Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: witpqs

On your points 1 and 2:

1. The global population is growing at a greatly decelerating rate. It has been found conclusively that as a country's standard of living increases its birth rate decreases. The very large improvements in people's standard's of living around the world has dissolved the specter of global overpopulation as projections show the world's population leveling off far below what is believed to be the planet's carrying capacity.

2. The number of people around the world who live below the poverty line has vastly decreased in recent decades. That is according to the UN. Continuing progress has been evident and not slowed down. The current economic effects of the pandemic obviously are up in the air.

Economic disparity has not been growing exponentially. If you are referring to the presence of billionaires among us, the truth has always been that some humans have more than others. Governments/economies such as communism, etc have always had the very same and merely pretended otherwise, their real characteristic being that they oppress and economically hold down the vast majority of people. They do not limit or eliminate economic disparity, but they do hold down nearly everybody economically. That's not better.

What I see happening (and did not explain well) is that the food (and potable water) supply is under pressure from population and climate change. The recent migrant crises in various parts of the world are either because there is not enough food for the poor or because conflicts (over control of land, and hence food) have driven people off their lands. They are not going to go away because the economic system does not have a reliable system for dealing with them. The pandemic merely amplifies the problems.
So the one clear consequence is that starving people will not sit quietly when told to stay where they are and starve/die of disease, etc. To a certain extent that will occur with refugees within our countries who will move to what they perceive is a safer area. We saw that with New Yorkers fleeing the city to Long Island and upstate towns when they realized the virus was going to spread rapidly.

If this disease does not go away in a few months we may have a ping-pong transmission as people move around for jobs or safety. If more people had savings they could fall back on, they could stay in place longer. It's the reduction of the middle class that bothered me more than the existence of billionaires. Read again RFalvo's post about Italy having very rich people and poor people and not much in between. The implications mean great social instability is looming.

ORIGINAL: obvert

An encouraging sign that US testing is nearing a million. If the US continues to test at this rate it could be so useful as a large benchmark similar to South Korea early and Germany in the middle of this outbreak.

Canada and Norway are doing a bang up job on testing, as are Australia and Germany of course still.

In all of these countries the positives/1000 are also much less than places like Italy and NY state, and it makes me think they're getting a more accurate picture of how many cases might be in the population.

We may have started testing earlier and more broadly, but Canada is in the early stages and the numbers have grown significantly in the past week as the snowbirds returned from (mostly the US) warmer climes. They have been asked to self-quarantine for two weeks but we know some will not do so.

The mortality stat is clearly ~1% of positive tests.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy




If this disease does not go away in a few months we may have a ping-pong transmission as people move around for jobs or safety. If more people had savings they could fall back on, they could stay in place longer. It's the reduction of the middle class that bothered me more than the existence of billionaires. Read again RFalvo's post about Italy having very rich people and poor people and not much in between. The implications mean great social instability is looming.

Kampfgruppen Coronavirus

Anyone feeling lonely...

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

[inserts tongue firmly in cheek]

Why not? The Brits have kicked Germany's butt consistently over the past 106 years. [;)]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Anyone feeling lonely...

My avatar would quickly put them out of their misery . . .

I wasn't familiar with Roza! (Lyudmila tends to be the most famous of the women snipers at least in my circles)

Hey, does anybody think that this could have helped now? Especially if the inventory of the masks would be used on a Last In, First Out basis in regards to using the masks before they due date is up? Those used being replaced by fresh ones?

California once had mobile hospitals and a ventilator stockpile. But it dismantled them

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.

Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.

In 2006, citing the threat of avian flu, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... entilators

Governor Hogan issues Stay at Home directive for Maryland

But there are enough loopholes that it has no effect, other than all the maggots re-storming the stores and grabbing all the Toilet Paper, again. Way to go Hogan, you slob.

Meanwhile, local home improvement company Window Nation is offering special COVID-19 deals to help out the citizens of Md. in these trying times. Similarly, a local carpet cleaning company is offering a 'two rooms for one deal' in order to do their part in keeping homes clean, a requisite in fighting off the virus.

Go Maryland !!

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: witpqs

On your points 1 and 2:

1. The global population is growing at a greatly decelerating rate. It has been found conclusively that as a country's standard of living increases its birth rate decreases. The very large improvements in people's standard's of living around the world has dissolved the specter of global overpopulation as projections show the world's population leveling off far below what is believed to be the planet's carrying capacity.

2. The number of people around the world who live below the poverty line has vastly decreased in recent decades. That is according to the UN. Continuing progress has been evident and not slowed down. The current economic effects of the pandemic obviously are up in the air.

Economic disparity has not been growing exponentially. If you are referring to the presence of billionaires among us, the truth has always been that some humans have more than others. Governments/economies such as communism, etc have always had the very same and merely pretended otherwise, their real characteristic being that they oppress and economically hold down the vast majority of people. They do not limit or eliminate economic disparity, but they do hold down nearly everybody economically. That's not better.

What I see happening (and did not explain well) is that the food (and potable water) supply is under pressure from population and climate change. The recent migrant crises in various parts of the world are either because there is not enough food for the poor or because conflicts (over control of land, and hence food) have driven people off their lands. They are not going to go away because the economic system does not have a reliable system for dealing with them. The pandemic merely amplifies the problems.
So the one clear consequence is that starving people will not sit quietly when told to stay where they are and starve/die of disease, etc. To a certain extent that will occur with refugees within our countries who will move to what they perceive is a safer area. We saw that with New Yorkers fleeing the city to Long Island and upstate towns when they realized the virus was going to spread rapidly.

If this disease does not go away in a few months we may have a ping-pong transmission as people move around for jobs or safety. If more people had savings they could fall back on, they could stay in place longer. It's the reduction of the middle class that bothered me more than the existence of billionaires. Read again RFalvo's post about Italy having very rich people and poor people and not much in between. The implications mean great social instability is looming.

Food production continues very high, no pressure from climate change despite continuing predictions of such, and potable water the same. Wars and conflicts that aren't called wars are the real problem you identify, and are not caused by minute changes in climate.

If people migrate to avoid more densely packed areas like NYC, food, et al distribution will have to catch up. That's already true where violence either makes people starve (as you point out) or drives people away from the areas of violence.

It is official: the lockdown of Italy has been extended at least to Easter. A new decree for the Coronavirus emergency will be issued within 16 days.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Hey, does anybody think that this could have helped now? Especially if the inventory of the masks would be used on a Last In, First Out basis in regards to using the masks before they due date is up? Those used being replaced by fresh ones?

California once had mobile hospitals and a ventilator stockpile. But it dismantled them

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.

Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.

In 2006, citing the threat of avian flu, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... entilators

Absolutely, it could have helped.

[remaining commentary about California edited in the interests of reducing political content on this thread]

Jerry Brown spent 1000x the amount Scharzenegger spent on masks on his stupid Browndoggle "high-speed rail" project that now runs between two cities nobody wants to go to.

How must it feel to be outwitted by an Austrian guy with a big jaw who ruined his life by screwing the homely maid and now lives with two miniature horses.

A bit of light relief...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... rus-device

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

[inserts tongue firmly in cheek]

Why not? The Brits have kicked Germany's butt consistently over the past 106 years. [;)]

Ahem... a small detail: the Brits were allied with... The World.

What's a Chinese urn?

About 4200 a week and they still aren't done handing them out. Each crematorium in Wuhan typically does about 200 cremations a day and they had to bus in workers to run the things 24 hrs a day during the worst of it...that's maybe 600-1000 a day in Wuhan alone.

One crematorium received a shipment 5000 empty urns in one day. That is a year's worth of usage delivered in one day.

I call bullshit and so do quite a few posters in Wuhan.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-res ... ont-add-up

Hmmm.....

Another online estimate is based on the cremation capacity of funeral homes in Wuhan, which runs 84 furnaces with a capacity over a 24-hour period of 1,560 urns. That estimate puts the number of estimated deaths in Wuhan at 46,800.

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

What's a Chinese urn?

About 4200 a week and they still aren't done handing them out. Each crematorium in Wuhan typically does about 200 cremations a day and they had to bus in workers to run the things 24 hrs a day during the worst of it...that's maybe 600-1000 a day in Wuhan alone.

One crematorium received a shipment 5000 empty urns in one day. That is a year's worth of usage delivered in one day.

I call bullshit and so do quite a few posters in Wuhan.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-res ... ont-add-up

Hmmm.....

Another online estimate is based on the cremation capacity of funeral homes in Wuhan, which runs 84 furnaces with a capacity over a 24-hour period of 1,560 urns. That estimate puts the number of estimated deaths in Wuhan at 46,800.

Another "AHA!" moment for me when I read a similar article yesterday. A very CCP solution: Downplay the significance of the people's suffering to buttress your marginal competence? Check. Lie to everyone-domestically and abroad about it? Check. Bribe people into silence so they don't lose their "social points"? Check. Try to deflect or lay the blame at the feet of the US Army? Check.

All part of their "deny, deflect, counteraccusation" manifesto. Chairman Mao must be very pleased.

https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese ... han-2020-3

ORIGINAL: Olorin

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

[inserts tongue firmly in cheek]

Why not? The Brits have kicked Germany's butt consistently over the past 106 years. [;)]

Ahem... a small detail: the Brits were allied with... The World.

warspite1

...and what does that sentence tell you? [;)]

But I'm sure every right-thinking, decent German is rather pleased the British (and their allies) got rid of that rather odd Kaiser fellow and the malodorous runt Hitler.

And the Germans can be happy in the knowledge they have kicked our butt at just about everything else since: economics, manufacturing, science, education and of course just about every important football match (with just one notable exception) since - how does the song go? Three Lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming, 54-years (and counting) of hurt, Never stopped me dreaming (except of course every defeat after miserable defeat 1970, 1972, 1982, 1990, 1996, 2010 has stopped me dreaming) [:(].

Three Lions on the shirt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=899FawCx_gw

[8|]

I did a quick catch-up and I see a lot of pessimism here. For instance, 100,000-200,000 deaths in the U.S.? How is that possible? Let me see what I can do to buttress Canoerebel's optimism.

Look, in Korea, although there are fears of a second round, we've been dropping about 200 cases a day (there are about 100 new ones and about 300 get well). I look outside from my office window and there are plenty of people out and about. We've still had zero government-mandated closures, although on a voluntary basis there are no concerts and cinemas are closed. Almost all churches have virtual services and shops have always had an adequate supply of tree-based products. The one thing being rationed is masks.

What seems to work? Well, about 95% of the people here wear masks in public. Our government has seen fit to allocate two masks per person per week, so that's 100 million a week at $1.25 each (KF94 for adults and KF80 for kids, if anyone cares). That's a lot of masks, but what's keeping 600,000,000 masks a week from being available in the U.S.? Not top-quality 3M N95 ones, but regular ones the general public can wear?

Another thing that seems to help a lot is very extensive contact tracing, by means of phone location, credit card usage, CCTVs, etc. The government will send an alert to your phone if someone nearby has the virus (maybe within 1/2 km), with details of when and where they've been since they returned to the country or since they were likely to have picked it up from someone in country. The government also has the manpower to individually contact everyone suspected of personally being in contact with each virus carrier. I think this system has given the general populace the confidence to go to work, go shopping and go out drinking and eating. People have some concept of the actual risks. Is Korea's contact tracing program a draconian loss of liberty? Well, you might argue the forced closure of business is worse. To me, it's a grey area.

Other things like testing have been well discussed. Today, I see an opportunity for the copious availability of masks and thorough contact tracing to make a difference in certain places.

Anyway, good luck and know that this thing is quite beatable.

Cheers,
CB