• Current Events & Politics
    Welcome Guest
    Please read before posting:
    Forum Guidelines Bluelight Rules
  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: deficiT | tryptakid | Foreigner

Covid-19 Outbreak of new SARS-like coronavirus (Covid-19)

Status
Not open for further replies.
My heart goes to all of those who cannot work, that's the biggest problem in Canada, it causes a lot more trouble than COVID-19. 600 infections and 4 dead and it's not climbing much more since 2 days, it seems to have hit a peak. So all of this for not even 1000 people.
The number of cases in Quebec went up by almost 400 just today, it's over 1,000 now, by far the highest in the country.
 
5d4f509ad0c4365be9236082



Trump says there will be 'suicides by the thousands' if the US coronavirus shutdown continues

by Ryan Pickrell | Business Insider | 24 Mar 2020

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "there will be suicides by the thousands" if entire sectors of the US economy remain shut down in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus threatening to overwhelm hospitals.

"We have to put the country to work," he said on Fox News. "You are going to lose a number of people to the flu, but you are going to lose more people by putting the country in a massive recession or depression."

"You are going to lose people. You are going to have suicides by the thousands,"
he continued. "You can't just come in and say, 'Let's close up the United States of America.'"

The US is about halfway through the White House's '15 Days to Slow the Spread' plan, and the president appears to be growing impatient.

Trump said on Fox that he "would love to have the country opened up, and just raring to go, by Easter," less than three weeks away.

The coronavirus has spread to nearly 400,000 people worldwide and claimed more than 17,000 lives. In the US, nearly 50,000 people have been infected, and almost 600 people have died. In hard-hit New York, the number of cases has surpassed 25,000.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo painted a terribly bleak picture of the situation in his state during a Tuesday morning press briefing. "We're not slowing it, and it is accelerating on its own," he said, adding "the rate of new infections in the state is doubling every three days."

He predicted that similar situations are likely in California, Washington, and Illinois.

Even as others raise concerns, Trump is determined to restart the US economy. "Our country wasn't built to be shut down. This is not a country that was built for this. It was not built to be shut down," Trump said on Monday evening.

"People get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this, when you have terrible economies," he said, adding that "deaths caused by the economy definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."

Increases in suicides have been reported during past periods of economic instability. At the same time, some experts have estimated that as many as 1 million Americans could die as a result of the coronavirus if it is left untreated.

"America will again, and soon, be open for business," Trump said on Monday night.

The president's comments on re-opening the US followed a move several hours earlier by the United Kingdom to lock down the entire country, a move other European countries have had to take to prevent the spread of the virus.

 
Last edited:
He really never knows when to shut up, does he?

I was watching the press conference when he said that and and I just shook my head and muted the stream.
 
Sounds like a bullshit excuse if ever I heard one.

There might be an increase in suicides. But "by the thousands" is bs.

And even if it were in the thousands. The number of dead from Coronavirus if he totally fucks it up will probably be over a million.

On the other hand, I'm not entirely confident that trump realizes that a million is more than a thousand. I'm not entirely confident he knows how to spell it.
 
it is just more lies and b.s.

president trump's incompetence and casual relationship with the truth are hardly new. but the current circumstances are and they make what he has done (in terms of our preparedness) and what he is doing (in terms of downplaying the situation) much more dangerous.

alasdair
 
Still can't buy any meat, fish, canned goods or tissues in my supermarket. 11 days now they've been without stock :(

Oddly, our local grocer continues to have meats. Canned goods, of course, and meats and fruits and vegetables. Qty is diminishing, but there is still a flow of such foods coming in.

There was plenty of food at my grocery store when I went today... still sold out of paper products and hand sanitizer though.

Aye. I'll be making the rounds today looking for toilet paper. I wasn't a hoarder, and supplies are going. Though, I do expect such goods to start flowing again before long. Not part of 'life sustaining' businesses operating in our harshest lockdowns to date, but as things open back up again, yeah, this should become available again.
 
The lack of any suitable forward planning from the government in regards to this is telling. It mirrors their approach to most everything else - abject incompetence.

On the one hand, I could ask 'how could anyone have expected or planned for this?'. On the other hand, I fully expect gov'ts around the world WILL expect and plan for this going forward.
 
Also, this virus IS that bad. Unless you just entirely disbelieve all the numbers and make up your own, or you believe millions dead isn't that bad. Then it is that bad. Bad enough anyway.

Because the numbers, even if you round them down a lot, will result in millions dead unless action is taken.

There's been so damn many stats thrown about, all based on primary info that is ill founded. Death rates, infection rates, etc. for Italy (biased by effected age group and bed capacity), for China (whom nobody seems to trust will ever tell the truth), for the US (where tests are limited, but growing). I still believe we're too early in this to take much from early stats. I also don't believe we can compare to other diseases given the early stages of our Wuhan Flu data, but that's all we have at this point - current data and known diseases. My impression is that maybe this is more transmissible, I'd venture to say it is likely it is more communicable than the standard flu. But I'm not ready to accept early data that it is deadlier.

I was chastised when Kobe Bryant died in a crash, because I simply didn't care. People die every day. Parents, children, pets, from disease, accidents, stupidity. MORE people die daily for a ton of reasons and we blithely carry on 'accepting' these as normal. With that in mind, I'm not seeing the death rates for Wuhan Flu to be much of a worry in the face of everything else we're dying of daily. Maybe it reaches that point, where it has a high mortality rate among the general population. And if it does reach that point, we'd be totally fucked doing 'life as normal' up to that date because we'd have been spreading it further, faster. As such, I'm accepting the short term invonvenience of lockdowns.

But if the mortality rate isn't substantial compared to the normal flu, I'd be very eager to open up our lives and let it run it's course. By all means, work out a vaccine, or better medications for those infected. But if it is less damaging to the world than the regular flu (consider, the US alone loses 30-80k/yr to the regular flu), game on.

Trump has annoyed the fuck out of me by not doing the same thing as China when there were megatons of boats going from China to North America with their goods and marine men and their legendary cleanliness.

Be pissed at Trump all you want. But keep some logic, please. Incubation is what, 14days roughly? Do you know how long boats take to ship goods from China to NA? 6weeks on average. Any such virus on the boats would have died on the packaged goods, and any carried by crew members would have shown itself during the voyage. This spread by people flying between countries, not boats carrying goods.
 
he New York governor’s briefings are being hailed for ‘wisdom and competence’, while Trump picks fights with reporters.

Who? This guy?


Trump did not clarify where he got the number of ventilators that Cuomo did not purchase, but an opinion piece from last week in the New York Post made the claim that “n 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece, or a total of $576 million.”

“It’s a lot of money, but in hindsight, spending half a percent of the budget to prepare for pandemic was the right thing to do,” Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in her piece for the tabloid.


Interesting, however, in that while the Federal gov't is there to help the states, it is the states who have always been responsible for their primary disaster planning and hospital requirements. I'm not saying the Fed isn't ill prepared for this disaster, I'm saying the States aren't either and yet it's the Fed (Trump) getting grilled by MSM and not the Governors. Same for the lockdowns - Fed can make recommendations, but Governors are the ones deciding when to lockdown, and who gets exemptions to keep working. The states...and where is MSM on the state responsibility and reactions? Regardless of a governor's political affiliation, the State's are first line defense in dealing with these things.
 
This page has a lot of great modular charts for a number of COVID-19 statistics. For @JessFR , here are the number of COVID-19 cases per capita in all of the countries with over 1,000 cases:

total-confirmed-cases-of-covid-19-per-million-people_mar25.png
 
it is just more lies and b.s.

president trump's incompetence and casual relationship with the truth are hardly new. but the current circumstances are and they make what he has done (in terms of our preparedness) and what he is doing (in terms of downplaying the situation) much more dangerous.

alasdair
Do you think he is getting paid to lie every time he lies from a sociopath friend of his like Putin or do you think he's lying for an ulterior motive or do you think he's lying because his base is stupid enough to believe half the shit he says?

Like let's assume he has dementia is totally incompetent and had nothing to do with the Covid pandemic (because people think I am crazy)....

Then let me just ask one question to you because you are really smart person man why do you think Trump lies as much and about the important things that he does lie about?

Even if I don't necessarily agree with whatever reason you have or think I'll totally take it as a solid opinion because you're a very smart person and I've always respected your opinions you're a very logical thinker as well. <3
 
On the one hand, I could ask 'how could anyone have expected or planned for this?'. On the other hand, I fully expect gov'ts around the world WILL expect and plan for this going forward.
I think that's a very easy question to ask it's known that American government has done germ warfare experiments on American civilians decades ago leading to deaths and illnesses.

In 2019 I watched a documentary about American Japanese Russian and Chinese germ warfare labs.

Nobody should have had to expect or predict or plan for anything like this that's unfair of me to say but I think it was totally within the realm of possibilities that people could have envisioned considering what we knew when we knew it.

If you analyze how destructive malevolent and anti-humanistic war is, and consider the fact that intelligent life is inherently self-destructive then it makes sense that this was all very possible plausible and quite frankly probably much more preferable to nuclear war. I know many of you believe and have lots of scientific evidence to believe this was zoonotic.

In the event that it wasn't we should be thankful that we are all not dead from end-stage nuclear war.

Sadly I think total destruction of the ecology of Earth and the end of the human race is imminent. I don't trust the eight billion people on the face of planet Earth to get themselves out of this shit hole.

I am remaining optimistic but I'm also staying realistic about my expectations of what's to come.
 
There's been so damn many stats thrown about, all based on primary info that is ill founded. Death rates, infection rates, etc. for Italy (biased by effected age group and bed capacity), for China (whom nobody seems to trust will ever tell the truth), for the US (where tests are limited, but growing). I still believe we're too early in this to take much from early stats. I also don't believe we can compare to other diseases given the early stages of our Wuhan Flu data, but that's all we have at this point - current data and known diseases. My impression is that maybe this is more transmissible, I'd venture to say it is likely it is more communicable than the standard flu. But I'm not ready to accept early data that it is deadlier.

I was chastised when Kobe Bryant died in a crash, because I simply didn't care. People die every day. Parents, children, pets, from disease, accidents, stupidity. MORE people die daily for a ton of reasons and we blithely carry on 'accepting' these as normal. With that in mind, I'm not seeing the death rates for Wuhan Flu to be much of a worry in the face of everything else we're dying of daily. Maybe it reaches that point, where it has a high mortality rate among the general population. And if it does reach that point, we'd be totally fucked doing 'life as normal' up to that date because we'd have been spreading it further, faster. As such, I'm accepting the short term invonvenience of lockdowns.

But if the mortality rate isn't substantial compared to the normal flu, I'd be very eager to open up our lives and let it run it's course. By all means, work out a vaccine, or better medications for those infected. But if it is less damaging to the world than the regular flu (consider, the US alone loses 30-80k/yr to the regular flu), game on.



Be pissed at Trump all you want. But keep some logic, please. Incubation is what, 14days roughly? Do you know how long boats take to ship goods from China to NA? 6weeks on average. Any such virus on the boats would have died on the packaged goods, and any carried by crew members would have shown itself during the voyage. This spread by people flying between countries, not boats carrying goods.
I'm personally disgusted by the grief porn media culture that capitalized on his death but he was a major influence in Los Angeles culture he was a great person and a great father and meant a lot to a lot of people in Los Angeles.

I think it's ironic that the Liberals hate global climate change but when it's one of their own rich people dying in it a private helicopter crash it's whatever though he was perfect infallible etc... but then again doesn't Sanders also own a private plane...

And it's not that I didn't care it's that I didn't have a close personal connection to him and I think a lot of people gave in to the media's grief porn epidemic over his death, which was eerily similar to the two weeks of 9/11 footage played endlessly on the television.

I often wonder why Kurds being killed by nerve or mustard gas in Iraq wasn't played indefinitely for a while I guess the media wanted to be okay with and then not all right with the Iraq invasion.

I wonder why the media doesn't just show what it looks like for somebody to die with covid-19 that would for sure help us deal with the panic and epidemic better so that people had to face reality and make better choices with less fear of the unknown.

Is the fear of the unknown that keeps people acting crazy acting stupid and is likely accountable for some if not most of the fear of this disease.

It said that money controls the world to the point where the media grief porn will go on and on for days to weeks over Kobe Bryant stuff but we'll sweep under the carpet entire genocides to the point where most people don't know what I'm talking about if I informed them of the ongoing genocides right now... and people do care and they wonder why they don't know.

Poor minorities targeted by state governments don't generate ad revenue I guess and that is fucking sad.
 
Do you think he is getting paid to lie every time he lies from a sociopath friend of his like Putin or do you think he's lying for an ulterior motive or do you think he's lying because his base is stupid enough to believe half the shit he says?
i think he lies because he's a habitual liar.

this is a good read: The coronavirus disaster hasn't happened yet
For most Americans, for most of our lives, the United States has been a comfortable place to live. There are glaring exceptions, and if you are one, then know that I am not talking about you. But it is safe to say that American national life and policy have long been based on the assumption that the worst possible thing that can happen is for a generation to grow up slightly less rich and healthy than its parents.

That sunny outlook, built on a bed of endless consumption and constant expansion, lends itself to meta-narratives and an addiction to entertainment. It is the best explanation I can come up with for why, today, the 24th day of the third month of the Year of Our Lord 2020, some people are actually entertaining Donald Trump’s argument that—after little over a week of meager and belated efforts—it might be time to end attempts at mitigation and “go back to work.”

That is murderous, naïve insanity. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everything we here in North America have gone through so far—the sitting at home, the anxiety, the toilet paper memes—is just preparation. For us, the disaster has not happened yet.
(my emphasis)

alasdair
 
I don't think it's going to get phenomenally worse (because there's too many people with guns, etc. and what not, long incubation period, many people young enough to not suffer a severe illness) unless it mutates into a more virulent form.

I do think things WILL get worse, but not like, how people feared end-of-world situations after 9/11.

I think something else (global climate change, war, another viral disease down the line) will lead to the destruction of the human race sadly.

i think he lies because he's a habitual liar.
So it's an obsession, compulsion or thrilling thing for him to do? Do you think he's morally bankrupt or a sociopath? It's alright if you don't wish to cast judgments either way or not speculate but I think it's important to explore these possibilities.

Thanks in advance for the reply. I don't think "lying because he is a habitual liar" adds up though, because the number of lies, the severity of consequences regarding some of his lies, and what he doesn't lie about/let slip is very telling, but what do I know.

I think it's hilarious he's encouraging churches to get packed full on upcoming Easter Sunday. This is obviously an attempt at spreading disease to religious people and I think anyone who doesn't understand that is wildly excusing his sociopathic behavior. It might also be that he fears total break down of American culture/society forever if we don't "try to keep it together", but that's a long shot in a realm of terrible possibilities.

If I was President *and cared about people as I do*, I'd encourage them to gather around places of worship, to keep their distance, or meet for online/televised sermons/services. It seems extremely, extremely sociopathic of him to talk about "churches packed full on Easter Sunday".
 
This should be the biggest case study in modern time of planetary response to legitimate fear. I think around 1 to possibly 10% of people infected will die, I may be included. Human kinds fear reaction will likely have much greater implications. Fear pushes our buttons like almost nothing else.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top