Feb 222020
 


DPC The Mammoth Oak at Pass Christian, Mississippi 1900

 

Asymptomatic Wuhan Woman Infects Five Relatives With Coronavirus (G.)
COVID19 Mortality Rate Hits New Lifetime High Of 3.0% (ZH)
Italy Reports 1st Virus Death, Cases More Than Quadruple (AP)
10 Italian Towns In Lockdown Over Coronavirus Fears (IBT)
US Prepares For Coronavirus Pandemic, School And Business Closures (R.)
Judge Blocks Transfer Of 50 Coronavirus Patients To Costa Mesa (CBS)
France Should Use Virus Outbreak To Reduce Reliance On China – FinMin (RT)
Bernie Sanders Told By US Officials That Russia Supports His Campaign (G.)
Keep Throwing Spaghetti at That Wall (Kunstler)
Intelligence Community Feels Impact Of Trump’s Diplomatic ‘Disruptor’ (CNN)
Trump’s New Intel Chief Was A Trump Critic In 2016 (Pol.)
Lady Justice Spurns Her Blinders For Trump Associates (AmG)
Twitter Suspends 70 Pro-Bloomberg Accounts Over ‘Platform Manipulation’ (R.)

 

 

The game is changing. The virus has taken the logical next step: first, expand beyond Hubei, now expand beyond China. Major cluster in South Korea, first death in Italy. Big question mark is Iran, what health care structure is in place there? Four deaths out of seemingly nowhere doesn’t spur confidence.

 

Cases 77,928 (+ 1,138 from yesterday’s 76,790).

Deaths 2,362 (+ 115 from yesterday)

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

And a list of affected countries so far. Check back again in a week or so. Note: death in Italy is not yet included.

 


 

 

As I wrote 2 days ago in Go Forth and Multiply, the key terms going forward will be “false negative” and “asymptomatic”.

CNN had an interview live with a woman who just got off the ship. Yay! No quarantine!

Asymptomatic Wuhan Woman Infects Five Relatives With Coronavirus (G.)

A 20-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan travelled hundreds of miles to another city where she infected five relatives without showing signs of infection, Chinese scientists have said, offering new evidence that the new coronavirus can be spread asymptomatically. The case study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offered clues about how the coronavirus is spreading, and suggested that it might be difficult to stop. According to the study by Dr Meiyun Wang of the People’s Hospital of Zhengzhou University and colleagues, the woman travelled 400 miles (650km) from Wuhan to Anyang in Henan province on 10 January and visited several relatives.

When they started getting sick, doctors isolated the woman and tested her for coronavirus. Initially, the young woman tested negative for the virus, but a follow-up test was positive. All five of her relatives developed Covid-19 pneumonia, but as of 11 February, the young woman still had not developed any symptoms, her chest CT remained normal and she had no fever, stomach or respiratory symptoms, such as cough or sore throat. Scientists in the study said if the findings are replicated, “the prevention of Covid-19 infection could prove challenging”.

World Health Organization officials have praised China’s lockdown of millions of people as helping to buy time for the rest of the world to prepare for the new virus. But as hot spots emerge around the globe, such as South Korea and Iran, health officials are having difficulty finding and isolating the first source of the virus – the so-called index case. This is fuelling concern that the disease has begun spreading too widely for tried-and-true public health steps to stamp it out. “A number of spot fires occurring around the world is a sign that things are ticking along, and what we are going to have here is probably a pandemic,” said Ian Mackay, who studies viruses at the University of Queensland in Australia.

[..] Dr William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University medical centre in Nashville, who was not involved in the Zhengzhou University study, said the Wuhan woman’s case provided a “natural laboratory” to study Covid-19. “Scientists have been asking if you can have this infection and not be ill? The answer is apparently, yes,” he said. “You had this patient from Wuhan where the virus is, traveling to where the virus wasn’t,” he said. “She remained asymptomatic and infected a bunch of family members and you had a group of physicians who immediately seized on the moment and tested everyone.”

Read more …

“China, which officially has over 76,000 cases, had just 397 cases, while South Korea with just 204 cases, had an increase of 142, or about a third of all of China’s new cases..”

COVID19 Mortality Rate Hits New Lifetime High Of 3.0% (ZH)

[..] as China scrambles to goal seek its propaganda number, the world’s attention has shifted to what has emerged as the second coronavirus hotspot, South Korea, where the number of cases is certainly not doctored, pardon the bad pun, and where there is a truly exponential increase in new cases, which are now doubling with every passing day in a terrible, if accurate, representation of what indeed happens when there is a viral epidemic. Late on Friday we got painfully clear example of just this when China reported that on Feb 21, there were just 397 new Coronavirus cases bringing the total to 76,288, a plunge of more than 50% from the previous day’s adjusted increase of 889 and a number which is now completely meaningless in light of what has become a daily adjustment by China.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths, which China has so far failed to revise (but will surely try before this is all over), rose by 109 to 2345, and with the number of cases barely rising, it also means that the mortality rate his now hit a new lifetime high of 3.0%. Which also means that China has to pick: keep fabricating the number of cases while the real deaths keep rising and the mortality rate creep ever higher, or change the definition of death. So if Chinese data is now meaningless (and the only thing that matters is if and when its economy will come back on line), there is South Korea, and it is here that things have turned south quick.


Or rather north if one follows the latest number of cases, because one day after total South Korean cases doubled (having doubled the day before that, and again the day prior), on Saturday South Korea reported that there was another stunning increase in the total number of cases which rose by 142 in one day, a 70% increase from the prior day, to a new high of 346; Putting this stunning increase in context, China, which officially has over 76,000 cases, had just 397 cases, while South Korea with just 204 cases, had an increase of 142, or about a third of all of China’s new cases! South Korea also reported its second coronavirus linked death.

With the number of people in South Korea being tested for coronavirus surging to 5,481, up from 3,180 last night, it is virtually certain that this exponential increase in new confirmed cases will last for quite a while, perhaps even longer than China’s, unless of course, South Korea learns from Beijing just how to change the “definition” of cases and fast. Thanks to South Korea, the number of cases in the top 7 countries outside China with the most cases, including Iran, and excluding the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, is close to turning exponential as well.

Read more …

Italy has two separate issues. A cluster of 15 cases in Lombardy, and a death in Padua, 250km from there.

Italy Reports 1st Virus Death, Cases More Than Quadruple (AP)

Italy reported its first death from the new virus from China early Saturday and the number of people infected more than quadrupled due to a cluster of cases that prompted officials to order schools, restaurants and businesses to close. State-run RAI television reported a 78-year-old man, one of two people in northern Veneto region to have been infected, died Friday. Italian news agencies ANSA and LaPresse also reported the death, citing the Veneto regional president, Luca Zaia. In Lombardy, at least 14 new cases were confirmed, representing the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and bringing the country’s total to 19.


The cluster was located in a handful of tiny towns southeast of Milan, said Lombardy regional health chief Giulio Gallera. “This was foreseeable even if we hoped it wouldn’t have happened,” Gallera said. The first to fall ill was a 38-year-old Italian who met with someone who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said. That person was being kept in isolation and appears to present antibodies to the virus.

Read more …

15 tested positive, 5 of them doctors.

10 Italian Towns In Lockdown Over Coronavirus Fears (IBT)

Authorities in northern Italy on Friday ordered the closure of schools, bars and other public spaces in 10 towns following a flurry of new coronavirus cases. Five doctors and 10 other people tested positive for the virus in Lombardy, after apparently frequenting the same bar and group of friends, with two other cases in Veneto, authorities said at a press conference. Over 50,000 people have been asked to stay at home in the areas concerned, while all public activities such as carnival celebrations, church masses and sporting events have been banned for up to a week. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said “everything is under control”, and stressed the government was maintaining “an extremely high level of precaution”.


Streets in the towns were deserted, with only a few people seen abroad, and signs showing public spaces closed. In Casalpusterlengo, a large electronic message board outside the town hall read “Coronavirus: the population is invited to remain indoors as a precaution”. The first town to be shuttered was Codogno, with a population of 15,000, where three people tested positive for the virus, including a 38-year old man and his wife, who is eight months pregnant. Three others there have tested positive to a first novel coronavirus test and are awaiting their definitive results. Codogno mayor Francesco Passerini said the news of the cases “has sparked alarm” throughout the town south of Milan. The 38-year old, who works for Unilever in Lodi, was in a serious condition in intensive care. Some 250 people were being placed in isolation after coming into contact with the new cases, according to the Lombardy region, and 60 workers at Unilever have been tested for the virus.

Read more …

I see chaos in your future…

US Prepares For Coronavirus Pandemic, School And Business Closures (R.)

U.S. health officials on Friday said they are preparing for the possibility of the spread of the new coronavirus through U.S. communities that would force closures of schools and businesses. The United States has yet to see community spread of the virus that emerged in central China in late December. But health authorities are preparing medical personnel for the risk, Nancy Messonnier, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters on a conference call. In coming weeks, if the virus begins to spread through U.S. communities, health authorities want to be ready to adopt school and business closures like those undertaken in Asian countries to contain the disease, Messonnier said.


“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” Messonnier said. “Our goal continues to be to slow the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread.” The CDC is taking steps to ensure frontline U.S. healthcare workers have supplies they need, she added, by working with businesses, hospitals, pharmacies and provisions manufacturers and distributors on what they can do to get ready. [..] The United States currently has 13 cases of people diagnosed with the virus within the country and 21 cases among Americans repatriated on evacuation flights from Wuhan, China, and from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, CDC said.

Read more …

And how does the US prepare? By showing solidarity.

Judge Blocks Transfer Of 50 Coronavirus Patients To Costa Mesa (CBS)

A federal judge Friday granted the city of Costa Mesa’s temporary restraining order requesting to block as many as 50 confirmed coronavirus patients from being transferred to the city. Federal court papers filed Friday state that the federal government planned to transfer the patients from Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to the former Fairview Developmental Center on Sunday or Monday. Thursday night, Costa Mesa city officials began hearing of the plan by the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC to move between 30 and 5o patients to the state-owned land. Some of the patients are from the Diamond Princess cruise ship from which more than 300 U.S. citizens were removed Monday.


Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley said the city was surprised to learn that the Fairview Developmental Center was being considered for a group of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus, and city leaders filed an injunction to block the transfer in an effort to protect residents. “We have a lot of activity in the area,” she said. “So, it’s not the kind of area that’s isolated and that would be appropriate for quarantining people who have an infectious disease.” The largest concern was the lack of information, despite the fact that the patients were expected to arrive in a matter of days, said Costa Mesa fire chief Dan Stefano. “There has not been an information flow, and in a situation like that, for us, it creates the greatest concern,” he said.

Read more …

Wise. But very late. Still, France will do better than most EU coutries if a pandemic hits; it’s more self-reliant.

France Should Use Virus Outbreak To Reduce Reliance On China – FinMin (RT)

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has warned that the outbreak of the coronavirus should act as a catalyst for France to begin reducing its “dependence” on China for certain goods. Meeting with business figures on Friday, Le Maire said the crisis would have a 0.1 percent impact on France’s GDP growth in 2020, assuming the outbreak is reaching its peak. While the number seems small, it is significant considering the fact that yearly GDP growth is usually in the small single digits. Le Maire announced a series of short-term measures to limit the impact of the slowdown caused by the epidemic. The ministry is also looking into the possibility of using the coronavirus as a ‘force majeure’ to allow certain French companies to free themselves from contractual obligations, Les Echos reported.


“We need to grasp this epidemic to question ourselves on our strategic dependence, in terms of supply, on certain industrial sectors,” Le Maire said, pointing to the automobile and health sectors in particular and noting that almost 80 percent of active ingredients for drugs are produced in China. Ultimately, he said, the coronavirus crisis could be an opportunity for France to “draw good from evil” by fixing vulnerabilities in supply. Le Maire’s comments indicate that reliance on Chinese goods is all well and good in normal circumstances, but this quickly changes in times of crisis. Germany also warned on Friday that the coronavirus crisis could impact its economy due to its dependence on Chinese supply chains.

Read more …

Here’s where Bernie’s desperation shines through: “Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend.” He lost me forever with that cheap innuendo.

And while we’re talking viruses, US intelligence looks very much like the immune system that turns against the body it’s supposed to protect.

Note how the Guardian says “US officials”, not “US intelligence (officials)”.

Michael Tracey: “One of the wealthiest men on Earth is plotting to steal the nomination, the Dem Party cannot even run a caucus in Iowa, corporate media can arbitrarily decide to marginalize candidates at will, but we’re supposed to panic again about Russian bots on Twitter? Ludicrous freak show”

Bernie Sanders Told By US Officials That Russia Supports His Campaign (G.)

US officials have told Bernie Sanders that Russia is trying to help his campaign, prompting the frontrunner in the Democratic race to strongly condemn any interference. Republican Donald Trump and US lawmakers have also been informed about the Russian assistance to Sanders, said a report in the Washington Post, which cited unnamed people familiar with the matter and first broke the news. It was not clear what form the Russian assistance had taken, the paper added. Facebook said it had seen no evidence of Russian support for Sanders on its platform. However, the Vermont senator denounced the reported efforts by Moscow to interfere with the 2020 election on his behalf.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend. He is an autocratic thug who is attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia,” Sanders said of the Russian president. “Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election.” Sanders also suggested some of the online vitriol frequently blamed on his supporters may be coming from Russia. “Some of the ugly stuff on the internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters,” Sanders said.

The news follows similar warnings from the intelligence community that Russia has also sought to boost Trump’s re-election campaign. On Friday Trump sought to play down those developments and revive old grievances in claiming that Democrats are determined to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency. Trump claimed on Twitter that Democrats were pushing a “misinformation campaign” in hopes of politically damaging him.

Read more …

“..The New York Times, a figment machine so demented that it has come to resemble the proverbial crazy aunt locked in the attic.”

Keep Throwing Spaghetti at That Wall (Kunstler)

We’re reminded this morning by The New York Times, America’s official psychotic fantasy generator, that the Russians are coming (again!) as an ad hoc arm of the committee to re-elect Mr. Trump. You have to ask yourself: Does Mr. Trump actually need their help? His opponents have been self-meddling so diligently that their party now looks like a Frankenstein creature assembled from the spare parts of Herbert Marcuse, Tupac Shakur, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and Jame Gumb. Imagine that monster running a government. If Vlad Putin happened to express an aversion to the idea at an international cocktail party, can you really blame him? Plenty of Americans surely feel the same way. Anyway, the Times’ story never gets around to saying much about the alleged new Russian campaign besides this:

‘They have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are working to get Americans to repeat disinformation, the officials said. That strategy gets around social media companies’ rules that prohibit ‘inauthentic speech.’”

Wow, that’s pretty scary! Except when you consider that Americans have done a crackerjack job of mind-fucking themselves with disinformation the past several years, coincidentally via this very The New York Times, a figment machine so demented that it has come to resemble the proverbial crazy aunt locked in the attic. The true wonder is the Times’ poverty of imagination, reviving a tattered cockamamie story that bombed abjectly the first time around. I suppose, in a culture addicted to stupid sequels, they expect Robert Mueller will be called back on-duty to sort this one out like he did so nicely before.

Actually, you could make a credible argument that the vaunted US “Intel Community” is a bigger threat to American life than anything the Russians might do on Facebook. Hence, the good news that Mr. Trump has just appointed Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, to the pivotal job as Director of National Intelligence, a position created in 2004 to supposedly coordinate the farflung activities of seventeen armies of spooks and snoops, lately notorious for feeding disinformation to The New York Times and its “Resistance” media allies.

Read more …

Grenell was picked to clean up US intel. What a job to have. As Schumer said: Six ways from Sunday.

Grenell “has also been dismissive of the threat of Russia’s meddling in the US…

Let’s get that blasphemist!

Intelligence Community Feels Impact Of Trump’s Diplomatic ‘Disruptor’ (CNN)

Richard Grenell, the newly installed acting director of American spy agencies and loyalist to President Donald Trump, began his temporary tenure by moving aggressively to put his stamp on the intelligence community that Trump has repeatedly attacked. Grenell ousted a veteran intelligence officer on Friday who served as the number two at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to The New York Times, and on Thursday he brought on board a former staffer of Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who’s a staunch Trump ally. He also asked to see the intelligence behind the classified briefing last week where lawmakers were told Russia was interfering in the 2020 election to aid Trump, the Times reported.

Present and past colleagues, as well as diplomats who have tussled with him, describe Grenell as an aggressive, intelligent and caustic operator who loves to pick a fight, air the drama on Twitter and make sure everyone in the room knows his loyalty lies first and foremost with the President. Trump’s discovery that intelligence officials had briefed the bipartisan group of lawmakers on Russia’s efforts led him to angrily jettison acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on Wednesday and install Grenell in his place. Donald Trump Jr. suggested to CNN on Friday that Grenell’s commitment to the President was a factor in his selection and said he looks forward to having “an honest dealer” leading the intelligence community.

“All I want is honesty in these places. Whether it’s the Justice Department, whether it’s there, I just want people who aren’t partisan hacks,” Trump Jr said, adding that he believes Grenell [..] will be the same kind of disruptive force within the intelligence community that he has been diplomatically. Given Trump’s troubled relationship with the intelligence community, which he has publicly denigrated and undermined, numerous former administration officials said they are concerned that Grenell was appointed to “clean house” and purge the government of those deemed to be leakers or whistleblowers. A spokeswoman for Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said in a Thursday statement that Grenell “has also been dismissive of the threat of Russia’s meddling in the US, a fact that is doubly concerning as Germany is one of our closest and most important allies in pushing back on Russian aggression on the world stage.”

Read more …

A bit more Grenell. Because you’re going to hear a lot about him. US intel doesn’t want to be cleaned up.

Trump’s New Intel Chief Was A Trump Critic In 2016 (Pol.)

President Donald Trump’s new acting director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, has for years been a vocal Trump loyalist, using his Twitter account to boost the president’s policies on everything from 5G and NATO to the Iran deal and the economy. But Grenell wasn’t always a Trump supporter: In 2016, before the New York real estate mogul became the GOP presidential nominee, Grenell called Trump “dangerous” and spoke out regularly in favor of then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich, according to deleted tweets recovered via a joint inquiry by POLITICO and the cybersecurity firm Nisos. “He’s dangerous!” read one deleted Grenell tweet from March 24, 2016, the day Trump tweeted that “NATO is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on!”

The tweets underscore a key irony of the Trump era: Some of the president’s fiercest critics during the 2016 race have since transformed into his most passionate defenders, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned that Trump would be an “authoritarian president”; GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, who denounced Trump as “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who would destroy the Republican Party; and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who called Trump a “terrible human being” right before the 2016 election. Grenell seems to have undergone a similar evolution.

“Trump is dangerous. Wake up. He’s reckless,” he replied on another occasion to a user who had written “vote Trump.” He urged his followers to read Trump’s interview with The Washington Post editorial board, in which Trump said, “I think NATO as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved … I’m not even knocking it, I’m just saying I don’t think it’s fair, we’re not treated fair.”

[..] he does appear to have atoned for his anti-Trump commentary. He began supporting Trump publicly after he became the GOP nominee, writing in June 2016 that he would support the Republican candidate over Hillary Clinton and, in August, that the election “is a choice between 5,000 conservative appointees and 5,000 liberal appointees.” He also began to mock reports that said Russia had interfered in the election to boost Trump’s candidacy, writing in December 2016: “[T]hose Russians must have demanded that Hillary not campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, too.” And he promoted the WikiLeaks disclosures, praising news organizations that reported extensively on the hacked DNC materials and criticizing those that didn’t.

Read more …

And not even Stone supporters get it right: “..WikiLeaks, the website that eventually leaked the DNC’s hacked emails”. THEY WERE NOT HACKED!

Lady Justice Spurns Her Blinders For Trump Associates (AmG)

The claim sounded like something from Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) or Rachel Maddow or any number of Russian collusion propagandists: “He was not prosecuted for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.” Those words, however, were not uttered on MSNBC but rather in a federal courtroom by Amy Berman Jackson, a U.S. district court judge seated in the nation’s capital, whose job is to ensure the fair administration of justice based on the rule of law. The “he” Jackson was referring to is Roger Stone, a Trump confidant; the “president,” of course, is Donald Trump.

Now, Stone wasn’t charged with covering up for the president nor did the indictment against him suggest as much. There was nothing to “cover up” as election collusion is a fantasy concocted by the Democrats and the news media. But the Obama-appointee was on a roll; facts, at that point, didn’t matter to Jackson. (In a tweet Thursday morning, Schiff echoed Jackson’s evidence-free remark, claiming Stone “did it to cover up for Trump.”) Her absurd and blatantly political accusation from the bench was just part of Jackson’s 40-minute monologue Thursday morning prior to sentencing Stone to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress, obstructing justice, and witness tampering. (The loquacious judge doesn’t like competition; she put a gag order on Stone last year that is still in effect.)

The seven charges against Stone stemmed from Robert Mueller’s investigation into nonexistent collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The Justice Department accused Stone of thwarting a similar investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee, then headed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). The case against Stone is rooted in the claim that the Russians hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee—an intrusion, it’s important to note, that is backed up solely by an analysis conducted by CrowdStrike, a private cybersecurity firm. The politically connected company was hired to investigate the breach in the spring of 2016 by Perkins Coie, the same law firm that hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research on Trump.

The DNC refused to surrender any devices or data to the FBI, despite several requests by then-director James Comey. Stone allegedly, in no small measure due to his own boasting, was in touch with WikiLeaks, the website that eventually leaked the DNC’s hacked emails. His concealment of communications related to WikiLeaks earned Stone and his wife an early-morning FBI raid at their home in January 2019 as the CNN news cameras rolled.

Read more …

Time for the candidates to murder each other.

Twitter Suspends 70 Pro-Bloomberg Accounts Over ‘Platform Manipulation’ (R.)

Twitter Inc on Friday said it had started suspending and restricting dozens of accounts posting content promoting U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. “We took enforcement action on about 70 accounts, which includes a combination of permanent suspensions and account challenges to verify ownership,” a Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters. [..] Twitter said the accounts violated its platform manipulation and spam policy, which prohibits coordination among accounts to amplify or disrupt conversation by using multiple accounts. This can refer to creating several accounts to post duplicative content but also includes “coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification, even if the people involved use only one account.”


The billionaire candidate’s campaign, which has been pouring unparalleled amounts of money into an online advertising campaign, is also hiring hundreds of digital organizers to support the candidate, including by pushing content to their own social media channels. The Wall Street Journal reported that these organizers in California receive $2,500 a month to promote Bloomberg’s candidacy through actions such as posting on social media to their own networks. This month, a paid partnership between the former New York mayor’s campaign and popular Instagram meme accounts pushed Facebook Inc to announce it was allowing U.S.-based political candidates to run branded or sponsored content on its social networking platforms.

Read more …

 

Gloria Allred had this bus drive past Buckingham Palace.

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 22 2020

Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #54214

    DPC The Mammoth Oak at Pass Christian, Mississippi 1900   • Asymptomatic Wuhan Woman Infects Five Relatives With Coronavirus (G.) • COVID19 Morta
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 22 2020]

    #54215
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    DPC The Mammoth Oak at Pass Christian, Mississippi 1900

    That oak! Wow! Just wow…

    #54216
    lasttwo
    Participant

    How many test kits in Africa? How many people are being tested 3-4 times to make sure a negative is a negative. Good luck putting the Genie back in the bottle. Ready or not here it comes.

    Trumps is doing so much damage to the environment. Anyone would be better.
    But he does not have the entire market on money over everything else. Young Justin learned some stuff.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=trudeau+blockade

    To V Arnolds point yesterday
    The factory farm model is seriously flawed. the world with chemically raised food is a huge threat to the health of people now and in the future, as those chemicals do not disappear, not to mention the potential to spread disease at a tremendous rate. Feed lots that feed animals any available low cost filler and then fill them with antibiotics because the feed is making the animals sick. Antibiotics don’t work as well because we are eating them in our food.

    I urge anyone to try buying beef that has been raised humanely and fed what cows are meant to eat (grass) best if you can actually go to the farm to get it. Grass fed beef from a supermarket is not the same thing. Huge difference in taste and my personal experience is that I feel much better after making the switch. It all matters. how the animal is raised and how it is killed. Cows that are lined up and killed one after another are so full of adrenaline that the meat is effected. Best not to eat meat but if your going to eat meat do the right thing.

    It is in the hands of the consumer. If we keep buying the factory farm crap they will keep selling it to you.

    #54217
    lms
    Participant

    “It’s a great honor to be with President Putin. …. We’ve had great meetings. We have had a very, very good relationship. And we look forward to spending some pretty good time together. A lot of very positive things going to come out of the relationship.” That’s the president talking in Osaka, June, 2019. It’s one instance of many when he has had only positive things to say about Putin. When Sanders inferred that Putin is a friend of the president it wasn’t “innuendo”. It was an explicit and widely confirmed assessment of their relationship. Bashing the Trump bashers again.

    If we can for a minute put aside the hysterical aversion to hysterical vilification of Russia, most people would agree that Putin is not a good man. He may be a good leader who has done good things for Russia in the same sense that the Chinese Communist Party has done good things for the Chinese people. But he has done so with a very heavy hand. It seems that you, as a journalist, would find it more alarming that a president who claims that the press is the enemy of the people is chummy with a man that has overseen the murder of over 2 dozen journalists who had been critical of his regime.

    #54218
    zerosum
    Participant

    “• US Prepares For Coronavirus Pandemic, School And Business Closures (R.)”

    Note:
    All of the people who complained about, whatever, concerning China, have better reload with fresh ammunition. You have seen nothing yet. The USA will provide you with more targets than you can shoot at.
    —-
    @ lasttwo
    It is in the hands of the consumer.

    The majority consumers are so poor that all they can only afford to buy are beans.
    Only the well-to-do middle class, can afford to eat “green” and “chemical free”
    In case you did not notice, Mexicans pick the food you eat. Mexican are paid too little. Mexicans eat beans.
    Soon, the coronavirus, could be among all fresh food picked by hand..
    The new marketing motto could be, “VIRUS FREE”
    Why do you think that I keep saying,
    “Be nice to the cook.”

    #54219
    zerosum
    Participant

    SK also reported its third death, a man in his 40s who was found dead in his apartment and posthumously tested.
    Update (1100ET): Italian health officials have confirmed nearly two dozen more cases across Lombardy and Veneto, according to Bloomberg.
    The Lombardy region has 39 coronavirus cases with another 12 cases in the Veneto, regional officials said in a press conference Saturday in Milan. Most of the cases are in the Codogno area, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Milan. A woman who was found dead in her home subsequently tested positive, the health secretary said. Earlier, three tourists in Rome were diagnosed with the virus.

    I only know the social structures of Canada, USA.
    Therefore, here is what I expect will happen with the coronavirus.

    When we get a cold, flue, we go to work, or shopping, or socializing, with a sniffles and with a cough.
    We might take non prescription cough medicine.
    When we get a fever and feel lousy, we stay home.
    When we cough up too much phlegm and we have a fever we find a walk in clinic and if we are lucky we go to our doctor to get help.
    However, if you cannot afford a doctor visit, which is most of the USA, then you stay in your apt, take an aspirin, and hope to get better.

    Seniors who have no money, do not live in a care home. Senior, with no money, who have no relatives that visit, and have with no friends who are not sick to visit, will die, alone, at home.
    Seniors that have Caregivers that do home visit will be getting the flu from their caregivers.

    Everyone can do their own projection. I’m sure, your scenarios could be worst than mine.

    #54220
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    The CDC is still sticking with the 14-day incubation period and quarantine. From the transcript of yesterday’s press conference:

    Yesterday, nearly all of the remaining people who returned from Wuhan, China, via state department chartered flights, who have been quarantined at four department of defense installations across the U.S. have completed their 14-day quarantine. We are truly thankful to those released from quarantine for their cooperation and patience and wish them well as they return to home, work, and school. I want to be clear that someone who has been released from quarantine is not at risk for spreading the virus to others. Specifically, they are not infected.

    …what we would consider the incubation period, which we know to be 10 to 14 days.

    https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0221-cdc-telebriefing-covid-19.html

    #54221
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Meanwhile, Coronavirus incubation could be as long as 27 days, Chinese provincial government says.

    SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A 70-year-old man in China’s Hubei Province was infected with coronavirus but did not show symptoms until 27 days later, the local government said on Saturday, meaning the virus’ incubation period could be much longer than the presumed 14 days.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-incubation/coronavirus-incubation-could-be-as-long-as-27-days-chinese-provincial-government-says-idUSKCN20G06W

    #54222
    lasttwo
    Participant

    zerosum

    I realize many people cannot get to a farm or know how to find a farmer willing to sell direct. even under the best of circumstances It takes some work. We have been seriously poor in our lives and lived for a time on turkey eggs which the local farmers sold 6 dozen egg flats for a dollar. We are still quite frugal We almost never eat out. do not own a working cell phone, but we also have no debt. For the most part people are poor through no fault of their own but some small part of it is choice. In our current circumstance the meat is cheaper than the grocery store. Only one person needs to make a profit. We have lived rural and urban and living rural has some advantages one of which is access to better food. We are blessed. My only thought is that we have excepted the Walmart, factory farms and Amazon embraced them even.I am as guilty of this as anyone. The thing is how do we stop supporting companies and practices that we now know are damaging. The only thing I can think of is those that can should.

    #54223
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Three days ago, an epidemiologist published this article suggesting 21 days:

    While the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the incubation period of COVID-19 could be up to 14 days, this upper limit was actually observed for a small proportion of cases of SARS. In the context of an accelerating COVID-19 epidemic and growing uncertainty, a higher upper limit (possibly 21 days) for the incubation period seems reasonable and warranted in the interest of adequately protecting the public.

    Is 14 Days Long Enough to Contain COVID-19?
    Not getting incubation period right could defeat purpose of quarantining

    https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/generalinfectiousdisease/84963

    #54224
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ lasttwo

    “The only thing I can think of is those that can should.”
    Where I live, I see that those than can are doing it.
    ——
    14, 21, or 27
    This virus will be around for a long time even if they find a vaccine.
    Change is in the air.

    #54225

    14 days, 21 days, that’s all long gone, not much use. My guess is 14 days will turn out to be maybe an average time, but certainly not a maximum one.

    As I quoted 2 days ago in Go Forth and Multiply:

    The government of Xinxian county, in the city of Xinyang, on Sunday reported that one of its new cases had been confirmed 34 days after the patient returned from a mid-January visit to Wuhan.

    It also reported a case that was confirmed 94 days after the patient’s contact with a relative from Hubei.

    And that still leaves many unknowns. For instance how long can asymptomatic cases stay infectious? What’s the timescale for reinfection? Why did the Italy deaths occur within 1-2 days of being reported? Were they timely and properly recognized? What happens in Iran? 5 deaths now.

    Far as I can see all estimates of all numbers, be they cases, deaths, incubation, have been too low. It’s called politics. Defended as not unnecessarily wanting to frighten the public. But deadly.

    #54227
    FinalGravity
    Participant

    Gravity is an imminent algorithm.

    #54228
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

    Influenza spreads around the world in yearly outbreaks, resulting in about three to five million cases of severe illness and about 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.[1][4] About 20% of unvaccinated children and 10% of unvaccinated adults are infected each year.[14] In the northern and southern parts of the world, outbreaks occur mainly in the winter, while around the equator, outbreaks may occur at any time of the year.[1] Death occurs mostly in high risk groups—the young, the old, and those with other health problems.[1] Larger outbreaks known as pandemics are less frequent.[2] In the 20th century, three influenza pandemics occurred: Spanish influenza in 1918 (17–100 million deaths), Asian influenza in 1957 (two million deaths), and Hong Kong influenza in 1968 (one million deaths).[15][16][17] The World Health Organization declared an outbreak of a new type of influenza A/H1N1 to be a pandemic in June 2009.[18] Influenza may also affect other animals, including pigs, horses, and birds.[19]

    Therefore, covid-19 is looking to be worst than all previous flus.
    As the past death milestone of the previous pandemics are broken, my panic mode will get worst.

    #54230
    Dave Note
    Participant

    “..the scariest development in the past 24 hours is that almost all patients at a psychiatric ward of a South Korean hospital tested positive for the coronavirus…” WTF?

    “…of the total 443 confirmed cases in South Korea, more than half, or 231 were linked to Daegu and the Shincheonji Church of Jesus sect, while at least 111 – including four nurses – were from the psychiatric ward of the hospital in Cheongdo County.

    The Korean infected numbers are doubling each day now, a true exponential curve. Chinese reporting is being exposed as the Big Lie and hoax it is and social media will spread the truth throughout China and the world. Once this Big Lie of China sinks in to the global community, China’s ‘brand’ will be ashes in the mouth and their economy will burst in the noon day sun.

    So who’s the Running Dog Lackey now?

    #54231
    Dave Note
    Participant

    Running Lackey DogRunning Lackey Dog

    #54232
    Dave Note
    Participant

    A number of US hospitals can’t get their mask orders filled and are instituting rationing of medical supplies, like Now, to just the personnel in critical care units. Hey, the fireworks haven’t even begun and the ‘authorities are being caught flat footed.

    Inspires confidence in ‘leadership’, aye?

    One of The Fourth Turning’s major premises, losing basic faith in the top level of the nation.

    World Leadership
    World Leadership

    #54233
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    Russiagate, etc.

    When the security services had admitted they had totally failed to prevent Russian interference, and had done nothing about it when they ‘discovered’ it, I was ‘surprised’ when the senior officers of these organisations were not sacked for incompetence!

    That may change!

    #54234
    Dave Note
    Participant

    They called it “Spanish influenza” because all the other countries at the time, except Spain, censored their news media and banned them from reporting on the growing contagion.

    Spanish news reported how bad it was and how bad it was trending and got rewarded historically by having their name associated with the origin of the plague.

    Maybe China wants it to be remembered as the Korean Corona outbreak.

    #54235
    FinalGravity
    Participant

    Recursive Realism v1.2.0

    1. Time is the powerset of countable events.
    2. The past is the first event.
    3. The past is the empty set full of tachyons.
    4. The future is the imaginary event.
    5. The future is the empty asset
    half full anti-tachyons and gravitons.
    6. The cause of time is relativistic mass.
    7. The cause of imaginary time is negative mass.
    8. Everything real does exist in a gravitational field
    [including itself].
    9. Nothing unreal can exist in said field.
    10. Everything unreal must exist in an electrodynamic field
    [or else].
    11. Nothing in Gravity is contingent.
    12. Belief in Gravity is always justifiable.
    13. Knowledge of anything real exists only
    in a gravitational field.
    14. Life is countable only as entropic gradient
    of said field.
    15. The fair value of life expressed as timelike geodesic
    is nontrivially nonzero.
    16. To be is to bend light.
    17. The mind is a body of gravimetric events
    containing [the idea of] the body’s mass.
    18. Gravity is a thinking thing.
    19. The will is gravitational potential [leveraged by,
    through] and for the understanding of said potential.
    20. Every geometry of hierarchy is a function of Gravity.
    21. History integrates intent [recursively].
    22. Tone precedes time; resonance recedes reality.
    23. The world is the totality of gravitons, not of tachyons.
    24. Gravity is our algorithm.

    “Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.”

    #54237
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Far as I can see all estimates of all numbers, be they cases, deaths, incubation, have been too low. It’s called politics. Defended as not unnecessarily wanting to frighten the public. But deadly.

    There you go…spot on…

    #54238
    sinnycool
    Participant

    A trivial spreadsheet for what its worth.

    I live at the other end of the universe in a ‘first world’ city in a tiny State of Australia with a population of around 540,000 people.

    The illusion of prosperity papers over the fact that our state’s two major hospitals are so underfunded that our ambulances in the normal course of business are ‘ramping’ with patients unable to be admitted for hours while waiting for beds and people every now and again are dying in corridors and waiting rooms for want of treatment.

    Lets suppose just one single person is currently infected in our State today and that the virus works its magic as per the South Korean experience but with really conservative figures.

    Lets give R0 a value of 4 and lets say it spreads at the modest rate of R0 x 14 days, ie cases increasing at the rate of a multiplier of 4 every 14 days, then right bang in the middle of our normal flu season we have 12% of our total State population infected with coronavirus.

    My nearest city has a population of 20% of the State total, bringing infections near me to 13,107

    It would be helpful to see some really well thought out projection models, then again maybe not.

    #54239
    sinnycool
    Participant

    I’m not sure the attached PNG spreadsheet clip made it so here is a jumbled text version

    4 23 Feb 8 March 22 March 5 April 19 April 3 May 17 May 31 June 14 June
    Tasmania total 1 4 16 64 256 1024 4096 16384 65536
    Launceston @ 20% 0.2 0.8 3 12 51 204 819 3276 13107

    #54240
    sinnycool
    Participant

    @ FinalGravity

    I used to think along those lines but I got better. (with apologies to you, and Monty Python)

    From ‘Burnt Norton’, TS Elliot

    “Go, go, go said the bird, human kind cannot bear very much reality.”

    Here is Elliot’s take on time which I’ve lovingly adopted

    “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
    Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
    But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
    Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
    Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
    There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

    Best regards, Phil

    PS. The bard helps too

    “Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air:
    And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.”

    or this, sung by a character named Fool

    “What is love, ’tis not hereafter,
    Present mirth, hath present laughter:
    What’s to come, is still unsure.
    In delay there lies no plenty,
    Then come kiss me sweet and twenty:
    Youth’s a stuff will not endure.”

    Mine sure didn’t – but I am still dancing 🙂

    #54241
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The only death is lies, their god. Lies will save them. Or rather, save us, by buying time, arranging, hiding, investing, divesting, shorting, stocking, hiding, preparing, laughing, scheming.

    The rest: “Government would never lie, they always tell the perfect truth and I believe everything they say, and — even should they ever fail, and I’m not saying they have — I would give them more power to commit more lies and more failures. And when Russian Hitler runs it all, why then I’ll give government more power and budget than ever. That’s just common sense! I print their lies, repeat their lies, believe their lies, live for their lies, deny their lies, and die for them, with a smile on my dying lips. Just as a true and willing zealot, disciple to the religion of lies, should.”

    So go ahead and believe them, who have lied to you every minute of every day since the beginning, and got another 10,000 people killed. All about the origin, false, about the transmission, false, about the incubation, false, about the testing, false, about their policies and concern, false, until it comes to you and me. Which it will thanks to them, and the lie-believers, those who for a generation have done everything, hollowed everything, overlooked everything, loosed everything, to make this possible.

    Another 4th generation for nothing, forgotten again, as Santayana said. Put me in the middle of it, with all the books, all the movies, all the knowledge, and learn nothing, do nothing, until all your children die, and are finally wise enough to not do it. …For a mere 70 more years.

    No one’s gong to do anything. Look at them. They can’t even distinguish reality. Not even to save their lives. And so they, we, you and me, will all die for it. For their religion of the love of lies. Please stop.

    #54242
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    It is the nature of for-profit hospitals. Medical Management will not spend the money that would adversely affect their bonuses to prepare for a pandemic when the last equivalent one engulfed the world over a century ago. The management bonus system is the same reason why Boeing is unable to design and produce a safe passenger jet.

    The USA is not ready. Wherever the Wuhan Coronavirus gets established in a population, the healthcare system will be overwhelmed. A quarantine only works if the infected are isolated and are not released until they are free of the virus. From the President on down, the consequences of a pandemic are so dire from being thrown out of office to losing their rice bowls that professional managers dare not even acknowledge that the quarantine period should be extended from 14 to 21 days.

    No one in power will admit that the Western Empire is in its death throes. The global economy is now dead for months if not for generations. The military shortly will hole up on their bases to remain intact like in South Korea. Shortages and being forced to work and possibly dying from the flu are sure to breed unrest. Russia seizing the White House will be the corporate media’s justification for the civil war that breaks out if the November election is postponed and the Trump Administration stays in power and continues its dismantling of the intelligence community.

    The closest parallel that I experienced was the Anthrax Letters attack. It along with the Beltway Sniper were frightening but they did not shut down Washington DC. Instead they both powered the rush for the war of profit against Islam that is finally running out of steam.

    #54243
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” The military shortly will hole up on their bases to remain intact like in South Korea.”

    A quarantine cannot work. The base will be surrounded by infected people. If you do not test, how can you tell if you are infected?
    If you’re not infected in the wave of this year. Then wait, next wave, next year is coming

    #54244
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. D:. When it gets serious, governments have to lie!

    For governments, every day is serious!

    #54245
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:. Imagine that! Generals afraid to venture outside their castles!

    #54246
    WES
    Participant

    Vietnamvet:. The fact is no society is prepared for the coronavirus!

    Vietnam was one of the first countries to stop travel with China!

    Guess the Vietnamese communist didn’t trust the Chinese communist!

    They were right of course!

    Russia has now closed their land borders too.

    #54247
    WES
    Participant

    Sinnycool:. Your exponential equation applied to Wuhan should post some really big numbers!

    #54248
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    For all practical purposes, no one alive today has ever experienced a pandemic; there is no road map to lead the way.
    Keep your powder dry; look, listen, and above all, do not panic.
    Cool heads generally prevail…

    #54249
    WES
    Participant

    Dave Note:. Sadly Xi may yet catch up to Mao in number of total deaths.

    #54250
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    I suppose it’s the banks operating with World Bank, IMF impunity. I remember receiving my passport near the IMF Wash DC hdqtrs in 1985. I pointed out these monumentally arrogant shits blocking the sidewalk and not one of my fellow military medical students recognized the significance of the IMF in their lives. Here we are 35 years later.

    The World Bank, the IMF, and their Iron-clad Secrecy

    #54251
    Arttua
    Participant

    To respond to a couple of people, I am currently in Mexico, and they do not eat beans! As a mostly vegetarian, it is difficult to find meals here without meat, we mostly cook for ourselves. When we get back to Vermont we will eat 100% grass fed lamb that we raise, and slaughter on our farm (USDA is really nasty to the animals).
    I have never gotten a flu shot, and don’t recall ever getting it, but then again we will be flying home.

    #54252
    V. Arnold
    Participant
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