a seven day lag.

It's probably meaningless because the "data" is probably bogus, but I'm still curious what is the right lag.

elysianfield said...

"A VERY BFD."

Linda Fox is exactly correct. Watch what the Chinese and others are doing, rather than saying. This Virus is no garden variety seasonal flu. Something is scaring the shit out of the powers that be, and I suspect it ain't the 4% (M/L) mortality.

Thinking maybe you are being lied to? Well, if I were in charge I would lie to your face to maintain public order, and would do so without reservation...much preferable to civil disorder, panic, etc., and maintaining order is THE first order of business for the government.



Aesop said...

The Chinese live 20 to what a New Yorker would laughingly call an "apartment", with running water in the common rooms at the end of the hall.
So, d'ya think the propagation of corona virus there might be a teensy weenie bit different than it is here, among communities of single adults and suburban archtypical families living with 2.4 children in Normaltown, in domiciles that meet or exceed the UBC?
(If you had to look up UBC, you're already too short for this ride.)

The U.S. is not China, and the Chinese are doing what they know how to do, which is over-react, over-control, and put boots on necks.

So, given their response, how is that working out for them?
Is the infection there receding, or spreading?

You have no fucking idea, because you don't know when it started, where it started, how it started, and you don't know what they're doing, and you don't know how serious it is, to include how many infected, how many dead, and how many recovering, nor the rate of spread, nor the treatment protocols being used.

Given: nothing.
Solve for all variables:
W1 * W2 * H * W3 * S * I * D * R * G * T = XYZ.
Go.

Now tell me the values for the U.S.

Show all work.

"This is like playing poker with my sister's kids."

Aesop said...

@Ominous Cowherd,
See the above equation.
All information from China, beyond "It's a virus, and it's loose" should be absolutely disregarded.

Treat it like propaganda from the Norks, then throw avgas and a lit road flare on it.

Then take more reliable news data from outside their control, and start from scratch.

Anonymous said...

Here is one public data source,

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

It is 3:30 pm Friday in Beijing. 9658 confirmed Chinese cases. 213 dead. Only 187 recovered.
Yes it relies on the Chinese for data.
As stated above they blew past the SARS case numbers already. Fortunately fewer deaths so far, or maybe the reaper is moving a little slower than the virus?

Best things we not in China can do is quiet preps.
Stock up on the canned foods you like, especially soups and the like that you will eat if you are feeling ill.
Stock pasta, rice, vegetables, etc too. Bottled water and other beverages. Gatorade works well for me when I am ill.
A few shelf stable Hormel meals, MREs, or Freeze Dried Foods.
Gloves, masks if you can still find them, bleach, hand sanitizers, cleaning cloths.
BTW, liquid bleach will degrade into water in a few months, so you might want to buy the dry Clorox bleach crystals too.
Any othe suggestions?

Wash your hands, wash the counters, doorknobs, car interior. Start making these habits now.

Aesop said...

Good luck with avoidance, short of total isolation quarantine.

First US case was last week.
It could have been latent for up to 14 days prior.
So one person could have infected...how many persons, who won't show positive until 2 to 14 days later? Who will infect how many additional people who won't show for another 2-14 days?
Times 5 known cases already in the U.S.

Oh, and the symptoms look like flu anyways, which is already epidemic throughout the U.S. right now, and corona virus infections can only be confirmed by CDC.

Corona virus lives on surfaces for between 3-14 hours.
It has an R-naught of 2-4, up to two to three times as high as seasonal flu (which has an R-naught of 1.3-1.8).
The same flu that infected 35M people and killed 24,000 people in 2018-2019.
Corona virus is 30 times more lethal than seasonal flu (3%, vs. 0.1% mortality, respectively).

For flu, you have anti-virals and vaccination.
For corona virus, you have nothing but hand-washing, basic protection, and isolation/quarantine.

But don't believe just me:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/how-coronavirus-spreads-on-a-plane/#close

Now, see if you can guess why I'm telling people to wash their hands unfailingly.
Realistically, it's all you've got.

The alternative is living in the Wildfire lab from Andromeda Strain.
Because with even one other person in your house, you can't buy enough bleach, gloves, and N95 masks to continue to both go out into an infected world day after day, and avoid this.

Badelve said...

What's up with the whole body tremors??

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=DUDN_1580431941

Aesop said...

And that's a video of what, praytell?

And you know this, how, exactly?

nick flandrey said...

"So, d'ya think the propagation of corona virus there might be a teensy weenie bit different than it is here, among communities of single adults and suburban archtypical families living with 2.4 children in Normaltown, in domiciles that meet or exceed the UBC?"

-- it's been 17 years since I left Cali, but I'm pretty sure that some things have only gotten worse.

I'd like to point out that there is a LARGE population that does live under the chinese conditions. Illegal immigrants.

Groups of young men live 20 to an apartment. Three generations of family live under one roof. Sometimes two families live like that.

The same thing is here in the Great State of Texas- I can show you 1 bedroom apartments with 4 satellite dishes on the balcony (at LEAST 4 adults living there.)

I can show you whole subdivisions with 4 work trucks parked in each driveway, AND a couple hoopty cars.

I can show you whole apartment complexes with hundreds of kids living in squalor in those couple dozen units.

And don't forget about the tent cities filled with homeless drug addicts, passing a bottle of MD2020 from hand to hand, crapping in the open and coughing on every surface.


We've got plenty of places where "vulnerable populations" live in close proximity with poor sanitation. We've got whole city cores like that.


And one last time, 'cuz I've got preps to top up, the CHINESE have access to the real numbers. The CHINESE looked at them and quarantined 50 million people and destroyed 2/3s of their economy. Things change very quickly. Consider what the world looked like only last week. Or two weeks ago. Today you can't freely travel to or from China, masks are sold out all over the place, and people are panicking. MAYBE they have good reason to act quickly.

Without doing anything irrevocable, this might just be a good time to act quickly on anything you might be short of, 'cuz it's possible you may not want to go out looking for it later, and it may not be available at any price.

nick

(consider this just like another gun or ammo panic if you must. Anyone regret having a couple extra ARs in the safe?)

Aesop said...


All true.
So, you're telling me we might see 3% of the illegal immigrant and homeless populations wiped out in mere days? Maybe more, because their health practices and health care system access suck?

Okay...and the down side is...?
That it's not Ebola?

Yes, take prudent precautions.
No, there's nothing besides basic infection control measures you can realistically do, unless you either have a lair worthy of a Bond villain, or the ability to go off-grid for a few months. Right effing now.

So the Most Likely Case best response is still do what you can, not melt down about what you can't.

nick flandrey said...

Well, every so many years we seem to kill off a large part of the global population with war, famine or disease... so this isn't really a surprise. We're overdue by many calculations.

How quickly it's developing is a bit of a shocker. The chinese response is nuts on the face of it, unless they know something that makes it all totally reasonable from their point of view, which is the only argument I can make ATM. We'll have a lot better data soon since we now have cases outside of the control of chinese authorities. That assumes we can trust our western governments to be honest about the numbers.

I'm not gonna weep for the homeless or illegals. They aren't going home though if there is a crisis because they know they'll have better chances here than there, and they won't stay inside their ghettos either. They'll be demanding care at every ER and doc in the box, coughing all over the supermarkets, and generally doing everything to spread the disease including migrating in vast numbers when the grass looks greener elsewhere. Germ theory might as well be quantum mechanics to large parts of those populations, and true sanitation is not a priority. (just google hotel cleaners to see plenty of vids of people wiping toilets with the same rag they then use on the sink and glassware....)

On a more personal note, you're up early today Aesop!

nick

Aesop said...

Occupational hazard.

I've worked nights for 20+ years.

And yeah, it's going to get stupider and uglier.
And with a chance of "it's going to turn out to be something other than/more than coronavirus".

But the toothpaste is out of the tube, and nothing less than nuking the planet from orbit could change that.

nick flandrey said...

WRT trusting our .gov and the CDC- their concerns are not our concerns, and their motives are not our motives.

Yesterday's WuFlu call has plenty of lawyerly statements, redirection, and outright refusal to answer questions. No one cites any legal authority (like whatever the "patient protection" law is called, they just refuse.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0130-novel-coronavirus-update-telebriefing.html

Reading between the lines and removing the 'qualifying' words, it's not encouraging.

Outside china, 9 cases have resulted in person to person transmission so far. That's a pretty high percentage.

They keep saying "immediate risk" and not mentioning medium or long term risk, they say "at this time" and then note that "it's a rapidly evolving situation".

There is a lot of back patting.

"WE CAN EXPECT TO SEE MORE CASES, AND MORE CASES MEAN THE POTENTIAL FOR MORE PERSON-TO-PERSON SPREAD. WE’RE TRYING TO STRIKE A BALANCE IN OUR RESPONSE RIGHT NOW. WE WANT TO LEAN FORWARD AND BE AGGRESSIVE, BUT WE WANT OUR ACTIONS TO BE EVIDENCE-BASED AND APPROPRIATE TO THE CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCE. FOR EXAMPLE, CDC DOES NOT CURRENTLY RECOMMEND THE USE OF FACE MASKS FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC."

Lot of weaseling in that paragraph.


It's also clear they don't trust the chinese to tell them the truth, and they are not getting the info they want.

"IT’S GOOD NEWS THAT THERE WILL BE SOON A W.H.O. MISSION IN TO CHINA. THERE’S MUCH TO LEARN FROM THERE, MORE DETAILED EXPERIENCE THAT IS BY FAR WHERE THE VAST MAJORITY OF CASES ARE AND HOPEFULLY LOOKING IN DETAIL AT THEIR DATA WILL HELP US WITH THIS SPECIFIC QUESTION WHICH IS CERTAINLY SOMETHING THAT THE PUBLIC HEALTH AUTHORITIES IN THE UNITED STATES WOULD BENEFIT FROM KNOWING." [question was about incubation period]

--whatever our ability to trust the sources, I'll keep wading thru to see what can be learned, possible more from omission than admission....

nick

Badelve said...

Just a link from Zerohedge comment section. It's supposedly from a Chinese hospital but I guess for all I know it's from a fuckin' episode of the walking dead.......

Ominous Cowherd said...

The only reliable data so far is the Chinks are acting as if it's a bfd. The rumors that other provinces are starting to close up to keep the infection out reinforces that.

We can't learn the truth from the official lies, but we do learn what it is they want us to hear, what they want us to focus on. Nine thousand plus infected looks bad, but it looks better than what they're hiding. Things look grim in Wuhan, but keeping the focus there suggests things are ugly elsewhere, too.

nick flandrey said...

"Things look grim in Wuhan, but keeping the focus there suggests things are ugly elsewhere, too."

--this is a good point, what about the rest of the province?

n

Ominous Cowherd said...

I'm still wondering what's a reasonable guess for the time lag between diagnosis and death?

Ominous Cowherd said...

What about the rest of China, Nick?

elysianfield said...

"You have no fucking idea, because you don't know when it started, where it started, how it started, and you don't know what they're doing, and you don't know how serious it is, to include how many infected, how many dead, and how many recovering, nor the rate of spread, nor the treatment protocols being used."

Aesop,
You are correct...I have no fucking idea...that is why I observe the actions of those who DO know the answers to the questions posited, not just listen to the verbiage. To assume that the Chinese are overreacting without cause is...dismissive...and in this, both of us have no fucking idea.

Aesop said...

There's also the possibility that they're over-reacting with cause: to get other people (who don't know any better) to do the same.

Assuming that doing what their doing is also in your best interest is just another way to walk into a trap.

When you cannot tell what something signifies, don't.

That inability is why the CDC and WHO use "weaseling" words; they don't know dick, and they know the Chinese government lies reflexively. So they're refusing to speculate into areas where they have no knowledge.

Would that this habit caught on widely.

Survivormann99 said...

Aesop,

You wrote, "Gloves, masks if you can still find them, bleach, hand sanitizers, cleaning cloths." I see this advice in many places, yet I also see it said that hand sanitizer and disinfectants like bleach don't kill viruses.

At a local supermarket, there are numerous manufacturers' disposable wipes and spray bottles in the cleaning aisle, e.g., Lysol, Clorox, 409, etc., whose labels say that they kill 99% of bacteria and viruses. A friend who is a medical researcher says that this is just so much BS, and that they can say anything on the label until someone legally challenges them.

Exactly how effective is bleach and the commercially produced disinfectants?

About stocking up now with food and other supplies, readers should keep in mind that most things a person might buy for riding out a pandemic will serve them well in the event of many other major catastrophes.

Aesop said...

No, I don't think I said that at all, anywhere, in regards to this virus.

But as a rule, alcohol is all you find in hand sanitizer, and it takes forever to be slightly effective, whereas bleach kills everything within about two minutes' time.
And yes, the supplies to ride out a pandemic are exactly what you need to get through just about anything else, because in most cases: YOYO.
You're On Your Own.

Survivormann99 said...

No, I didn't mean to imply that you were one of those who said that hand sanitizers weren't useful. It's simply that I have seen other sources that implied that hand sanitizer wasn't very effective with viruses.

About bleach, I expect that lots of readers have bleach sitting near the washing machine that is well past its useful date concerning potency, so if the jug is more than, say, six months old, it is time to buy more.

A Texan said...

Interesting report: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1

Basically, it says that there are elements of this corona virus that are identical to the HIV virus, and that since no other corona virus has anything like that, it is likely "not fortuitous" (i.e. engineered).

FULL DISCLOSURE: I didn't write the article, I'm not a biologist or a medical researcher, I don't play one on TV, and I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night...so I simply cannot vouch for whether this article is true or not. But it does raise some interesting questions. Oh, and apparently (and, again, I cannot vouch for this) drugs useful for the treatment of HIV are being used with some good degree of success on corona virus patients.

I also read another report that said that the Chinese were dosing patients with anti-HIV drugs several days before this article came out...which begs the question of "how did they know?" It could be because they are excellent researchers and found the answer sooner, or ... some other reason.

Survivormann99 said...

I, likewise, didn't stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night, but Wuhan is the location of two labs capable of bio-warfare research, according to several sources I've come across.

If it is true that the Chinese were dosing patients with anti-HIV drugs several days before the article came out, so one has to wonder how that happened. I don't want to go "all tin hat" here, but I am reminded of situations where an individual happens to be found on multiple occasions at places where arson occurs.

Mere coincidence? You tell me.

elysianfield said...

"https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1"

The 14 page repot was a bit over my head.

You might want to read the conclusions of the report, however.

Thank you, Texan.

nick flandrey said...

Someone up thread asked about the BL-4 labs. I don't know if there are two, but there is definitely one.

CDC website talks about training the staff there. They’ve also had a previous accidental release.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/5/18-0220_article

@Ominous Cowherd, what's going on in the rest of China is a great question. There is mention of building two new plague hospitals, in two places besides Wuhan, and the numbers of infected/dead/cured are broken out by province, with statements that every political division in china now has cases....

The summary map at https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 now has total confirmed at 11,374, deaths and recoveries both at ~250. 500 out of 11k means there are a lot of sick people taking up beds. They're gonna have to build a few more 1000 bed hospitals if they want to isolate 10.5K today and 100K next sunday.

Since it's now been a couple of weeks that there have been sick people, we should start seeing cases disposed at an increasing rate. Unless you don't get better, and don't die...

nick

Anonymous said...

Yesterday morning I posted a link to the site with global numbers (alleged). China had 8200 "confirmed cases" then. Now it is up to 11,300. Over 250 dead, a little less recovered.

Anonymous said...

Survivorman99... that's not BS.. its called 'marketing'!

Since this first hit the news online (TV was well behind) I, like Linda and others, thought that the Chinese were going a little loco for 'no big deal'. Luckily I can afford the opportunity cost of prep'ing early and added a few extras to the stash of preps. Might be $ wasted.. might not.. sort like paying insurance premiums.

Even if this is no biggie I do expect some supply chain problems with severity dependent upon how isolated China and/or other countries get and how long the legs are on this virus. This will bear watching and perhaps a bit more prep'ing.

I work closely with a number of Chinese from China (I hear tell ABC's - American Born Chinese, are different.. but then xenophobia has been raised to an art form in the East) and lying to save face is business as usual even if there is zero chance they can get away with the lie. The next step is usually getting very defensive. One thing is for sure, more Americans need to understand this cultural motivation if they hope to have any chance of understanding what the Chinese are doing and/or saying. This can sometimes explain apparently nonsensical actions.

Aesop said...

Second-order disruption:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surgical-gown-recall-leaves-medical-centers-scrambling-2020-01-31/

Unrelated to Wuhan coronavirus--yet. Still noteworthy.

Nonetheless, the instantaneous loss of 9M surgical gowns purchased from a supplier applying typical Chinese due diligence for health and safety rules is putting a crimp on surgeries in the U.S. and other countries.

Nothing a few hundred million in law$uit$ and fine$ here won't correct over the next six months to three years, but sorry your grandpa couldn't get his coronary bypass and died.

nick flandrey said...

@aesop, did we ever get back up to normal stocking levels of saline after Puerto Rico got hurricaned?

We probably get a LOT of medical supplies from chinese companies... and despite CDC saying on their call that there was nothing to worry about receiving packages and goods from china, how can you be SURE?

n


Anonymous said...

I work in manufacturing (mostly 3rd tier automotive, but also into a lot of other areas). I can say that we got a ton of requests from customers asking how much of our supply chain traces back to China, which fortunately for us is about nil.

I did read some interesting notifications from a customer with plants in China stating that companies in China were having trouble getting air freight out (no surprise there I guess), seaports currently unaffected. Overland freight and travel within China is restricted and they anticipate trouble getting their workforce back in the plants once the extended lunar holiday is up. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that.

KW

Aesop said...

@nick

Saline supplies haven't been an issue in at least 2 years.

Survivormann99 said...

A couple of years ago, a Chinese drug manufacturer was producing a drug with carcinogenic properties. I received a notice from CVS and my health insurer about the issue.

Say what you want about Uncle Joe Stalin (and there is plenty to say), he had a way of dealing with people running operations that failed so miserably. It involved brick walls and lines of men in uniforms with rifles. While there are obviously downsides to such approaches, there are also positive results at times.