Discussion Forget Tariffs, what about a Pandemic?

[Notarealsignguy]

Months ago? How many months do you think it should have been?

The first cases of the virus were identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. That is less than 2.5 months ago. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency on January 30, when it became clear that the outbreak was not contained within China, and that international travel had spread it to 18 countries. The next day our Health and Human Services Secretary declared a Public Health Emergency for the US. That was 5 weeks ago (almost).

When the virus is identified and sequenced, it still takes manufacturing time to develop and manufacture testing kits for it. By the time of the WHO declaration on January 30, there had been 7700 confirmed and 12100 suspected cases in China, and 83 others in 18 other countries. That means that in the first month, they had already made and distributed testing kits in the tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands. This week it was announced that over a million test kits were now being distributed. That's in the second month since the virus was identified. In addition, hospitals and doctors' offices all across the US received a 70+ page report on what to do, how to identify cases, and how to handle the outbreak from the CDC last month, after the PHE announcement.

I don't think that constitutes "brushing it off as another flu", and neither did shutting down all travel from China and immediately setting up airport screening and quarantine centers. I have a friend who is originally from Macau, China, who now lives in Ames, Iowa, that traveled to visit her parents in Macau for Chinese New Year. She had to delay her return home to Ames until today because of our quarantine process (after 14 days without symptoms).

You may think the situation is being handled badly now because you believe the idiocy coming out of the news media. But to a sane observer who knows how to identify what is going on, things are being dealt with as well as they can be, and very quickly. The truth is, by the time the virus was identified in Wuhan, and China notified the rest of the world (if you want to blame anyone for delay, you can lay the blame there, because China dealt with it initially by jailing and punishing the doctor who identified the first cluster of patients for spreading bad news about China, then refused to let the world know for some weeks that anything was going on, as well as refusing to let any researchers from other countries in to work with them on identification or containment), there had already been several weeks of spread by unsuspecting travelers from China, who went on Mediterranean and Pacific cruises or other vacations such as to Vancouver or other places in the Western US where there are large populations of Chinese (Chinese New Year is a national holiday there where you get a whole week off) while carrying the virus but not very sick or not sick at all yet. That is why we are now seeing cases pop up in clusters all over the world, seemingly not connected to having been in Wuhan.

It is also becoming clear, now that more cases are being suspected and identified, that the vast majority of people who get this virus do not get the SARS component, but instead have anything from a mild cold-like illness to a moderate flu-like illness. That's why you have seen the recorded mortality rate drop from the initial 17-20% they recorded in January to the 2-3% range it's in now. As more people get tested and identified as having contracted the virus, you would expect to see the mortality rate decline because of increasing the number known to have had the virus.

It also appears that the health of the person prior to contracting the virus has a great deal to do with the outcome. The cluster of deaths in Washington state are primarily among the residents of a nursing home, and all who have died had pre-existing pulmonary or cardiovascular disease which compromised their health. You have the contrasting experience of the people who came off the cruise ship that was stuck in Japan. Something like 22 of them were tested positive for the virus before or since being flown back to the US. Yet they are doing fine, and some have been posting on social media that they don't feel that sick at all.

Just because the media, and possibly you, hates the president doesn't mean that public health officials aren't doing a good job or that the administration's action has been incorrect.

So you are saying that waiting for 2 months to ramp up testing kits, even with the virus spreading worldwide and other countries testing every person with a sniffle is acceptable? Why is it that anyone with a different opinion is accused of being brainwashed by the media? Maybe its the other way around? My wife works for the hospital network in our area and the majority of our friends do as well. I'll form my opinions based on what the actual people working in healthcare have to say but thanks for the dissertation. This is not their first rodeo with potential pandemics and the response to this has been butchered compared to ebola, h1n1, sars etc. I dont put the blame on what the chinese do either, they steer their own boat and our response is independent of theirs.
Where on earth did you get that they shut down all travel from china? Did you miss that they were evacuating people from there including people that had the virus. You just said yourself that your friend came back from there. The WHO just today put the mortality rate at 3.4%

 

[Stacey K]

Months ago? How many months do you think it should have been?

The first cases of the virus were identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. That is less than 2.5 months ago. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency on January 30, when it became clear that the outbreak was not contained within China, and that international travel had spread it to 18 countries. The next day our Health and Human Services Secretary declared a Public Health Emergency for the US. That was 5 weeks ago (almost).

When the virus is identified and sequenced, it still takes manufacturing time to develop and manufacture testing kits for it. By the time of the WHO declaration on January 30, there had been 7700 confirmed and 12100 suspected cases in China, and 83 others in 18 other countries. That means that in the first month, they had already made and distributed testing kits in the tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands. This week it was announced that over a million test kits were now being distributed. That's in the second month since the virus was identified. In addition, hospitals and doctors' offices all across the US received a 70+ page report on what to do, how to identify cases, and how to handle the outbreak from the CDC last month, after the PHE announcement.

I don't think that constitutes "brushing it off as another flu", and neither did shutting down all travel from China and immediately setting up airport screening and quarantine centers. I have a friend who is originally from Macau, China, who now lives in Ames, Iowa, that traveled to visit her parents in Macau for Chinese New Year. She had to delay her return home to Ames until today because of our quarantine process (after 14 days without symptoms).

You may think the situation is being handled badly now because you believe the idiocy coming out of the news media. But to a sane observer who knows how to identify what is going on, things are being dealt with as well as they can be, and very quickly. The truth is, by the time the virus was identified in Wuhan, and China notified the rest of the world (if you want to blame anyone for delay, you can lay the blame there, because China dealt with it initially by jailing and punishing the doctor who identified the first cluster of patients for spreading bad news about China, then refused to let the world know for some weeks that anything was going on, as well as refusing to let any researchers from other countries in to work with them on identification or containment), there had already been several weeks of spread by unsuspecting travelers from China, who went on Mediterranean and Pacific cruises or other vacations such as to Vancouver or other places in the Western US where there are large populations of Chinese (Chinese New Year is a national holiday there where you get a whole week off) while carrying the virus but not very sick or not sick at all yet. That is why we are now seeing cases pop up in clusters all over the world, seemingly not connected to having been in Wuhan.

It is also becoming clear, now that more cases are being suspected and identified, that the vast majority of people who get this virus do not get the SARS component, but instead have anything from a mild cold-like illness to a moderate flu-like illness. That's why you have seen the recorded mortality rate drop from the initial 17-20% they recorded in January to the 2-3% range it's in now. As more people get tested and identified as having contracted the virus, you would expect to see the mortality rate decline because of increasing the number known to have had the virus.

It also appears that the health of the person prior to contracting the virus has a great deal to do with the outcome. The cluster of deaths in Washington state are primarily among the residents of a nursing home, and all who have died had pre-existing pulmonary or cardiovascular disease which compromised their health. You have the contrasting experience of the people who came off the cruise ship that was stuck in Japan. Something like 22 of them were tested positive for the virus before or since being flown back to the US. Yet they are doing fine, and some have been posting on social media that they don't feel that sick at all.

Just because the media, and possibly you, hates the president doesn't mean that public health officials aren't doing a good job or that the administration's action has been incorrect.

Very well said. I agree 100%. I am listening to the House Homeland Security Committee right now talk to 3 experts. It's interesting. I don't think many people understand what kind of an undertaking this is.

A few weeks ago my friend who works at a long term care facility received a 2 page letter from the CDC listing precautions, etc. and to keep themselves updated on the CDC website. According to her, the website stated protocol is if there are any positive cases in any surrounding counties they go into lock down. No residents leave, no visitors - same basic plan they have in place for other infectious respiratory diseases. That was the middle of February before we had any cases in the US. Also - make sure you have the appropriate gear for your employees, have a sick day policy in place, etc.

FYI to NotaSignGuy...all government agencies have protocol in place for infectious diseases. The CDC is just as excited to jump on this as a firefighter to a fire. There might be some hiccups along the way, but be assured the plan has been ready for many years. It's just a matter of adapting the plan to the disease.

Appropriating funding correctly will be important as well. There's also more to THAT then you think. These 3 experts all agree if the test isn't free - people will not get it. If they can't be without a paycheck for 2 weeks to be in isolation - they will go to work. Counties that don't have enough beds will need to rent space or buy trailers like Washington state did. You can't just hand out a bunch of money. It needs to be appropriately spent and expenses rated for importance. These are the things our government is working on now except for the idiots who are blaming Trump. This all takes some time to figure out and every disease and disaster is different. There's no cookie cutter plan, it needs to evolve and adapt. We are just seeing the beginning effects of this and even the doctors don't have all the answers yet.

And sometimes people need to take matters into their own hands. Own a company? Superintendent of a school? Police chief? Mayor? WE ALL SEE THE NEWS....
Have a meeting and make a plan!

 

[unclebun]

Travel ban on foreign nationals from China Jan 31: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html

Repatriating the cruise ship passengers who are US citizens was the correct thing to do. Had they done it sooner, far fewer of them would have tested positive for the virus. They would have been a lot safer in the kind of quarantine they are in now than trapped on a ship sharing the same HVAC with known cases. Quarantining those people on the ship created a breeding ground for the virus. It would have been better to get them off the ship and quarantine them in different quarters. On the other hand, I guess keeping them all on the ship until they've all had and cleared the virus could have been another course of action.

One month to get enough test kits to know that not only did China have tens of thousands of cases, but a small number were turning up in 18 countries around the world, and a month later to be distributing over a million more test kits? That's not only acceptable but exceptional.

What is missing from the breathless news stories and sensationalism is that the spread of the virus around the world actually occurred before the alarm was sounded in China, and that the number of cases is already far more than what has been reported, but the majority of them have not been identified because the people were never that sick. However, as test kits became available, the number of cases has risen dramatically, and will continue to do so as more people are tested. That is where the dramatic headlines showing the number of cases doubling or tripling overnight come from. It's not that there were a ton of new infections; there were a bu7nch of people tested where the day or week before nobody was being tested.

 

[unclebun]

More realities about medical research. Check this cut and paste from HHS Secretary Azar's interview today. Note that they are breaking record times with the work on a vaccine for this virus. But it will still take more than a year. And note that testing with medications is already well in progress, but it takes time to find out what works and what's safe, and what doesn't work.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Alex Azar said Wednesday that he is encouraged by the proposed timeline for a coronavirus vaccine.

In an interview on "America's Newsroom," Azar said that the doctors President Trump met with Tuesday, including NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, had designed a vaccine within three days of getting the genetic sequence to the virus from China.

"Then, just two days ago the FDA granted approval for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] -- that's Dr. Fauci's group -- to begin what's called 'phase one' clinical testing in about five weeks," he explained. "That's where we're going to test the safety of this vaccine probably in about 40 to 50 people."

Azar said that it would take a year to 18 months before there could be a fully-developed vaccine because it needs to be as safe as it is effective.

"So, we're talking a lot more about the therapeutics that may be getting developed," he said. "Existing medicines are getting tested as we speak on people who have the virus because somebody who has the virus -- your safety efficacy balance is a little bit different because you're going to see if that works."

Azar remains upbeat by the progress.

"I'm certainly encouraged by that vaccine timeline," Azar told the "Newsroom" hosts. "That would be probably the fastest vaccine delivery in human history. If we could get a vaccine developed in 12 to 18 months, that's incredible."

He also noted therapies and antivirals could potentially "deliver faster" results. Azar emphasized that the ability to test patients for the virus is "radically expanding."

You can't come up with medical treatments or tests at a snap of a finger.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Travel ban on foreign nationals from China Jan 31: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html

Repatriating the cruise ship passengers who are US citizens was the correct thing to do. Had they done it sooner, far fewer of them would have tested positive for the virus. They would have been a lot safer in the kind of quarantine they are in now than trapped on a ship sharing the same HVAC with known cases. Quarantining those people on the ship created a breeding ground for the virus. It would have been better to get them off the ship and quarantine them in different quarters. On the other hand, I guess keeping them all on the ship until they've all had and cleared the virus could have been another course of action.

One month to get enough test kits to know that not only did China have tens of thousands of cases, but a small number were turning up in 18 countries around the world, and a month later to be distributing over a million more test kits? That's not only acceptable but exceptional.

What is missing from the breathless news stories and sensationalism is that the spread of the virus around the world actually occurred before the alarm was sounded in China, and that the number of cases is already far more than what has been reported, but the majority of them have not been identified because the people were never that sick. However, as test kits became available, the number of cases has risen dramatically, and will continue to do so as more people are tested. That is where the dramatic headlines showing the number of cases doubling or tripling overnight come from. It's not that there were a ton of new infections; there were a bu7nch of people tested where the day or week before nobody was being tested.

That's not an all out ban.
Everything else you are bringing up is pure speculation, they wouldn't have got it on the ship, the ship was a breeding ground, the virus was already spreading around the world, the majority have not been identified because they weren't that sick, there are more cases than have been reported. If the cases are not reported, how can you definitively say that there are many more out there? There is no evidence to show any of this. Each country is dealing with distributing their own test kits. The distribution is lagging in the USA compared to other countries, that's indisputable fact, numbers don't lie and the USA does not have 1 million test kits as of yet.
You are doing exactly what you accuse the media of doing. As of right now, the facts being reported are about 100 cases in the USA and it is pretty isolated. Its not a big deal if they hurry up and jump on it but they are not. This is also not a partisan complaint despite people wanting to make it into that. One of the most vocally angry people with the CDC's response is Greg Abbott.

 

[unclebun]

Look at the new cases reported in California today. They came from travel that happened a month ago.
Look at the number of cases in Italy. They came from Chinese traveling to the Mediterranean for vacations a month ago or more. How else could the virus have gotten around the world between mid-late December and late January except by travelers taking it with them during the 2-4 weeks before? This is simple fact and deduction about how viruses are carried and transmitted.

Numbers do indeed lie when you don't have the actual numbers. People tested vs. people who actually have the virus is the key here. That's why the initial mortality rates for this virus were reported at 17-20%. That was based on a case definition, not testing, because the testing for the virus had not been manufactured yet. And part of the case definition initially was it had to include lung involvement. After they started doing testing they found that lots of people had the virus but didn't get lung involvement. And then the mortality rate plummeted as the sample size grew. Note that the mortality rate in the rest of China, excluding Wuhan, is currently at 0.7%.

When a virus is not as lethal as, say, Ebola virus, the number of people who catch it is always far higher than the number who seek medical attention. This virus was first recognized in a cluster of 7 hospital cases. But by the time those 7 cases had made it to the hospital, they had been sick for a number of days beforehand, and we are now finding that, like with the influenza virus, those who have the new coronavirus are also infectious several days before they start to feel sick. That, along with the incubation period, is why I can say with good confidence that the virus was spreading around the world before anyone even knew about it. Think about the number of people in Washington who had it but there was no direct contact with travel to Wuhan (as they call it, community acquired). They had to get it from someone who was around them 2-4 weeks prior.

Either that or cells of embedded Chinese agents around the world have been releasing an engineered virus in a coordinated attack.

 

[Boudica]

I maintain that this virus has been around much much longer than we realize. I believe MANY of the flu statistics could be and were Covid-19 which wasn't being tested because no one knew about it. I'm certain that unless you are a hermit, everyone on this forum knows someone that is infected, and wrote it off as the flu. Only now are they testing - and it takes a long time to get the test back. We have no way of knowing for certain unless they can go back and test all of those flu fatalities for t he last 6-7 months.

 

[Boudica]

Bump. It's been almost two years... Now what would you say?

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Bump. It's been almost two years... Now what would you say?

I'd say that you need to get back to work lady.

 

[CanuckSigns]

This thread aged well, like milk

 

[netsol]

Yes, you saw this coming, you were like Nostradamus

 

[netsol]

Bump. It's been almost two years... Now what would you say?

we were going to "flatten the curve" in 15 days, no harm to the supply chain

now you wonder if your grandchildren will say i don't believe there was a time when you didn't have to wear masks

 

[dypinc]

Bump. It's been almost two years... Now what would you say?

It is now obvious the pandemic was created for the vaccine.

 

[netsol]

Can't help but wonder if it got TimToad?

Was he close with anyone?
It has been quite a while since paul banned him

 

[Johnny Best]

I do not think the virus affects toads, but there has been forest fires, flooding and major crime in CA.
Tim Toad would have been on his 4th booster by now.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Was he close with anyone?
It has been quite a while since paul banned him

I used to talk with him from time to time but haven't heard anything from him in a year or so. Right after he got the boot he was featured in Sign Craft. Like him or not, that's a pretty cool achievement.

 

[Gino]

Yeah, alotta people have been featured there. Ya basically hafta to apply to be written up. Our own Danny A, Joe from Pontiac, Dan Swatarsky, Sign Maniac and lotsa others have all been in the magazine. Some good, some mediocre. At this stage of the game, it's not much more than a digital equipment advertisement tablet. However, I'd like to see what the toad had to say about stuff. Can I see it on utube or something ??

 

[Notarealsignguy]

It's still pretty cool, I wouldn't take that away from the guy. I'm sure that others that participated in this forum have been in there because looking back at old pictures, there has been some real talent in this place. Not sure what happened. Can you fix my printer?
I keep all of the sign crafts, I'll see if I can find it. Hopefully my wife didn't throw them away.

 

[SignosaurusRex]

Bump. It's been almost two years... Now what would you say?

...still washing my hands regularly, the CDC never said anything about feet though.

 

[Gino]

I figure everytime I shower, my feet get wet the most. So, I upped it to....... twice a month. If ya take a bath, ya just sit in your own filth....... dirt and germs alike. Nobody likes dirty germs. .......... or feet.