Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He really is that stupid.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Let there be snark.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / China / Today’s Wuhan Coronavirus Update: SNAKE FLU

Today’s Wuhan Coronavirus Update: SNAKE FLU

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(Dr. Wang said he thought he was exposed because he was masked, but not goggled. Researchers are now wearing goggles.)

Pending further updates, of course… this seems like a positive development. Snakes, as I understand it, are a significant winter ‘health’ specialty meal, but banning commerce in snake meat would be much easier than — as has happened before — having to shut down live-poultry markets.

You don’t have to say the relevant authorities have gotten good at dealing with these crises, but you have to admit they’ve gotten more practiced.


Hong Kong:

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  2. 2.

    Cermet

    To say that Chinese authorities haven’t taken this illness seriously nor taken enough steps would be an understatement – just wow. While this is no SAR’s it appears they are very concerned and I would think, considering the source reservoir, these steps should be sufficient to contain its spread and end its transmission. No surprise the orange fart cloud is reducing the CDC budget to pay for the billionaire’s tax cut.

  3. 3.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    – 600-800 flights a day through Wuhan airport

    – Direct flights to New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow and Tokyo.

    I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on these motherfucking planes!

  4. 4.

    Central Planning

    I was wondering what US city was similar in size to Wuhan’s 7 million people. I don’t know if they mean the city proper or the metro area of Wuhan, but another statistic says Wuhan has 11 million people

    Wikipedia says NYC has 8.4 million people and Los Angeles has 4 million people. Those are also the two largest cities in the US. Wuhan is China’s 6th or 7th largest city depending on how you want to count it.

    NYC’s statistical area (basically including surrounding areas) is 22.7 million people. LA is 18.8. The closest statistical area I found around the size of Wuhan was Chicago clocking in at 9.9 million people. That is our 3rd largest statistical area.

    The other interesting statistic is the population density. NYC is around 26,400 people per square mile. Wuhan is 3,200. Chicago is 12,000.

    Can you imagine if we placed LA or Chicago on lockdown? It would seem easier to do based on population density than what China is doing in Wuhan. People here would lose their shit, even if they weren’t going anywhere. Wuhan seems to coping with it pretty well (from what I’ve seen).

    I’m heading to Barcelona for a week and then Manchester, UK for the weekend before returning home. Here’s to hoping there’s no snakes on the plane!

  7. 7.

    Central Planning

    @Baud:

    We would. Trump supporters probably would not… “Well, if we have to save the country…”

    You know, like how the farmers that got screwed by tariffs still support him.

    I would also expect a snotty comment from him like “The elites won’t be able to travel and won’t make any money”

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    1. Fuck Trump.

    2. Fuck the Zergcrap gossip ads.

    3. Infect the fuck out of Soviet shitpile-a-lago.

  10. 10.

    Central Planning

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Last year when I went to Barcelona I went through Newark while my luggage went through Chicago. And Dallas. And Stuttgart. Thanks Obama. Can Snake Plisskin help with that?

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Central Planning: Yes.  Obama went from being President to fucking up airline luggage handling. :)  What airline boned the pooch there?  Did your luggage put on a slideshow for you?

  14. 14.

    Central Planning

    @mrmoshpotato: Fucking United. And I didn’t get any frequent flier miles for the luggage. Actually, my luggage arrived the next day so it wasn’t too bad.

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    Anyone in the market for suspended scaffolding?  I now know of a company that specializes in it.  (You weird ad algorithm.)

  19. 19.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Central Planning:

     

    Seems United Airlines would prefer to lie to passengers than engage in the truth…All the airlines have moments that infuriate passengers. Nobody does it in my experience with the consistency and arrogance of United…
    — Michael Wilbon (@RealMikeWilbon) May 23, 2019

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Central Planning:

    For context, there’s anywhere from 24 to 30 million souls living in Beijing.  The scale of the place is massive; there are 16 passenger rail lines compared to Chicago’s 6, and something like 8 traffic rings.

    Oddly, most of their expressway road signage is bilingual – the second language being American Standard (as opposed to British) English.

    Away from the traffic cams (and drivers seem to know where they are), they drive like maniacs.

  23. 23.

    Central Planning

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I was in Beijing for the Olympics. We took some taxis, and I recall they were relatively fine. One tried to screw us when we got to our hotel but the bellhop/doorman chased them away.

    Wikipedia says their population density is just over half that of NYC, but it felt more packed than any time I’ve been to New York. I think my lungs are just starting to be free of the smog, but that doesn’t happen in NYC.

  24. 24.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Central Planning:

    The people most eager for complete city and travel shutdowns will be the sort of Trump voters that live in 99% white ruralities who haven’t ventured more than 20 miles from home for the last five years.

  25. 25.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Central Planning:

     

    I thought Beijing’s air quality was bad, but it is pristine and pure compared to Saigon, the heat sink that also happens to be home to 9 million people in a mad dash for money.

  31. 31.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Holy shit – my wife has been telling me lately that I seem to be going a little colorblind. I only see 6 colors on the map….

  34. 34.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Central Planning: how do you actually place a lockdown on a city of millions? How do you get food and other supplies in?   Unfortunately some people will ignore orders not to leave town, or find someone willing to transport them for enough money.

  35. 35.

    Skepticat

    If snakes are the vector, I’d suggest staying even farther away from Rethuglicans than usual.

  37. 37.

    Martin

    Netflix has a nicely timed series about the threat of pandemics. The first two episodes have been good.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: There are procedures for doing these things. It’s particularly hard in places like the US which are so heavily decentralized in terms of transportation and services.

    In a place like LA, shutting down the airports and trains wouldn’t be that hard (we have way more airports than trains, FWIW), and there’s a surprisingly few roads that will take you out of the greater LA valley that the state/feds could gate. Yeah, people will slip through, but that’s not generally a problem. The goal isn’t to necessarily stop every soul, rather to drastically cut the odds of an infected person getting out by drastically cutting the number of people who travel.

    The bigger challenge in the US as you note is how to get supplies/services in. Again, in a place like LA that’s possible, technically, but not sure exactly how to implement it. We’ve got a shit-ton of drayage capacity out of the port of LA, so goods can move to the quarantine barrier and then have a quarantined driver pick it up and distribute. To a large degree that how things work now but to distribution centers out near those choke points, but that logistics setup isn’t what you need to ensure food/medicine are flowing where they need to go. It looks similar, but it’s both more complicated and more decentralized. And I have zero faith the feds could figure that out since centralized coordination outside of the military isn’t how the feds work. They basically just trust that Home Depot will stock the supplies everyone needs, rather than them doing it.

    But other cities? Shit, I don’t know. You could lock off Manhattan, Staten Island, Long Island pretty easily, but the process of getting supplies in and out is WAY harder. LAs quarantine barrier is basically unpopulated – lots of space to coordinate. NYCs is the Hudson River. Literally no place to coordinate. Chicago? I have no idea how you’d do it. Same for almost every other city. But in the case of NY and LA, your quarantine options put 15-20 million people inside the quarantine area, which helps the other 7 billion, but still leaves you with a fucking massive problem.

  39. 39.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Martin: The problem generally becomes that even the people actually conducting the quarantine are in the end just people.  And with Trump’s cuts to the CDC and public health sector there are less people to actually coordinate these things.

    It’s not something I worry about too much honestly (the Wuhan virus).  I have a much high chance of dying in an accident on I95, a heart attack  or from a case of the flu than I do of even getting the new coronavirus.

    I do find it funny that some of the people who don’t bother to get their kids immunized will be the same ones freaking out about Wuhan.  Oh look , someone with the measles was traveling through LAX January 12th and also went to the Brentwood CVS several times.

  40. 40.

    grandmaBear

    The reaction seems to be a little over the top to me. Wuhan has about the same population as the whole state of Ohio. I looked up the stats and we had on average 186 people per month who died from flu/pneumonia in 2017( the last year cited , as I remember).  The first case in Wuhan was diagnosed Dec. 8 & 17 have died.

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