[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

[Siddhartha Talukdar 235]

  On 3/24/2020 at 4:57 AM, Griff88 said:

How about Hitler in "der Untergang", unstable and shaky

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[heywoodu 15,354]

  On 3/24/2020 at 5:16 AM, Vic Liu said:

Great news for people from Wuhan and Hubei province. The lockdown of Hubei province except Wuhan will be lifted from 25th March, the lockdown of Wuhan bill be lifted from 8th April. The internal restrictions are being removed gradually these days such as public transportation, restaurants. More importantly, People can finally leave Wuhan from 8th April and go to wherever they want to. 

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Now let's hope the much feared second wave stays away..

[Vic Liu 1,687]

  On 3/24/2020 at 6:54 AM, heywoodu said:

Now let's hope the much feared second wave stays away..

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Let's take the whole China as an experiment. We are little rats now, some people fear and discriminate people leaving Hubei, but I'm totally OK with it. I hope people leaving Hubei will be equally treated, they shouldn't be hurt again and I tend to believe they are healthy enough to be 'released'.

[up and down 82]

  On 3/23/2020 at 9:09 AM, Fly_like_a_don said:

Not very happy about that. 

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Sorry for the late reply. Anyway lack of testing is happening worldwide so WHO said it is indeed worrying. In India some people even tried to run away when being told to quarantine. Really not helping either.

[up and down 82]

Interesting news found online. Sounds quite serious.

 

https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-china-continues-to-hide-real-coronavirus-epidemic-figures-still-new-exposure-by-cai-xin-global-online-media

 

 

BREAKING NEWS! China Continues To Hide Real Coronavirus Epidemic Figures Still. New Exposure By Cai Xin Global Online Media

While most individuals and media has been busy with the coronavirus breakouts in the rest of the world, China is furthering it cover up and PR game of with the plan to make “the epidemic seemingly gone” by end of March 2020 by daily reporting of lower deaths and infected cases. (Note there is foreign or international body allowed to audit this figures in China and even WHO does not have a ground team in China. In their recent mission to China, they were only permitted data and access to sites as allowed by China, they did not get to view all sites in ground zero at Wuhan nor the rest of Hubei or even visit provinces  like Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, Chongjing  etc.)

 
In the last 7 days alone, China has been reporting low figures of deaths and infections that are being accepted by WHO, John Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard, and the western media despite daily rising figures that are emerging from its own audit of deaths and infections in prisons, nursing and aged homes, field hospitals etc (none of these figures have been added in the daily figures for the last  9 days to be precise).
 
China authorities today reported today only 202 new coronavirus cases and 42 deaths in the last 24 hours and many international media have covered it without questioning. These figures were not the nationwide figures! These were only figures from Hubei province! In just Zhejiang province, more than 239 new coronavirus cases were detected and 6 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. We have yet to even add all other data from the other provinces in China. (talk about reporting fake news and misinformation!)
 
One Chinese doctor upset about the how the government is still concealing the seriousness of the epidemic has asked all media to do and audit to check all provincial offices and the state registries of deaths.  An anomaly he warned that would be observed and picked up immediately is that in the last two months till now, there is a massive amounts of deaths termed as ‘causes unknown’ as that is the protocol that hospitals have been instructed to abide by whenever deaths are not yet tested or in some cases even tested.
 
But even more significant is a proper investigative reporting piece done by CaiXin Global news and its team of excellent editors and reporters that featured a piece today to show how China has again changed it manner of daily coronavirus reporting by omitting out asymptomatic cases despite testing positive for the coronavirus via nucleic testing and in some cases by CT scans. It also interesting that the amount of asymptomatic individuals throughout China is greatly increasing, raising lots of concerns and also fears.

[up and down 82]

This news sounded more serious.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/life-after-lockdown-has-china-really-beaten-coronavirus

 

Life after lockdown: has China really beaten coronavirus?

 

Residents and analysts doubt the near-zero transmission rate as restrictions are eased

 

 

According to official statistics, China has defeated the coronavirus. Over the last five days, health authorities have reported only one new locally transmitted case of Covid-19 – a patient in Guangdong province infected by someone travelling from abroad. In Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak and the country’s worst-hit area, officials on Monday reported a fifth day without new cases.

 

The figures are a sharp drop from just a month ago when recording a daily increase of fewer than 2,000 new infections was a milestone. Authorities have begun easing Wuhan’s two-month lockdown while cities across the country are following orders to “fully restore” production and resume normal life.

 

But as the country returns to work, residents and analysts doubt the near-zero community transmission rate, worrying that leaders have prioritised restarting the economy over decisively containing the virus. While public health experts, as well as citizens, say the situation in China has improved dramatically – the result of aggressive testing, quarantines and social distancing – many doubt the numbers are as good as officials have reported.

 

“I am really worried that there are still many asymptomatic infected people inside Wuhan. As soon as everyone goes back to work, everyone will be infected,” said Wang, 26, who lives in the city. Another resident added: “I don’t believe [the numbers]. This epidemic will not disappear so easily.”

 

“Any rational person would doubt these figures,” one internet user wrote in response to an essay posted by a volunteer in Wuhan questioning the statistics.

Workers at Dongfeng Honda in Wuhan eat lunch while maintaining a safe distance.

 

FacebookTwitterPinterest Staff at Dongfeng Honda in Wuhan eat lunch – while maintaining a safe distance – after returning to work. Photograph: Barcroft Media/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

 

According to a report on Monday by RTHK, Hong Kong’s public broadcaster, residents said hospitals in Wuhan had refused to test patients who showed symptoms. Kyodo News in Japan reported at the weekend that a local doctor said the number of cases had been manipulated before President Xi Jinping’s visit earlier this month, prompting the beginning of “a mass release of infected patients”.

 

Allegations of new infections in Wuhan have persisted on social media to such an extent that authorities issued a detailed statement over the weekend debunking them.

Some of the concerns about China’s reporting stem from how Beijing classifies patients. While the World Health Organization and South Korea consider anyone who has tested positive for the virus as a confirmed case, China does not include asymptomatic infections in its final tally.

 

Late on Monday night, Wuhan’s health commission published a Q&A explaining how asymptomatic cases are dealt with. On why such cases are not included as confirmed cases, the commission said that patients were quarantined for 14 days and if they began to show symptoms they would be designated as confirmed and that data would be published.

 

“A small number of asymptomatic infections may progress to becoming confirmed cases, but the vast majority [of patients] will heal by themselves,” it said.

 

Critics also question why recovered patients who retest as positive are not counted. Data from quarantine centres in Wuhan showed that the possibility of recovered patients testing positive again was between 5% and 10%, according to the state-run Global Times. Officials in Hubei have said those patients would not be recorded as new confirmed cases because they had been counted previously.

Authorities said they had not witnessed people-to-people transmission in asymptomatic cases. However, an unnamed official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told the Chinese magazine Caixin: “It cannot be determined whether transmission has been completely cut off in Wuhan.” The official said there were still “a few or dozen symptomatic people every day”.

 

Documents seen by the South China Morning Post reportedly showed more than 43,000 people had tested positive for Covid-19 by the end of February but did not show symptoms. They have not been included in the official number of infections of more than 80,000.

 

Initial efforts to suppress information about the virus and continued censorship of public debate throughout the crisis have also added to mistrust of the numbers.

 

“With the cover-up in December and January we really cannot trust the numbers from the Chinese government without more credible and solid evidence to verify,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

 

Others say it is a balancing act for the leadership. Since the beginning of this month, leaders in Beijing, including Xi, have emphasised the need to meet economic and development targets, in a year where the Chinese economy was already expected to struggle. A taskforce has been touring the country to make sure local authorities, bound by competing demands of restarting production but preventing new infections, are following orders.

 

“Now the leadership has put a very heavy emphasis on resuming economic activity,” said Victor Shih, a politics professor at the University of California, San Diego.

 

“One way to resume economic activity without panic is to cover up cases while still doing the government’s best to trace and contain them,” he said. “There is a risk it will lead to another outbreak but for now that seems like a risk the government is willing to take.”

 

Still, sceptics of the positive statistics also acknowledge the difficulty of continuing the restrictions. Many citizens have lost months of income while others are tired of putting their lives on hold.

 

One internet user wrote: “Why bother with data! Wuhan’s lockdown for so long is irrational in itself. People need to live!”

 

Wang said: “The wheels of returning to work have begun turning and there is no way to stop them. All we can do is protect ourselves and not drop our guard.”

[heywoodu 15,354]

I guess British people using their weird systems for everything from weight to distance means they can't understand what they mean when saying people have to stay 1,5 meters away from each other?  

 

 

 

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  On 3/24/2020 at 7:49 AM, heywoodu said:

I guess British people using their weird systems for everything from weight to distance means they can't understand what they mean when saying people have to stay 1,5 meters away from each other?  

 

 

 

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This looks so pitiful. Such close distance indeed.

[heywoodu 15,354]

  On 3/24/2020 at 7:54 AM, up and down said:

 

This looks so pitiful. Such close distance indeed.

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This already looks as awful as it can be in a non-virus world  

[up and down 82]

And this is what Donald Trump had to say about the virus. I think he is really a joker. Ha ha.

 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-outbreak-trump-blames-china-for-virus-again.html

 

 

 

 

Trump blames China for coronavirus pandemic: ‘The world is paying a very big price for what they did’

President Donald Trump doubled down on blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic.

 

“It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference.

 

Trump has repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and been criticized for doing so, both by Chinese officials, and by others, including former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump has said that term is “not racist at all.”

 

President Donald Trump emphatically blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic Thursday, and again made a point of using the term “Chinese virus.”

 

“The world is paying a very big price for that they did,” Trump said, referring to his claim that Chinese officials did not fully share information sooner about the coronavirus outbreak after it began in China.

 

“It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference.

 

He argued that American officials would have been able to act faster if China’s government had fully shared information about the outbreak, which began around the city of Wuhan.

 

“It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier,” the president said.

 

Asked if there would be repercussions for China given his view of how that country handled the outbreak, Trump said, “I don’t want to comment on that right now.”

Two months ago, Trump praised China’s response to the coronavirus, saying that country “has been working very hard” to contain the virus, and writing in a tweet that, “the United states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.”

But in recent days, Trump has repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and did so again at the beginning of his news conference.

 

Photos of the sheet of paper containing remarks that Trump read from at the beginning of the event reveal that someone with handwriting similar to Trump’s had crossed out the word “Corona,” and wrote the word “Chinese” above it.

 

The word “Virus” appeared right after that word.

 

Trump’s habit of saying “Chinese virus” has drawn strong criticism from Chinese officials and from a number of U.S. politicians, including former Vice President Joe

 

Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

 

During a news conference Wednesday, Trump defended his use of that term, saying it was “not racist at all.”

 

“Because it comes from China,” Trump said when asked Wednesday why he continued using the term. “That’s why.”

 

“I want to be accurate.”

 

Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s press conference Thursday with a statement saying, “Trump Lies After Spending Months Downplaying Coronavirus and Ignoring Scientists and Experts Who Sounded the Alarm.”

 

“Donald Trump is attempting, yet again, to hide his record of failure on combating the coronavirus, using today’s press briefing to attempt to erase his months of ignoring medical experts who were sounding the alarm — saying: ‘If people would have known about it, could have been stopped in place, it could have been stopped where it came from, China,’ ” the Biden campaign said.

 

“The reality is, he did know about it and experts spent months trying to prompt Trump into action as he downplayed the growing threat of the virus and praised the Chinese government’s bungled early response — at a time when Vice President Biden warned him not to take their word about the disease,” the campaign said.

 

“Now, as this crisis explodes on his watch, Trump is desperately lashing out to try to cover up his incompetence and mismanagement.

 

China on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak began reported no new domestic cases of the coronavirus.

 

Asked if he believed that report, Trump said, ’I hope it’s true.”

 

Flanked by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news briefing on the latest development of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House March 19, 2020 in Washington, DC.

“But who knows?” Trump said. “I hope it’s true.”

 

During an interview Wednesday on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass said that referring to the virus as the “Wuhan flu” or other terms noting its Chinese origin is warranted because of a long-standing practice of popularly naming pandemics after their perceived point of origin, such as the Spanish flu and West Nile virus.

 

“If we start naming diseases after numbers, we’re never going to remember what kind of disease it is,” Bass said.

 

Bass: I’m not going to call ‘Chinese virus’ what China’s communist govt. wants me to

 

He said the Chinese government has “propagandized” by asking people to refer to the current outbreak as COVID-19 or coronavirus.

 

“We can call it whatever we want to call it. I’m not going to call it what the Chinese government wants me to call it,” Bass said.

 

Earlier Wednesday, when asked about Trump calling the coronavirus the Chinese virus, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of World Health Organization’s emergencies program, said, “Viruses no know borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank.”

“So it’s really important we be careful in the language we use lest it lead to the profiling of individuals associated with the virus,” Ryan said.