Yes - it only takes one - Let's call it Wuhan

done. Many pairs & one ur.

Interesting plea for true numbers in a country that is governed by a bunch of incompetanty and corrupt leaders that do not listen to the science and only use "facts" that suit themselves.

All great empires die from within.

angie, you've hit the nail on the head. As have you MrO. One has to question when the experts almost unanimously agree (sound familiar to climate crisis) and they tell you what to do - restrict, test, trace and treat, and countries that have done that prove it works, wouldn't you be somewhat foolish to think you know better, and in particular at the expense of other peoples lives, do something different, then compound it by purveying falsehoods and blaming everyone but themselves. You can see what works and yet there are people who say ignore the experts, we know best, it's no worse than the flu. Seriously, get a grip.

We can open up and relax the restrictions here only because we tackled it early and listened to our experts. There are a lot of areas in the US, and the UK that have nowhere near got on top of it. Relaxing too early will kill tens of thousands more, on top of way too many already.

Start

"...The rest of what you wrote is not what infectious disease experts are saying. Thinning the herd is certainly happening. Do we really want the amount of culling necessary to achieve herd immunity?...

The facts about the morbidity numbers are misleading. If a person has the C19, THAT is listed as the cause of death. Look at who has died. This is the SAME pattern as flu; over 60, immune-compromised BEFORE C19, respiratory issues, heart issues...the profile of deceased is the same. Conversely, the infection and recovery pattern is the same too: younger, healthy, basically 2yo to 40yo. Diff than Flu seasons in the past? NO.

Herd immunity has not been achieved anywhere. Even those countries with massive death tolls. It is not a strategy recommended by most experts,

The 2017 Flu season killed 70,000 people. 40,000,000 were infected. My question to you is this: How does the C19 stack up? Will it be TWICE as impactful? Yeah, it probably will. How come there was no reaction for a similar disease in 2017? It was a new variant. It was deadly. It attacked the same population segments with the SAME results. There was no vaccine. There was no distancing. The economy was not closed. People were smart enough back then not to lick their neighbors face when they met, they covered their mouth when they sneezed. The transmission method of the 2017 disease was NO DIFFERENT than C19.

Phil, how did SARS 2 go from being an uncontrollable spread infection to the point where there has not been a case IN THE USA in 4 years...? no vaccine? How do you believe this happened?

SARS 2 was actually pretty hard to catch, certainly when compared to covid19. Major difference.

No vaccine...what's the answer? There is only one. Natural immunities over time. That's what happened.

SE Asia learnt a great deal from SARS and MERS and others, which is why they acted so swiftly and decisively this time. The US thought they knew better (not the experts, they were on the ball, just not listened to) thats one of the reasons you're in the mess you are.

"Acted swiftly...decisively? That is stated to imply the measures of distancing requirements were not done early enough in the US. Is this what your opinion is?

Do you seriously think you are immune to SARS if it occurred again? No, you have no immunity to it. And Covid19 is just a more contagious version of SARS.

I am totally NOT WORRIED ABOUT WHAT I MIGHT CATCH IN 3 or 5 or 20 years. Really I am not. Today is my concern. I may or may not get TOMORROW. So, my view is different than yours. I am very interested in being smart. I am not licking my neighbor when they walk their dog in my yard. I asked a question...do you believe the distance requirement was a LATE reaction/response?

The US made several key mistakes

.do you believe the distance requirement was a LATE reaction/response?

state the mistakes.

1. It denied it was a problem and it would go away

BS

2 It decided the tests that were available through the WHO were not to be used and instead they would develop their own. First lot were unreliable, both actions caused massive delays

1. The disconnection from china happened when the C19 was DETECTED in the US. After it had hit Euro.

2. The WHO support the propoganda from China "Nothing is going on here..." The WHO WAS responsible for the misread and miscalc by the rest of the world

Next

3 shortage of medical supplies and a lack of systems in place to sort it out

4 Inconsistent and inaccurate advice from the white house

BS. There were plenty of supplies to handle the UNANTICIPATED infection rates IN THE NORTH EAST. That is a NY/NJ govt planning problem. It's understandable however. Since the infection when critical required a respirator.

The WH was no uninformed. They moved when the FIRST DEATH occurred in early Feb.

5 because it was already spending, the combination od the first 4 which still happens to this day means that you didn't lockdown to the required extent early enough.

5. Wrong again. How would you have proposed to implement distance when there is no evidence in Jan the spread was in the US? Ebola happened, there was no shut down, no distancing, there were cases (Hou, LA) ? It is MORE infections than C19?

Your perspective is a backward looking "if only"...it's not based on the knowns at the time. It's based on your recast of events with some prescient powers of foretelling events to happen in the future. I get it. A lot of people do that to feel good about their perspective of how others didn't handle something in the past. It's not very realistic to look at the world and events in this manner but it happens a lot.

You shut China flights reasonably early but because you didn't test it was too late

Didn't test??? That's the backwards view again. There were no indicators until FEB. Do you believe there were signs IN THE US before FEBRUARY 1st? It's a simple question... yes? or no?

Yes the WHO hadn't called for the ban at that time, but most countries had already stopped flights. The main mistakes were in the lack of testing and tracing and social distancing early enough. You can't blame the WHO, they told you to test trace and isolate but you didn't, the flight issue is a furphy

go

You didn't answer the question. That indicates you know there was no evidence in Jan. So beyond this acknowledgment of the facts, your argument is null and void. See you have to reference the facts to make a valid argument based on what is known at the time. You are unable to do that Phil.

Yes hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I could go into depth but seriously it's easily available to anyone who looks beyond a very narrow right wing press

Ahhh...I get it!! You watch the news! I don't. I read. I comprehend the info and connect the dots.

lk911 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽.

Sorry guys, would love to chat more but sleep beckons.

We in the US need tests. I do not begrudge the President and his staff testing, but I do resent their having to have daily testings because they refuse to comply with social distancing and mask guidance from their own administration.

Fiendishly difficult hard.

The real reason why POTUS and his staff are tested daily is that they cannot avoid being constantly exposed to risk factors. This is true regardless of what behavioral rules they follow. And if the President or anyone on his staff become infected, the infection must be identified immediately before it has time to spread.

Don't kid yourself that masks, social distancing, staying home, living in your basement, etc. provide complete protection. They are only methods of reducing risk, not eliminating it entirely. If the US truly had enough tests we should all have daily testings.

Only a hard? I struggled with this with no greens.

done

start

Done

TM, you are mistaken, the best defence we have is social distancing. Until we get a vaccine which by all accounts is probably another 12 months away, it is the only thing that works. But that still has to be done with strong tracing methods to identify others that need isolating if in contact with an infected person.

We have isolated ourselves as a state (very large one) and split the state into regions with only essential travel between. Anyone coming into the state (only returning residents now) are escorted to the hotel and have to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days (monitored) and any symptoms are tested. We are currently starting to wind these restrictions back, but not the borders, so we can at least get back to work safely.

I wish you all good health, but you must prepare for it getting worse again. There will be outbreaks, even with our controls we still get them, recently a meat processing factory in Victoria had a case that turned into 71 cases already.

Phil, exactly how am I mistaken? I was commenting on why the President of the US and his staff have daily testings. I correctly observed that those key individuals cannot totally eliminate the possibility that one of them will become infected and so daily testing for all of them is the highest standard of protection. For them, not for us. The only comment I made about protection for us regular people was that none of the available methods, including social distancing, entirely eliminate the risk of becoming infected. Did you misunderstand some part of this, or do you still disagree with me?

I didn't refer to the POTUS, it was your second paragraph referring to distancing. It appeared you thought testing was more important, I was merely commenting that while testing is important, the best defence we have against catching the virus is social distancing, plus of course at least a 20 second hands scrub with soap and avoiding toughing your face.

Masks are a bit controversial. with the main issue that of handling them correctly to avoid transfer. Unless done correctly following training, the experts think outside of a hospital setting they're actually more a risk than covering you sneeze with your elbow.

All I've heard about POTUS is the white house staff can't and aren't social distancing die to the cramped confines of the offices. Why they aren'y operating out of other premises or using Microsoft Teams for non face to face meetings is beyond me. Setting a bad example.

This hard puzzle has me stumped

Two small points here. First, we have known for several years that we need to be prepared in advance for pandemics, https://tinyurl.com/ybnmvl5f and the US was not prepared. Second, the government should have been away back in November, https://tinyurl.com/r545sub and did not ramp up preparations when it would have been far easier to do so. Disappointing.

Er, should have been "aware" back in November. Typo.