OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

What was that General Sherman said about the press?

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

What was that General Sherman said about the press?

“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.”

“If I had my choice, I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast.”

“I think I understand what military fame is — to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers.”

- Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

[Canoerebel]

LOL. I said you "you can say that again;" that doesn't mean you have to repeat yourself! (Animal to Shapiro in Stalag 17)

[MakeeLearn]

But this one is nice...



"I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

[Canoerebel]

Quote from the Philadelphia Inquirer article linked to by Makee, a few posts above: "We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of COVID-19 gets counted," Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said in a statement, adding, "While these data reflect the tragic impact that the virus has had on our city, they will also help us to determine the scale and scope of the epidemic and guide us in our decisions."

That makes sense. The same thing was asserted in here two days ago and jumped on by a couple of forumites who disagreed and predicted rampant non-counting.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

LOL. I said you "you can say that again;" that doesn't mean you have to repeat yourself! (Animal to Shapiro in Stalag 17)

I watch that movie every Christmas.

[Canoerebel]

Sherman in the 1880s, when supporters approached him to run for President: "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve."

[MakeeLearn]

"Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

[MakeeLearn]

This one seems out of place with him...maybe not...

"There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


The president can't halt Congressionally-appropriated funds. I.e., funding is not at the president's discretion. Congress has the power of the purse and if the appropriations that pass Congress say that $100M is to be spent on a hunt for Sasquatch, then that $100M has to be spent and it has to be spent on a hunt for Sasquatch. The president can't say "I'm preventing this from being spent."

That DEPENDS. It depends on the specific wording of the bill. There are many examples where the Congress orders the executive branch to certify foreign compliance with demands made by the Congress before disbursing funds. Is such a qualifier in a bill pertaining to the WHO? I have no idea. Should a bill contain such wording on UN expenditures? Damn right it should.

Who wants to bet on how many foreigners are at the UN HQ in NY right now?[;)]

I did a bit more reading on it last night. I had forgotten about the executive (or presumably anyone?) being able to request rescission of funds - basically, reverse appropriation. That's one path. But it wouldn't get through Congress, so...

Also, while the US funding portion of the WHO is its largest portion, it is $550M out of $6B.

[Canoerebel]

Since there are no "better classes," I'd argue with the general on that point. But on so many others he offered powerful insights.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

This one seems out of place with him...maybe not...

"There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

States sorted by deaths/M.

This is of particular interest to me since the national media predicted southern states would suffer disproportionately and that assertion was repeated with vigor by a number of forumites.

The southern states tended to "push the power down" - to let local jurisdictions handle matters. As discussed in here previously, most were proactive, imposing countermeasures sooner than many states elsewhere and sooner than some European countries.

States in the South are conspicuous in their scarcity from this list. Louisiana is there. Georgia too, but it currently ranks 14th on the list but is the 8th largest state. Many others are very low, including NC, Tenn., Ala, SC and Fla.

If you're already sorting on a per capita basis, it doesn't matter how big the population is, so the comparison of 14th to 8th means literally nothing.

A better comparison, since it's fairly obvious that diseases spread faster in more densely populated areas than less densely populated areas, would be to compare deaths/M to population density. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... on_density

Georgia is 14th in deaths/M, but 18th (among states) in population density. So, a bit worse than one would expect if it's perfectly correlated (obviously it isn't).

Likewise, one would expect NYC to drive NY state's numbers way up - being the densest city in the country.

DC is 100% densely populated, and that's born out in the density numbers.

Comparing to population density reinforces just how damn badly Louisiana failed its residents in not acting early enough.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Recent US funding of the WHO is running at over $500M a year. 2/3rd of that is VOLUNTARY. They aren't going to "run out of money"

The US taxpayer has been the piggy bank for the WHO forever. And what do we get? The dumbasses resisted US travel bans and delayed the pandemic classification in order to assuage Chicom feelings. Am i worried the Chinese are going to gain influence? It already happened.

Do you have sources for this? Honestly, the WHO never makes the headlines or text of anything that I read, so I'd like to see.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy



When WHO is unable to stop the next Ebola outbreak because of lack of funds and the re-opened economy brings it to the US again, will you still think that was the right choice? Granted their performance early in the outbreak was not stellar, but WHO was getting contradictory info just like the rest of us. It took a few weeks of careful observations to determine which info was correct and which was not. That doesn't amount to being useless overall IMO.

BTW, if the US stop funding the W.H.O., the next in line (as major funder) is... China.

Which is the strategy China employed in the last decade - it doesn't matter if reacting to global political decisions or inaction by the West in some area of the World: "Don't worry. We are here (omitted: to stay). We will help!"

And, no, the objection that China contributes a fraction of the money the US gave to the W.H.O. doesn't hold. There is a void, and they will move to fill it. And many other countries will cooperate, both because they are already looking at China as the epicenter of a new trade block and out of spite for (political sentence detected!... bzzzz... Exterminate! Exterminate! zap!).

Stop funding the W.H.O. in the middle of a pandemic... Great move. No, really [8|]

It's the smartest thing we could have possibly done. Either they can react by cleaning up their act, replacing the leadership stooges in the pocket of China and thereby restore themselves to the good graces of the US and restore their funding source, or they can go running into the arms of China, completely undermining what little credibility they have left and destroying themselves as an organization. The US has no use for them if they are simply going to be an arm of China.

p.s. Clive is one of my favorite actors and your use of his image is seriously undermining how I view him. Funny how that seems to work.

I thought we had knocked it off with the personal slights in this thread?


This WHO thing is a sideshow. Who cares?

[MakeeLearn]

'Probable' coronavirus deaths now included in CDC totals
04/16/20 08:07 AM EDT


https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... cdc-totals



"Citing a statement by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists urging it to do so, the CDC said in a statement on its website that the agency's totals as of Tuesday would reflect "both confirmed and probable cases and deaths."

Probable cases are defined by the agency as anecdotally matching the symptoms of COVID-19 but lacking an actual test confirming the disease in a patient, a phenomenon many Americans have experienced due to shortages of tests in the U.S.
ADVERTISEMENT

"A probable case or death is defined by i) meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or ii) meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or iii) meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19," the CDC stated."

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted

Dec. 19, 2017



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/heal ... s-nih.html


"Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal.

Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks.

Some scientists are eager to pursue these studies because they may show, for example, how a bird flu could mutate to more easily infect humans, or could yield clues to making a better vaccine."


"When the moratorium was imposed, it effectively halted 21 projects, Dr. Collins said. In the three years since, the N.I.H. created exceptions that funded ten of those projects. Five were flu-related, and five concerned the MERS virus.

That virus is a coronavirus carried by camels that has infected about 2,100 people since it was discovered in 2012, and has killed about a third of them, according to the World Health Organization."

Mildly concerning, but we know that this coronavirus wasn't made in a lab.

Is "the scientific panel" the institutional review board process? If so, that is rather stringent and any risk of harm to humans has to be mitigated or conclusively shown to be worth it. It's worth noting that "compassionate use" falls outside of this process specifically because treatments that haven't yet met the stringent "prove it doesn't have negative side effects" part of the process would not pass.

How does one know it is not made in a lab? With a Blister agent that attacks the lungs it is easy.


Designer label? Made in ?
RNA sequence? Surface proteins... the keys it uses to enter cells thus attacking parts of the body it's type normally does not attack?

A month ago I read reports that HIV drugs were used with success in treating CV19 patients. It made me think Hmmmm! In the past few days I've read several reports that researchers are saying that CV19 is attacking and destroying T cells, just like HIV.

Now they also claim it is causing heart inflammation, acute kidney disease, neurological malfunction, blood clots, intestinal damage and liver problems.

Because they map its genome and trace it through the environment.

We know it came from bats originally, but contrary to talk in this thread about "bat soup" and guano and so on, we know that it "jumped" to another animal (we just don't know which animal) and then jumped to humans. So: bats -> mystery animal -> humans.

https:/www.livescience.com/did-coronavirus-evolve-in-dogs-after-bats.html

SARS-CoV passed through civets and MERS-CoV through camels, and the molecular structure of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the virus also passed through an intermediate animal, but scientists don't yet know which one.

More: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus ... n-lab.html


Sure, there's the editor's note at the top (from today!) - I do think we should be exploring all avenues, but more attention should be given to the more likely scenarios first.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Even your Refrigerator

Smart refrigerator, also known as internet refrigerator, is a refrigerator which has been programmed to sense what kinds of products are being stored inside it and keep a track of the stock through barcode or RFID scanning. This kind of refrigerator is often equipped to determine itself whenever a food item needs to be replenished.

While it would be cool to have a fridge that told me what I had the ingredients to make, this is rather far-fetched for the time being. Food packaging is just too diverse.

[Canoerebel]

That's just wrong, Lokasenna. If South Carolina had the most deaths/million, that would help illuminate the magnitude of a problem. And if South Carolina had the least deaths/M, that tells us something else.

If Georgia has 72 deaths/M, comparing that to the rates of other states absolutely has merit. There will be other factors to consider, but dismissing that as one means of comparison is like tossing your 9-iron into the woods because you can't use it for every shot.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

A couple of ways it may go through

National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/t ... -to-do-it/

"I’d wager that the surest way to cut off the WHO and make it stick is to shift the appropriated WHO funding to COVID-19 relief for the states. They are stressed by the outbreak and pleading for more federal dollars. For all the bellowing Democrats are doing today about the prospect of cutting off the WHO, they’d have a hard time protesting additional funding for their states and districts. Indeed, even now, many Democrats are being careful not to defend the WHO; rather, they suggest that Trump is blame-shifting and attempting to scapegoat the WHO for his own failings.

The other route, a formal rescission of funding is more difficult.


Under federal budgetary law, the president may temporarily halt the funding and send a rescission message to Congress, asking for the appropriated funding to be rescinded, explaining why, and describing the impact doing so. Congress would then have 45 days to act on the request, which can be fast-tracked (i.e., the usual parliamentary rules that slow or prevent action are not applicable). If Congress failed to act, the president would be required to spend the funding as Congress has directed.

Congress could also draft its own rescission legislation, also on a fast track. But note that for any action on Capitol Hill, it would be necessary for lawmakers both to be physically present (since the push for remote voting has stalled) and to come to some consensus. Neither of these is a sure thing at the moment, to say the least."

$550M when states need billions, with a B?

[MakeeLearn]

Health Experts Say Coronavirus Originated In Promiscuous Bat Who Slept Around A Lot
Yesterday 12:53PM

https://www.theonion.com/health-experts ... 1842883482


"“This bat was kind of a tramp, if we’re being honest. It didn’t care if you were a horseshoe, mouse-tailed, or Kitti’s hog-nosed bat; it was open for business. This bat would pretty much hook up with any mammal with wings. And we’re not trying to slut-shame, I swear. We just think the public deserves to know the facts.”"