Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Giving up is unforgivable.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Republicans in disarray!

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

We still have time to mess this up!

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / China / Pandemic Paranoia Open Thread: Presenting the ‘New’ Wuhan Coronovirus

Pandemic Paranoia Open Thread: Presenting the ‘New’ Wuhan Coronovirus

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To quote every single article I’ve seen so far: And just in time for the mass migration during Lunar New Year, too!

(Mandatory disclosure: Yes, I am preternaturally interested in pandemics, so YMMV.)

CNN, this evening — “First US case of Wuhan coronavirus confirmed by CDC”:

The United States has its first confirmed case of a new virus that appeared in Wuhan, China, last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday. The coronavirus has already sickened hundreds and killed six people in Asia…

The patient, who is not being named, is in isolation at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington. He is in his 30s and lives in Snohomish County, Washington, just north of Seattle. He had recently returned from Wuhan.

He arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on January 15, before any health screenings for the Wuhan coronavirus began at US airports. He sought medical care on January 19. The CDC and Washington state are now tracing the people he was in contact with to see if he might have spread the disease to someone else…

The patient became ill four days after arriving in the United States and sought care. Based on the patient’s symptoms and travel history, doctors suspected the novel Wuhan coronavirus and sent specimens to the CDC in Atlanta, where tests Monday confirmed the virus.

The patient is faring well but is still being kept in isolation out of an abundance of caution, health officials said.

Soon, passengers from Wuhan to the United States, whether on direct or indirect flights, will only be allowed to land at one of the five US airports doing health screenings. Screenings include a temperature check and observation for symptoms such as a cough and trouble breathing.

Last weekend, the CDC started health screenings for Wuhan passengers arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport. Starting this week, Wuhan passengers will also be screened at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport…

This is actually good news — authorities *have* learned from previous scares, and sensible precautions are being slotted into place with due speed.


GOP defender & ambulatory cream cheese sculpture (h/t B.Cracker) finds the SILVER LINING!

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    F Hugh Hewitt

    Also Pam Bondi, who just did some major Fox News poseur work right now in the impeachment trial

  4. 4.

    sab

    Husband just TOLD me about this today. I mentioned that I had mentioned it to him last week and he was unconcerned.

    It does seem that the Chinese are taking this seriously, and more importantly, reporting it to other health services. Epic change from their disgraceful non-performance during SARS outbreak.

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    Republicans have been cutting the federal and state budgets for public health administration for decades.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    Can Trump fly from Davos to Bejing and hang with Xi for awhile? He wants to be out of town on executive time, and now seems like a great opportunity. See some countryside. Visit some cities. The usual.

  7. 7.

    Steeplejack

    Huh. Just got home from Sighthound Hall a little while ago and met a little red fox crossing Threadkill Lane in front of my building. Don’t see that every day, especially in this mixed apartment/​suburban neighborhood. I hope it was on its way to one of the nearby parks.

    ETA: Fox did not appear to have Wuhan virus.

  10. 10.

    sab

    My spouse is one of five surviving siblings. Two of them are in hospital with extremely seroius conditions.

    If my sistrer wants to waltz in for a visit from China this week I don’t know what I will do, but it won’t be pretty or legal.

    She is probably in China this week, what with New Years. She better wait through infectious disease times.

    Also Happy New Year! Go rats! We had a pet rat. She was awesome. Or at least friendly and sweet. I was very fond of her. She was bred to get cancer, so of course she did. Medical bastards.

  12. 12.

    TomatoQueen

    @Steeplejack: There was a colony of red fox occasionally seen at the pond in the Mark Center complex, behind the Hilton. As it’s supposed to be a wildlife preserve in there, maybe yours was/is a refugee from there. I don’t see how they’d survive this traffic tho’.

  13. 13.

    Kent

    Why am I getting a picture of Barron Trump on the “From the Web” links right above the comment box on this page?  Is anyone else seeing Barron?

    Anyway, I’m not yet certain what to think about this new virus.  The big killers are not these epidemics, it’s things like heart disease and cancer.  I think the last time we had a massively deadly epidemic was the 1918 flue which killed between 50 and 100 million or 3-5% of the earth’s population.

  14. 14.

    chopper

    crazy overseas virus during a reelection year, huh. i’m sure the msm is gonna give this the same go they did with obama and EBOLA IS COMING RIGHT FOR US!

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    @Kent:

    Why am I getting a picture of Barron Trump on the “From the Web” links right above the comment box on this page?

    He’s an expert in the cyber, remember?

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    @TomatoQueen:

    I live near Seven Corners in Falls Church. Lake Barcroft is about a mile away, and there are a couple of parks closer than that, but my cul-de-sac is definitely not a “random wildlife” street.

  23. 23.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kent: It killed 3-5% of the world population at a time when most of Europe still traveled by horse & buggy. I shudder to think how bad the Spanish Flu could have been if international air travel had been as prevalent then as it is today.

  26. 26.

    Ninedragonspot

    Hey, you know who isn’t a member of the WHO?  Taiwan, that’s who.  It’s membership in the organization is blocked by you-know-who.  During the 2003 SARS crisis there were 668 cases of SARS in Taiwan, of which 181 were fatal.   Taiwan was frozen out of the WHO back then as well.

    Taiwan has 23 million people and is an important traffic hub in the region.   They have experienced scientists and doctors.    Maybe we shouldn’t be letting politics get in the way of global health.

  27. 27.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    NYC just shut down 1st Avenue “for an ambulance” for some minutes according to the policeman stopping traffic on my street.  (The honking was something else so I went out to see what all the fuss was about.)  I joined a small crowd on the street corner.  Presently a flotilla of police cars escorted an ambulance up 1st Avenue and then it was reopened to traffic.

    if you take a taxi from JFK into Manhattan  one easy way is to head into the island across the Williamsburg bridge & then go up 1st  Avenue.   JFK is one if the airports where they are screening for the Wigan virus.

    Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to….

  28. 28.

    Kent

    @Steeplejack: No, I know.   I’m just wondering if everyone gets the Barron or if something in my browsing history makes some ad algorithm think I am uniquely Barron-curious or something.

    Because really…I’M NOT!!   I don’t want to know anything about Barron.  Please make him go away!

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Kent:

    I’ve been getting Barron today, as well as “Things Only Americans Find Attractive.”

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  32. 32.

    SectionH

    Well, just went to my Twitter feed, and saw this comment re Hewitt’s bilge from our old friend Soonergrunt:

    When you love Trump more than you love America, you hope for things like an infectious disease outbreak to take people’s attention away from Trump’s misconduct. Since Coronavirus isn’t as bad as he hoped, Hugh will have to pin his hopes on a terrorist attack.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ninedragonspot: Maybe we shouldn’t be letting politics get in the way of global health.

    Maybe we should hope that Rethug Senators will recall they swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which includes Donald.

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    Every street is a random wildlife street.

    Yeah, but the quality of wildlife varies a lot from place to place.  For example, I’m pretty sure most neighborhoods back east don’t get bears and mountain lions the way ones here in Southern California do.

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    They are still going in the Senate? I thought MoscowMitch backed down on the 12-hour days? They are all still there voting. Everything 53-47 straight party lines. I missed Roberts telling both sides to be more civil.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mary G: they just started debating another amendment, with up to two hours of debate, sounds like Schiff is losing his voice

  48. 48.

    JWR

    @Mary G: Schiff has been great throughout. Nadler, too! Also, according to The Guardian live blog, Ms. “oh so concerned and perplexed” Collins voted with the Dems to call Bolton.

  49. 49.

    JWR

    Annd, it’s over. 11th and last amendment voted down 53-47. Gotta say, the Republicans have done a bang-up job (covering up) for Trump.

  51. 51.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @sab: Rats! (And sorry about your lovely rat friend.) Monsieur Colette and I were both born in a Rat year. I just read him some of the supposed rat characteristics, personality traits, and quirks, and we agree that they could hardly be more unlike the two of us if someone deliberately set out to describe our opposites.

    ETA: wishing the best to your inlaws.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just woke up to the news that this is still going on.  People can’t watch it in the middle of the night – why did the Dems push to continue rather than start again tomorrow?

    I am perplexed.

  57. 57.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Amir Khalid: Yeeee-up. I have a couple of friends – well-educated, sophisticated, and otherwise secular – who truly, deeply believe in astrology. One is Chinese, the other Russian and a follower of western astrology. I’ve asked both of them repeatedly by what mechanism they think the stars or birth year or whatever could govern our fates, despite the fact that stars have infinitesimal gravitational or electromagnetic effects on earth, far less than (to choose a random example) your damned cell phone. The only thing either of them can say is “because everything is connected.”

    I give up. It’s woo. It’s like Trumpies (which neither of them is): how can you argue rationally with an irrational belief?

  58. 58.

    JWR

    @WaterGirl:

    I am perplexed.

    Ha ha! “Perplexed” was the word Susan Collins used to describe her consternation over why the House didn’t include the Parnas evidence in their trial, even though that trial had already concluded. She is such a frickin fraud.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @JWR: If a = b, and b = c, does that make me Susan Collins?

    If so, pistols at dawn!

    Plus, my perplexation :-) is real, and hers is not!

  62. 62.

    piratedan

    well, if the Dems do prevail in the 2020 election… I wouldn’t have an issue if they wanted Schiff for AG.  It keeps our Senate roster clean and I think that he is pissed enough by what he’s seen to really clean house…  Unless he’s pining for DF’s Senate slot, I think he would be an excellent choice for not only restoring pride to the office, I actually think he’s enough of a stickler to also go after Dems that do not play by the rules.  I want my AG to not only enforce the law, but also to obey the spirit of the law.

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Just now?  Yikes?

    If this was Balloon Juice After Dark, I would make some tasteless joke about birthday sex and you just thinking it was an earthquake.

    Since it’s not, I will return to saying “yikes!”  I have never experienced an earthquake, but I’m sure it’s disturbing at a very basic level.

  67. 67.

    CarolDuhart2

    @bemused senior: Not surprising anymore.  We are building further and further out where the bears are, and with the loss of habitat, is the loss of food.  So they are now looking in both their old places and not finding enough anymore, so they are ranging further and further into town.

    I feel sorry for them, for barring a catastrophe that makes people abandon those homes and go back in the center city, they don’t have a chance to go back to the way of life and prey they once had.

  73. 73.

    SectionH

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: You probably don’t remember the Easter 7.something around Mexicali, but San Deigans do. Because it rocked and rolled here for a long time. 30+ seconds. Which does seem like a loooonngg time.

    What was new to me (I knew from earthquakes because I was born and lived until I was 4 right around the New Madrid fault. And yes, we were used to things shaking occasionally.) – let me say again what was new to me were the aftershocks. Because the fault lines are split down here, so it’s different. I could HEAR the sound of earth moving, hear it coming, and then it hit the house like a ginormous truck BAM!!!

  75. 75.

    opiejeanne

    We watched Contagion today, in honor of the first case of this coronavirus in the US. The patient is just 23 miles away from us and after watching that movie, I think I’m going to stay inside for a couple of months.

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Happy Birthday, Bill. A 3.6 is just a little celebratory shake in honor of your natal day.

  76. 76.

    Hob

    @Citizen Alan:

    I shudder to think how bad the Spanish Flu could have been if international air travel had been as prevalent then as it is today

    Given that the 1918-1920 epidemic managed to spread across pretty much the entire world, I’m not sure more efficient travel would’ve made as much difference as you think. Boats and trains did an adequate job of getting it to heavily populated areas.

  77. 77.

    SectionH

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: It was 2010. Weirded me out, because I’d never had a rolling quake going on.

    After that, the Julian fault started letting go (yes we can has multiple ways to let the earth move down here, I mean the faultline  you pay attention to your way isn’t simple here). We’ve got 3 fault lines. Julian is not polite: it slams into  you – BAM! But, your pictures JUMP a bit, and then  you go back to sleep. I did take notes about how that bit of the fault is its thing. Otoh, it went on for months.

    Srsly scary thing? You can hear it coming…

  79. 79.

    Anne Laurie

    @Roger Moore: For example, I’m pretty sure most neighborhoods back east don’t get bears and mountain lions the way ones here in Southern California do.

    My semi-industrialized, intersection-of-two-major-highways neighborhood did get a visit from a moose, a couple years back.  When animal control was summoned, it escaped between the tire sales outlet and the big-box chainstore warehouse…

  80. 80.

    Anne Laurie

    @WaterGirl: People can’t watch it in the middle of the night – why did the Dems push to continue rather than start again tomorrow?

    See following post.  Basically, McConnell wanted to cut short the Dems’ various amendments to do basic stuff like ‘present documents’ and ‘call witnesses’ — which, by the rules, he could’ve done if the chamber was dismissed overnight.  The Democrats called his bluff.

    (Actually, we knew this was gonna happen by Monday night; that’s when McConnell decreed the mandatory 24-hour debate would run for three 8-hour days instead of two 12-hour days.)

  81. 81.

    Anne Laurie

    @CarolDuhart2: I feel sorry for them, for barring a catastrophe that makes people abandon those homes and go back in the center city, they don’t have a chance to go back to the way of life and prey they once had.

    I feel sorry for your mountain lions, who are pretty much trapped.  On the other hand, here on the East coast, naturalists say that black bears (like whitetail deer) have actually benefited from human settlement — apart from our prodigious garbage-producing capacities, we clear dense forest to provide the kind of ‘edge’ territory that bear food (deer, rabbits, carrion, berry bushes) prefers.

  83. 83.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    The different types of quakes were a revelation when I moved to Long Beach in the nineties. The first one I ever felt was a small rolling quake during dinner that felt like a wave. The light fixture swayed gently. The Northridge quake was terrifying because it was 430am and it only lasted about 20 seconds but felt like forever. Fun fact the Anchorage quake lasted 4 minutes and was I think a 9.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    So we just got back from Singapore and my wife seems to have caught a nasty cold there. I was feeling paranoid but I think if it was the Wuhan virus, she’d be a LOT sicker than she is. (And Singapore seems to have only a few suspected cases, and is on top of airport screening in their typically quasi-authoritarian way.)

  86. 86.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Roger Moore: I live in  suburban Connecticut and every spring and summer we have problems with backyard invading bears.  The CT DEEP estimates there are about 800 bears in the state.  They are always having to remind people not have backyard bird feeders and outside feeding for their dogs as it attacks bears.

    We don’t have native mountain lions  but one was hit and killed on the local freeway here a few years ago.  It’s DNA indicated it originated in South Dakota I believe.   We also have coyotes (in my neighborhood)  as well as deer, turkey, possum, raccoons, skunks, woodchucks, and the occasional fisher, which by the way will scare the crap out of you the first time you hear one.  Oh and the black and the white squirrel variants of the common grey squirrel.

  88. 88.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl:

    I have never experienced an earthquake, but I’m sure it’s disturbing at a very basic level.

     

    I experienced an earthquake, many years ago. I was in an old PU Truck, crossing the river into town on a bridge. At first I thought a big tow of barges had hit the bridge, but then learned it was an earthquake some 30 or 40 miles east of Charleston.

    Very glad I wasn’t underground in a coal mine for that experience. No one was hurt, no collapses, but imagine the stress of being underground and having the earth move!

  89. 89.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ninedragonspot: I’m not contesting that.  I’m pointing out that wishing politics out of this is something of a pipe dream.  The powerful will use whatever leverage they can to create fear to help them control the masses.

  92. 92.

    Emma

    @sab: late to the post, sorry, but the CCP is only sort of serious now that sick international travelers are getting in the news. Notice how all the public health work is being done by Hong Kong and Taiwan, rather than the PRC’s version of the CDC. Btw, there’s also an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the PRC that no one talks about, and the CCP would like it to stay that way, thanks very much.

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