Coronavirus Outbreak...

[Sparko]

Read your first asterisk point demi.

And there is no reason to test everyone if it is not widespread. They only test those who request it or they suspect have been exposed.

[demi-conservative]

Read your first asterisk point demi.

Grasping at straws. The CDC has conducted the majority of tests, Sparko. The numbers are hardly improved by including those by other institutions.

And there is no reason to test everyone if it is not widespread. They only test those who request it or they suspect have been exposed.

You only find out if it is widespread by testing, Sparko. They didn't 'test everyone' because they couldn't, they woefully failed at their duty and did not have sufficient working test kits.

Conservatives trusting the government '''''''suddenly''''''' are great.

[Sparko]

Grasping at straws. The CDC has conducted the majority of tests, Sparko. The numbers are hardly improved by including those by other institutions.



You only find out if it is widespread by testing, Sparko. They didn't 'test everyone' because they couldn't, they woefully failed at their duty and did not have sufficient working test kits.

Conservatives trusting the government '''''''suddenly''''''' are great.

Demi if it is widespread and nobody is going to the doctor to ask to be tested, then that means that the disease is so mild that we don't need to worry about it. If it is a bad disease and we have so few reporting it that we have not had to do many tests then that is an indication that it is not "spreading like wildfiire now" - it is still relatively contained.

[demi-conservative]

we have not had to do many tests

If you are going to pontificate on the matter, get the reality into your head first: the US did not do many tests because it simply couldn't, not because they were unnecessary.

Edit- see the subsequent two posts.

[demi-conservative]

Why the CDC botched its coronavirus testing

Few health institutions around the world are as renowned as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Which makes it all the more baffling that the CDC could have fumbled the rollout of coronavirus diagnostic tests throughout the country so badly. While other countries have been able to run millions of tests, the CDC has tested only 1,235 patients. Speed is of the essence when dealing with an epidemic early, and the CDC’s mistakes are already proving costly to tracking the outbreak in the US.

Complete, utter failure.

Case in point: FDA rules initially prevented state and commercial labs from developing their own coronavirus diagnostic tests, even if they could develop coronavirus PCR primers on their own. So when the only available test suddenly turned out to be bunk, no one could actually say what primer sets worked.

The CDC and FDA reversed course and lifted this rule on February 29
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...virus-testing/

Only very recently did the big bureaucracy change course, so the asterisk Sparko notes has little meaning.

[demi-conservative]

This might help. It was on Tucker Carlson, after all.

Fox News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Seigel called Monday for the immediate provision of coronavirus testing kits in order to examine people who show symptoms of exposure.

“We still don’t have the testing,” Seigel told “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “It was announced over the weekend that we were going to be able to test.”

“I know that there are many thousands of cases, I know that," Siegel said, "but if I can’t identify which cases there are, then the virus spreads more in the absence of a vaccine.”

Seigel said that he called all over the country and still could not locate the tests: “They’re still only in the health departments and that’s a two or three-day delay.”

“Not only can’t I test the people who I think have been exposed, but I can’t test the people who have characteristic symptoms that I want to make sure they don’t have coronavirus before I let them back out in the community.”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/marc-s...mmunity-spread

The large majority of doctors who need the testing kits simply don't have them in the US. Over the past month and a half, the large majority of patients who want to be tested can't be tested.

[Mountain Man]

As cases of the new coronavirus continue to climb, so have instances of recovery, and a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University reported that more than 50,000 people have recovered.

More than 94,000 people have become infected with the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, since it was first identified in December. With the increased spread, case counts and deaths, public concern has driven people to hoard supplies. But health officials maintain that the threat of contracting the virus and the chances of coming down with the disease remain low for the average person.

As of Wednesday morning, the Johns Hopkins tracker showed 94,225 cases of the virus in 73 countries. Of those cases, 51,026 people recovered from the virus, including 49,856 in mainland China.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus...-cases-1490495

So there are only 94,000 confirmed cases worldwide?

And people are panicking why?

[Christianbookworm]

I guess they are afraid that thousands will turn into millions and then billions? And that's why they're panicking like sheep without a Shepherd?

[Littlejoe]

As cases of the new coronavirus continue to climb, so have instances of recovery, and a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University reported that more than 50,000 people have recovered.

More than 94,000 people have become infected with the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, since it was first identified in December. With the increased spread, case counts and deaths, public concern has driven people to hoard supplies. But health officials maintain that the threat of contracting the virus and the chances of coming down with the disease remain low for the average person.

As of Wednesday morning, the Johns Hopkins tracker showed 94,225 cases of the virus in 73 countries. Of those cases, 51,026 people recovered from the virus, including 49,856 in mainland China.

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus...-cases-1490495

So there are only 94,000 confirmed cases worldwide?

And people are panicking why?

I think that's an out of date number. Last I saw was 114,000 confirmed cases but 64,000 of those have made a full recovery. Meaning there's only about 50,000 active cases world wide.

[JonathanL]

I think that's an out of date number. Last I saw was 114,000 confirmed cases but 64,000 of those have made a full recovery. Meaning there's only about 50,000 active cases world wide.

This should be reasonably accurate:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/a...23467b48e9ecf6

Currently shows 118,550 total confirmed cases, with 64,391 of those recovered at the time of me posting this reply.

[JimL]

I think that's an out of date number. Last I saw was 114,000 confirmed cases but 64,000 of those have made a full recovery. Meaning there's only about 50,000 active cases world wide.

50 thousand known cases.

[Mountain Man]

50 thousand known cases.

Even if it's 10x that, heck, even if it's 100x that, that's still far below the number of people who have been infected with the common flu. In just the US, around 40 million annually get the common flu.

[JimL]

Even if it's 10x that, heck, even if it's 100x that, that's still far below the number of people who have been infected with the common flu. In just the US, around 50 million get the flu annually.

This is new, MM. It just began in December in Wuhan, China, and is now, just 2 plus months later, all over the world with who knows how many cases and near 4,000 deaths. We have no idea how many people are actually infected. The point is that we weren't ready for it, didn't contain it very well, and are still trying to catch up and the expectation is that it will spread exponentially. The effect on the economy due to lack of information and misinformation has been devastating already.

[Mountain Man]

This is new, MM. It just began in December in Wuhan, China, and is now, just 2 plus months later, all over the world with who knows how many cases and near 4,000 deaths. We have no idea how many people are actually infected. The point is that we weren't ready for it, didn't contain it very well, and are still trying to catch up and the expectation is that it will spread exponentially. The effect on the economy due to lack of information and misinformation has been devastating already.

Since December, there have been around 30-million cases of the common flu just in the US. And the coronavirus already shows signs of diminishing.

As for trying to contain it, President Trump wanted to institute strict travel restrictions in December, but the Democrats laughed at him, accused him of racism and trying to distract from the sham impeachment. Turns out the President was right. Even now you have Crazy Bernie out there demanding open borders. Aren't you glad Trump is charge?

[KingsGambit]

I think it's obvious Trump has handled this in a very poor way, but Pence has been the right man for the job (having been a governor gives him the right level of experience to know how this should be best handled on a local level). It's unfortunate that Trump has actually been criticizing Pence for getting along too well with Democratic governors like Inslee in Washington. This is a national crisis, and he just hasn't been up to the task of reassuring the nation and taking leadership (the fact that even National Review reports that he skipped early briefings on the topic is further evidence of it).

Trump has adeptly avoided many minefields in his presidency by deflecting issues, but he hasn't handled an issue of this magnitude yet (regardless of how one feels about the actual threat level, it's obvious that the public is terrified).