News Worldwide impact of the novel coronavirus (covid-19)

[Freida]

I think people are upset because trump closed the department that plans for pandemics - yep we had one of those, ignored the advice of his advice of the staff that predicted a pandemic in the next few years, and then downplayed it for weeks, while continuing to brag about his ratings. Yes, he closed the borders but that was weeks after it was too late. Just last week he was downplaying the seriousness and then suddenly he insisted he knew all along - as he was telling governors they "had to be nice" to him if they wanted ventilators. Oh..And now he's saying the epidemic was staged be the democrats to discredit him (can you tell I've been home with nothing to do but flip thru news channels? :laugh:)

In trumps defense America elected a reality tv show host who had never held any kind of public office so they can't be all up in arms that he is not showing the leadership they want now. But what we have ended up with is the individual states creating their own rules to try to beat this thing.

No matter what happens this is going to be catastrophic for America as a county because we were built on individualism...me first/others second. So when you start telling them they have to obey rules that benefit others? It just doesn't click.

 

[Freida]

Zoom is getting hacked... Zoom bombing: Video calls hacked with racial slurs and pornography - CBS News

All my doc appointments are on Zoom health. I hope they get on top of it fast! Otherwise Zoom has helped me survive financially and emotionally.

my therapist is using zoom but it's a secure channel set up thru her office door should have enough security layers to be safe. I think (hope!) The ones getting hacked are the more open meetings and calls

 

[user27357]

China had only one thing the world wanted - cheap labour. They no longer have that, so the world is shifting away from them. China has economically declined for a while now, from its sharp upwards curve.

Because people want links: China GDP Annual Growth Rate | 1989-2019 Data | 2020-2022 Forecast | Calendar

All countries go through this, sure, but when a countries only resource is its people, and they are no longer a viable resource, there is one way - down.

China still has a whole lot of fairly new, middle-class level consumers available.
Some companies are willing to pay the higher rates for the labor in return for the ability to compete with Chinese companies for the Chinese consumers. Not all of the iPhones get sold outside China- there are millions and millions of Chinese that want them and US companies like Apple want them to have them.
Depending on who you ask and how you phrase the question you will get different answers to the question: "How many chinese cities are larger than New York?"
By density, 2 or 3. By population with a common address: 2 or 3 times 2 or 3.
The world is not done with China just because they no longer offer cheap labor, the world will want to make easy money in the wild wild east and will risk intellectual property to stay in the game until it's over over there, just watch.

If the virus had hurt them any worse than it did, there would be more than the loss of labor hurting the rest of the world, there would be a huge loss of exports and a huge loss of income from Chinese made goods being sold to Chinese consumers by companies based outside of China.

 

[anthony]

Funny that we're talking about numbers, as this is what the PM's health expert (Brendan Murphy) just said in his current live address (very diplomatic):

I think the only numbers I have total faith in are the Australian numbers, frankly. Because we have the highest testing rate in the world.

I think China is in a really difficult position. They did clamp down incredibly hard and they stopped transmission. But their population is not immune. They still have a lot of people in their population and they are, obviously, trying very hard to prevent second waves.

I think they have been pretty transparent but as I said, I'm only confident about our numbers. I'm certainly not confident even the numbers out of the US are much higher than being reported because nobody else in the world has been doing testing like we have. Nobody else in the world got on to all those original cases out of Wuhan in January and contained them.

That's why we are now dealing with what we know rather than a huge community transmission that happened all through February in countries like Italy and the US.

We're on top of our cases. But we still have a long way to go

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[blackemerald1]

in the thousand-odd bed temp hospital they're setting up at the showgrounds,

^Wow I've not heard of this temp hospital. Only yesterday the Federal government was saying that due to its collaboration with the private hospital sector, thereby opening up thousands of 'private' beds to be used, there 'was no need to build temporary hospitals' or go towards that kind of measure at this time?

Not say - motorcycle face covering. I

^Here, if you ride a bike, you are not allowed by law to enter a business premise. This has been a rule for so long I've forgotten when it came in. We're all used to it. When I rode a bike & say stopped to refuel at a service station I always, always! thought it was a imposition to have to remove my helmet. But I did because not doing so could commence emergency lockdown procedures lol... That would be awkward.

I know a few people began a 'robbery in progress' alarm by forgetting and wandering into banks and other businesses without removing their helmets. Same goes for courts, police stations etc.

So, head coverings have their place for sure. But they're still not allowed in some circumstances and for good cause too.

 

[Friday]

On the numbers thing... my city has over 20 hospitals, and has comandeered a few public venues.

So what article is in the paper? ONE person, from ONE hospital... saying how much it’s slowed down... how there’s HOPE! And blah blah blah

Which might even be vaguely relevant if that particular hospital hadn’t been assigned just that week -for the duration of the emergency- to be a labor & delivery hospital, as well as the overflow NICU/PICU of non Cov19 kids from the regional children’s hospital... all current Covid patients moved, and all suspected Cov19 (Ie any respiratory symptoms whatsoever) were being redirected 5 minutes down the road. (The hospital across the street, meanwhile, is focusing on surgery and cancer treatment).

Reading this glowy happy bullshit puff piece made my eyeballs want to explode.

We had the highest rate of infection both that day, and the day before, (Easily checked on the DOH website) that we’ve had in the past month AND the highest death counts on those 2 days... but this bullshit article went national, and was used as a ref piece on IDFK how many spinoffs both printed and on TV.

One idiot reporter & one clueless hospital employee publishing “numbers” ... that sound good, so hey! Let’s not confuse people with facts! Let’s not do even the most basic fact checking before we go to print!!! Thousands of people working around the clock to get the most up to date info out there to help others (including the real numbers) bulldozed by an idiot & someone who didn’t read the memo. Outstanding.

 

[ms spock]

China is all good, apparently, yet their Government is still passing orders to their global nationalists to send goods back to China... These are the times I just love ASIO and intelligence organisations.

Our Intelligence agencies have certainly got their hands full with what they have on their plate at the moment.

Apparently Morrison was briefed in November. I will attach letters of which I am yet to receive verification, I did ask an Australian virologist and he didn't answer. I think he thinks I am some kind of journalist whereas I am very curious to understand how things were occurred.

"In Australia, the extreme right wing threat is real and it is growing. In suburbs around Australia, small cells regularly meet to salute Nazi flags, inspect weapons, train in combat and share their hateful ideology". Link Removed

and in what universe does this happen.
Liberal senator tells Asio chief his use of term ‘rightwing’ can offend conservatives

China stopped employees by at least December 2020 on work sites and just sent their employees out to get masks, medical equipment & absolutely everything that they could get their hands on. America, Canada or China it's just disgusting.

When I was at university in the early 1990s it was a huge concern about how much they stole intellectual property, and it's a serious and ongoing concern. My students would tell me this or that person was CPA and they were scared of them. So they track their citizens whilst overseas.

Businesses here will send over items made in Australian and they just copy them without regards to patents etc

Greenland did the Pandemic Influenza Math calculations and they all brought up masks medical equipment etc in January from around the world. But it wasn't through lies or manipulations. It was looking at the Science and the Math.

China may have underestimate is infection rates and fatalities by a factor of 2x - 40x depending on who you are reading. They usually have a significant mobile phone usage increase, and you can't do anything without your mobile from getting on transport to paying. It came out in the background noise that they have lost 21 million phone users, so I would like to see confirmation and know what is going on there.

I saw a whistle blower on Twitter and he was saying that despite Wuhan having many crematoriums and funeral services that they just kept building crematoriums, each of which can burn 30 bodies in a day. I really wish I had saved it. I really found what he was saying overwhelming and I really hoped that it wasn't true. The numbers were significantly higher than you would ever want to hear. When I went back to save it for verification it was gone.

The only thing that we might have missed out on those is the masks apparently were worn at home all the time, by both parents and grandparents so that could be a significant factor in the transmission of Covid19 to children and young adults.

Oh... and we have the constant issue of those buying up specific baby formula and sending that to China

What scares me is that China has brought up so much of our own infrastructure. We can't go there and buy land. Hell we can't go there and sell products. China has brought infrastructure around the world at an astounding rate.

Apparently the balance of power was one American warship (not correct term but am tired) in the South China seas, and Trump sent it off somewhere in a gesture. I just sat there and couldn't believe it. It's an incredibly complex story but I can find the book if you wanted to. So now we live in the age of China as the superpower.

 

[ms spock]

Funny that we're talking about numbers, as this is what the PM's health expert (Brendan Murphy) just said in his current live address (very diplomatic):

I think the only numbers I have total faith in are the Australian numbers, frankly. Because we have the highest testing rate in the world.
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I don't trust him. He's not qualified for the position and until at least last week folks were arriving and there was no one at the air ports to vet them. I asked one virologist about him and what he was doing he just said he's in way over his head. He's like the Trump lackeys pandering to Morrison.

I hope that you are correct though and that I am wrong.

 

[ms spock]

We had the highest rate of infection both that day, and the day before, (Easily checked on the DOH website) that we’ve had in the past month AND the highest death counts on those 2 days... but this bullshit article went national, and was used as a ref piece on IDFK how many spinoffs both printed and on TV.

Australian journalists are doing some extremely poor reporting which shows they haven't even read or watched the day's briefings or read any of the basic information. It is most concerning.

One idiot reporter & one clueless hospital employee publishing “numbers” ... that sound good, so hey! Let’s not confuse people with facts! Let’s not do even the most basic fact checking before we go to print!!! Thousands of people working around the clock to get the most up to date info out there to help others (including the real numbers) bulldozed by an idiot & someone who didn’t read the memo. Outstanding.

Oh we had an incident in Australia this morning like that and I was livid. I actually asked an Australian journalist how many people had to die before reality was faced. He blocked me. I haven't been blocked before so that was interesting.

 

[anthony]

Countries can just take China owned property and tell them to f*ckoff. That would be the hostile way... but they can do it.

I think a lot of good will come from all this. Look at how we have been putting off using technology to its capacity? Our entire education system has force shifted to online learning / virtual classrooms via camera and associated software. This stuff has been around for yonks, yet now using it and its working great. Physical schools may close and more go online. A good thing. Less BS for kids and more about education, less nonsense.

So many work places are doing exactly what they're doing from a building, in virtual offices. The world is being forced to change, which I think some will be for the better. Sure, everything has consequences.... but shit, we're in a huge consequence right now, so may as well just rebalance whilst in the shit.

A lot of stores who have refused to push their online sales, now have rapidly deployed, scaled and are functioning purely online.

Much good to come IMHO.

 

[Mee]

Right now, it squarely lands at China's feet. M

If you have the intelligence so do world leaders I would hope. Thus they should take responsibility for handling their information.


The risk of disease HAS been a long established thing- when I was still researching in this area twenty years ago it was a concern and outbreaks that have happened were forecast ( not premonitions, but probability) - again this was not secret knowledge but something well discussed in international communities certainly in my discipline and related ones. Not just China fwiw - there are other situations I can think of.


The reason this kind of forecasting in science happens- and intelligence- is so preparation can be made for different eventualities depending on probability.

Some of us who worked on the nearest examples from which protocols were extrapolated raised papers highlighting failures and successes at the time.

China does not hold all the blame.

 

[dcb2410]

I don't trust him. He's not qualified for the position and until at least last week folks were arriving and there was no one at the air ports to vet them. I asked one virologist about him and what he was doing he just said he's in way over his head. He's like the Trump lackeys pandering to Morrison.

I hope that you are correct though and that I am wrong.

I'm no fan of Morrison at all. I will give him something though, think he's trying to do his best.. but definitely don't rate Murphy. Incredibly defensive and agree he's in way over his head. I've been listening to the UK CMO and CSO mostly. Seem to be far better communicators.