Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The lights are all blinking red.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Saturday/Sunday, May 2-3

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Saturday/Sunday, May 2-3

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57Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A tug of war has emerged between #coronavirus safety and the survival of the Las Vegas tourism industry, which some casino operators fear will never be the same

    Nothing is ever going to be quite the same.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    The president has already mentioned that he doesn’t thank the social distancing rules need to stay in place.   NFL games are going to be breeding grounds for the spread of the virus.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    Speaking as someone who spent the last couple decades on tourism: yeah, that’s like last on the list, is it not?

  5. 5.

    Mezz

    Am I the only one that thinks ANY sports league coming back at ANY point this year (even without sports fans in attendance) is absurdly and preposterously naive and stupid? I’m a huge sports fan, but seriously, they’re going to get 250-300 people (53-man rosters, coaches, trainers, etc. for each team) on a football field every week for 16 weeks and NOBODY comes down with the Trump Plague? Are you fking serious??

    My favorites are “Oh, they can play in SD or Iowa because there are so few cases there!” IDIOT, there’s no cases in SD because SD isn’t testing, because high numbers of cases make Trumpykins look ridiculous, and we can’t have the Mango Mussolini be made to look ridiculous. (Read that in the Jack Woltz voice; it’s better.)

    I listen to a few sports podcasts, and people I otherwise feel are pretty smart folks just sound like totally uninformed nimrods talking about quarantine bubbles, playing NFL games four nights a week, etc. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for billionaire owners. Never.

    Anyway, since there’s no actual sports to gamble on, what would we set the line at — over/under — for how many games the NFL actually plays this year?? I say 4.5 weeks of games at most, -125 for the under, + 110 for the over.  Adjustments?

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    David Frum@davidfrum
    Just zoomed w two Canadian friends who own a hard-hit small business. They applied online for the Cdn emergency small business loan program. Application process took under 10 minutes; approval less than 2 minutes. Money arrived in their account two days later.

    If they repay by end of 2022, 25% of the loan will be forgiven

    Program passed Parliament nearly unanimously

    This is how things work in a First World country.

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: This is how things work in a First World country.

    Sigh. In 2000, when the election got stolen, I was a little old for emigrating, and my partner has a chronic illness. Good luck with that one!

    But I also had a “Dammit! I’m not going to leave without a fight!” response. It CAN be fixed. And the potentials of this nation are still dear to my heart.

    And so, here we are. Still fighting.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    Most of Florida is going to partially reopen starting tomorrow. Several counties in the more populous southern part of the state will remain locked down because that’s where the worst outbreak was. We don’t have an adequate testing capacity to safely reopen, but they’re going to do it anyway.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    @Betty Cracker: We don’t have an adequate testing capacity to safely reopen, but they’re going to do it anyway.

     
    Of course they are. What, they will fall back on cattle and strawberries? As if!

  11. 11.

    terben

    Australian Dept of Health bulletin:

    As at 3:00pm on 3 May 2020, a total of 6,801 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 95 deaths and 5,817 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    Today, there were 18 new cases and 2 deaths, the majority of new cases have been from Victoria.

    To date, over 633,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 1.1% have been positive.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    One thing I don’t understand about the Mayo clinic mask fiasco with Dense: Why didn’t they just say, “No, you can not come in with out a mask.” Nobody has to partake of this bullshit. If they asked me, I wouldn’t just say no, I’d say, “FUCK no.” So having said yes, when he refused to abide by the rules, they could then say no.

    Why don’t they?

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers: 122 new cases, of which 70 are from local infection and 52 are in Malaysians returning from abroad; total 6,298 cases. 87 recovered, total 4,413. Of 1,780 active cases, 27 are in ICU, of whom 13 are on respiratory aid. Two deaths, total 105; case fatality rate 2.32%.

    The DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announces that the Health Ministry has begun a screening programme for residents of senior-care homes encompassing both public and private ones.

  14. 14.

    Sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: Because this administration is not shy about abusing its power to screw over everyone who in any way embarrasses it.  Governors can use their national guard to defend their supply shipments. The Mayo Clinic doesn’t have an army.

  15. 15.

    Chetan Murthy

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ll bet, same reason (some) Harvard profs kept taking Jeffrey Epstein’s filthy money even afer their President Drew Gilpin Faust forbade them in 2008: “money talks”.  Some honcho at Mayo made the decision that they’d let Pence come, and when the time came and some lower underling reported “he’s not wearing a mask”, that honcho (or some flunky of his) said “let him in anyway”.

    Money is more important than lives, even at Mayo, I’ll bet.

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    One baffling (and for me embarrassing) thing about Malaysia is that we have never recognised refugee status, and instead treat all such as illegal immigrants, with not always humane consequences.

  17. 17.

    prostratedragon

    @OzarkHillbilly:  How dependent are they on federal funds for their activities? Is their endowment enough that they could gamble on a year, say, without whatever they’ve been getting and still have a good backstop?

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab: @Chetan Murthy: So in other words, greedy gutless sumbitches. Take note, I’m not talking about the Mayo clinic alone, I am talking about everyone who goes along with this bullshit even tho they are obviously uncomfortable with it.

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    greedy gutless sumbitches.

    to be clear, I don’t think this of the people doing the actual work.  But the execs?  Hell yeah.  Their bottom lines are … on the line.

  22. 22.

    Brachiator

    @JPL:

    The president has already mentioned that he doesn’t thank the social distancing rules need to stay in place.

    Sigh. Trump seems determined to undo every effort to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the country.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Chetan Murthy: Yeah, those are the people I’m talking about. All the others are little more than grunts, doing what they are told, just trying to get thru the day.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    Every day it becomes more apparent that in America’s war on Covid-19, your president is fighting for Covid-19.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: Looks like everyone is going to go back to business as usual. We’ll see how that works out.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    Every day it becomes more apparent that in America’s war on Covid-19, your president is fighting for Covid-19.

    Brutal, but true.

    And Trump gives aid and comfort to those who are as stupid as he is. Another commenter noted this stupid, angry revolt against the use of masks in an Oklahoma city:

    City Manager Norman McNickle said, “In the short time beginning on May 1, 2020, that face coverings have been required for entry into stores/restaurants, store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse.  In addition, there has been one threat of violence using a firearm.  This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings helps contain the spread of COVID-19.

    “Many of those with objections cite the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask. No law or court supports this view. In fact, a recent Federal lawsuit against Guthrie’s face covering order was fully dismissed by the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

    Trump is not only a jerk with a loyal base, he is exactly as stupid as his base. I think this is part of why they love him.

  27. 27.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Amir Khalid:

    your president is fighting for Covid-19

    Camus said something about this once.  About how you were either on the side of the humans, or the side of the plague.  Yeah, he’s on the side of the plague.

  28. 28.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Brachiator: the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask

    That’s how I felt about trousers, but the court was not convinced.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @Brachiator:

    Trump The Murderer-in-Chief seems determined to undo every effort to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the country

    Fixed for accuracy

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    Every day it becomes more apparent that in America’s war on Covid-19, your president is fighting for Covid-19.

    “Many of them are good viruses”?

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    @Brachiator:

    Trump is not only a jerk with a loyal base, he is exactly as stupid as his base. I think this is part of why they love him.

     
    Exactly, and why they constantly make excuses for him, like “baby Christian” and “Fake News” and “those health professionals are just crisis actors.”

    I’m hoping only 27% will still cling even as their loved ones (if they have any) are dying. Because Trump is a Pavlov with dogs: he just says whatever makes those pithed frogs jump.

  32. 32.

    Mousebumples

    Re – sports, some seem more likely to support social distancing than others. Golf, tennis, auto racing (though I’m not sure about the pit crews) seem plausible. I agree that football seems unlikely to have a full season without spreading the infection around.

  33. 33.

    trnc

    @OzarkHillbilly: One thing I don’t understand about the Mayo clinic mask fiasco with Dense: Why didn’t they just say, “No, you can not come in with out a mask.”

    Maybe they decided more lives would be saved in the long run if he caught it and took it back to the White House.

  34. 34.

    trnc

    @Brachiator: Trump is not only a jerk with a loyal base, he is exactly as stupid as his base. I think this is part of why they love him.

    He’s a narcissist and has said he loves the uneducated. Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive if you don’t limit “education” to a degree.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    I am kinda tickled by this Florida Man story.

    A Florida man is facing trespassing charges after security found him camping on Walt Disney World’s Discovery Island, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

    Deputies said they were called to 4301 N. World Drive Thursday after Richard McGuire, 42, was spotted on the Disney-owned property, which is currently closed to the public.

    Orange County deputies searched for McGuire on foot, by helicopter, and by boat before finally making contact with him, according to an arrest report.

    When deputies told McGuire they had been using a loud speaker to address him, he said he didn’t hear them because he was sleeping inside one of the buildings on the island, which he referred to as a “tropical paradise,” according to the report.

    According to an arrest report, McGuire told deputies he was not aware that the property was off limits and that he had been camping there since Monday or Tuesday and planned to stay for about a week.

    Discovery Island, which was a zoological attraction before Disney’s Animal Kingdom park opened, has been closed since 1999.

    I admit that the idea of doing lockdown on a nice little island is appealing, illegal trespass and getting into trouble aside.

  37. 37.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Four recent cases in China are interesting epidemiologically. The only domestic confirmed case yesterday was  a person who had traveled from Wuhan to Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, in mid-Apr. He was  placed under 14 day self-quarantine at Taiyuan, and tested negative on PCR at the start of self-quarantine. Having not developed any symptoms during the self-quarantine, he was free to move about from the end of Apr., returning to work and regular life for a couple of days. He was tested again on Apr. 30, for end-of-quarantine check, and tested positive. Re-test on May 1 still showed positive, and the person was diagnosed as confirmed case on May 2. Note that this case is not an asymptomatic, but there is no indication in the case report that the person developed any of the common symptoms like fever and cough. Perhaps CT scan showed lung infection? The question is where was he infected, in Wuhan, during the train ride to Taiyuan, or at Taiyuan? None of the scenarios are reassuring, since both Wuhan and Taiyuan have not had confirmed cases in weeks, indicating that the virus remains lurking under the surface. Additional questions include why was the end of quarantine PCR not done while the person was still under self-quarantine (as is the case with centralized quarantined)? Should people under self-quarantine be tested during the middle of the quarantine period, as well? Will this case push the various authorities reinstate mandatory 14 day quarantine for all travelers from Hubei Province?

    The asymptomatic case in Sichuan Province from two days ago turns out to be quite a story. Apparently the person from Yanbian Prefecture in Jilin Province was wanted for crimes in Luzhou in Sichuan Province. Police from Luzhou arrested him and eight of his accomplices on Apr. 28, and took them to Sichuan on Apr. 29. All of them were tested for PCR on Apr. 30, one showing positive, and re-test on May 1 confirmed the result. The person has been living in Yanbian since late Feb. Again, Yanbian has not reported confirmed or asymptomatic cases for many weeks, so what is the transmission chain? Making matters worse, the prisoners were transferred by passenger trains from Yanbian to Luzhou, with train changes at Changchun (capital of Jilin Province) and Beijing. Lessons learned, maybe prisoners should be tested at origin, before travel?

    Jilin City in Jilin Province reported an imported confirmed case on May 1, a Chinese national fleeing Russia. The person entered China on Apr. 11 at the Manzhouli crossing in Inner Mongolia, and was placed into 14 day centralized quarantine at point of entry, where he tested negative three times. He was released from centralized quarantine at Manzhouli on Apr. 26, and transferred to Jilin City for 7 days of centralized quarantine near his place of residence. He tested negative again on Apr. 27, and finally tested positive on May 1, the last day of his quarantine. Re-test on May 2 confirmed the results, and CT scan showed lung infection, classifying him as confirmed case. It was a good thing that 14 + 7 quarantine has become standard across China, or the person would have go back to the community. Less learned: perhaps the authorities should utilize fast CT scans to help overseas arrivals at the start and end of centralized quarantine, instead of relying entirely upon PCR test.

    Finally, the new cluster at Zengcheng District in Guangzhou added a am asymptomatic case yesterday, apparently a close contact of a known case, so the person should have been under isolation already.

    Moral of the above? Vigilance has to be maintained by the authorities everywhere, fatigue and complacency have to be avoided! That especially applies to places that seem to have crushed their epidemics (South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand).

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mousebumples:

    More competitive sports than most people realise have a team behind the competitor(s) on the track/field/court. A boxer has trainers, cut men, sparring partners. A sportsball team, for instance, will have a training centre with fitness and strength coaches, medical staff, physiotherapists, nutritionists, janitorial staff, cafeteria staff, clubhouse personnel. And all these people need to be included in any testing regimen to ensure the safety of pro sports. Ditto boxing coaches and corner men and sparring partners, golf caddies, track and field coaches, motor sports pit crews, and anybody else you can think of.

    That’s a lot of testing resources. Here’s how Chelsea FC manager Frank Lampard feels about devoting those resources to pro sports ahead of other sectors.

  40. 40.

    Barbara

    I have a lot of sympathy for Vegas, but even if the casinos open up, who is going to be there? A few locals and retirees but likely not enough to justify reopening.  Certainly none of the large conferences that provide most of the energy and income.

  41. 41.

    YY_Sima Qian

    There is a reported “dossier” prepared by the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (the US, the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand), alleging massive cover up by the CCP regime for one and half months and insinuating the epidemic was cause by leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It has been seeded through media in Australia, and picked up by other media across the Anglosphere.

    The dossier is not published anywhere, but the contents reported by the various media suggest a really shoddy product, which even the new articles had to concede did not disclose anything that is not already public knowledge. Even worse, many of the points raised have already been debunked weeks ago.

    Claim 1: Husband and wife connected to the seafood market were infected on Dec. 8, which the dossier claims as evidence of human to human transmission, which China did not acknowledge until Jan. 20. However, these two cases were found retroactively in late Dec. or early Jan., they were not known at the time. Furthermore, family cluster alone is not evidence of human-to-human transmission, it could be rats, flees or mosquitoes. China claimed “limited human to human transmission, no evidence yet of sustained human to human transmission” in mid-Jan. The WHO repeated what they have been told by the Chinese authorities. Small family clusters are signs of limited human to human transmission, while sustained transmission requires wider spread in the community, so the cases cited by the dossier does not contradict what the Chinese government was saying. Of course, we now know that the local authorities in Wuhan and Hubei were trying to cover up evidence of sustained human to human transmission in mid-Jan.

    Claim 2: Beijing ordered labs to destroy samples of the virus to hide information. This has been debunked. Commercial labs received viral samples sent by the various hospitals in Wuhan, and determined the virus to be a novel coronavirus, bearing similarities to the original SARS, which implies it being highly pathogenic. Upon this discovery, China National Health Commission ordered all lab that are not rated to handle such viruses to either hand over their samples to BSL-3 or BSL-4 labs at provincial and national health commissions, or destroy their samples. This is standard, and safe, practice. It is even a plot point in the movie Contagion. Why would China notify the WHO on Dec. 31, or publish the genetic map on Jan. 9, if the CCP regime’s primary concern was cover up?

    Claim 3: Wuhan Institute is Virology, specifically Dr. Shi Shengli, was conducting dangerous gain of function research with bat coronaviruses, threatening the world. What is most ridiculous with this charge is that the work of Dr. Shi and her team is hardly secret or nefarious. Their work have been partially funded by the US and Australia (among others), with long term collaboration with the scientific community around the world (including the US and Australia), and they were prolific in publishing their work. Members of her team were trained and worked in the US and Australia (among others). It was her team that finally found the progenitor coronavirus to the original SARS in bats in Yunnan Province, before the jumps to civets and humans, after a decade of painstaking field work. Her research were also instrumental to the team that first identified Remdesivir as candidate to treat COVID-19. Gain of function research is indeed controversial in the virology community, but it is also widespread. The US conducted such research until 2014. When the NAIAD stopped funding, Dr. Fauci signed off outsourcing the work to WIV and Dr. Shi’s team. Then, in 2018, Trump administration decided to resume gain of function research in the US. Trump NIH shut down the collaboration with Dr. Shi a couple of days ago, but the collaboration with Australian government research institutions continue.

    Claim 4: WIV has history of unsafe practices. This talking point has already been seeded via a Josh Rogin opinion piece on the WP weeks ago, purporting US diplomatic cables from the embassy in Beijing that alleged poor protocols at there. However, the cables have not been published, though the WP is suing for them under FOIA. It is important to note that the US diplomats were invited to visit the labs by WIV, and there were no trained scientists among the visitors, so their assessment should be taken with that in mind. No other evidence or report that corroborate poor safety protocols at WIV have surfaced to date. The BSL-4 lab at WIV was designed and partially funded by France, and the French scientific community seem to only have good things to say about the lab. The head of the Galveston National Lab has also been full of praises for the WIV, and specifically Dr. Shi’s team.

    Claim 5: China refused access by international experts, especially to Wuhan. Well, I have shared before that experts from WHO’s Beijing  office, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan joined the second experts group sent by the National Health Commission to Wuhan in mid-Jan. This is confirmed by Taiwan’s CDC’s own website! Of course, the local authorities were withholding critical information regarding human to human transmission to the non-Mainland Chinese experts; but then, they were lying to experts sent by Beijing, as well. Virologists and epidemiologists from Hong Kong (with sterling international reputations) also joined the third experts group send by Beijing a week later, and they finally poked through the veil of obfuscation. Dr. Ian Lipkin from Columbia also visited Beijing and Guangzhou in late Jan. to confer with officials from the Chinese CDC and National Heath Commission, as well as Dr. Zhong Nanshan, who he has collaborated closely with during SARS. (Ironically, he was not infected in China, but in NYC) It is true that the Chinese authorities delayed access after most of the nation went into varying degrees of lock down,   and only allowed the Joint WHO-China Mission in mid-Feb. after the epidemic has already turned the corner even in Wuhan, and did not confirm the visit to Wuhan by a small sub-group of the panel of experts until the last minute. However, the international side of of the Joint Mission wa me truly diverse, with only two members affiliated with the WHO. The remaining 11 international experts came from Hong Kong (2 from University of Hong Kong, Singapore (National University of Singapore), South Korea (professor from Seoul National University, who led the response to the 2015 MERS outbreak and has been deeply involved in the COVID-19 outbreak there), Japan (from Japanese equivalent of CDC), Germany (from Robert Koch Institute, which has been leading the COVID-19 response there), Nigeria (head of Nigerian CDC), Russia (from Russian equivalent of CDC and RKI), and the US (from CDC and NIAID). The report produced by the mission was unanimously signed off by its expert panel. Most of the international experts had no obligation to tie the CCP line. When the report was publicized, the reported outbreaks at Iran, Italy and South Korea was just getting started, and the rest of the world was still weeks away.

    Claim 6: China forced the WHO to ignore warnings from Taiwan. This is a talking point being pushed by the DPP government in Taipei, as well. However, the “evidence“ if such a warning an email sent by Taiwan’s CDC to the WHO on Dec. 31, after Wuhan’s Municipal Health Commission has already announced an outbreak of atypical pneumonia of unknown origin on Dec. 30, and China had informed the WHO on the Dec. 31. The the Taiwan CDC’s email was a request for information, based on the press release published by Wuhan the day before, nothing more.

    Despite the glaring holes in the analysis, the news articles are written with the maximum accusatory spin, assigning maximum culpability to Beijing. I think Adam L. Silverman would call this an influencing operation in motion.

    There are clear evidence obfuscation and cover up and incompetence by the regional governments, published by Chinese media during the brief period of relative openness from late Jan. to mid-Feb., and the CCP regime has to take responsibility for the actions of regional governments, too. However, it is clear that finding the truth is not the goal of the exercise by the US. It is to both deflect blame from Trumps criminally incompetent handling of the COVID-19 epidemic in the US, and to provide the US with more fodder in its great power competition with China.

    It is not surprising that parts of the US intelligence services are producing products to advance the interests of the Trump administration, with the increasing politicization of intelligence. I suspect many of the career officers otherwise unimpressed by Trump are still all in on kicking off a New Cold War with China, so they willingly go along in this instance. I can even understand the U.K., given the poor response there. Canada/Australia/New Zealand? May be they are just being dragged along for the ride…

    Of course, the CCP regime is engaging in influencing operation of its own, to dilute memory of its poor initial handling, and ongoing authoritarian suppression. It’s outward facing propaganda effort, with a few notable exceptions, have been hilariously ineffective, and to me seem to be focused on trolling and counter trolling. The far more serious effort is inward facing, though still much more subtle that the Trumpian and Republican election strategy.

  45. 45.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Just to be clear, I do believe there is a non-zero chance of some sort of lab leak, Injust have not seen any evidence that is even circumstantial. CTists keep saying the “top secret” lab is “next to” the seafood market. The actual WIV BSL-4 lab is 14 km away, or an hour driving under normal traffic congestion. There is a BSL-2 lab belonging to the Wuhan CDC a few hundred meters away fro the seafood market, but I doubt it handles bat coronaviruses. Dr. Shi told Scientific American in an interview in Feb. that she was initially very concerned by the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might have escaped from her lab. She said she was hugely relieved when she determined that not to be the case. I take it as normal human reaction under the circumstances. If the virus really escaped from the BSL-4 due to bad protocol, I doubt the Chinese government would trust a scientist like her to give interviews to foreign press.

    CTists are also pointing to a bat conoravirus studied in Dr. Shi’s lab with 96.2% similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in genetic makeup (published by her team, mind you). However, 96.2% isn’t that similar, and virologists estimate it would take 20 years of viral evolution to bridge the gap. The virus was found 5 years ago (I think).

    Lab leak is a know risk, and not unique to any lab or nation. There are hundreds of such incidents around the world each year, including BSL-4 labs in the US. However, a virus this infectious is likely to blow up quickly as soon as the zoonosis event occurred, particularly in densely populated China, rather than waiting for a lab leak.

    Finally, if China already knew about the virus, why was it’s understanding of the transmission properties and impact to health so poor at the start, and why was it so limited by quantity and quality of PCR tests initially?

  47. 47.

    Subsole

     

    @Brachiator:

    Republicans have two motivations:

    1. Fear

    2. Resentment born of fear

    All of this stems from “damn coastal elite college pukes laughing at me, I’ll show them.”

    Never mind nobody actually gives enough of a toss to actually laugh at them.

    All of this havoc is because we refuse to coddle their myriad personal shortcomings.

    Because they are weak. Dangerous, but weak.

  48. 48.

    J R in WV

    @Subsole:

    Republicans have two motivations:

    1. Fear

    2. Resentment born of fear

    Let me edit this a wee bit this for you:

    Republicans have two three motivations:

    1.  Fear
    2. Resentment born of Fear
    3. GREED

    What do ya think? I think greed is right on top of all the other motivations, 24/7/365 !

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @japa21:

    Seconded. He’s been the most informative commenter here on this subject. John Cole should consider him for a Commenter of the Year award.

  50. 50.

    phdesmond

    @Chetan Murthy:

    maybe this is the quote?

     

    “All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.”
    ― Albert Camus, The Plague

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @JPL:

    The president has already mentioned that he doesn’t thank the social distancing rules need to stay in place.

    POTUS Trump really needs a personal SARS-CoV-2 infection of DJT. Survival did wonders for Boris Johnson’s seriousness about COVID-19. Since D.J.Trump does not truly understand or believe that people other than himself exist, this would probably work wonders for his understanding too, if he survived. If not, well.

  52. 52.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    A tug of war has emerged between #coronavirus safety and the survival of the Las Vegas tourism industry, which some casino operators fear will never be the same

    They open those casino up and bunch of customers die they can kiss casino as a respectable middle class vacation destination goodbye for a generation.

  53. 53.

    Bill Arnold

    @raven:

    The beaches on 30a opened the 1st and reports are it’s a zoo. There are also parties all over frat row here.

    I wonder if they know about the possibilities for permanent kidney, heart, liver, brain, lung damage even among the asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic. An enterprising video interviewer could have some fun with this.

  54. 54.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker: Florida is also trying to hide the virus deaths now.  So just BS their way out of this rather than do the hard work.

  55. 55.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @YY_Sima Qian: You’re missing the point; the lab release conspiracy theory is for the 27% to get their hate on. Doubtless polling would show 65% would think it’s some natural thing and the final 8% can’t make up their mind about anything.  The CCP’s guilt is they did the authoritarian coverup when they that the chance to strangle the pandemic in the cradle. By the time the CCP got it’s head out of it’s ass, it was to late.  And now the US’s own authoritarian idiots are hell bent on blaming and punishing someone for their own (endless) screw up, so that’s why this conspiracy theory.

    Watch it, you will see Wingnut commenters cite that the CCP  has the virus under control as proof that the CCP government created it in the first place.

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @J R in WV: What do ya think? I think greed is right on top of all the other motivations, 24/7/365

    Greed comes from fear, they horde things as temporary relief from the fear.

  57. 57.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @J R in WV: You’re basically correct, but we need to differentiate between the Global Oligarchy Putsch‘s authoritarian followers & authoritarian leaders, as distinguishe in Bob Altmeye’s book The Authoritarians (free PDF download).

    The fear and the resentment born of fear are characteristics stoked in authoritarian followers by authoritarian leaders. The aim is to blind the followers to the true source of their fundamental grievance (that “the American dream” they feel entitled to claim has betrayed them): the greed of the authoritarian leaders, and of their financial and cultural promoters among the 0.01% and their hired lackeys in the Republican Party and the mainstream media.

    (It’s the hoary old story about the factory owner who takes one white and one black employee to a coffee shop. He orders a plate of cookies & when the waiter returns with them, the owner immediately stuffs all but one of them into his pockets, turns to the white employee & whispers, Better keep your eye on that guy or he’ll take your cookie.) (ETA: And when the employees get their next paycheck they find they’ve each been docked for the price of the cookies – all of them.)

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