+1, look at the Seattle area right now, hospitals over run, unable to function and that’s ground zero. But hey, it’s just the flu. Total lack of understanding

What about the current situation we find ourselves in leads you to believe we were well-served by sitting on our hands at all?

I swear, there's going to be 500 Americans left alive in two weeks and we'll all be living in underground bunkers eating baked beans out of a can and Trump supporters will be regaling us with the President's amazing leadership because he shut down flights to China.

It was a good decision. Still, it accomplished 2% of what we needed to accomplish. Everything else he's done on this has been a monumental failure and we are well behind the rest of the world on this. He downplayed this for weeks for political purposes. We were told in February this was fully contained and we'd have zero cases soon. He and his lackeys at Fox News insisted this was a Democratic hoax and wasn't serious for a solid month. That's when we should have been acting, and that's when more moderate social distancing could have been effective.

We've now reached a point where Republican and Democratic Governors alike are shutting down small businesses, schools, and the world's largest companies are shifting operations to remote-only. We reached this point because we didn't roll out testing fast enough or at nearly the right volume, and as a result we grossly underestimated the scope of this. Had we had better insight, we could have tracked this virus better and avoided mass-hysteria. We didn't do that, so now here we are. Businesses will fail. Americans will lose their jobs and their health insurance at the worst possible time. And why? Largely because for a month the President didn't want a high number of cases to impact his re-election chances. So we refused tests from the international community, stopped a University in Seattle from conducting their own, and the President gave speeches about how this was all under control and we'd be at zero cases soon.

But yeah, I guess it's cool we shut down those flights. Seems to have saved the day.

It's starting here in Cleveland.

https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/03/cuyahoga-count...

CDC has been way behind on their info. They seem more worried about stopping "stigma" than stopping the spread. According to the page you linked to, you are not to call them, even if you have all the symptoms, unless you have been in close contact with someone who has the disease, or you visited an area with "ongoing spread". So, I guess that means that if the clerk at McDonalds, or the cashier at Walmart, develops symptoms, they shouldn't bother calling because they aren't going to get tested. Apparently they need to get to the stage where they require hospitalization before they can be tested. Now, I suppose that if you consider the entire US to be areas of "ongoing spread", then they could be tested if they have symptoms.

I presume the reason the web site says this is because they didn't have the testing capacity to test very many people. Supposedly this week that will change.

Yes, the identifying traits of an established infection are a cough and a fever. Earlier, however, most people experience rhinitis, followed by an asymptiomatic stage where they are contagious that can last 4-9 days. You saw examples of that on the Diamond Princess. Some people said something along the lines of "I thought I had gotten a cold, and gotten over it quickly. When I tested positive, I couldn't believe it."

CDC does mention that it is possible that asymptiomatic spread is happening, but doesn't think it is a significant driver in the spread, and that we should focus on people with symptoms. That doesn't really match up with experiences in other countries, however. In China, they were able to control SARS, which didn't spread until you had symptoms, by quickly identifying and quarantining people with symptoms. That didn't work with COVID19, so they quarantined everyone. Here's an article on the subject in the US:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asympto...

South Korea has been very successful in controlling it because they made the tests fast and free, and available to anyone. If someone has symptoms, they can get tested without having to prove they were in contact with someone who had it. If someone was in contact with someone who had it, they can get tested without symptoms. The result has been a tremendous number of negative tests, but also has been to catch a lot of cases very early, dramatically reducing the spread.

At the early stage, testing anyone who wants to be tested will create problems: namely it will overwhelm resources. How many people hear that a runny nose and cough are early signs, and then convince themselves that they do have those symptoms? It's the exact response we have in people buying toilet paper. Everyone panics, rushes to the store, and buys far more than they need. If you tell the public tests are free to anyone/everyone, then you can bet resources will be overrun.

The economic hit to the country will outweigh the health hit. All the while, politicians will attempt to smear their opposition. Partisans will point fingers. Everyone will be second-guessed.

Actually, a side effect of the extreme quarantining and social distancing in some countries has been the virtual elimination of colds and the regular flu as well, so the effect is probably not as extreme as you might think. Singapore is right now in their peak flu season, for example, and has 0 cases, for the first time ever.

S. Korea ramped up testing much faster than the US, and they were doing 10,000 tests a day. as of a couple weeks ago, and they are probably doing more now. There is no excuse for the fact that S. Korea was able to administer 100,000 tests before the US could do 1,000. I understand that as the US ramps up testing capacity, they can't test everyone who wants one. Allowing them only to people who have a doctor's orders is a very reasonable compromise, certainly more reasonable than limiting it to only people with known contacts.

As for the economic hit, don't kid yourself. Any course of action will involve a massive economic hit. At this point I only know of four approaches. All have tremendous costs:
1. S. Korea - free tests to anyone, plus an app to identify areas where the risk is high
2. China - Shut down all non-essential businesses for two months, require everyone to stay home. One person per household can leave every 5 days to get supplies.
3. Italy/Spain - Ignore it until the hospitals are overwhelmed, and the death rate approaches 10%, then implement the Chinese solution.
4. Japan/Singapore/Taiwan/Hong Kong - An aggressive compromise, with a lot of testing, a lot of social distancing, and aggressive contact tracing.

At this point, there is no course of action that doesn't have costs. We have to try to pick the best course of action. The US sort of has tried to take alternative 4, but waited too long to start the social distancing, and to ramp up testing, so that choice may no longer be available. Of the others, it seems to me that #1 is the lowest cost of the three.

As for politicians, this is a time when we should have unity as a country. Any politician from either party that tries to make this a political issue should be condemned.


That is reasonable, unless she had a known exposure. However, if she starts having chest congestion and a fever, the picture changes. That's how I'm approaching my cold.

One of the local radio stations out here was saying this morning that,with all the
bars and restaurants,including "Men's Clubs",closing down,"Cam Girls" are doing really great business.

Here is a link to an article about the Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan approach to containing COVID19:
https://time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore-ho...

In the US, I think that horse has already left the barn, though we can still learn from it, and maybe be better prepared in the future.

Why is it that several of you have said shut down flights to China? Were not flights to the US from China shut down as early as any country stopped flights from China? And Americans who came from China, were they not forced to quarantine?

https://www.wionews.com/world/are-dormant-carriers-of-cov...
Another article showing disagreement with CDC's statement that "Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms; there have been reports of this occurring with this new coronavirus, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads".


FWIW, I did stay home Saturday when I had my cold, but with my runny nose and cough gone, I returned to work today. However, if I develop a fever, I'll be staying home for quite awhile. I'm not an epidemiologist, so I'll limit myself to just posting links to articles.

And, here are a couple messages from doctors in Italy about their situation:
https://files.catbox.moe/3ns6c1.mp4
I can't verify the authenticity, but it matches with other things I have heard from there. The US currently has 4708 cases. Italy had 4636 on 3/6.

Ah, so Stalin hath spoken. I mean Castro. I mean Kim Jung-un. I mean Xi Jinping.

Yes supreme leader! We will comply!

Wash your hands and avoid yawning as you strap that dynamite to your chest.