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Thread: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

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    Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    I believe there are some members here who live in China. I'm wondering what insight they feel comfortable providing regarding what is going on in China as far as the Corona virus is concerned, large cities being locked down, etc.

    The official numbers being reported here in the US media as far as known number of infected and known number of deaths in China seem much too small to justify shutting down travel in numerous cities of millions of people each.

    Posts on social media seem to be telling a much different story, that the situation is much, much worse than what is being officially reported. Hospitals reported to be overrun with thousands of patients, people dying in hospital hallways and the bodies just left sitting there. Videos of bodies in the street being attended to by responders in full on hazmat suits. Doctors and nurses who have been treating patients becoming infected themselves despite all precautions taken. Doctors dying. Government officials fleeing. Reports of 100,000+ infections in Wuhan alone. Reports of the sick being taken away to unknown locations and family members getting threatened for asking too many questions. Rumors that Shanghai will be shut down as far as in and out travel in the next day or two. That kind of thing.

    The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, but there is such a wide gap between the official story and the unofficial online chatter. Somewhat unsettling. Interested in the thoughts of others.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    99% of the information on the China coronavirus on social media is rumored. You know the media has never let go of any opportunity to discredit China.

    Many of my friends are in that city, and now I'm watching the development of the incident closely, and I'll tell you the truth in a few days.

    Others could discuss and express their views first.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 25th, 2020 at 05:58 AM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Hospitals reported to be overrun with thousands of patients, people dying in hospital hallways and the bodies just left sitting there. Videos of bodies in the street being attended to by responders in full on hazmat suits. Doctors and nurses who have been treating patients becoming infected themselves despite all precautions taken. Doctors dying. Government officials fleeing. Reports of 100,000+ infections in Wuhan alone. Reports of the sick being taken away to unknown locations and family members getting threatened for asking too many questions. Rumors that Shanghai will be shut down as far as in and out travel in the next day or two.
    I think you might have switched over to 28 Days Later without realising.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Yeah, that sounds more like 28 Days Later.

    I haven't heard anything like that. The death rate from the virus is reasonably high, as these things go, but that's still not very high. What's interesting about this is the potential for person to person infection, and the fact that cases have been picked up outside China at airports. The interesting point about the latter is that policies put into place to try to reduce the spread of potential pandemics does appear to be working. It's always interesting to see humanity put something in place BEFORE it is too late. This has been a good, useful, and fairly successful test.

    I have heard about doctors and nurses being in hazmat suits, which makes sense when you are dealing with the unknown. The number of infected doesn't sound all that high, nor does the rate of transmission sound all that unusual. It's a virus, it transmits kind of like the common cold. So, this is just the uncommon cold. You can kind of tell because the finger pointing has already begun, which says that people aren't hair-on-fire freaking out.

    All this is going to do is shift people away from Corona to Guinness, Coors, and craft beers.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by OptionBase1 View Post
    Hospitals reported to be overrun with thousands of patients, people dying in hospital hallways and the bodies just left sitting there. Videos of bodies in the street being attended to by responders in full on hazmat suits. Doctors and nurses who have been treating patients becoming infected themselves despite all precautions taken. Doctors dying. Government officials fleeing. Reports of 100,000+ infections in Wuhan alone. Reports of the sick being taken away to unknown locations and family members getting threatened for asking too many questions. Rumors that Shanghai will be shut down as far as in and out travel in the next day or two.
    I find it extremely strange that many people still believe such sensational rumors. The reason I didn't immediately reveal the truth was because I wanted the bullet to fly for a while.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I think you might have switched over to 28 Days Later without realising.
    The situation described by the OP will only appear in science fiction movies, it will never appear in China. Although the Chinese government has many shortcomings, people seem unwilling to admit the fact that the Chinese government has the strongest execution in the world. Although this time it will still show its super strong execution power as before, but I think the Chinese government's approach to “blocking the cities” is a bit overreacted.

    Edit:
    Although the Chinese government's execution is super strong, many medical experts in China are not professional, especially those who advocate "Chinese medicine" (in my eyes, they are fake experts)
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 27th, 2020 at 01:45 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    I will quote myself.

    The official numbers being reported here in the US media as far as known number of infected and known number of deaths in China seem much too small to justify shutting down travel in numerous cities of millions of people each.

    Posts on social media seem to be telling a much different story, that the situation is much, much worse than what is being officially reported.
    I noticed that Funky failed to include that qualification to the list of things that were circulating on social media when quoting me.

    The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, but there is such a wide gap between the official story and the unofficial online chatter.
    Please feel free to lock this thread. Thanks!

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Hi OptionBase1, thank you for your attention to the new coronavirus that has occurred in China. When I have time, I'll answer some questions you are interested in.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.




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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    China is building a medium-sized hospital in Wuhan with a capacity of 1,000 beds. It will be completed in 6 days (to be delivered on February 1nd). Another larger hospital will also be completed within 10 days.

    https://weibo.com/tv/v/Irr5A8fpE?fid...65388860145693

    Chinese companies provide all-round support for coronavirus hospital
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVTn-yxNQ9Y

    Military doctors head to Wuhan to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydphq5uA_Jg

    New hospital for Wuhan virus expected to be completed on Feb. 1
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGp_q6RIqfw
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 27th, 2020 at 02:52 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Right, I've seen all that.

    My point was, as of several days ago, there were a few hundred sick, a couple dozen dead, and Chinese officials were still in the "go out and have a happy new year" public statement phase, while at the same time cities the size of Chicago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Miami, etc. were all being locked down due to the virus. To me, that didn't add up.

    On a doom scale of 0 to 10, China seemed to be saying it was about a 0.5, people on social media were saying it was more like an 8. I was curious where in that spectrum the truth lied. Since then, there have been more public statements by Chinese officials admitting the potential severity of this virus, so that seems more in line with the actions being taken.

    Perhaps the locking down of cities so early was overly cautious, it is too early to know for sure.

    My grandparents had stories about the Spanish flu - that basically went global in less than 2 years. With modern travel, it could have happened much quicker.

    Fun fact that I don't remember ever learning in school about the Spanish Flu. When it started spreading, World War I was still in progress. As part of morale control, many countries massively underreported how many of their citizens were sick or had died from it. Except for Spain. Spain was honest. So obviously, Spain appeared to be hardest hit by it because their numbers weren't being suppressed. Thus the name Spanish Flu. Sad, really.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    1. In the early stages of the virus epidemic, the number of patients was large, but the number of deaths was small. Because the mortality rate of this coronavirus is similar to or even lower than that of the common cold and flu.

    2. In the early days of the virus epidemic, Chinese officials were not professional enough and timely. But there are reasons for this. On the one hand, the virus is not clear, and on the other hand, it's in the early stage of the Chinese New Year. The government is worried about causing panic among the people. Public panic will not only cause shortage of hospital staff, but also cause a larger spread of the virus.

    3. In the early days of the virus epidemic, and when the virus was not yet clear, many anti-government groups in China were already spreading rumors on purpose on the Internet and deliberately creating public panic. Rumors have caused hundreds of thousands of people with symptoms of coughing and fever to flock to the hospital at the same time. In fact, most of them have only a slight common cold. IMO, some people are infected with coronavirus in hospital.

    4. The new coronavirus is highly infectious, but its severity is not higher than that of a cold (flu). Many of those who died were elderly people who had suffered from a variety of other diseases before being infected with the coronavirus. But rumors exaggerated the harm of the coronavirus. This also caused the Chinese local government to take an excessive response-city lockdowns.

    5. 30-40% of Chinese medicine is "Traditional Chinese Medicine", which is formed by thousands of years of tradition. The existence of Traditional Chinese Medicine has greatly reduced the scientific ethics/literacy of the people, making them easily motivated by rumors.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 27th, 2020 at 03:49 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    China also got burned pretty bad by attempting to suppress information about SARS, or whatever that last one was. They learned from that, and are considerably more up front about this one. You might also say that they learned from Spanish flu (if you report it, then it might get named after you), but they've learned better, and so has the world, in general.

    A massive pandemic is almost certainly coming, eventually. As long as China is honest with reporting, they also have more means to deal with such a thing than the US does. After all, they CAN lock down a city. We can't. It's not just a ruthless approach to containment, it's also terrifically effective. If you have a survivable, transmissible, disease, then quarantine is a great solution if you can do it. Let it run its course in those who have it, don't spread it outside the containment, and then it's gone and done with. We don't have a flu season because of the nature of the virus, we have a flu season because of the nature of humans. We could eliminate it if we could follow a ruthless containment policy, but we can't, so we have a flu season. This is likely no more, nor less, than that. The Spanish flu was in great part so deadly because of the inadequate response. This seems to be a response that only a totalitarian country could implement, but it should be pretty effective for that reason, as well.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    1. In the early stages of the virus epidemic, the number of patients was large, but the number of deaths was small. Because the mortality rate of this coronavirus is similar to or even lower than that of the common cold and flu.

    2. In the early days of the virus epidemic, Chinese officials were not professional enough and timely. But there are reasons for this. On the one hand, the virus is not clear, and on the other hand, it's in the early stage of the Chinese New Year. The government is worried about causing panic among the people. Public panic will not only cause shortage of hospital staff, but also cause a larger spread of the virus.

    3. In the early days of the virus epidemic, and when the virus was not yet clear, many anti-government groups in China were already spreading rumors on purpose on the Internet and deliberately creating public panic. Rumors have caused hundreds of thousands of people with symptoms of coughing and fever to flock to the hospital at the same time. In fact, most of them have only a slight common cold. IMO, some people are infected with coronavirus in hospital.

    4. The new coronavirus is highly infectious, but its severity is not higher than that of a cold (flu). Many of those who died were elderly people who had suffered from a variety of other diseases before being infected with the coronavirus. But rumors exaggerated the harm of the coronavirus. This also caused the Chinese local government to take an excessive response-city lockdowns.

    5. 30-40% of Chinese medicine is "Traditional Chinese Medicine", which is formed by thousands of years of tradition. The existence of Traditional Chinese Medicine has greatly reduced the scientific ethics/literacy of the people, making them easily motivated by rumors.
    I agree with you wholeheartedly on points 2 and 3. Panic never helps anything. I would posit that a lie that prevents panic can be better than a truth that initiates panic in certain circumstances.

    Regarding points 1 and 4 - I hope you are right. I don't know enough about mortality rates of diseases in general to have an informed opinion. The initial mortality rates I saw reported for this coronavirus was in the neighborhood of 3%. Since then I've seen various numbers from 12% all the way up to 40%. Those seem outlandishly high and aren't remotely supported by any of the official numbers of dead vs. infected that I've seen.

    Regarding point 5 - that makes sense.

    Thank you for the updates.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    The latest I've read is you can be infected and contagious for a day or more without symptoms. That makes everything a little trickier because a fever, or lack of it, often is used to indicate when we are contagious (I think). Particularity at airports where that is currently the front line in travel. The temperature test cannot be counted on as an indicator of who is infectious.

    Correction:

    Up to fourteen days without symptoms.
    Last edited by TysonLPrice; Jan 28th, 2020 at 05:51 AM.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Here's a good example of the type of information I'm talking about. If you look at this twitter account:

    https://twitter.com/Secret_Beijing

    I would say they have been posting very credible updates about the virus outbreak.

    So, here's a tweet from about an hour ago:

    "Breaking: Hubei Province, where #Wuhan is the capital, will open 100,000 beds to treat patients infected with the new #coronavirus, the province's vice governor said."

    Ok, now, as of right now, there are something like 3000 confirmed cases across all of China, and something like 6000 people being monitored. 100,000 beds for coronavirus patients in one province? Does that make sense based on the current numbers?

    Are they anticipating a massive increase in the number of local patients? Are they drastically over-preparing simply to reassure the population? Are there many, many more people potentially currently infected than what is being released? Or is this Twitter post simply not true?

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    For anyone interested, here is another Twitter account with seemingly credible updates:

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk

    Hubei province alone (where Wuhan is located) reported 1291 new cases just today. That's just that one province. Now, it is also the most affected province by far.

    That is by far the largest number of new cases in a single day since this outbreak has started, and that is just the numbers from a single province. Once the numbers from other provinces come in, the total infected might reach almost 5000. That would be a significant rise from yesterdays number of around 2900.

    Obviously, the number of total cases is expected to increase day by day. But when the number of new cases day to day increases, that shows that the spread is not being contained.

    From a math perspective if f(t) is the total number of infected since this started, f'(t) will always be >= 0, unless a bunch of people were wrongly diagnosed with it and then removed from the count. But when f''(t) continues to be >= 0...well, its not good.

    And yes, a few thousand people in a country of 1.4 billion is a fraction of a fraction. But if you take a geometric series where a0 = 2900, and a1 = 4500, after only three weeks the number grows to almost 30 million.
    Last edited by OptionBase1; Jan 27th, 2020 at 08:15 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    From https://twitter.com/lauriechenwords

    "Three hospital and local government workers, who have been briefed on how doctors are handling tests and confirming cases, told Reuters that official numbers of infections and deaths do not reflect the actual toll."

    Legit intel? Who knows. Certainly seems plausible.


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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    https://youtu.be/xQxOeUA0jRQ

    Official press conference from Chinese Health Commission.

    Skip to to around 12:35. The English translator says 10,000 confirmed cases. This was said in response to a question, though, so I'm not sure if the speaker was just repeating that number because it was asked about or if they were confirming that number.
    Last edited by OptionBase1; Jan 27th, 2020 at 11:26 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    I noticed that Funky failed to include that qualification to the list of things that were circulating on social media when quoting me.
    I was just poking fun and didn't mean to either offend you or miss-represent your point. Apologies if I did. I played a zombie themed megagame this weekend and it struck just how similar your description was to the blurb for that game.

    Other than that I think I'd agree with you on one point and disagree with you on two. I agree with the scale of infection; this is highly virulent and it's looking increasingly likely that it will be a global pandemic with a substantial number of deaths. It certainly has the capacity to match or exceed the likes of SARS or Bird Flu. (I think that comparisons to Spanish Flu probably aren't useful because the world is radically different now to what it was then. We have hugely increased risk due to increased travel but also hugely increased knowledge in how to deal with potential pandemics.)

    I disagree that the Chinese government are being coy about this. I pretty much use the BBC as my exclusive channel for news and the message seems to be that the Chinese are being remarkably open and candid. If you're getting the impression that they're trying to down play things my hunch is that this is a result of the speed that the crisis is growing. It's simply the lag in getting information out.

    And I do think your portrayal of the fallout was somewhat hyperbolic. To put things in perspective the death count has only just passed 100. China's medical infrastructure is perfectly capable of handling that without leaving dead bodies in corridors. Whether it will continue to be able to cope if the numbers rocket (which they could) is debatable but that's why they're taking such serious action so early.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Jan 28th, 2020 at 05:20 AM.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    In any case it is an understatement to say how unfortunate this is. I feel bad for everyone it impacts.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    China has the strangest medical system in the world: modern medicine and traditional medicine coexist. Those traditional medical experts gave the Chinese government improper precautions and unprofessional medical advice, such as "use traditional Chinese medicine for coronavirus" and "advise or even force ordinary people to wear masks." These unprofessional suggestions have caused panic and a shortage of medical supplies.

    "It's unscientific and unreasonable for ordinary people to wear masks." 99% of Chinese people cannot understand or agree with this sentence, and I guess 85% of Americans cannot understand it too.

    I'm very concerned about the development of the situation, and I feel sad or even cry for those patients, but I'm not panic at all, and I know that this country will certainly lead the people to defeat the virus.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 28th, 2020 at 12:24 PM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    China has the strangest medical system in the world: modern medicine and traditional medicine coexist. Those traditional medical experts gave the Chinese government improper precautions and unprofessional medical advice, such as "use traditional Chinese medicine for coronavirus" and "advise or even force ordinary people to wear masks." These unprofessional suggestions have caused panic and a shortage of medical supplies.
    It may not be as different as you think. In Idaho (a fairly strange state by US standards), there is a STRONG faith healing lobby. If you aren't familiar with faith healing, it goes a bit beyond your "traditional medicine." They basically believe in nothing but prayer, which puts people in a serious bind. If something is readily curable with antibiotics, but the parents refuse, then what? What happens if the child dies? It's a contentious issue in this state.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    As far as I can tell from televised interviews with doctors who work with contagious disease, the masks can serve at least one purpose: decreasing the amount of facial contact with your fingers. To me this suggests that even the cheap and simple masks may be as good as high-quality masks to some extent, at least for some populations.

    But it also suggests that frequent hand washing and a focus on avoiding face touching might also go a long way toward keeping the transfer of the virus from environmental surfaces into mouths, noses, and eyes.

    So those not in hot spot areas, working around patients, in hospitals, etc. can probably rely on simple measures. At least until confirmation that a mutation that makes airborne infection likely comes out.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    @OptionBase1:

    Those are all caused by panic. Rumors and panic have caused hundreds of thousands of people with symptoms of coughing and fever to flock to the hospital at the same time. In fact, most of them have only a slight common cold. IMO, some people are infected with coronavirus in hospital.(When the SARS epidemic occurred in 2003, many people were infected with the SARS virus in the hospital)

    Edit:
    In addition, several Chinese experts interviewed by the BBC are actually fake experts. Their specialty is "food nutrition", but they are fake "experts in viruses".
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 29th, 2020 at 03:25 AM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by TysonLPrice View Post
    The latest I've read is you can be infected and contagious for a day or more without symptoms. That makes everything a little trickier because a fever, or lack of it, often is used to indicate when we are contagious (I think). Particularity at airports where that is currently the front line in travel. The temperature test cannot be counted on as an indicator of who is infectious.

    Correction:

    Up to fourteen days without symptoms.
    From the information I collected, the absence of symptoms often indicates that he is not contagious or his contagion is very low.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    It may not be as different as you think. In Idaho (a fairly strange state by US standards), there is a STRONG faith healing lobby. If you aren't familiar with faith healing, it goes a bit beyond your "traditional medicine." They basically believe in nothing but prayer, which puts people in a serious bind. If something is readily curable with antibiotics, but the parents refuse, then what? What happens if the child dies? It's a contentious issue in this state.
    China's traditional Chinese medicine has dozens of Chinese medicine universities(which are not available in any other country), has trained hundreds of thousands of Chinese medicine college students, and formed an industry chain with a scale of hundreds of billions of yuan. Chinese traditional medicine has greatly reduced the scientific ethics/literacy of the Chinese people. About 15% of Americans have scientific qualities. Chinese officials say that 7% of people in China have scientific qualities, but I think only 1%. Fortunately, China also has millions of modern medical practitioners.

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    As far as I can tell from televised interviews with doctors who work with contagious disease, the masks can serve at least one purpose: decreasing the amount of facial contact with your fingers. To me this suggests that even the cheap and simple masks may be as good as high-quality masks to some extent, at least for some populations.

    But it also suggests that frequent hand washing and a focus on avoiding face touching might also go a long way toward keeping the transfer of the virus from environmental surfaces into mouths, noses, and eyes.

    So those not in hot spot areas, working around patients, in hospitals, etc. can probably rely on simple measures. At least until confirmation that a mutation that makes airborne infection likely comes out.
    Yes,for ordinary people, washing hands has better protection than wearing a mask. Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said today that "even the worst case scenario, the harm and toxicity of coronaviruses will not be worse than seasonal flu." His view is similar to what I had estimated before.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 29th, 2020 at 12:38 AM.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Over here we've got folks who believe that you can take a toxin, dilute it to the point where it becomes undetectable and that it will somehow act as a medicine - and we actually prescribe that through the NHS. Incidentally, we occasionally prescribe traditional Chinese medicine too. Oh, and hypnosis. It sounds like alternative medicine probably has more influence in China than it should but you guys don't have a monopoly on credulity. The medical profession is weird all over the world.

    Not really medicine related but I actually know a bloke who thinks water is better for you if it's stored in an amphora because it's shaped a bit like a river bed so the water "feels at home".
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Jan 29th, 2020 at 04:06 AM.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    I have to say, this is pretty impressive. China got a 1000 bed hospital up and running in two days. I reckon we could take some lessons from that.
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Over here we've got folks who believe that you can take a toxin, dilute it to the point where it becomes undetectable and that it will somehow act as a medicine
    Sounds like Botox...
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I have to say, this is pretty impressive. China got a 1000 bed hospital up and running in two days. I reckon we could take some lessons from that.
    Yeah...think how fast we could get the border wall up...
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    From the information I collected, the absence of symptoms often indicates that he is not contagious or his contagion is very low.
    Can you share that with us? That contradicts just about everything I have read.
    Please remember next time...elections matter!

  32. #32
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by TysonLPrice View Post
    Can you share that with us? That contradicts just about everything I have read.
    Most of my information sources come from FangZhouzi (FangShimin), a famous writer focusing on popularization of science in China. His accuracy rate of of science knowledge is extremely high, and the accuracy rate is over 99%. Because his popularization of science is in conflict with traditional Chinese medicine, and because he exposed corruption in Chinese academia and Internet companies, he has been blocked by the Chinese Internet and social media. Yesterday he wrote an article "It is not appropriate to require the general public to wear a mask", this article was reposted by a Chinese science website, and finally this Chinese website was banned for 2 months.

    Although I think China is very open and China's Internet is much more open than the outside world thinks, Chinese media's ban on Fangzhouzi makes me ashamed. Blocking Fangzhouzi is definitely a mistake, but I'm not sure if it's the Chinese government's intention or arrangement, maybe the self-issued behavior of the Chinese media, because almost all Chinese social media want to block Fangzhouzi. Because, after doing so, no one dared to risk their lives to expose these rumors when these social media made rumors.

    (Note: China's social media is a paradise for anti-government, liberals, and democrats. Although FangZhouzi is also a democrat, he does not want to promote democracy by making rumors, lying, and exaggerating, so he is not welcomed by other democrats in China. Fang Zhouzi's popularization of science is extremely professional, but Fang Zhouzi's political views are too idealistic, and there is no feasibility and practical value in the current environment. He persists in his political ideals as a scientific fighter)

    FangZhouzi is a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, and his Twitter is "https://twitter.com/fangshimin". Maybe you can read his article through Google Translate. Of course, his Twitter is mainly to expose the darkness and corruption in China, just like other foreign media. At the same time, his Twitter is spreading scientific knowledge to his supporters.

    The claim that the coronavirus is not contagious (or weakly contagious) during the incubation period comes from some international authority medical organization, and FangZhouzi only recounted the views of the international authority medical organizations in his following twitter:

    https://twitter.com/fangshimin/statu...60332334686210

    In this twitter, Li Lanjuan, a famous medical scientist in China, believes that the virus is contagious during the incubation period. But obviously, we believe in Fang Zhouzi more than Chinese medical academicians. During the past 20 years, FangZhouzi has proven the mistakes of Chinese experts and academicians numerous times, including errors and unprofessional behaviors during SARS.

    Academician Li Lanjuan:
    The incubation period may now also be contagious, so this point should be taken very seriously, because now I also understand the situation of some patients: the patient did not have a fever himself, the people who had contact with him in the early stage had a fever, and the ones who contacted him may also develop infections and fevers later.

    FangZhouzi:
    During the SARS period, some Chinese experts said that the incubation period was contagious, which caused a lot of panic. It is now recognized that the incubation period is not contagious. Other human coronavirus diseases such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome are also non-infectious during the incubation period. Even if the new coronavirus is later confirmed to be infectious during the incubation period, it will be very weak. It is most contagious when the disease is severe (especially cough), which is a characteristic of droplet-borne viruses.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 29th, 2020 at 11:35 AM.

  33. #33
    Wall Poster TysonLPrice's Avatar
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    Most of my information sources come from FangZhouzi (FangShimin), a famous science popularization author in China. His accuracy rate of science popularization is extremely high, and the accuracy rate is over 99%. Because his science popularization is in conflict with traditional Chinese medicine, and because he exposed corruption in Chinese academia and Internet companies, he has been blocked by the Chinese Internet and social media. Yesterday he wrote an article "It is not appropriate to require the general public to wear a mask", this article was reposted by a Chinese science popularization website, and finally this Chinese science popularization website was banned for 2 months.

    Although I think China is very open and China's Internet is much more open than the outside world thinks, Chinese media's ban on Fangzhouzi makes me ashamed. Blocking Fangzhouzi is definitely a mistake, but I'm not sure if it's the Chinese government's intention or arrangement, maybe the self-issued behavior of the Chinese media, because almost all Chinese social media want to block Fangzhouzi. Because, after doing so, no one dared to risk their lives to expose these rumors when these social media made rumors.

    (Note: China's social media is a paradise for anti-government, liberals, and democrats. Although FangZhouzi is also a democrat, he does not want to promote democracy by making rumors, lying, and exaggerating, so he is not welcomed by other democrats in China. Fang Zhouzi's science popularization is extremely professional, but Fang Zhouzi's political views are too idealistic, and there is no feasibility and practical value in the current environment. He persists in his political ideals as a scientific fighter)

    FangZhouzi is a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, and his Twitter is "https://twitter.com/fangshimin". Maybe you can read his article through Google Translate. Of course, his Twitter is mainly to expose the darkness and corruption in China, just like other foreign media. At the same time, his Twitter is spreading scientific knowledge to his supporters.

    The claim that the coronavirus is not contagious (or weakly contagious) during the incubation period comes from some international authority medical organization, and FangZhouzi only recounted the views of the international authority medical organizations in his following twitter:

    https://twitter.com/fangshimin/statu...60332334686210

    In this twitter, Li Lanjuan, a famous medical scientist in China, believes that the virus is contagious during the incubation period. But obviously, we believe in Fang Zhouzi more than Chinese medical academicians. During the past 20 years, FangZhouzi has proven the mistakes of Chinese experts and academicians numerous times, including errors and unprofessional behaviors during SARS.
    Seems like you are relying on one source versus the world health community that is categorically stating that it is highly contagious and is contagious during the incubation period (up to fourteen days before symptoms). Maybe your source, or the last time you looked at the articles, is a little dated. These are recent developments. I stand by what I posted.
    Please remember next time...elections matter!

  34. #34
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    I've re-edited (updated) my post. Fangzhouzi should have seen the latest WHO articles. From my past experience and the medical knowledge I have, I believe more in Fang Zhouzi's judgment.

  35. #35
    Wall Poster TysonLPrice's Avatar
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    I've re-edited (updated) my post. Fangzhouzi should have seen the latest WHO articles. From my past experience and the medical knowledge I have, I believe more in Fang Zhouzi's judgment.
    That's fine with me...I'll stick with the rest of the world's scientific consensus
    Please remember next time...elections matter!

  36. #36
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    In addition, I'm not only closely watching the coronavirus that occurred in China this time, I've also experienced SARS in person (at the time, I was in the severely affected area of SARS, but was not infected). At present, SARS has three times the fatality rate of the new coronavirus.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Jan 29th, 2020 at 10:13 AM.

  37. #37
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    and is contagious during the incubation period
    I thought that was something they believed to be the case and were investigating but were yet to prove either way. I could well be behind the curve on that though.


    Edit> By the way, what does "Science Popularization" mean in this context?
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  38. #38
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    anybody considered it might be a B-Weapon that accidentally is out ?

    I certainly hope not
    to hunt a species to extinction is not logical !
    since 2010 the number of Tigers are rising again in 2016 - 3900 were counted. with Baby Callas it's 3901, my wife and I had 2-3 months the privilege of raising a Baby Tiger.

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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    Edit> By the way, what does "Science Popularization" mean in this context?
    Maybe it should be "Popularization of Science", I'll re-edit my post #32.

  40. #40
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    Re: Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

    No you're using it correctly. I just had a google and found it. "The process of bringing science to the people through popular platforms." I'd never heard the term before but we have plenty of it over here (ie Brian Cox)
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill

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