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The Coronavirus - a virus from eating bats, an accident or something sinister gone wrong?


swordfish

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1 hour ago, Impartial_Observer said:

After a week or so of less than stellar hot water in the shower, I arose this morning to very little water pressure and essentially no hot water. There will be no TV until the weekend. I went a picked up a water heater this morning and hilarity will ensue when I get home this evening. 

I made the move to tankless, so the install is a little more than swapping out water heaters, plus I need to swap out some 1/2" gas line for 3/4". Hoping to have a hot shower by tomorrow afternoon., that should make me have a little better outlook!

Used to have that issue with all the kids in the house.  When the 30-40 gallon water heater that came with the house eventually broke down, I replaced it with a 70-80 gallon water heater.  No longer have to worry about sleeping in on weekends and being the last one in the shower and having to take a cold shower. 

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48 minutes ago, foxbat said:

Used to have that issue with all the kids in the house.  When the 30-40 gallon water heater that came with the house eventually broke down, I replaced it with a 70-80 gallon water heater.  No longer have to worry about sleeping in on weekends and being the last one in the shower and having to take a cold shower. 

I had a 60 Gallon gas, never really had an issue even when both kids were home. It's just old, limed up and time to be laid to rest. I knew this day was coming. Not that big of a deal, just a matter of getting it done, and the 14 trips back and forth to the hardware store for that fitting I forgot the first 13 times. 

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2 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

After a week or so of less than stellar hot water in the shower, I arose this morning to very little water pressure and essentially no hot water. There will be no TV until the weekend. I went a picked up a water heater this morning and hilarity will ensue when I get home this evening. 

I made the move to tankless, so the install is a little more than swapping out water heaters, plus I need to swap out some 1/2" gas line for 3/4". Hoping to have a hot shower by tomorrow afternoon., that should make me have a little better outlook!

Sounds like you might pick up a case of the Negra Modelo virus by the time that's over.

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5 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

I had a 60 Gallon gas, never really had an issue even when both kids were home. It's just old, limed up and time to be laid to rest. I knew this day was coming. Not that big of a deal, just a matter of getting it done, and the 14 trips back and forth to the hardware store for that fitting I forgot the first 13 times. 

Did you perform yearly maintenance tasks? https://www.houselogic.com/organize-maintain/home-maintenance-tips/water-heater-maintenance/#:~:text=

 

 

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Political Opportunists Are Using Coronavirus Fears To Push Whatever Policies They Already Wanted: https://reason.com/2020/02/27/the-one-thing-we-know-for-sure-about-the-coronavirus-outbreak-is-that-pols-will-use-it-to-push-their-agendas/

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As politicians react to the coronavirus outbreak, more than a few seem to be following the old adage that you should never let a good crisis go to waste.

Since it is only a matter of time before Democrats and Republicans start accusing the other side of using a public health crisis for political gain, let's be blunt about something: Both sides are going to use the crisis for political gain. Indeed, both already are.

Much of President Donald Trump's briefing about the coronavirus on Wednesday night was incoherent, but he nevertheless managed to brag about how the stock market had risen after his election. More to the point, he repeatedly claimed that his administration had slowed the spread of the disease into America by cutting off air travel from China, and he suggested that further restrictions could be coming. That's a natural response from an administration whose signature non-coronavirus policies have included travel bans, immigration restrictions, and a general hostility to the free movement of goods and people across national borders.

But building walls doesn't stop the spread of disease. In fact, "travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies," advised Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, secretary-general of the World Health Organization, earlier this month. Slowing the spread of disease allows more time for hospitals to prepare, but historical evidence shows that travel bans don't actually reduce the number of people who get sick during disease outbreaks.

China hawks are seizing on the outbreak too. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) plans to introduce a bill requiring American medical device manufacturers to provide detailed information about their supply chains to the Food and Drug Administration. The agency would use that info to "assess the security of the U.S. medical product supply chain."

While it is presented as a way for the government to ensure America is prepared for a public health crisis, Hawley's bill is also a step toward greater central planning. It's not difficult to see how Hawley or Trump could, sometime in the future, claim that America's medical supply chain is too dependent on China—in the same way that Trump used a fictional "national security" risk to justify tariffs on steel and aluminum. Those tariffs haven't worked, but Hawley—who believes Trump's trade war is a long-term propositionis barely disguising his attempt to lay the groundwork for more protectionism.

Democrats, too, are using the coronavirus as a new argument for old political objectives. Like defeating Trump, for example. While they offered little in the way of alternatives during Tuesday's primary debate, each of the candidates onstage were happy to blast the president for bungling the response to the coronavirus—even though it's still far too soon to conclude whether Trump's responses, or lack thereof, have made the outbreak worse in America.

Specifically, former Vice President Joe Biden has ripped the current administration for making "draconian cuts" to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Obama administration "increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget," Biden said Tuesday night. "He's wiped all that out. He cut the funding for the entire effort."

Except he didn't. Trump has proposed budget cuts for the CDC and NIH in each of his budgets since taking office, but Congress never approved those proposals. That's a pretty important distinction.

If the NIH and the CDC aren't adequately prepared to handle a disease outbreak, it's probably their own fault. There is always going to be a finite amount of money for any government agency to use, so it's best not to waste your shares. Yet the CDC spent $15 billion during the Obama administration to nudge Americans towards healthier eating habits, and millions more on the creation of a "Hollywood liaison office" with funds that were supposed to be used to counter the threat of bioterrorism. Sure, it's possible that more funding would result in greater preparedness to face new and deadly diseases. So would making better choices about the money you already have.

But that's not going to stop Democrats from using the coronavirus outbreak to argue for spending more money that we don't haveand heaven forbid we actually pay for emergency coronavirus funding with budget cuts elsewhere. Just like it won't stop Republicans from using the disease to push their anti-trade agenda. No matter how bad the outbreak might turn out to be, you can bet that politicians will find a way to make it worse.

 

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On 2/27/2020 at 11:43 AM, Impartial_Observer said:

Damn you! Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, after modest losses yesterday.

Told my wife yesterday, that I had good news and bad news about the coronavirus impact on the market:

Good News:  I still have enough in my retirement account to consider early retirement.

Bad News: I'm retiring alone and she'll have to fend for herself.

*posting this from the downstairs couch where I slept last night*

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After first coronavirus death in the US, first possible outbreak reported: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/after-first-coronavirus-death-in-the-us-first-possible-outbreak-reported/

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Health officials in Washington state reported three grim new features of the coronavirus situation in the US Saturday. They reported the country’s first death, the first case in a healthcare worker, and the first possible outbreak.

In a press briefing held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, health officer at Public Health of Seattle and King County, announced that there are three new presumptive cases of COVID-19 in the county, including the person who died. All of the cases appear to be from undetected spread of the new coronavirus in the community. The cases were identified because the state just recently gained the ability to do its own testing.

Two of the cases are linked to a long-term care facility called Life Care in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle. One of the cases is in a healthcare worker at the facility, a woman in her 40s who is said to be in “satisfactory” condition. She has no known travel outside of the US. The other is a resident of the facility, a woman in her 70s. She is in serious condition.

The cases likely represent the start of an outbreak at the facility, which has approximately 108 residents and 180 staff. So far, 27 residents and 25 staff have reported some COVID-19 symptoms, Dr. Duchin said.

An outbreak of COVID-19 at a nursing home is particularly alarming since the data on the disease so far has clearly shown that the people most at risk of getting infected and having life-threatening disease are the elderly and people with underlying health conditions—such as cardiovascular disease, lung conditions, and diabetes.

“We are very concerned about an outbreak in a setting where there are many older people,” Dr. Duchin said.

A team from the CDC is on its way to the facility to help manage the situation. This team is expected to arrive in Kirkland Saturday night.

The country’s first reported COVID-19 death was also in King County. The person who died was a man in his 50s with underlying health conditions. He died in a local hospital in Kirkland, but he was not a resident at Life Care and has no immediately known links to the facility. Health investigators are trying to track down how he was infected. (In an earlier press conference, President Trump had identified the person who died as a woman. That is incorrect. It was a man.)

The new information—a rapid escalation of the situation in the US—follows news of potential community spread in four separate areas of the US: two areas in California, and one in Oregon in addition to the Seattle and King County area.

This escalation “raises our level of concern about the immediate threat of COVID-19 for certain communities,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said in the briefing. Still, the risk to the general public not in these areas is considered to be low, she said.

The new information brings the country’s tally to 69 cases and one death. That includes 47 cases in repatriated citizens (44 from the Diamond Princess and 3 from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began).

Gold. Seeds.

 

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For the real picture - From John Hopkins......

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Amazing -  https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-02-21/flu-season-thats-sickened-26-million-may-be-at-its-peak

At least 14,000 people have died and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 26 million Americans have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms.

"There is a deadly respiratory virus that is circulating throughout the United States, and it is at its peak. It is not novel coronavirus," said Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease specialist with the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

This flu season has come in two waves and has been particularly hard on children, the experts said.

The season started early, in October, with an unusual wave of influenza B virus.

Influenza B is less likely than other strains to mutate and become more virulent. That means it poses a greater threat to young people than to older folks, who may have gained immunity because they encountered the strain before.

But the Coronavirus is soooo much worse......2 deaths!!

 

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1 hour ago, swordfish said:

For the real picture - From John Hopkins......

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Amazing -  https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-02-21/flu-season-thats-sickened-26-million-may-be-at-its-peak

At least 14,000 people have died and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 26 million Americans have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms.

"There is a deadly respiratory virus that is circulating throughout the United States, and it is at its peak. It is not novel coronavirus," said Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease specialist with the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

This flu season has come in two waves and has been particularly hard on children, the experts said.

The season started early, in October, with an unusual wave of influenza B virus.

Influenza B is less likely than other strains to mutate and become more virulent. That means it poses a greater threat to young people than to older folks, who may have gained immunity because they encountered the strain before.

But the Coronavirus is soooo much worse......2 deaths!!

 

Given diagnosed cases of corona versus deaths and compared to regular flu, the mortality rate in US is higher with corona ... about 2.2% so far with corona than the roughly .00538% with regular flu.

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19 hours ago, foxbat said:

Given diagnosed cases of corona versus deaths and compared to regular flu, the mortality rate in US is higher with corona ... about 2.2% so far with corona than the roughly .00538% with regular flu.

The Misleading Arithmetic of COVID-19 Death Rates: https://www.cato.org/blog/misleading-arithmetic-covid-19-death-rates

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Assuming the number of people who have reportedly died from COVID-19 is reasonably accurate, then the percentage of infected people who die from the disease (the death rate) must surely have been much lower than the 2–3% estimates commonly reported. That is because the number of infected people is much larger than the number tested and reported.

The triangle graph, from a February 10 study from Imperial College London, shows that most people infected by COVID-19 are never counted as being infected. That is because, the Imperial College study explains, “the bottom of the pyramid represents the likely largest population of those infected with either mild, non‐specific symptoms or who are asymptomatic.”

As the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom, explained in his February 28 briefing, “Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care.” Several studies have found that about 80% of all the COVID-19 cases have relatively minor symptoms which end without severe illness and therefore remain unreported.

A Chinese study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, February 20, found a “case‐fatality rate” of 2.3%, meaning 1,023 died out of 44,672 cases. But the total sample in that study (72,314) included an additional 27,642 non‐confirmed cases, and simply including cases (let alone unreported minor cases) would have reduced the fatality rate to 1.4%. China‐based estimates are largely confined to cases with the most severe symptoms, so it should be no surprise that the reported death rate among severe cases is much higher than it would be if the data also included “most people” who “have a mild disease and get better.” The risk of infecting more people is also more severe in China data, since severe cases are concentrated and transmitted in hospitals. This can also lead to overstated estimates of how many people are infected by someone with COVID-19, including the WHO “reproduction number” estimate of 1.4–2.5, which is mainly based on evidence from China.

As the graph indicates, other countries include more non‐severe cases than China does, notably by testing incoming travelers who arrive with a cough and fever. Even after casting a slightly wider net, however, the number of confirmed cases probably captures only about 30% of the actual number.

By the morning of March 2, there had been 89,253 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported around the world, with about 96% of those in Asia. For comparison, the were an estimated 37.9 million people living with HIV in 2018.

It is worth noting that have also been 45,393 known recoveries from COVID-19 (compared to 3048 cumulative deaths) and, importantly, recoveries have been outnumbering new cases.

What about the relatively small number of COVID-19 cases outside China? In his February 28, the Director General of WHO reported that “Outside China, there are now 4351 cases in 49 countries, and 67 deaths.” Deaths of 67 divided by 4351 seems to demonstrate a death rate of 1.5%. But such calculations are highly misleading. They assume the denominator of that ratio (4351) is as accurate as the numerator (67). Yet people with “mild cases who get better” are unlikely to ever be included in the denominator.

If the WHO estimate of 4351 confirmed cases amounted to 30% of the actual number infected outside of China at that time, for example, then the combined total of both unreported and confirmed cases would be 4351 divided by 0.30 or 14,503. In that case, the actual death rate would 67 divided by 14,503, or less than one half of one percent (0.46%). Also, such death rates in the recent past are likely to come down over time, because they happened before promising new clinical trials of antiviral drugs that proved effective against more deadly viruses such as SARS, HIV and Ebola.

For perspective, the SARS coronavirus killed 774 people out of 8096 known cases in 2003, which was a death rate of 9.6% before it vanished the next year. Bird flu in 1997 was predicted to be a deadly pandemic, but it killed very few people before it disappeared. In its February 22 U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report, “CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses… and 18,000 deaths from flu.” Dividing 18,000 by 32 million implies a low U.S. death rate of .0138% from the flu. Looking at the death rate alone is obviously not enough: We also have to look at the numbers of people infected, and the duration of the epidemic, which is why the flu killed so many more people than SARS. Still, it is important to avoid scaring people about the risk of death from COVID-19 by continuing to ignore the fact that the vast majority of cases “have mild disease and get better without needing any special care.”

As usual,  the fear of coronaviurs is mostly a fabrication perpetrated by the MSM.

 

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Just now, Impartial_Observer said:

Just out of curiosity, have any of my OOB brethren changed any of their daily habits or future plans based on fear of the Coronavirus?

I have not, nor do I intend to.  

Other than maintaining a small stockpile of water, rice, gold, and seeds, no.  But I have noticed a couple individuals at my current workplace walking around wearing masks...............

 

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12 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Just out of curiosity, have any of my OOB brethren changed any of their daily habits or future plans based on fear of the Coronavirus?

I have not, nor do I intend to.  

Nope.

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19 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

The Misleading Arithmetic of COVID-19 Death Rates: https://www.cato.org/blog/misleading-arithmetic-covid-19-death-rates

As usual,  the fear of coronaviurs is mostly a fabrication perpetrated by the MSM.

 

The point was mortality comparison ... the specific percentages only matter in contrast to each other.  Even using your modified numbers, corona's mortality rate is about 85 times that of the flu numbers reported in @swordfish's post.

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24 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Just out of curiosity, have any of my OOB brethren changed any of their daily habits or future plans based on fear of the Coronavirus?

I have not, nor do I intend to.  

Nope just came back from a show in Toronto.....

Image may contain: possible text that says '1999/2000: is kill all. 2001: Anthrax is kill us all. 2002: West Nile Virus is kill us all. 2003: SARS gonna kill us all. Bird Flu is kill us all. 2006: kill all. economy is kill us gonna kill all. 2010: gonna kill all. 2011: Obamacare is gonna kill us all. 2012: Mayan "End of the is kill all. Korea is kill us all. us all. Disney Measles gonna 2016: is gonna us all. 2017: news is kill all. 2018: Migrant Caravans are gonna kill us all. Measles is gonna kill us all. 2020: Coronavirus is kill us all.'

As I have told my kids for years - "Living is a symptom of dying"

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, possible text that says 'WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE MAN!'

Image may contain: possible text that says 'saw an ad for a coffin and I thought... "That's the last thing I need...'

Edited by swordfish
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7 minutes ago, swordfish said:

 

Image may contain: possible text that says 'saw an ad for a coffin and I thought... "That's the last thing I need...'

Don't forget to opt for the premium plan ... labor and shovels. 😃

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1 hour ago, foxbat said:

The point was mortality comparison ... the specific percentages only matter in contrast to each other.  Even using your modified numbers, corona's mortality rate is about 85 times that of the flu numbers reported in @swordfish's post.

Get back with us when we have abut 10 years of mortality data regarding the coronavirus.  Maybe then we can compare it to influenza:  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=

Quote

CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/02/29/dr_drew_pinsky_threat_of_coronavirus_an_overblown_press-created_hysteria.html

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After a community transmitted case of coronavirus was reported in California,

Dr. Drew Pinsky talks about the coronavirus:
 

PINSKY: I don’t know what they’re talking about. We used to point at the way Indiana responded to the opiate and the HIV epidemic as the model for the country. I don’t know what they’re talking about. The only reason I felt comfortable with Pence as Vice President was I was aware of his track record in Indiana in handling these serious problems, and they handled them better than most states did, almost any other state. So, I don’t know what the hell people are talking about. That is fake news...

We have in the United States 24 million cases of flu-like illness, 180,000 hospitalizations, 16,000 dead from influenza. We have zero deaths from coronavirus. We have almost no cases. There are people walking around out there with the virus that don’t even know they have it, it’s so mild. So it’s going to be much more widespread than we knew. It’s going to be much milder than we knew. The 1.7% fatality rate is going to fall. Where was the press during the Mediterranean Corona outbreak, where the fatality rate was 41%? Why didn’t they get crazed about MERS or SARS? This is an overblown press-created hysteria. This thing is well in hand. President Trump is absolutely correct.

 

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Just now, Muda69 said:

Get back with us when we have abut 10 years of mortality data regarding the coronavirus.  Maybe then we can compare it to influenza:  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/02/29/dr_drew_pinsky_threat_of_coronavirus_an_overblown_press-created_hysteria.html

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

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Just now, Muda69 said:

Why the french? Isn't English the language of success in the United States of America?

 

Like I said ...

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

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