Coronavirus - What Happened?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
2673

That is an accurate (but weird) way of putting it.I wouldnt say its a collection of symptoms per se, but its the generic gen pop word for a (likely) non-specific viral infection. Whereas “The flu” is caused by the influenza virus (and even that could be called a common cold if its not real severe)

There really isnt any such medical term as “the common cold”, meaning no doctor is going to officially diagnose you with that in the chart, but from a testing perspective no one is going to test you for all of the viruses known to man, so if you present to a doctor or ER with what the gen pop calls “a cold” or “sick” you probably will just get told you have a virus or “viral syndrome”, or maybe even told you have the common cold, and be on your way.

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2674

So, deaths from “the common cold” are pretty much unheard of because…that diagnosis(by whatever name) means that what you have seems to not be hurting you that badly?

It just seems a bit dishonest to lump less severe cases of whatever in with each other so that…I don’t know…the numbers can make various conditions seem more dangerous than they are? Again, I don’t know and am not in the medical field…but it seems something like stat padding.

2675

I immediately thought of Adam Sandler in the Zohan…

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2676

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2677

Somewhat accurate yes. Rhinoviruses, at least 3 coronaviruses, and others can cause the mild symptoms we refer to as the cold. Lonnie was pretty much on the money–if you don’t have specific indicating symptoms for a particular illness nobody is going to test you for it. They’ll tell you you have a virus/cold.

It is most definitely NOT stat padding in any way. The lack of testing comes from the general family doctor and insurance company directly. If you want testing you’ll have to fight both of them It is not an intentional oversight or gimmick by researchers trying to make other things look worse.

2678

How would we have done this if the tests didn’t exist yet?

2679

That’s the point. Had we known 2-3 months earlier, when China first discovered the virus, we would have the testing we have now, in early February.

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2680

The problem is people still think China is like North Korea. The moment the outbreak was deemed severe enough for an entire city to be locked down, the entire world should have been shitting their pants. But people who don’t know what China is really like had the idea that it was NORMAL because that’s what a “communist dictatorship” would do for something relatively mild.

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2681

Aragorn said that he’s upset that US, not China:

one reason I’m upset with how the US has handled this is that we blew an opportunity to economically get ahead of everyone dealing with a huge pandemic. Imagine for instance if we had taken a serious testing and surveillance approach right out of the gate–we wouldn’t be shut down, or at least not near to the degree we are currently.

2682

Gotcha, I misunderstood. I think what I said still applies- we basically would have been a few months ahead of where we are now with testing… And the earlier widespread testing gets applied the less restrictive lockdown needs to be… So we would have incurred less economic damage.

2683
2684

Oh I’m upset with China, don’t you worry. But yes I was talking about this country.

Partially. But Trump would not have taken it more seriously then than he did as it really played out, so it’s unlikely we’d be in a different situation. Hence my frustration. I’m also 100% sure the SMEs in the administration were watching and listening, and trying to get attention. That is their job after all. Indications are a number of highly placed individuals had an indication of the virus’s seriousness around New Year’s Day, if not before.

Well there were a few options available to get the tests, however it depended on the administration.

The WHO had early tests that they shipped to numerous countries with weak virology capabilities. They were not incredibly good, and we did not request any. But some kind of test beats zero tests in pretty much any scenario like this. We could have, and should have, requested some number of tests for customs screening.

At best it would have stifled the virus at international airports (assuming we were competently setting up surveillance, which we should have done). At worst it would have slowed the early growth rate of the virus and inconvenienced a few souls.

The CDC then proceeded to fuck up their own test kit production which both delayed availability and also contaminated many if not most of the tests they were able to ship out early. So we got the worst of all possible worlds because test kits weren’t requested, then weren’t available, then were contaminated.

Early action is always always more effective than late action on viruses, even if it is not perfectly informed. And usually much less damaging.

Requesting WHO test kits WHILE we design and get our own tests into production would have at least given us some sort of ammunition. Setting up testing sites at all international airports for customs, and screening there with IR thermometers and tests would have been a start.

We still don’t have testing at airports as far as I’m aware. We never did it.

There were serious failings at multiple levels of government. In addition, the experts who needed attention didn’t get it.

I should add that we normally do not receive WHO tests because we are not a country that has a weak healthcare system, but it is something we could have requested.

2685

Exactly, people don’t understand this.

Putin at first tried the ole’ Soviet approach. Classify all Covid-19 cases as pneumonia, arrest a few doctors and journalists and continue business as usual.

Of course after the “oh shit” moment now the entire country is under lockdown.

The fact that bleeding heart liberals such as Xi, Putin and Erdogan shut down their respective countries speaks volumes.

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2686

To be fair, the only communism that most of us know over here is the old Soviet kind, and the Hollywood caricatures. The Cold War might be 30 years gone but it’s the only brand to soak into eh countries memory.

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2687

Actually, the legacy of communism may rear it’s head in unexpected ways…

So, Comrade Lenin, I guess a “thank you” is in order?

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2688

I think we’re referring to the leaders of other countries, not the people. And the talking heads on news networks like Fox.

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2689
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2690

Interesting graph. I suppose the first thing that comes to my mind is, how much are they testing and how are they reporting cases?

2691

@Aragorn Have you seen this?

2692

Hope this helps:

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