Good morning. Interesting information this morning suggesting that one reason Taiwan was so far ahead of the Covid Crisis was that the deputy director of its CDC found information on the Taiwanese version of Reddit in late December. Some of that information came from doctors within Wuhan, information that was quickly repressed by the Chinese Communist party. Fascinating that even the people in charge need to turn to alternate media to source information these days. Let's continue the conversation.
Comments
Areas of my mom's apartment are restricted. They check your temperature with those thermometer guns whenever you enter a building (my Father says all government offices do this now).
A classical music concert I was supposed to attend sent out refund forms via email at midnight. I woke up & it was cancelled.
My cooking school was suppose to host a Le Cordon Bleu workshop on French techniques but that was called off too. (Not that I would 've been *qualified* to take it yet, I'm just saying it's a pity...)
There is a sugar shortage in Indonesia. No onions left (the big ones, shallots & garlic still available). Mother has her tea without sugar anymore.
No hand-sanitiser in the stores as expected. Only plastic refills of hand wash are available (pump bottles all sold out).
I wish Laurence Fox would quit smoking since smoking makes you vulnerable to COVID-19.
I'm getting a lot of Chinese government propaganda not only on my English-language feed but on my local-language sites - and I live in a small country with a little-known language. Fortunately, it's so clumsily written (in both a language and cultural sense) that it's easy to spot.
I have no problem with Chinese culture or Chinese people - in fact, I dated an ethnic Chinese man for a couple of years - but the CCP government's actions are disturbing.
No more commuting on buses on days where traffic regulations ban me from driving. (The logistics of getting places now OMG.)
Yesterday each student in my class did get half an onion tho. And the faculty had to go out of their way to find certain ingredients since the Indonesian government stopped all imports.
Really disturbing to see so many young people in the UK and US going out for weekend funsies. That's a lot of danger for a brief moment of fun.
I worry that some of them may take risks they shouldn't take simply because they need the money.
Not to mention the Chinese tourists who brought the virus to Europe in the first place - notably the infected woman from Wuhan who had a "culinary trip to Lyon, France" who intentionally hid her symptoms so she could travel.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51231593
Unfortunately, selfishness seems to be a universal human characteristic.
I imagine you'd be so sick you'd be wrenching at a whif of the smell of food at that stage.
Good God.
What I find even more disturbing is perhaps the fact that a #BoomerRemover hashtag even exists. (This is news to me.)
Do people have no respect for their elders anymore?
https://ncov2019.live/data
The first COVID-19 death in Indonesia was also in a resort town:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-indonesia-idUSKBN20Y0LN?taid=5e68ee6be318b90001d139d8&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
WORLD NEWS
MARCH 11, 2020 / 1:31 PM / 4 DAYS AGO
British woman in Bali is Indonesia's first confirmed coronavirus death
Maikel Jefriando
A nation confronting its own mortality needs spiritual leadership. So where is Justin Welby?
With an absence of word-mincing unusual in his office, the Prime Minister has warned that some of our loved ones will die because of the coronavirus. He has urged individuals to rally round and do what the state cannot, and ensure those in isolation are looked after. Our political leadership has not concealed just how fundamentally life could change for all of us.
It amounts to little less than a recalibration of our existence. Things we have taken for granted all our lives – ease of movement and of assembly, freedom from pestilence, indeed the relative salubrity of life itself – are threatened. Apart from the profound consequence that many will die before what was expected to be their time, we shall be forced back on resources of character we did not know we had, and made to change patterns of behaviour for the common good.
Mr Johnson began to articulate this; but the crisis takes us into philosophical questions about the nature of society and our place in it that go beyond the training or experience of a politician. They border on spiritual matters. The Prime Minister would presumably be the first to admit he lacks the authority required of a divine spokesman. When faced with matters of life and death, especially on this potential scale, our culture – even if we are not religious ourselves – demands something more elevated. And that brings us to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
As deaths rose and coronavirus cases multiplied last week, the Primate of All England, spiritual leader of the Established Church, was notably silent. Given we were being warned of a possible death toll that would remove a higher proportion of our population than at any time since the Great War, did the Almighty’s Anglican vicar on earth have something to say? He did not. Perhaps Justin Welby has been saving up a grand pronouncement for the Lord’s Day. If so, it may prove welcome, but would have come far too late.
At the top, the church he leads has been compliant with the bureaucracy of health and safety, but done little else. It has warned communicants against using the same chalice. Hygiene recommendations, it has said, should be observed. And if people went hungry because of the virus, a reinforcement of food banks would be useful.
But we await the Archbishop’s advice on how the Bible might (or, indeed, might not) teach us how to cope and proceed in these alarming times. Or does he feel we face such an apocalypse that even religion, or at least his conception of it, is an inadequate tool with which to confront it?
If the expectations of scientists and clinicians are correct, then our people – like those all over Christendom and beyond – will have to think themselves out of the comfortable mindset that progress, peace and prosperity had secured ever since the end of the Second World War. The rights we assumed we had acquired, to consistent good health and far longer life, are under threat.
We are about to discover that the state does not after all, for all the wonders of the NHS, scientific research and welfarism, have a magic wand it can wave to restore certainty. All our assumptions about every aspect of existence are being challenged by the very forces of nature many thought progress had made subservient to humankind.
We are, above all, being asked to contemplate the sudden greater immediacy of death. The elderly, who have to do that, pandemic or no pandemic, every day, are far better at it than the young. That, not least, is where the spiritual lead is required; if the young do not themselves die, they may be about to be bereaved in staggering numbers.
The stock market may have crashed, but this is a great buying opportunity for the Church of England, an institution that, thanks to insipid leadership by the likes of Mr Welby, becomes emptier each Sunday. Soon, in a country pummelled by death, disease and uncertainty, religion may discover an army of potential recruits among those disorientated by change. Mr Welby’s reticence suggests the Church of England is unprepared for this, and therefore failing.
Perhaps his inability to lead his flock in this crisis is the ultimate admission of the triumph of secularism, a creed more suited to an era when man believed he controlled the world: in which case he should go. It would be an ironic turn if it were left to the overtly godless – of which I am one – to form a new philosophy to console our people in a crisis whose most terrible impact is probably yet to come.
I’m sure it can be done safely, by video if nothing else. FaceTime an isolated patient?
Now is no time to go out proclaiming your atheism. This is stupid. Matter of fact I heard that every roll of toilet paper you buy gives you a free prayer to God over this virus crisis.
Also, if I were Bea and Edo, I'd go get married right now at the smallest chapel at Windsor Castle with no one but the Queen, their parents, and Eugenie and Wolfie present.
That would be a great display of the old British motto, Keep Calm and Carry On. People would love them for it.
I am really worried about my parents who are both in their late 70s with underlying health issues, and they are now talking about over 70s needing to be isolation for 4 months soon.
I also am on tablets for hypertension and don't like the news items on that particular subject! I have been on them since my 30s (now in my 40s) - they did a lot of tests, but couldn't find a reason why it is higher than average.
I am so cross that Boris J isn't recording the stats. Even WHO has called him out on this. Now, you only become a stat if you go into hospital and then are tested there. This is giving an unfair sense of stability to some of the older generation who think it still isn't too much of a problem.
Can't get my hands on any more hand sanitiser in my area! Feel as sick as a chip :-(
My family in SC are not in the least concerned and still doing whatever. My dad is going into work tomorrow to work on dental patients and brother who is a surgeon is not wearing a mask to treat follow ups. Our local huge hospital is and has been at capacity.
And I agree about the Cambridges and BRF. Both should speak to the nation and world about this crisis, for encouragement and comfort and calm. Wellby? is a wet rag.
How and why do the Sussexes continue to put out pr fluff? This tells me they are losing ground and desperate to stay relevant.
They are totally tone deaf.
I was one of those people complaining about lack of government action on the tests when the Pres. held that press conference and he'd done an end run around the governmental bureaucracy that was stifling everything.
Smoking Gun? Chinese Scientist Finds “Killer Coronavirus Probably Originated From A Laboratory In Wuhan”
NOTE: We fact-checked the claim that "the coronavirus was engineered by scientists in a lab."
https://www.philstockworld.com/2020/02/14/smoking-gun-chinese-scientist-finds-killer-coronavirus-probably-originated-from-a-laboratory-in-wuhan/
They vainly wanted CDC sanctioned (re: "American") tests only. Taiwan and South Korea has effectively managed their outbreak by liberally testing anybody to identify clusters and have some visibility on Covid-19's dispersion. Also, I know the U.S. is misleading the public by saying the N95 masks are ineffective. Again, used in the countries aforementioned and they feel it has definitively helped control the outbreak. But I recognize it is necessary because we already see profiteering on a wide scale. In fact, at my husband's military complex someone broke in the other day and actually stole all the masks they had in their supply.
I am angry that Trump thinks bringing in the likes of Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, etc. is going to change the dynamics. They can do nothing without direction from his office and his office is severely behind the curve on action and slow to respond.
Each day is getting exponentially worse and yes, Mr. President, that buck does stop with you. I am no fan of The Donald but if he were applying harsh measures to stem the outbreak to manageable levels, I would be content to see him reelected. As it is, the devastation likely to descend on our American shores will be his lasting legacy of incompetence for the history books.
I'm french and our health service says that it is very important to avoid ibuprofen to treat the covid-19 fever (use paracetamol instead). We have had several cases here where ibuprofen worsened symptoms (but people with treatment should ask their doctor).
In France too, lots of stockpiling (not on toilet paper, but on pasta an rice).
Keep safe !
N95 masks are extremely ineffective (in the way they are designed to function) if they aren't properly fitted. Health care providers who use them generally have to go regularly ( annually maybe?) to have the fit checked. I have not heard anyone say they aren't effective per se; what I have heard said is that if they aren't properly fitted to you, they will not be as effective as they are meant to be, and all the panic buying of them means hospitals are running short. (It is entirely possible I have not heard the same things you have, as I don't have a television.)
Depending on any other country to provide things like this is stupid. But I also understand that we can't compete against factories that pay their employees a few dollars a day. Have no idea what the answer to that is.
Today the YMCA was a ghost town, Met a traveling nurse who reported no one wants to rent to her due to fear of contracting the virus! At the moment there's a shortage of health care professionals to treat all the people ill or who will become ill due to COVID-19.
My local Target has rearranged the store and devoted several aisles to cleaning supplies.
Walmart is not longer 24/7 to give employees time to disinfect and stock.
Like Teacup, I'm not a fan of Trump but still want him to succeed in controlling this virus and having a successful outcome. Politics be damned during at time like this when lives are at risk.
All the schools and pubic libraries are closed in my area. Government offices, banks and utilities are sending out emails they will provide services online or over the phone .
I notice celebrities who want attention are sending put COVID-19 themed PR like Heidi Klum and the Harkles.
Nutty, this blog is a public service and hope it attracts more bloggers giving updates on what's occurring in their area; we don't always get the full story in the media. Maybe you can remind people on the the other blog and CDAN.
I think I'll skip CDAN, though, because I don't want to attract their army of cranks into what is already a sensitive topic.
Cranks or Chinese propagandists, I should say. I've started blocking people on other social media who are pushing the CCP party line.
This is wonderful and sobering at the same time. God bless Italy and all of us.
Re the Church: I am sorry to say this but whatever it chooses to do now it is too late. At least in England it lost respect to such a degree it may close office and go home.
The Bible readers know that once the state of Israel is re-gathered, the countdown to Apocalypses begins, and epidemics and natural disasters are supposed to intensify. This is so scary I am afraid to even think about it.
As a person with a significantly decreased lung function (due to partial diaphram paralysis) it is extremely life altering. I have to live tethered to an oxygen line most of the day and night. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. So young people need to take precautions not just the old. Young people have their whole life ahead of them and it would be an utter shame to end up so disabled if it could be prevented.
It's children who still seem unaffected, it's thought that's because they are exposed to so many respiratory illnesses from their peers and spend much time with each other (if they're lucky, thinking of Archie). I was very relieved to hear that the newborn baby who had been infected is now recovering.
"The French luxury goods group LVMH is to start producing hand sanitiser at three of its perfume and cosmetics factories for distribution to French hospitals fighting the country’s coronavirus outbreak.
"Twelve tonnes will be produced as soon as this week, instead of the usual Christian Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy scents and make-up usually made at the three French sites. The company also owns brands including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Moet & Chandon.
"The gel will be delivered “at no charge” to French health authorities, in particular the 39 public hospitals in Paris, the group said on Sunday."
Reminds me of old newsreels about FDR getting American industry to switch over to armaments after Pearl Harbour and they did so with remarkable speed.
What is really maddening is that a lot of that Ebola protective equipment expired and was tossed into dumpsters shortly before this had attracted anybody's attention. Daughter was notified and dug some out of the dumpster at a hospital and had it on hand for infection control at her facility; her boss gave it to the fire department and EMTs while she was out.
I will pray for your safety at work!
Swampwoman
I hope you can keep swampman home! Mine is finally paying attention!m
Heh. I was probably worse than they are now.
On a serious note, I note that France has a 2% death rate with the health care completely intact at the beginning of the curve; that doesn't bode well for the future. Spain is 2.7%. Italy is 6.6%.
Pretty much everything is closed down here in Florida; all the theme parks, tourist attractions, lots of city, county and state parks, government offices. I have a house full of grandchildren right now (I know, right?) and we are going to sit right here instead of hitting the museums.
Interesting thing from Dr. John Campbell's update today: It seems reducing the fever ups the death rate.
The Market really needs to be closed down for everybody's safety. It's a shame, but it is such a huge place and a gathering spot in Seattle, for both residents and tourists, that COVID can't be contained there, and the first case has already shown up. More will follow.
Tom Douglas just closed all of his restaurants for the time being. Good for him, although I feel sorry for him and his employees. Canlis has gone to drive up and delivery with a modified menu- can you imagine that???? El Gaucho has also temporarily closed.
Chateau St. Michelle has temporarily closed the Woodinville winery and all of its other wineries in WA, OR and CA- that includes Columbia Crest and Stag's Leap!
At this point, if your state government isn't being proactive, you can't blame that on the President.
Grocery stores and pharmacies remain open, but all retail establishments will be reduced in numbers of occupancy.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/coronavirus-cases-continue-increase-more-deaths-linked-kirkland-nursing-facility/XIDPHMLVOJAAREQ5YCL75367PU/
i'm so glad that they finally made this decision, although it will be an economic crisis for Seattle.
I emailed him to ask for info/advice and if I was being overly cautious with my (80 year old) mother. (I am basically holding her hostage in her own house; I took her car and house keys from her, lol) He said she should stay in for sure, because of the high (and symptom-free) contagion rate, but that most people have mild symptoms and do recover. But when it's bad, it's really, really bad.
Anyway, I have cut and pasted around more personal info, so I hope I haven't gotten it out of order.
*************************
LONG latent period before signs/symptoms, maybe up to two weeks. Contagious without symptoms.
Fever may fluctuate up and down for 10-15 DAYS even in mild cases.
80 percent mildly ill, 14-15 percent hospital ill, 5-8 percent critical ill. Death rate, too soon to say. A few percent is likely.
20 somethings ARE showing critical illness.
Deaths are overwhelming respiratory failure (ARDS and secondary bacterial pneumonia) and, interestingly, cardiac failure (viral myopathy/carditis and arrhythmias) - fast, 12-24 hours to death.
1/3 patients need low flow oxygen, 1/2 high flow, 1/3 need a ventilator - strange distribution. Some shops are out of ventilators. Respiratory failure after admission, if it occurs, is rapid and may buy a vent within 24 hours.
Strange laboratory parameters, I'll spare details but, normal WBC with profound lymphopenia and progressive transaminitis, increasingly the lymhpopenia with s/s constellation is appearing pathognomonic.
We are 100 percent out of N95's. Reusing gowns (same patient) in patient rooms. Cleaning rooms is a nightmare, slow turn around not enough staff.
There are antivirals and liver failure treatments showing promise... guess what we don't have enough of?
The genetics dudes are pretty sure this came from bad lab technique/improper test animal disposal (bums dumpster diving) from the Chinese Biowar Lab in Wuhan. (Also fits in with what Nutty has told us about test animals being sold to meat markets by lab employees)
'Pandemic' just means a new disease spreading globally, it does not mean dinosaur-killer level plague. I expect we will end up 2009 H1N1 level... 15-20,000 dead. Legit, serious disease threat, but manageable if facilities don't get overwhelmed.
********************
I kind of get the impression (from things he wrote which I didn't post) that he was torn on whether completely shutting everything down, absolutely everywhere in the country was kind of overreacting, but he did NOT say that, and maybe I am a lousy at reading between the lines.
And I am embarrassed to admit I can't say as I even remember any big outbreak of anything in 2009? I vaguely recall hearing about "swine flu" a long time ago, maybe the 80s? But I don't recall anyone freaking out like this, or there being shortages that weren't related to a weather event in specific areas. (Well, I do remember the gas shortages in the 70s)
Thank you and your nephew for this info. I've just read that Idaho has five confirmed cases now.
It sounds to me that he is saying to not panic, which is wise, but that he isn't sure how fast and far this will spread. Nobody can be absolutely certain, even doctors a this point, but he is saying that his hospital is having a hard time keeping up.
The good/bad news is that the majority will survive this, and some will not. That's about all that anybody can say at this point because there will always be people who will be foolish, not follow the rules and will contaminate others. I agree that he seems to be vacillating on whether to shut everything down, but that's an impossible call to make, and I'm sure he wouldn't want to put himself on the line to answer that question. We just don't have enough data yet to make informed decisions, so extreme caution without panicking is just about all we can do at this point.
Please be sure to thank him for all he is doing to help others through this while putting himself at risk. He's a courageous and selfless man!
I feel sorry for any public official, top to bottom, who has to make decisions about this. Potential for pretty drastic economic consequences, to put it mildly!
Law enforcement officers will be another group of people facing stress.
At some point, infected people who do not want to be in quarantine may be forced to do so, and that won't be pretty.
There were videos along those lines from China.
Just click on the logo "Nutty Flavor Virus Blog" at the top of the page to be taken to a list of all posts.