Coronavirus: to Chinese democracy what Chernobyl was to glasnost?
Coronavirus did not originate in Wuhan seafood market, Chinese scientists say
Maybe we need to shut down the airlines until ...........
Is COVID-19 the dreaded 'disease X' World Health Organization experts predicted years ago?
South Korea reports doubling of coronavirus patients to 433, with over 1,000 at new outbreak site feeling ill
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/22/asia-pacific/covid-19-south-korea/#.XlKI5xNKhp8
78,823
White House fears coronavirus could shape Trump's 2020 fortunes
Though Trump in public has downplayed the virus, privately he has voiced his own anxieties.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/coronavirus-trump-white-house-116650
World is approaching coronavirus tipping point, experts say
78,000 cases confirmed, as Italy and Iran scramble to contain major outbreaks
Why some experts are questioning China's coronavirus claims
Lack of transparency, dubious numbers recall effort to downplay SARS outbreak
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/china-coronavirus-cover-up-claims-1.5471946
79,551
China’s Wuhan lockdown helped limit global spread of coronavirus, says World Health Organisation
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Canadians need to prepare for COVID-19
Air Canada cancels flights to China until April as government braces for domestic coronavirus outbreak
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/travel-coronavirus-champagne-advisories-1.5475003
Canadians need to prepare for COVID-19
Air Canada cancels flights to China until April as government braces for domestic coronavirus outbreak
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/travel-coronavirus-champagne-advisories-1.5475003
Canada like the US is very limited in terms of mass quarantine options for legal reasons compared to many other countries.
The US in the Boston "lock down" (over a pipe bomb) has certainly shown that they can and will lock millions of people in their homes on very flimsy legal grounds. I am sure that our totalitarian security laws that are on the books already have broad enough language to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy.
In the US the problem is related to jurisdictional authority:
Easy to do in a city much harder to get cooperation among them.
Canada has a number of Charter rights for residents and enabling legislation for quarantines that focuses on travellers.
I suspect that there would be numerous challenges to a quarantine within Canada of non traveling people who are not diagnosed with an illness.
Of course there would be Charter challenges and in six to eight years we might find out whether or not whatever draconian measures were enacted were done so lawfully.
Wall Street Falls As Coronavirus Spreads
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/26/coro-f26.html
"Wall Street fell sharply for the second day in a row yesterday, with the Dow dropping by around 1,900 points so far this week on the back of the spread of the coronavirus..."
400 cases in Italy
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Number of tests and positivity rate for Covid-19 as of today
- UK: 7,132 concluded tests, of which 13 positive (0.2% positivity rate). [source]
- Italy: 9,462 tests, of which 470 positive (5.0% positivity rate), awaiting results: unknown. [source]
- France: 762 tests, of which 17 positive (2.2% positivity rate), 179 awaiting results. [source]
- Austria: 321 tests, of which 2 positive (0.6% positivity rate), awaiting results: unknown. [source]
- United States: 445 concluded tests, of which 14 positive (3.1% positivity rate). [source]
US Sanctions Hamper Iran's Battle To Contain Coronavirus
https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1232798304477466624
"The illegal, criminal sactions on Iran are making it harder for the country to counter coronavirus. And these murderous sanctions have already killed thousands of civilians because hospitals can't get certain medicines and medical equipment..."
New cases in South Korea exceed those in China as coronavirus sweeps the globe
Coronavirus: Japan to close all schools to halt spread
Russia must be doing something right as only 2 casaes so far.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Russia must be doing something right as only 2 casaes so far.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Or maybe their risk is lower due to the types of borders they have and the patters of where people are coming from? I disagree with your implication that those who ahve more cases are doing soemthing wrong. In some cases they may be but that is not a generalization that is fair to make in either direction.
Just remember that Iran had zero cases until it didn't.
Logic will tell you where the greatest threat is with little need for extensive thought.
When it comes to Iranians, Iran will suffer and the government is not telling the truth. However, if you get off the plane from Iran you will get all kinds of attention. Iranians do not trust the government and they will seek testing. The cases we have heard of from Iran involve Iranians who tended to seek out medical attention quickly. The community s tight in Canada and you can be sure there is a lot of peer pressure to explain the testing to each other. The chance of significant community transmission from Iranians is probably very low.
The greater threat is being whispered about because we have no response. The US has a climbing caseload. The US has community transmission. The US has millions without healthcare and more who are unable to take sick days and even more who cannot pay for the uninsured costs even if they have insurance. Go to emerge and get an xray for a broken arm and you could get a bill for $5000.
As well, the US is a country Canada cannot close the border to without catastrophe and massive political accountability. The President of the US put Pence in charge of the response. The Stock market response was a load of truth. Nobody has any confidence in the US administration and they understand the US vulnerability.
The US is the greatest public health threat to the world. This is a country with volumes of travellers and massive resources of money being spent by people who cannot afford healthcare. This is because healthcare there is so expensive that people who can afford air travel may still not be able to see the doctor. No other country that I know of has such a population -- elsewhere if you cannot afford a doctor you cannot get on a plane. The country is governed by extremists more concerned about profit than lives. The Republican leadership will pay to protect themselves and feel morally okay with letting everyone else take their chances. Canada's public health threat does not come from the closely monitored people coming from Iran or China or Korea or Italy it is the masses of people coming from the US. Travel from any other country can be affordably restricted but if you restrict travel to or from the US you are asking for US money markets to give us a 50 cent dollar.
Canadians should be more worried about the US but likely will maintain a race-based concern more rooted in racism than real risk.
Most of us know this but we just do not want to talk about it.
Also where do Canadians go in winter most?
Actually if we checked into what Russia was actually doing we might learn some preventative measures
Actually if we checked into what Russia was actually doing we might learn some preventative measures
That is ridiculous -- really. Different country -- different set of advantages and disadvantages. Read my post -- our threat comes from the US and Russia's experience does not begin to answer it.
Logic will tell you where the greatest threat is with little need for extensive thought.
When it comes to Iranians, Iran will suffer and the government is not telling the truth. However, if you get off the plane from Iran you will get all kinds of attention. Iranians do not trust the government and they will seek testing. The cases we have heard of from Iran involve Iranians who tended to seek out medical attention quickly. The community s tight in Canada and you can be sure there is a lot of peer pressure to explain the testing to each other. The chance of significant community transmission from Iranians is probably very low.
The greater threat is being whispered about because we have no response. The US has a climbing caseload. The US has community transmission. The US has millions without healthcare and more who are unable to take sick days and even more who cannot pay for the uninsured costs even if they have insurance. Go to emerge and get an xray for a broken arm and you could get a bill for $5000.
As well, the US is a country Canada cannot close the border to without catastrophe and massive political accountability. The President of the US put Pence in charge of the response. The Stock market response was a load of truth. Nobody has any confidence in the US administration and they understand the US vulnerability.
The US is the greatest public health threat to the world. This is a country with volumes of travellers and massive resources of money being spent by people who cannot afford healthcare. This is because healthcare there is so expensive that people who can afford air travel may still not be able to see the doctor. No other country that I know of has such a population -- elsewhere if you cannot afford a doctor you cannot get on a plane. The country is governed by extremists more concerned about profit than lives. The Republican leadership will pay to protect themselves and feel morally okay with letting everyone else take their chances. Canada's public health threat does not come from the closely monitored people coming from Iran or China or Korea or Italy it is the masses of people coming from the US. Travel from any other country can be affordably restricted but if you restrict travel to or from the US you are asking for US money markets to give us a 50 cent dollar.
Canadians should be more worried about the US but likely will maintain a race-based concern more rooted in racism than real risk.
Most of us know this but we just do not want to talk about it.
Also where do Canadians go in winter most?
great post Sean. on point.
Canadians coming across the border back into Canada after a prolonged stay need to be screened at the very least.
Predicting what is going to happen with COVID-19
Stock Market Fall Continues at Record Speed
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/29/econ-f29.html
"The global stock market plunge continued yesterday, bringing to a close the worst week since the financial crisis of 2008. As one somewhat stunned investment funds manager cited by the Wall Street Journal commented: 'This has been really quick, really deep and in some respects unbelievable. Leuthold Group client investment strategist Jim Paulsen told the business channel CNBC there was a 'full panic...."
Sanctions Kill: Coronavirus and US Imposed Sanctions
https://solidaritycenter.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/mailing/news?reset=1&i...
"The US imposes sanctions on more than 39 countries. It endangers the whole world with sanctions intended to limit access to healthcare for 1/3 of the world's population. US sanctions* have significantly hampered Iran's efforts to respond to the Coronavirus outbreak...In Venezuela [, Syria] and North Korea, sanctions are responsible for the deaths of thousands..."
*Canada's copy-cat sanctions aid and abet the barbarism of this US siege-warfare weapon of mass destruction. Canadian progressives should oppose not collaborate.
'Do Wear Masks But Don't Think You're Safe': Top Soviet Virologist and WHO Expert Explains Covid2019 and Debunks Popular Myths
"If everyone worked like the Chinese, it would end very quickly..."
So Covid19 is probably here en masse now or coming very soon. Some considerations.
I read an article today explaining how the US was testing -- they test people coming in from some countries and they test those they track that those people come in contact with. This is done in the context of many places not being able to test due to issues with the CDC test which was then recalled,
So no widespread community testing. Meanwhile some cases are poping up that get tested outside normal testing protocols.
Meanwhile the Chiense have done a study indicating the death rates by age. Turns out extremely low in young people rising only to 1.3% in those in their 50s and then higher as you age to almost 15% of seniors. How would you catch this?
How many with the flu or a cold or no symptoms have it who are young passing it around? Impossible to know as death rate so low that it could be fairly unobserved. Of those younger people 1% means it could hide among other conditions that make them more fragile. Older people are often thought of dyine becuase they are older (before their time or not) At this age the flu can kill easily, so does a bad cold. 15% death rate is easy to hide in an older population.
If there is no widespread testing - how can we not think that this could be widespread already?
Now here is the rub: Everyone in North America lives only a few degrees from everyone else. People go south for the winter and then come back home. March break would spread this like wildfire. Therefore no state or province could have much of it and not every state and province -- especially given limited symptoms, no symptoms, flu-like reactions and death rates easily hidden amongst the other deaths.
Next year we could look at how the flu was this year and think that this was a bad flu year or wonder how many were Corona and thought to be the flu.
Another point that has often been made is that it is hard to do quarantines in Canada and the US. Some considerations:
1) compliance among the Canadian population is difficult to predict. The culture of individualism and a lack of fear of the police could be a problem.I suspect immigrant communities in Canada may be very compliant as many are more used to of mass emergencies and security operations. Many immigrant communities are easy to reach through limited media in minority languages. Travellers tend to be more educated and easy to reach through airports etc. It could be harder to reach and get compliance from general population.
2) Not sure if Canada has the number of police and military to do what some countries can do. The US has more police and military people per capita so likely have more of those resources.
3) Health care resources are also more widespread in the US. The US has a large inefficient healthcare system. Many health care workers are hired to provide extra and often unecessary services for those who can pay. If the US were able to mobilize a response, they likely have more doctors and nurses per capita than Canada. The problem will likely come from resistence from profit centres to widespread public health operations without charge. It is possible that the wealthy will consider the value of treating everyone when the disease is contagious. That said communications within health care providers in the US may be inferior even when mobilized compared to our more centralized system in each province.
4) Canada is overstretched at capacity already carig for almost everyone. It is possible that we have a lower surge capacity here when it comes to health services. What we have going for us does include a more centralized percentage of the population.
5) Canada only yesterday started asking Iranians to self isolate. Sounds like shutting the barn door after the paddock is empty if you consider how long this has taken and the likelihood that the US has had community transmission for weeks. This slow response -- and perhaps reluctance to deal with the threat from the US is concerning. How long will it take before Canada asks people who went to Florida to self isolate?
6) Warm weather has been presumed to be helpful. Maybe maybe not. Consider that if the virus is not slowed by warmer weather it may spread faster. People in winter wear gloves and scarves often. They touch the public places with these gloves and are less likely to rub their faces with gloves on. Warmer weather changes that. People will touch their face and hold the escalator, push the buttons, hang on in the bus with bare hands. We coudl get a blast of transmission in a warm week say following march break circulation.
Meanwhile, Canada has not considered it essential to stockpile for provincial health workers. The government said last week that was up to individual (overstretched health authorities and provinces). However, the public bought up the supply stockpiling unnecessarily. Good luck for Canada going late into the market if we need this stuff later.
We might end up having to more or less give up (rather than token gestures) on stopping transmission. The real key here will be protecting the eleerly where we can with extreme measures at retirement homes and hospitals. The rest of the population probably cannot be observed or tested adequately. It may be that we should take most of the resurces trying to ineffectively quarantine when it is out already, trying to test otherwise healthy people and spend it on the most vulnerable. Tough decision.
Kunstler: This Ain't No Foolin' Around
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/this-aint-no-fooling-around/
"The shadow of Coronavirus creeps across the scene like a cosmic messenger from Karma Central telling mankind to stop and assess. We're about to find out what we've wrought with the wonders and marvels of globalism. Is there anything you can think of over at the Walmart or the Walgreens that isn't made in China? I mean everything from a dustpan to a lint brush? I can't say for sure because I'm not over in China, but the place is apparently not open for business these days. One must surmise that a lot of activities in the USA may not be open for businesss much longer, either..."
"I live in Seattle, I have all the symptoms of COVID-19 and have a history of chronic bronchitis. Since I work in a physical therapy clinic with many 65+ patients and those with chronic illnesses, I decided to be responsible, and go to get tested. This is how that went..." (see her thread)
https://twitter.com/into_the_brush/status/1234685467682979840
USA is screwed.
Loud & Clear : On the US Coronavirus Response (podcast)
@13:00 The coronavirus continues to spread across the US, and 6 more people died from it yesterday in Washington State. People have now tested positive for coronavirus in 18 states, and the Center for Disease Control estimates that as many as 70% of Americans eventually will become infected. KJ Noh, a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of Africa who is a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice, joins the show."
Don't be laughing at the US now:
Canada's government just discovered today that Coronovirus means that the Military should do some pre-planning in case there is a Pandemic... Yeah. March 4. Why the hell wasn't this started more than a month ago when we knew it was likely to come here rather than weeks after it already is.
And they are testing people at the airports from certain countries but not the general population.
In other news ambulances in Ottawa waited 2 hours in a queue at the second hospital after being turned away from the first. Paramedics were no longer accepting calls becuase there were not any. They had to stay with patients by law until the hospital took over. No coronavirus here to blame.
But no worries for Ontario since the government is on the case and will solve the problem by cuts. It is true that if you do not have enough space or people in the hospital that your ambulances queue up you can solve the problem by having fewer ambulances and let people die or not at home. Thanks Premier Ford.
Forget the US -- Canada is screwed.
Other news: UK asked nurses and doctors who recently retired to come back and help despite that they are of the generation most at risked. They told Boris to get stuffed as they left after years of being mistreted.
Toilet facilities including washbasins on planes get filthy very quickly. Everywhere.
I read this today that suggests that there is an upside to the coronavirus outbreak. Cruise lines - one of the worlds biggest carbon polluters - are down 40 per cent, air travel is way down and China has seen a significant reduction in carbon emissions because of reduced industrial activity and less travel. The article isn't saying coronavirus is a good thing, but rather that the responses to the outbreak and the resulting decline of carbon pollution suggest models for reducing carbon emissions post-outbreak.
I read this today that suggests that there is an upside to the coronavirus outbreak. Cruise lines - one of the worlds biggest carbon polluters - are down 40 per cent, air travel is way down and China has seen a significant reduction in carbon emissions because of reduced industrial activity and less travel. The article isn't saying coronavirus is a good thing, but rather that the responses to the outbreak and the resulting decline of carbon pollution suggest models for reducing carbon emissions post-outbreak.
Silver linings. I have read a few like that, particularly the issue of pollution.
Also in a darker vein: in a close US election if a bunch of older Conservatives who do not believe in climate change and who think that the Coronovirus is a Democratic conspiracy get together and breathe each others' air -- there may be fewer of them to vote in November. Not calling for that but silver linings....
If the US stock market crashes the air out of Trump's relection balloon may escape.
Trump is saying that Democrats are calling for it. No they are not. But they just might benefit all the same and he does know that.
Seriously, the pollution issue may be short-lived if the Chinese or US governments stimulate the economy after to get the wheels moving again. Either one would have the same effect -- either the stimulous comes from the Chinese investing and making more or the US buying more. The Chinese are a little more likely to invest in something a little clearner than the US at the moment.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/
As of March 2, 2020
Country
Tests PerformedTests per Million People
Population
South Korea
109,591
2,138
Italy
23,345
386
Austria
2,120
235
Switzerland
1,850
214
UK
13,525
199
Finland
130
23
Vietnam
1,737
18
Turkey
940
11
United States
472*
1
I read this today that suggests that there is an upside to the coronavirus outbreak. Cruise lines - one of the worlds biggest carbon polluters - are down 40 per cent, air travel is way down and China has seen a significant reduction in carbon emissions because of reduced industrial activity and less travel. The article isn't saying coronavirus is a good thing, but rather that the responses to the outbreak and the resulting decline of carbon pollution suggest models for reducing carbon emissions post-outbreak.
I am really hoping the virus outbreak has a long term chilling effect on the cruise industry. It has become a monstrous pollution machine but no one seems to pay attention to that when they book a trip. If it looks like sailing is playing Russian roulette with ones immediate personal health, that might dampen the demand.
I read this today that suggests that there is an upside to the coronavirus outbreak. Cruise lines - one of the worlds biggest carbon polluters - are down 40 per cent, air travel is way down and China has seen a significant reduction in carbon emissions because of reduced industrial activity and less travel. The article isn't saying coronavirus is a good thing, but rather that the responses to the outbreak and the resulting decline of carbon pollution suggest models for reducing carbon emissions post-outbreak.
That's pretty interesting. I had no idea the Cruise Ship industry were such big polluters. It would be an exxcellent study to see the long term social and economic effects the virus outbreak has. It highlights our materialist society and may show us we can get by with less.
Now if only it would stop the US Military - the largest single polluter in the world.
And Zionism.
"The enemy occupier and its collaborators are using COVID-19 as a pretext to deploy the infrastructure of apartheid and Zionist state terrorism."
https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1235696382054461440
A Terrifying Scenario: Coronavirus in 'Quarantined' Gaza
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/05/a-terrifying-scenario-coronaviru...
"...The worst of fates awaits Gaza, should the deadly and fast-spreading virus find its way from all directions through the hermetic siege which engulfs this miniscule but densely populated region.."
The ghoul-regime in Tel Aviv has probably already considered it.
