nCov19 Development and Prevention Discussion Only

[Earl Grey]

Most at-risk country in the region! Bottom of the twenty listed for safety! 

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/258076-coronavirus-countries-risk-safety-ranking-april-2020

[Earl Grey]

Oh look! Martial law! Two words! 

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/258174-parang-martial-law-duterte-warns-troops-takeover-filipinos-break-quarantine

 

 

[C T]

Thailand could be next to see martial law being effected. To the chagrin of the people, the govt there has walked back on their initial plan to issue relief payments for 3 months, saying now that they only have enough to cover 1 month's payments. 

 

Bangkok Post: Relief cash only covers a month

 

The finance minister further said that of the 27 million who applied for the relief fund, only 8 or 9 million will qualify for it. 

What's going to happen to the remaining 21 million?

 

In the same article: There are at least 27 million people registered for the cash handouts, but the government said it will pick only 8-9 million people to get the money.

 

Apparently, the gold buyers all over the country are doing a roaring trade as desperation forces many to sell their gold jewellery. Those that qualify for the aid will likely need to wait till May for the payments to get to them. A massive % of the population are in financial dire straits, hence the rush to sell their gold items. 

 

Whats the situation where you are with regards to this aid relief package? 

[Earl Grey]

12 minutes ago, C T said:

Thailand could be next to see martial law being effected. To the chagrin of the people, the govt there has walked back on their initial plan to issue relief payments for 3 months, saying now that they only have enough to cover 1 month's payments. 

 

Bangkok Post: Relief cash only covers a month

 

The finance minister further said that of the 27 million who applied for the relief fund, only 8 or 9 million will qualify for it. 

What's going to happen to the remaining 21 million?

 

In the same article: There are at least 27 million people registered for the cash handouts, but the government said it will pick only 8-9 million people to get the money.

 

Apparently, the gold buyers all over the country are doing a roaring trade as desperation forces many to sell their gold jewellery. Those that qualify for the aid will likely need to wait till May for the payments to get to them. A massive % of the population are in financial dire straits, hence the rush to sell their gold items. 

 

Whats the situation where you are with regards to this aid relief package? 

 

Relief isn't looking good, as I mentioned earlier in one of the posts that people are starving and food is not being distributed in some places.

 

Now there's a call for no aid to people who violate quarantine....

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/258180-duterte-says-quarantine-violators-will-not-receive-government-aid

[SirPalomides]

In a development surprising to no one who has followed the rhetoric of Hong Kong protestors, mainland supporters of the protests are treated with scorn and suspicion by their Hong Konger "friends": https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-hongkong-mainlande/a-coronavirus-betrayal-even-friends-shun-mainland-protesters-in-hong-kong-idUSKCN21Y14G

Edited April 16, 2020 by SirPalomides

[Earl Grey]

As the military talks about martial law, we know it's just days away from being actual martial law. 

 

Marcos apologists will get their wish, and this young American expatriate lad is preparing to sound the bell toll for the death of democracy, even if no one appears to mourn its passing...

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/258275-afp-says-ready-enforce-martial-law-like-lockdown-coronavirus-pandemic

[emptycup]

9 minutes ago, Earl Grey said:

As the military talks about martial law, we know it's just days away from being actual martial law. 

 

Marcos apologists will get their wish, and this young American expatriate lad is preparing to sound the bell toll for the death of democracy, even if no one appears to mourn its passing...

 

https://www.rappler.com/nation/258275-afp-says-ready-enforce-martial-law-like-lockdown-coronavirus-pandemic

My friend said she doesn't believe in the power of the vote anymore. If you think about it, the reason why he is there in his seat is because of so-called democracy.

[Earl Grey]

9 minutes ago, emptycup said:

My friend said she doesn't believe in the power of the vote anymore. If you think about it, the reason why he is there in his seat is because of so-called democracy.

 

Incorrect. Those elections were manipulated and a foreshadowing of American elections. 

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2019/02/maria-ressa-war-truth-190214144801371.html

 

 

Malcolm Nance saw the exact same thing: 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Earl Grey

[Earl Grey]

@C T @Taomeow because you seemed disturbed about martial law here, let me give you a little video about the people who voted Duterte in and their idea of what martial law is:

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

@C T @Taomeow because you seemed disturbed about martial law here, let me give you a little video about the people who voted Duterte in and their idea of what martial law is:

 

 

 

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."  -- George Orwell.

 

[Earl Grey]

On 4/17/2020 at 11:19 PM, Taomeow said:

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."  -- George Orwell.

 

 

"All animals are created equal. BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS" - George Orwell

 

Prisoners have been forgotten and affected. 

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/18/837923621/you-just-get-written-off-one-inmate-on-life-on-rikers-during-the-pandemic

 

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/258297-while-government-stalls-coronavirus-breaks-into-philippine-jails

 

 

[silent thunder]

I keep telling people... 1984 and Animal Farm were warnings, not 'How To' Manuals.

We've been using them wrong.  Or maybe not, as they are simple revelations of what was already unfolding.

An alarm clock for the entranced and hypnotized...

 

Either way... It's really fucking dark right now.

 

These current unfoldings in "civilized" life, are wholly uncivilized...  and why I was reticent to start a family and have a child. 

 

But someone has to populate the resistence...  how desperately we need detail oriented observers, who are critical thinkers capable of synthesizing cross field observations and above all, we need piercingly unflinching hearts determined not to feed more inertia into the sink.

 

Strange, sad times.

[Earl Grey]

56 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

I keep telling people... 1984 and Animal Farm were warnings, not 'How To' Manuals.

We've been using them wrong.  Or maybe not, as they are simple revelations of what was already unfolding.

An alarm clock for the entranced and hypnotized...

 

Either way... It's really fucking dark right now.

 

These current unfoldings in "civilized" life, are wholly uncivilized...  and why I was reticent to start a family and have a child. 

 

But someone has to populate the resistence...  how desperately we need detail oriented observers, who are critical thinkers capable of synthesizing cross field observations and above all, we need piercingly unflinching hearts determined not to feed more inertia into the sink.

 

Strange, sad times.

Throw in Huxley’s Brave New World and that is the other half of how 1984 and BNW both predicted the 21st century.

 

Twitter and Facebook, Amazon, and smartphones are the best tools for Big Brother because everyone makes it a norm.

 

Another prophetic documentary worth watching:

 

“We Live in Public”. This came before social media. Eerie.

 

 

[Earl Grey]

 

Let this speak for itself.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Earl Grey

[emptycup]

On 4/17/2020 at 6:59 PM, Earl Grey said:

 

Incorrect. Those elections were manipulated and a foreshadowing of American elections. 

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2019/02/maria-ressa-war-truth-190214144801371.html

 

 

Exactly my point. Not a native English speaker (in a sense that it's hard for me to express my emotions in English, better in my native language). But what I meant to say was I don't believe in the power of the people and just asking people to vote, because at the end of the day, it's not really what happens. There is no democracy in the first place for us to lose it. We never had it, in the authentic sense of people voting for themselves and not being bought for their vote.

 

What I want to focus on is my circle of influence, what I can do in my own way. It's important to hold government accountable but at the same time, ask myself what I can be accountable for. Many people step up to fill the gaps of the government, during this crisis. It gives me a tinge of hope.

[SirPalomides]

Another excellent article from Max Blumenthal and the Grayzone, this time laying bare what's behind the claims about the Wuhan lab:

 

With US deaths from Covid-related complications peaking above 30,000, allies of President Donald Trump are taking their anti-China public relations blitz to new heights of absurdity, hoping to legitimize a conspiracy theory blaming a Chinese biological research lab for engineering the novel coronavirus. 

 

The theory points to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the culprit behind the pandemic, either through an accidental leak caused by unsafe research on bat coronaviruses or deliberately, by manufacturing a biological weapon. First deployed in January by the right-wing Washington Times, the conspiracy was dismissed and discredited at the time by journalists and scientists. 

With an apparent cue this April from a Trump administration desperate to shift the blame for its feckless coronavirus response, Fox News and the Washington Post have fished the story out of the right-wing’s political wet market and polished it off for public consumption.

 

Though neither outlet published a single piece of concrete evidence to support their claim, the story has gained traction among even fervently anti-Trump elements of the political establishment.

 

Regarding the real source of Covid-19, the conclusion by a team of American, British and Australian researchers could not be more clear: “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible…. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the virologists stated in a March 17 article published in the scientific journal, Nature.

 

Read the rest here:

 

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/20/trump-media-chinese-lab-coronavirus-conspiracy/

 

Max Blumenthal is a journalist whose work I consider essential reading. His book The Management of Savagery is one the best things written about current US foreign policy and especially the ongoing "war on terror", as well as the key role played by major American media in cheerleading and manufacturing consent for one disastrous intervention after another.

[moment]

 

Just two months ago!

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by moment

[SirPalomides]

While it's easy and fun to make fun of the stupid MAGA protestors claiming that quarantine violates their rights, it's worth remembering that Western media were saying similar things in January about China's quarantine measures. For example: https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/coronavirus-2019-ncov-china-quarantine.html

 

Fortunately for the US pundits, Americans have exceedingly short attention spans and shorter memories.

[moment]

1 minute ago, SirPalomides said:

While it's easy and fun to make fun of the stupid MAGA protestors claiming that quarantine violates their rights, it's worth remembering that Western media were saying similar things in January about China's quarantine measures. For example: https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/coronavirus-2019-ncov-china-quarantine.html

 

Fortunately for the US pundits, Americans have exceedingly short attention spans and shorter memories.

 

Being a U.S. citizen, it is embarassing to admit that ( in general) of all of the first world democracies, we are the least educated-- in every sense of the word.

[moment]

Animals taking over during quarrantines

 

[moment]

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

 

[moment]

Why Donald Trump's reopening plan is stupid:

 

 The current testing program in the United States is poor. About a month ago, the Trump administration promised 27 million tests would be available by the end of March. Late April is now approaching, and yet only about 4 million tests have been conducted.

 

Harvard researchers say the US needs to test 20 million people a day to fully remobilize the economy

 

We have a huge shortage of protective equipment for health care workers. Demand is rapidly out-growing supply as the urgent need for personal protective equipment (PPE) such as surgical masks, respirators, gloves, and gowns, as well as for ventilators, continues to grow faster than supply.

The U.S.A. does not have a plan for contact tracing. Contact tracing was vital in reducing the virus’s spread in South Korea and elsewhere.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by moment

[moment]

Five hours ago.

 

Written by: Quazi Hossain MD, Physician, Hospital Medicine, Philadelphia, USA.

 

I am a physician in a suburban Philadelphia hospital. The majority of my patients are Covid-19 infected. Many of them are on life support with ventilators; some get better and go home, and some others unfortunately expire.

In general, covid-19 patients who have low blood oxygen level, or complain of shortness of breath, or imaging studies show extensive pneumonia get admitted to the hospital, the rest go home in quarantine.

I am not sure if it is possible for me to comment on whether European physicians and hospitals feel more overwhelmed than we do in the USA. If I compare the information in the media coming from hottest spots in the USA, like New York, to Europe’s hotspots like Italy or Spain, I see a very similar picture.

Remember that Covid-19 patients are not the only patients we have. We also have to see all other non-Covid-19 patients as well. It is overwhelming, at least to us, who are taking the brunt of it.

Being in the Philadelphia area, we are very near to the greater New York City. Theoretically, Philadelphia has’t had its peak yet, although my prayer is that hopefully we are through the worst part of it.

We are fighting to the best of our capacity, with whatever manpower and PPEs we have. We don’t know how long this crisis will continue or how long we shall be able to continue this struggle.

I just want our people and our politicians to understand that this crisis is a crisis of all humanity. We are all in it together. We need to watch out for all humanity, starting from our families, our neighbors, our fellow human beings, irrespective of political affiliation or racial orientation.

We should not stigmatize any race or nation for our current crisis. We should exchange experiences and scientific ideas from all the doctors and scientists across the globe and direct our effort to get an effective vaccine and a medical cure for this disease.

We should not stop funding WHO, which is the most vital organization to help the covid-19 infection in the poorest of poor countries of the world. If there are problems inside the WHO administration, please appoint international watchdog to monitor it’s finances and fix it. Please don’t let the poor suffer because their are glitches in the system that can to be fixed.

Please do not politicize the medical management of a health crisis of this magnitude. Please let the medical science lead us to a solution, not personal political whims

Edited April 21, 2020 by moment

[moment]

The malaria drug widely touted by Trump showed no benefit – and more deaths – in a U.S. veterans study. About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too. (Associated Press)

[moment]

The FDA approved the first at-home coronavirus test. The nasal swab kit is expected to go on sale to consumers in most states, with a doctor’s order, within weeks. (CBS News / New York Times)