Carona virus/Wuhan China/Pandemic

[qHnED7SnYgQs]

[PS Power]

That is my take, more or less.

I expect massive quarantines to start in the U.S. in the next week or two. If that happens, I plan to put out new work at a faster pace, possibly with some kind of daily updates (for fictional works, to take minds off of things.)

I don't know how to put that up, of course! If you can, support me on Patreon? Not that what comes next can be about money.

Now we all need to pull together and do our part. Stay strong, everyone! We aren't dead yet.

Not even close.

[PS Power]

From the Lancet medical Journal.
Link:

"We re-estimated mortality rates by dividing the number of deaths on a given day by the number of patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection 14 days before. On this basis, using WHO data on the cumulative number of deaths to March 1, 2020, mortality rates would be 5·6% (95% CI 5·4–5·8) for China and 15·2% (12·5–17·9) outside of China. Global mortality rates over time using a 14-day delay estimate are shown in the figure, with a curve that levels off to a rate of 5·7% (5·5–5·9), converging with the current WHO estimates. Estimates will increase if a longer delay between onset of illness and death is considered. A recent time-delay adjusted estimation indicates that mortality rate of COVID-19 could be as high as 20% in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.6
These findings show that the current figures might underestimate the potential threat of COVID-19 in symptomatic patients."

*Back to me now...

That's a death rate of:

5.6% for China, based on their fake numbers. Up to 20% in Wuhan. Again, the numbers have to be spotty on that one.

15.2% for the rest of the world.

When hospitals go down due to having too many patients, the death rate will go up to around 20%. We should expect that to happen at the current rate of doubling in the next few weeks.

So, is it still just a flu, do you think?

This is a respected medical journal. One of the best, in fact, if I have it right. So, we are out of the speculations of a science fiction and fantasy writer and into the hard cold reality of a freaking disaster movie. Luckily, everyone here got ready first, having been paying attention like they were.

I hope so, at least.

We'll get through this. Somehow.
"God doesn't want you to be happy... He wants you to be strong."

[PS Power]

The President announced the first steps in a national quarantine today. Fifteen days of people being "politely" asked to stay home, not go to restaurants, bars, functions with more than fifty people...

Remember a month ago when that person wanted to leave the "voluntary" quarantine? They were held under guard.

Expect this to be firmed up as the death toll rises. Also, expect to see this on a state by state basis. Here in Washington State we were basically put onto a quarantine plan today. Businesses are closed unless deemed needful. Grocery stores are still open, Gas stations, hardware stores. A few other things...

Like in Wuhan, about a month and a half ago?

Also, video smuggled out of Wuhan shows the streets are almost perfectly empty still. Few/no signs of life, even from windows.

That could mean a lot of different things, of course...

[PS Power]

Just a heads up: Social distancing rules are going to have to become harsher and last longer than anyone is saying.

Given the mutation rate of this disease (currently SARS-CoV-2, which becomes the Covid-19 disease) and the apparent fact that it thrives as well in warm climates as in cool, we will simply see this going around the globe without stopping, until we have a constant battery of vaccines for it.

As diseases progress and mutate, they tend, on average, to spread faster and to more of the population, while leaving more people alive. Since this virus already spreads very well, we may not notice much change with the mutations, except that we aren't ready for them.

Death rates WILL eventually fall. We will, eventually work out how to survive this, long term.

We have never successfully made a vaccine for a corona virus. That doesn't mean we can't in the future, but people claiming we will have one in the next 12-18 months are being hopeful, but not realistic.

So, social distancing has to be the new way of life, not something you will be doing for a few weeks.

*What we see today as for who this hits, may well not be who is dying next month or next year. The young people who think this is "just an old person flu" are both wrong and setting themselves up for death.

1. Social gatherings are a thing of the past. Learn to live alone or with very few people. Get online for social gatherings.

2. Stand at least ten feet away from other people. You are hearing six feet right now, but that's inside the droplet contagion area. Airborne particles can travel much further in the three hours they are viable, but to hundreds of meters, so avoid first, distance second and sanitize third.

3. Never shake hands. If a stranger wants to touch you, run away and tell a responsible adult...

4. Learn to handle isolation. If you "need" to touch others, to make contact, to meet new people... That is a personal moral failing now. Only bad people insist on waving a loaded gun around innocent people. If you do that, you will, eventually, be subject to arrest or even preventative measures being taken to control you over it.

5. Right or wrong, on purpose of not, we have suddenly, and probably irrevocably, lost most of our civil rights in this. the problem is that the virus doesn't care. We all still have to live in the new normal, even if it's actually a globalist plot to take over. Running out onto the streets, protesting or starting a war to "hold on to what we have" is a great way for most people to end up dead.

Remember the first rule: Survive.
Everything else hinges on that one simple factor.

[MarciaA]

I belong to a group for nurses on Facebook, I’m reading the CDC changed guidelines from N 95 (airborne masks) to surgical masks. Makes me upset. I know it’s because they’re running out, but to jeopardize their health is terrible! These nurses are going to get sick, spread it more, be out of work. Then who’s going to be taking care of the ill?

[PS Power]

No one will take care of the ill. Oh, someone will bravely come and put a cool cloth on their fiery brows, certainly. Human beings stand up when things get hard. Over and over again, in fact.

But trained medical personnel? No, when people get sick, even if they are in the lucky 50% who don't end up taking too much damage in the first wave of this, will be out for a month each, before they can go back to work.

This is airborne, which means that an N95 mask won't really stop it. (Wear the masks! they DO stop larger droplets in the air. Blocking half the punches coming in is better than not getting any of them. I'll go into that a bit more later. Also, wash your hands everybody!)

The CDC however isn't really bothering to be straight with people. Slowly, the government and the CDC will let you know the truth. Over the next months, often when it is too late to help.

They told young people that they didn't get it, that they would be asymptomatic, and that if they did catch it, they would live. Not explaining that 38% of those hospitalized are under fifty. Or that young people who contract this have a 25% or greater chance of having life long lung damage from it. (Even if they never need a hospital at all.) The real kind, not something small that won't be noticed.

If they do catch it again, or something similar, those who have had it once are WAY more likely to die from it than in the first pass.

The CDC will keep scrambling and doing the wrong thing, because they have a plan in place and have for over a decade. I know, because I read it. Their plan is to keep lying to people and promising them a cure, a vaccine, a fix, food (through FEMA,not technically the CDC of course) and will at the same time, keep hording supplies for government use. The military is going to have masks and food.

You have those things if you made a point of getting them for yourself, early on. There will be no real help coming. Yes, hospitals will be open, but they won't get more than token aid or relief.

Once the hospitals go down, which should start happening in two weeks to a month, unless we can really nail this social distancing way of life... the death toll will rise sharply. Just to give you an idea of what it will look like, check out Italy. Then keep an eye on France and Spain over the next few weeks.

Now, no one reading this should be scared. This is the time for strength and stoic action. We will do the hard things, the needed things, no matter what. Those in power have wrongly assumed that the public is weak and soft. Indeed, they have tried to force us to be that way, over time. The problem with that is a simple, but eternal one. Those who survive are almost always the strong.

*A surgical mask is better than no mask.

[qHnED7SnYgQs]

The more I think about it, the more I realize that for a newly discovered disease with epidemic or pandemic potential that's discovered at a time when it's still mostly geographically localized and for which there is no uncontrollable (non-human) infection vector, "mitigation" is never an acceptable or long term viable strategy.

The only valid and acceptable initial goal must be complete eradication. Only once it is clear that the goal has become impossible to achieve is relaxing into mitigation strategies acceptable.

Any initial strategy that's based on a gradual "proportional" response is doomed to failure and will only result in very long drawn out suffering and final infection rates in the 70+% range.

China, while very late in their initial response, seems to have understood this and acted accordingly once they started moving.

While most of the rest of the world has completely dropped the ball on this.

[PS Power]

The issue with China is that they aren't out from under this. They have decided to let up to 20% of their population die, rather than try to keep them in quarantine forever. We, the U.S. and rest of the world will be forced to make the same decision soon.

The big difference is that here, in the states, we can't hide massive deaths as easily as China can.

*There is data, slowly, leaking out of China, showing that they are still having the same level of infection, now that they are back to work. (Partially.) They just aren't reporting numbers and are sending people home to die, instead of doing it at the hospital. In Wuhan, the former epicenter of this disease (It might still be, but they actually locked people up for a long time, which should work, if not perfectly) they have no capacity to take in anyone more than they already have, as far as hospitals go.

This is what we will be seeing in other places.

At risk young people can get this and die from it. What counts as being at risk?

Asthma
Obesity
Diabetes

And prior illness. most people under 30 are overweight in the U.S. 20% of people under 30 have asthma...
The same is true of China, so they haven't just been culling the old.

Death isn't the only long term factor here, either. If you get this, (don't if at all possible) it is increasingly being shown that even some people in the "mild" category are being left with lung damage.

Graduated isolation won't work to stop it. The plan of slowing things to a level that hospitals can stay up only works if everyone agrees with it and tries their best. Even then, over time, the workers will get tired and start to get sick... (Their job means exposure+no ability to truly isolate.)

Really, the best plan for now is to:

1. Hope that I am reading this wrong and that we aren't watching the death toll climb rapidly in percentage.

2. Hope that a miracle vaccine is truly in the offing and that, even if that is a bit like doing your financial planning by assuming you will win the Lottery, it will really happen, for some reason.

Well, do keep to the social distancing. Don't be embarrassed about moving away from others or politely asking them to back off. If they get offended because "you think I have it!" remember that they probably do if they act like that. Also, you need to protect them, just in case you were exposed and just aren't showing it yet.

What we need to focus on right now is:

Food delivery and manufacture.
Sensible bill/rent relief.
Safe working practices for essential workers.
Replacements for essential workers if they go down to illness.

Food: As soon as possible, plant a garden. All farmers need to plan for maximum crops being planted this year. Anyone near a food processing plant who is well should stand ready to go and work, unpaid, to keep the food flowing. No one gets paid for the duration, BUT, everyone gets food delivered to them.

A safe/safer delivery method is needed. Each block should assign a well person (who will be provided gloves and mask)
to deliver food to every house in their area. That food will be delivered to them by volunteer drivers, who will also be given safety equipment and sanitation aids.

No one is to approach these individuals. You get what is delivered, so make due. Honest truth... 99% of you who are food sensitive are just picky eaters. Get over it. The rest... Make do. It will be hard, sorry about that. A rough system like this can't cater to you.

Fuel and vehicles will be provided for free.

This must pass up the entire chain, so that we have companies, businesses and workers at the end of this.

Bill/tax/ rent relief: Essential bills will be given to you for free. As long as you do not abuse the privilege. So you don't pay for water, garbage pick up and so on. Anyone with skills is expected to volunteer to help with trash pickup, public sanitation and (if you have the skills) working on electrical lines. Again, no payment for it, but you get free services.

No one is to approach a worker in public. When possible, workers will have safety gear and private vehicles for transportation.

Large companies are, for the duration, owned by the government. They cannot charge for anything.

There will be no taxes for this year. Or the next until this is taken care of. If no one is being paid, no one can pay taxes.

No one pays rent for the duration. Property owners cannot have people evicted for failure to pay. There will be no income from such properties at this time. Tenants are still responsible for damage to the property, so they will maintain things. If plumbing or minor problems come up, fix them yourself. (So that the landlord or handy man doesn't come in contact with you.)

*You will likely have to learn to live with minor disruptions, if stores are closed.

Safe Workers: Whenever possible, work must be done away from other people. This means a slower work pace in many occupations. When people must be face to face, both people will be given the best protective gear available. This won't be much, so get used to going without things like hair dressing, having nails done, massages and other luxuries. This included minor medical treatment. This is to be done over the phone, when possible, from now on.

Replacement workers: If you are healthy, get ready to do the needed work. A knock on the door(or text message on the cell phone?) will alert you were to go and what to do. Then it's up to you to get it done. yes, this means yo might be handling smelly trash, cleaning storm drains or packing food around. For free. Even if you don't want to. Tough.

If we share the work, we can keep on top of this. Being lazy, wimpy or weak isn't an excuse now.

All adults and teens over the age of 13 need to stand ready, follow safety procedures and to not whine about minor hardships. (Mainly because that last one would bug me. So, no whining in a rule now.)

**Will any of this be done? Nope! People are too stupid to realize what will be needed in time. There is no way that the rulers of any country will allow this to happen. It's too different and they can't imagine that simply saying "money isn't a thing right now' will work. Even on the short term.

But it's a plan that could work, if any of these people will be willing to do it.

*** Some will claim that you cannot motivate the lazy kids who are spreading this to do the right thing... You can. It isn't kind, but anyone caught spreading a death plague, either by willful ignorance, or on purpose, catches a bullet to the head. If this takes place, we will only need ten to twenty such people dying before the rest will understand that this is a serious issue. Again, no one will do that. It's needed, but too aggressive for anyone yet. Instead we will let the problem vectors spread this until it is too late to control.

[David]

Yeah, I'm going to go in my corner and stick my head in the sand now.

Thanks for that.