It's his skin that's orange, not his hair.Quote:
Originally Posted by TysonLPrice
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It's his skin that's orange, not his hair.Quote:
Originally Posted by TysonLPrice
That is just an illusion caused by energy efficient light bulbs.Quote:
It's his skin that's orange, not his hair.
https://nypost.com/2019/12/06/trump-...m-look-orange/
You guys talking about the Great Pumpkin? His big ole Pumpkin Head is always entertaining. Luckily I was born with perfect proportions. what's happened since my birth I don't want to talk about. lol
Well China have just announced that they under reported the deaths in Wuhan by a third (so they've increased the death count by 50%). Not sure what the details behind that are. The most I've heard so far is that the hospitals under reported it.
Why don't you know the details behind it? If a reporter from the United States completely reports the official statement from China, then you should be very clear about the details behind it, and you will also understand why I say that the Chinese central government has better credit on major issues than other countries. But local/state governments in the United States perform better than local/provincial governments in China.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
http://m.news.cctv.com/2020/04/17/AR...UI200417.shtml
Maybe you could use Google Translator to read it.
That didn't translate for me (don't know why, too big perhaps) and the BBC aren't giving any details yet. What's the gist?
I know you will ask this question. Maybe you could think about the following questions:Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
(1) Is this country with 190 million people going abroad every year really restricting press freedom?
(2) Is this country with 854 million Internet users really restricting the Internet?
(3) Is this country that requires all students to learn English really a closed and conservative country?
(The annual number of students in school in China is about 230-250 million, excluding kindergarten children)
(4) Is this country that wants to do business with the whole world really what you think it is?
I'm not trying to argue which country is better. What I want to explain is that the coronavirus epidemic in the United States is caused by politics, and the coronavirus epidemic in other countries is caused by economic and medical conditions.
Google Translator: (may be inaccurate)Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
1. Why should we correct the number of confirmed cases and deaths of newly diagnosed pneumonia in Wuhan?
Answer: The New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic is a major public health emergency that has occurred in China since the founding of New China. It has the fastest spread, the widest scope of infection, and the most difficult prevention and control. As the main battlefield for the decisive battle of national epidemic prevention and control, Wuhan City, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and under the specific command of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, has adopted the most comprehensive, strict and thorough prevention and control measures. It has been basically blocked, and the control of the Lihan Channel has been lifted, which has created favorable conditions for comprehensive and detailed review and revision of the epidemic situation data. Information on epidemic situations involving diagnosis and death should be reported in a timely manner and published in an open, transparent, and realistic manner. In the early stage of the epidemic, due to insufficient capacity for admission and treatment, a small number of medical institutions failed to connect with the disease prevention and control information system in a timely manner, the hospital was overloaded, and medical staff were busy with treatment. Objectively, there were late reports, missed reports, and false positives. According to Article 38, Paragraph 4 of the Law of the People ’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, “Publicity information should be timely and accurate”, and Article 25, Paragraph 3, “Public Health Emergency Response Regulations” It should be timely, accurate and comprehensive ", Article 19 of the" Regulations on the Implementation of the Statistics Law of the People's Republic of China "" In case of incomplete statistical data or obvious errors, the statistical investigation object shall be supplemented or corrected according to law "," Registration of Population Death Information Management "Regulation (Trial)" Article 14 "Medical and health institutions should establish a data revision system", Article 15 "Medical and health institutions should establish a data comparison and verification system" and other regulations, the number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in the city 3. Correct the number of confirmed cases of death.
2. How does the revision of the number of newly diagnosed cases of new coronary pneumonia and the number of deaths of confirmed cases in Wuhan be carried out?
Answer: The Municipal Epidemic Prevention and Control Command attaches great importance to the correction of the number of confirmed cases and deaths of new cases of pneumonitis. Based on the principle of being responsible for history, the people, and the deceased, it insists on seeking truth from facts and actively making corrections. In late March 2020, an epidemic-related big data and epidemiological investigation team was set up to recruit special personnel from the municipal health, disease control, public security, civil affairs, judicial, and statistical departments to form special classes to make full use of the city ’s epidemic prevention. Control big data information system, municipal funeral information system, municipal medical administration medical management new coronary pneumonia information system and municipal new coronary pneumonia virus nucleic acid detection system, online comparison, deduplication and completion of confirmed cases and death cases of new coronary pneumonia; line In accordance with the requirements of full coverage and no omissions, all data of all epidemic-related locations are collected, including hot clinics, hospitals, shelters, isolation points, epidemic-affected communities, and prisons and pension institutions under the jurisdiction of public security, judicial, civil affairs and other departments. In special places, all personal information of all cases is collected, and each person is checked and checked through medical institutions, street communities, grassroots police stations, patients' units and family members to ensure that each case is accurate and each data is objective and true.
3. After the revised number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Wuhan, what changes have occurred in the data?
Answer: As of 24:00 on April 16th, the original announced that the city's confirmed cases are 50008 cases, because some patients have been across districts and visited multiple hospitals, resulting in the reduction of 217 cases of repeated card applications; The 542 cases of past cases that have not been announced in time should be increased, and the actual cumulative confirmed cases should be revised to 50333 cases.
4. After the number of deaths of newly diagnosed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Wuhan is revised, what changes have occurred in the data?
Answer: As of 24:00 on April 16th, the original announced that there were 2579 confirmed deaths in our city. Among them, 164 cases of confirmed cases with repeated card registrations and other cases that are not new coronary pneumonia should be reduced; deaths without hospitalization cannot be reported for disease control A total of 1454 confirmed cases of information systems and some medical institutions that reported late or missed reports should be added. The actual cumulative number of diagnosed cases should be revised to 3869.
5. What is the significance of correcting the number of confirmed cases and deaths of new cases of pneumonitis in Wuhan?
Answer: Life safety and good health are the most basic needs and the most common wishes of the people. Behind the epidemic situation data are the lives and health of the people, and the credibility of the government. Correcting the number of confirmed cases and deaths of new cases of pneumonitis in a timely manner is not only conducive to safeguarding the rights of the people, scientific decision-making for epidemic prevention and control, but also a response to social concerns and respect for every life.
It translated for me its a bit long winded but essentially deaths being reported at the time were mainly deaths in hospitals and also that hospitals were overloaded at the time and so some deaths were reported late.
It also it says some medical institutions failed to connect with the reporting system in a timely manner.
We are spending a lot of time though focusing on whether the number of reported deaths in other countries are correct which is what both the US and UK governments would prefer rather than focusing on our own numbers.
You can always look for someone else to blame for a situation but most countries had chances to do thing differently, had other choices that could have been made and didn't make them.
Also right now we have a number of choices to be made about how we leave this quarantined lockdown and how each country handles that will be on us. We need to stop looking for ways to assign blame to external actors all the time.
Once this Pandemic is under control maybe then it would be right to ask some hard question of China as to what changes it will make to the control of wet markets to stop this type of thing happening in the future, but in reality a pandemic like this is probably a once in a lifetime event.
Maybe it make countries look at the global supply system in a different way but as long as price is king and are markets are based upon consumerism i doubt it.
A month ago, China had enacted laws: (1) a total ban on wildlife trading (2) a ban on eating wild animals (with a specific list). Today, the Wuhan Municipal Government has formulated regulations on waste classification management.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
In addition, judging from the information I got, the virus cannot be surely originated in Wuhan. It is very likely that the virus was inadvertently brought into Wuhan during the Wuhan Military Games in October 2019, and the virus carriers were asymptomatic at the time.
No, the epidemic is now pandemic every few years:Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
SARS in 2003
H1N1 in 2009
Ebola in 2014
MERS in 2015
COVID in 2019
Yeah that's how it reads to me. Basically they're acknowledging the imperfections in their reporting systems and methodologies rather than admitting to any sort of cover up. I'm inclined to take them at their word on this and I suspect we'll see similar refactoring from other countries but I will say that the article is pretty one sided and could be read as propaganda. Either way, you can expect to see this get weaponised for political purposes over the coming days because...
^that.Quote:
We are spending a lot of time though focusing on whether the number of reported deaths in other countries are correct which is what both the US and UK governments would prefer rather than focusing on our own numbers.
Pandemics, yes, but a pandemic on this scale probably is once in a lifetime. SARS, Ebola, MERS... none of them even came close.Quote:
No, the epidemic is now pandemic every few years:
There is no such sentence in China's official reports.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
You left out AIDS...it is estimated 32 million people have died from that virus albeit it has been around for quite a while.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Maybe 6 months later, I could share my analysis and judgment with you.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Sen. Mitt Romney, the sole Republican who voted to convict President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, was the only GOP senator not invited to serve on the president's new panel to advise on reopening the country during the corona virus pandemic. Of the 53 Senate Republicans, 52 now serve in the "Opening Up America Again Congressional Group," which even includes a dozen Senate Democrats – but not Romney.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ce/5147883002/
Trump is such a small petty man...
Yeah, the quote that FD used was from the post #549 by NSA. It's not any part of China, official or otherwise. It's commentary on how some politicians are reacting, especially in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
I looked more like a pumpkin when I was born. Not much light up in there, so I had just applied that "Trump Brand" spray tan, when the curtain went up. Imagine my embarrassment. Well, I guess I'd have to, as well, as I don't remember it. Everything was a blur back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
The whole discussion around where the virus came from is just an exercise in blame shifting. There are millions, if not billions, of viruses in the world. The VAST majority of them pose not even the slightest threat to us. I recently read that our immune systems might encounter around a million a day. Viruses that go after dust mites, bacteria, or turtles, likely wouldn't affect us in any way. They wouldn't be able to latch onto cells, wouldn't do anything if they did, and would likely be swept up by the immune system before they even got a chance to try.
Unfortunately, things aren't static. Some mutation changes something such that the virus CAN infect us, and there we go. This can happen anywhere and at any time, and probably will. Everybody want's to pin the blame on somebody, but that's nonsense. China wants to blame the military games solely because it would mean that it didn't come from them. Various groups want to blame a virology lab, probably because it makes an otherwise random event seem predictable.
The simple fact remains that there are LOADS of viruses out there, and they are changing all the time. Even COVID has changed enough, already, that different lineages can be traced within individual cities, let alone between countries. With that rate of change happening, the chances that one of the millions of existing viruses would change just enough to go from not infecting people to infecting people is virtually certain given enough time. Did it happen in China? Did it happen in a bat? Did it happen on a rat? The only people who really care are those who don't want to be blamed for what already happened. The more important question is, what will we do when it happens the next time? China responded much better this time than with SARS. The west did NOT respond very well, but SARS was pretty much a dud in the west. China will do even better next time, and the west had better, as well.
Have you been reading Green Eggs and Ham?Quote:
Did it happen in a bat? Did it happen on a rat?
I agree that discussion around where it started is just blame shifting and/or politics. I think some discussion around how various bodies have responded once it was becoming known is valid though.
I feel the Chinese government was pretty transparent (though some early mistakes at a local level are worthy of criticism) and continues to be but it's hard to be 100% sure. The recent anouncement of increased deaths is interesting but strikes me as a nation attempting to be transparent as new information emerges. It's possible they've covered some stuff up but I doubt it because they're containment appears to have been remarkably good... so what would they have to gain.
Similarly, I believe the WHO have been remarkably candid in their dissemination of information. About the only criticism I can level at them was their early declaration that there was no evidence of human to human transmission but that was accurate at the time and they corrected it less than a week later when new, contradictory evidence came to light.
I think I've made my feelings about how other bodies have behaved pretty clear and there isn't much to add but to summarise: Trump did nothing is clearly blame shifting like crazy at this point and I feel the UK government has responded in a reasonable if imperfect way.
New York has also increased reported deaths, so they've done the same as China. As I noted earlier, some recent analysis suggests that official death tolls tend to be considerably low, at first. This is essentially due to the official death toll just including those deaths plainly attributable to the cause, while those deaths that are not certain for any reason are left out. Frankly, I think this is a pretty responsible way to record deaths, especially when a country/region/state goes back and re-examines the totals after the fact, as both China and New York are doing.
If you really want my answers then here they are,Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
1. People going abroad has nothing to do with the freedom of the press. The fact you would use that as an example show a real lack of understanding of what the Freedom of the Press means.
2. Doesn't matter how many people use a Restricted internet, it is still Restricted.
3. Never thought your country was closed. Never thought of Chinese people as overly conservative.
4. Yes.
You act like this thread has lots of people bashing China. I haven't seen it.
No, it's caused by the virus. You keep trying to make it about politics.Quote:
What I want to explain is that the coronavirus epidemic in the United States is caused by politics
Yes, the world economy will change dramatically. Many beautiful things will be gone forever. It is difficult for the United States to enjoy cheap and high-quality Chinese goods as in the past. It is also difficult for Chinese goods to be unimpeded globally as in the past.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
You know nothing about China, you don't even know much about the current state of American politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
Then why did you ask me the questions?Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
I 'm not asking you questions, I'm asking you to "reverse thinking".Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
This virus epidemic is an unfortunate disaster for all mankind, but you will soon find that some people will cause disasters that are much more serious than viruses because of political reasons. You can see it soon.
The global economy will be severely affected.
The Chinese government has done what they should do. But China's medical experts who are the chief executives will be the joke around the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Yeah I agree. If they were never confirmed to have had the virus then you can't count them. But it seems some counties, like Brazil and India, are doing so little testing it going to be hard to get good useful data. I have this uneasy feeling that sometime there's a conscious effort not to test for political reasons. It probably doesn't matter, there's already plenty of evidence of how infectious and deadly this virus is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Brazil is a particularly interesting case. The president is actively trying to sabotage the actions of the rest of his government, which is trying to respond as best it can. Even Trump came around to the view that the virus was a bad thing. Bolsanaro has been openly trying to discredit any suggestion that it is a real threat.
Meanwhile, India is working on turning a medical crisis into an ethnic crisis. I'm sure that will go well.
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What are you referring to there? (Asking because I genuinely don't know - I suspect it's something I'm simply unaware of)Quote:
India is working on turning a medical crisis into an ethnic crisis.
That's undoubtedly true but (perhaps it's the language barrier) you simply to be implying something underhanded is at play. I don't see that at all. I see nature flexing it's muscles, as nature sometimes does, and mankind responding with some degree of incompetence. There's certainly ways we could handle all this and minimise economic impact but we don't really know what they are and won't until after the event - or we'll never really know. We're all just responding in what we think will be the best way... often mistakenly. But I don't see any deliberate bad actors at play.Quote:
The global economy will be severely affected.
"The Trump administration introduced this week a sweeping relaxation of environmental laws and fines during the coronavirus pandemic. According to new guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), companies will largely be exempt from consequences for polluting the air or water during the outbreak.
In a letter to all government and private sector partners on Thursday, the EPA's Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Susan Parker Bodine said that the agency does not expect power plants, factories or other companies to meet environmental standards and reporting of pollution during this time — and it won't pursue penalties if companies break the rules."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...otection-laws/
I truly despise this administration and the man at the top. Using the pandemic like this is sickening to me.
Some experts speculate that in order to shirk responsibility for improper handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, the US government may blame all responsibilities on China, and even some consultants advised to completely decouple China. If that were the case, the world economy would suffer a huge blow, and the negative impact would far exceed COVID-19.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
There's a fairly strong push to blame Muslims for spreading the virus. That plays into the Hindu-nationalist views of Modi and his followers, so it isn't all that surprising, but it will allow people to take out frustrations along ethnic lines.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
They speculate? Why bother speculating, it's not even a secret. Trump has been doing his level best to blame China for this. He'd likely be fine blaming somebody else, too, so I don't think it's a China thing, but China is pretty convenient, in this case. He's desperate for the blame to be put on SOMEOBODY other than him, and China fits that pretty well. The only speculation is whether or not it will stick with voters. I'd say that it won't, but you never know.Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
Just when you think politicians would be worried about saving lives, they come up with this dumb ass idea.
GOP lawmakers introduce bill to allow Americans to sue China over coronavirus
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop...na-coronavirus
Good luck with that. I'm already picking out a new car.
Well, surely that would require the Chinese government to agree to be meaningful and... nope.
Trump and the GOP are definitely all up for blaming China and, yeah, I can see them cutting ties if they win the next election. Realistically he was picking at that scab before Corona was even a thing, though.
With the news that Boris was absent for the whole of February from the cobra cabinet briefings which in the case of emergency he should have been chairing, and the fact we are seeing Trump being criticised for the same lack of action during a month when governments where getting a lot of information from the WHO, China and Italy about how contagious and deadly this virus is once again it shows to me how poor the UK's initial response was.Quote:
I feel the UK government has responded in a reasonable if imperfect way.
If you listen to any of the experts in pandemic planning, they all say you must act fast and with conviction and in the UK we did neither.
We dithered with what our response should be and when.
Yes once we decided to lockdown the government seems to have acted ok, but by then it was to late and we have been constantly playing catch up with regards to testing and equipment. If we had done anything in February at all in terms of planning for these things, we would be in such a better position and we wouldn't be putting our NHS staff in danger of death due to lack of resources.
I feel that many people look at this issue and say well i personally didn't know how bad this pandemic was going to be so why should the government, rather than realising that they were privy to much more information that we were, and it could and should have been acted upon.
Yes, maybe the US government is already considering completely decoupling from China.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
When the outbreak of the new coronavirus was first reported in China, the US Secretary of Commerce said that the outbreak of the new coronavirus was beneficial to the United States and that it would help the manufacturing industry return to the United States. Perhaps 10 years later, the United States will replace China as the world's largest manufacturing country. At that time, the content of the negotiations between the United States and China might become "how to let China reduce tariffs."
Fangzhouzi(Fangshimin) --- Google Translator
Twitter(1): Stanford University spot-checked the blood of 3,300 residents in Silicon Valley (Santa Clarke County) in early April, inferring that there were 2.49% -4.16% of the residents who had been infected with the new coronavirus at that time and had produced antibodies. Infected, 50-85 times the number of confirmed cases. To date, a total of 69 people in the county have died of new coronavirus infection. From this, it can be calculated that the death rate of new coronavirus infection is about 0.1%, which is equivalent to influenza.
Twitter(2): Several cases of new coronavirus infection occurred in a homeless shelter in Boston. The hospital tested all 397 homeless people living there and found 146 positives, none of which were symptomatic. The US Navy has to test all 4,800 officers and soldiers of the USS Roosevelt. It has tested 94% and found more than 600 positives, and 60% have no symptoms. The proportion of asymptomatic infections in some populations is much higher than expected.
Twitter(3): The results of the spot check of Gangelt town in Germany: about 400 families and about 1,000 people were selected. The results of the first batch of 500 people were as follows, 14% of the blood had antibodies against the new coronavirus (that was once infected), and 2% of the new coronavirus nucleic acid The test was positive, and a total of 15% were infected with the new coronavirus, and the infection mortality rate was calculated to be 0.37%. The author believes that although the 15% infection rate has not reached the group immunization, but it has been able to delay the spread of the virus, it should consider gradually deregulating.
Twitter(4): The General Hospital of Massachusetts Institute of Technology sampled the blood of 200 passers-by on the streets of Chelsea Township, and the only requirement was that it could not be a confirmed case. It was found that 64 of them (32%) had antibodies against the new coronavirus. The town has a population of about 40,000, 712 confirmed cases and 39 deaths. If the results of spot checks can be extrapolated, 13,000 people in the town have been infected, and the case fatality rate is 0.3%.
Twitter(5): The opinion of Professor Giesecke, the first chief scientist of the European Center for Disease Control and the Swedish government consultant: "The closure of the city" is not based on evidence. The correct policy is to protect the elderly and the weak and gradually lead to group immunization; the final results will be similar in all countries; New coronavirus disease is a mild disease, similar to influenza, and the actual fatality rate is about 0.1%, because the new disease is scary; if the antibody is surveyed, at least 50% of the United Kingdom and Sweden will be infected.
Don't see that happening. That large of a supply chain can't just be cut without wide spread shortages and increased prices. The US is great at saying things like "Buy American" but when their pocket book starts shrinking or they can't get what they want they'll forget all about buy American. Also, our country has moved away from a lot of industries. Before the virus we had very low unemployment. Who is going to be working all these new jobs?Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
The US might start the process of moving away from dependency on China but that'll take years and my guess is that the jobs still wont be coming back to the US. Well that's my guess, for what it's worth. lol
Now why would Trump do that? As he has said over and over again; China is paying us billions of dollars in tariffs :rolleyes:Quote:
Yes, maybe the US government is already considering completely decoupling from China.
Trump is a businessman, he just wants China's money. But some Republican Congressmen want China's life(want to kill China), they want to be completely decoupled from China to completely curb China's development and rise. The thinking of these lawmakers has remained in the Cold War.Quote:
Originally Posted by TysonLPrice
I was being sarcastic...Trump keeps telling the lie that China pays the US billions of dollars in tariffs when it is American citizens paying.Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
I think you over estimate how much importance China really has to American politicians. Politicians say what ever it takes to win votes, normally China is of very little interest to the American people/voters and American businesses make a lot of money because of China so they're not complaining to their politicians, But because of the virus China is in the news and on voters minds. So now the politicians start talking about China. To say our congress wants China's life or to kill China sounds like something that would be written on a propaganda poster. China's development and rise is not in the hands of the US, it's in the hands of it's government.Quote:
Originally Posted by dreammanor
Maybe you can't imagine how much China pays attention to the United States. The vast majority of Americans may not be interested in paying attention to China, but the entire Chinese society (from the government to the public) is extremely concerned about the United States, especially the Chinese democrats. Democrats in China regard the United States as a beacon for human beings. They admire the United States extremely and hate their own country china. They understand every detail of the United States, including the American election. The United States also provides a lot of funds to these democrats every year to let them tout the United States and engage in some anti-government campaigns.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
On this planet, the development of any country must consider the influence of the United States, especially the country with the second highest comprehensive strength. The United States invests hundreds of billions of dollars each year in supporting government opposition figures from other countries.
The United States hopes to maintain an absolute advantage over other countries, but China's development now exceeds the expectations of the United States, so the United States hopes to contain/suppress China's development.
Edit:
I very much hope that the United States will throw China far behind in the following ways:
More sophisticated technology, stronger military strength, better social welfare, more democracy and more openness. (Only in this way can the United States truly defeat China completely)
But the actual situation is not like this. Now, the United States is relying more on rumours, discrediting, encouraging and supporting the Chinese opposition to launch violent activities against the Chinese government to curb China's development.
Even in the face of COVID-19, a huge disaster for all mankind, the US government still puts more energy on slandering China, rather than working with the world to save American lives.
You do seem to be an expert on slanderingQuote:
Even in the face of COVID-19, a huge disaster for all mankind, the US government still puts more energy on slandering China, rather than working with the world to save American lives.
There have been a lot of revelations over the weekend and I'm starting to come around.Quote:
With the news that Boris was absent for the whole of February from the cobra cabinet briefings which in the case of emergency he should have been chairing, and the fact we are seeing Trump being criticised for the same lack of action during a month when governments where getting a lot of information from the WHO, China and Italy about how contagious and deadly this virus is once again it shows to me how poor the UK's initial response was.
I think I still disagree with you over the timing of the lockdown but I'm less adamant. There were broadly two strategies available. Prevention or herd immunity. We went for the latter. That looks like the wrong choice right now as countries that went for the former are starting to be able to lift their lockdowns but their death rates risk rising to meet ours as they do so. And if you take prevention as your strategy then you're implicitly acknowledging that the only way this ends is with a vaccine and there's no way to predict when that will come (someone mentioned AIDs earlier - take a look at how long that one took to produce).
Still, pursuing herd immunity means taking damage up front (which I don't want to trivialise - it means real people dying) but it also means you should be preparing your medical systems for the coming surge and it's increasingly clear we utterly failed to do so. We weren't buying in testing ingredients and PPE, we weren't repurposing our own production capacity and we didn't start building hospitals and asking NHS retirees to come back until after the virus started to bite. It's increasingly obvious that we stuck our fingers in our ears and did nothing.
At least we don't seem to be trying to blame everyone else a la Trump but we do still seem to be failing to acknowledge that those failings are even a thing and we certainly aren't an "exemplar" for the world.
I agree both our countries lagged and were thoroughly unprepared. Honestly I'm not upset about that part. It's a tremendous decision to shut down a country and I can understand trying to avoid doing so. But I'm very upset at the endless lies, misinformation and blaming others that spews from Trumps mouth. It's so cowardly and harmful.
I still have no real clear picture of why we are having such a hard time ramping up the testing. You hear a wide array of excuses, not enough swabs, reagents, man power, bad tests. I wish someone would give us a comprehensive picture of the situation and then what the're plan is to solve the problem. I think this would go a long way to help calm people. People can be incredibly strong when they know what they're facing. The unknown makes people scared.
There is increasing evidence that Scientists where saying early on that the Governments herd immunity strategy was not a strategy at all but a failure of strategy, and that usually it is achieved with a vaccine not by letting a virus run wild through a population, but putting that aside for a moment.Quote:
there were broadly two strategies available. Prevention or herd immunity. We went for the latter.
This is what i feel has been the biggest failure, the failure to do any planning or mitigation for what was about to hit or Health service.Quote:
it also means you should be preparing your medical systems for the coming surge and it's increasingly clear we utterly failed to do so
Every expert says you must be doing testing and contact tracing on fairly big numbers if we want to come out of lockdown in anyway successfully and my fear at the moment is our government still seems to be figuring this bit out when it should have had clear plans already in place, they have been reactive for to long rather than getting ahead of the situation and being proactive.
Am I wrong? I'm talking about a basic common sense that most people know, but it seems that you don't know anything about it. You are a very strange person, not only do you know nothing about other countries, you also know nothing about your own country. There is no need to continue the dialogue between us.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
Trump has been using china as a foil or friend depending on shifting winds since day one. His great tariff war, Xi and him being best friends, "other" politicians allowing the US to get ripped off by China for years, to the virus now. I would say China is VERY important to Trump's politics.Quote:
I think you over estimate how much importance China really has to American politicians.
Next thing you know Trump will be saying China is paying for the wall instead of the US military :rolleyes:
To be fair, China are the world's leading experts in building walls and have been since the 7th century. Trump could probably learn a lot from them on that front. Mind you, even that one failed in the end.
That is the lesson Trump should learn from them...Quote:
Mind you, even that one failed in the end.
Yes Trump uses China in his politics but that's just one US politician and not representative of the vast majority of our politicians normally. It's only now because of the virus that others have starting using China in their politics. My point was our politicians top priority wasn't to "kill China".Quote:
Trump has been using china as a foil or friend depending on shifting winds since day one. His great tariff war, Xi and him being best friends, "other" politicians allowing the US to get ripped off by China for years, to the virus now. I would say China is VERY important to Trump's politics.
I feel the exact same way. I do think progress is being made and we will get there soon. But as I said before, I'm having a hard time understanding why it has been taking so long. Maybe it couldn't be helped but I have a feeling that politics has slowed the process.Quote:
Every expert says you must be doing testing and contact tracing on fairly big numbers if we want to come out of lockdown in anyway successfully and my fear at the moment is our government still seems to be figuring this bit out when it should have had clear plans already in place, they have been reactive for to long rather than getting ahead of the situation and being proactive.
That one US politician happens to be the leader of the United States and the republicans will do whatever he says. He addresses it on an almost daily basis in his nightly campaign addresses. I call that a big part of US politics. I get your point about "our politicians top priority wasn't to "kill China" though. I agree. Most of them probably wish Trump would shut up about China.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
I personally don't think Trump will be cutting off China. Trump talks a big talk but his opinion changes faster than the Flash at the local Lido and there's rarely much follow through. I suspect you're going to see lots more insults, plenty of accusations flying backward and a trade war at the end of it. Trump likes trade wars. He's not so keen on going beyond that - so far at least.
And China's far from his only foil. So far I've heard China, the WHO ("great band, folks... America can be proud... loved that Eleanor Rigby number"), globalists, the democrats, the liberal media, Cuomo personally, anyone who tried to impeach him... the list is pretty much endless. I wouldn't be surprised to find I was on it.
@Dreamanor, I think you're being thin skinned but I can understand why. Having the most powerful man on the plant ("great power... the biggliest... the Chyneese are in awe of my bigly power... we have the best Corona, folks... get it from Mexico... it goes great with a slice of Lime disease") insulting you on a daily basis is bound to wind anyone up. And there certainly are noises about cutting off China completely. But you do seem to projecting Trump and the GOP's rhetoric onto the members of this forum who really aren't expressing those views. Most of us think China was actually pretty transparent and behaved pretty well during all this and we think the noises you're hearing from Trump etc. are mostly just bluster. Scary bluster, but still just bluster.
If Trump didn't have China, he'd find someone else. China should be pretty proud of this, really. The fact that Trump uses them, primarily, is a sign of Chinese prestige. He's gone after EVERYBODY, but most of them are too meaningless to be useful for him. He needs a plausible enemy, because he doesn't do well without one. He can't use Russia, since he has such a man-crush on Putin, so he uses China. He'd like to like Xi, so he's a bit torn, but ultimately, he needs an enemy even more.
Nobel Prize
Luc Montagnier
on COVID
(English subtitles available)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziJfa8h46tg
Full interview here