Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[The AD]

You're right, people are good at delay and stalling, governments too. However, epidemiologists, including Americans, were aware of the potential in late December. One of Taiwan's first official actions was flight inspections starting December 31st. Testing and quarantine began the following week. I.e. governments were running their playbooks pretty early.

I agree that it's doubtful much would have been done before the end of January regardless of who was in the Oval Office, but I do believe other world leaders were taking the threat very seriously. South Korea sprang into action immediately when cases were reported, whereas the U.S. limited travel from China and then not much else for several critical weeks. It shouldn't be forgotten that the U.S. government did write a pandemic playbook during the Obama administration: https://www.statesman.com/news/20200...plan-for-trump

As stated in that article the playbook even mentioned "novel coronaviruses" as pathogens capable of causing a global pandemic which makes Trump's repeated assertion that "no one could have seen this coming" completely absurd.

[old goat]

I assume you mean if it happened in say 2006 Bush, or 2010 Obama (everything is political with 45). By mid-January or earlier, extreme contact-tracing starts (ala Taiwan). The US would have led the effort and seen that all the cruise-ship passengers were de-boarded, tested, treated, and quarantined. If CDC still failed to produce a test in this timeline, the president directs/issues emergency approval of WHO provided tests. Academic and commercial testing also allowed/approved. By mid-Jan or earlier, several billion budgeted by US, with contributions from every country with an arm to twist, for worldwide control efforts led by CDC and WHO with CCDC cooperation. If US community spread happened in that timeline, we'd have had early, strong social distancing. By now, we'd be mopping up a few stray cases in dumbfuckistan, and the economy would be open and firing at 90%, perhaps 100%. There'd be Rand Paul and some youtube experts complaining about the billions the US wasted on a disease less widespread than MERS.

eta: Election year epidemics only matter for presidents named Trump. Any other president demonstrates leadership and wins re-election off the massive swell of support.

Response might have been better with another President in charge but would still have been far less than perfect. There is a lot more wrong with this country and its ability to accomplish things than Donald Trump. From a political standpoint--with a Democratic president in charge resistance to staying at home and wearing masks would be much higher, and the relief bills would have never even been voted on in the Senate. From a technology and manufacturing standpoint, we still would be short of PPE. The vaccine effort would still be a race for profits. The social safety net would still be inadequate. Millions would have lost their health insurance when they need it most. I could go on and on.

[LongShortLong]

That's some wonderfully creative story telling.

Reality--

Pretending any govt would have taken massive steps to address CV before the last week of Jan is fantasy.

China didn't lock down Wuhan until the 23rd. Taiwan full lockdown was 2 weeks later.

Not pretending. See Taiwan's response.

Did Taiwan ever have a lockdown? I don't think they did.

Recently in Taiwan: 3 days no new cases. 28 days no domestic transmission. https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202005100004
Also their economy appears to be running 100%, reporting small growth for Q1.

[MultiVerse]

Given the United States history of being the world's leader in epidemic response LongShortLong's counterfactual reads more true than not.

Deebased is moving the goal post by arguing no country besides China engaged in massive lockdowns in January but what LongShortLong is talking about is coordinating the initial response, not lockdowns per se, That's something we've been very good at in the past. It's something AustralAsia was very good at this time around.

It's not just January, either. In an alternative timeline we wouldn't have wasted February. A reasonably effective administration would have still made lots of mistakes but the Trump administration's ineptitude has been so obvious and buffoonish that we've ended up in an even worse place where we trashed the economy and created a huge death toll.

People get upset when politics enter the conversation but epidemiology and economics lead back to politics. Honest communication and honest action by the state can stop an epidemic. It's mathematical and biological. One of the most important lessons is voluntary behavioral changes are more important than lockdowns. When people are properly informed, when governments are prepared, then we don't have to stumble around stuck at home like malignant children.

[LongShortLong]

Response might have been better with another President in charge but would still have been far less than perfect. There is a lot more wrong with this country and its ability to accomplish things than Donald Trump. From a political standpoint--with a Democratic president in charge resistance to staying at home and wearing masks would be much higher, and the relief bills would have never even been voted on in the Senate. From a technology and manufacturing standpoint, we still would be short of PPE. The vaccine effort would still be a race for profits. The social safety net would still be inadequate. Millions would have lost their health insurance when they need it most. I could go on and on.

I don't believe it had to spread out of control here. With a few dozen cases, we'd have plenty of PPE. Several countries have crushed coronavirus so hard as to suggest a vaccine is not needed. Implementing a cultural shift to mask wearing - yes that's speculative. Are masks necessary, were they key to Taiwan's success? idk.

We took care of Y2K despite our political and social problems. I don't think they prevent action so much as make consequences worse when we fail to act. With a small number of cases, Covid quarantines would be no different from existing health practices, e.g. tuberculosis screening/quarantines, STI contact tracing, containing measles outbreaks, etc.

[Adolf Allerbush]

I don't believe it had to spread out of control here. With a few dozen cases, we'd have plenty of PPE. Several countries have crushed coronavirus so hard as to suggest a vaccine is not needed. Implementing a cultural shift to mask wearing - yes that's speculative. Are masks necessary, were they key to Taiwan's success? idk.

We took care of Y2K despite our political and social problems. I don't think they prevent action so much as make consequences worse when we fail to act. With a small number of cases, Covid quarantines would be no different from existing health practices, e.g. tuberculosis screening/quarantines, STI contact tracing, containing measles outbreaks, etc.

I think just about any other administration would've had testing and some sort of plan in place to test people coming into the country to try to keep it from spreading widely. This administration was slow on the testing front and very slow (still no plan from the exec branch) on how to handle the spread of the virus. This isn't so much a GOP vs. DEM thing as it is unique to this administration IMV. You can look at the US response to Ebola, H1N1, and pandemic Flu for examples of how a competent administration responds.

[jono]

People are still acting like travel from China was banned in January but it wasn't. 450k people came from China in the 2 months following an apparently racially-biased ban on Chinese citizens (and even Chinese citizens were only banned from direct flights). That's not a travel ban.

And there are accounts in this thread from March of people coming back from abroad and getting nothing but a wave and a smile at customs. The exponential spread could have been contained quite well in those months compared to doing nothing.

[LongShortLong]

It's certainly possible another administration would have blown it, too. Plenty of the world's governments failed to act strongly early. However, most also look at the US and CDC response on epidemic issues. Would CDC have been more successful in another administration? Almost certainly. Successful enough to stop covid early? No way to know.

People and governments feed off each others actions. Remove the wet blanket approach in the Whitehouse, and epidemiologists do more sooner. Any response in the US encourages response elsewhere.

For example, look how quickly the US went from a few local shelter-in-place orders to Trump's national guidelines in just days. One CDC official in early January might have escaped the bureaucratic slow roll and triggered more action starting then. In the current "you're fired" / government bad era these hero officials are less likely to appear.

[The AD]

And there are accounts in this thread from March of people coming back from abroad and getting nothing but a wave and a smile at customs. The exponential spread could have been contained quite well in those months compared to doing nothing.

It's not just anecdotal data, either. The media has covered this:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/polit...ght/index.html

[Buster Highmen]

FWIW, coming back from Zurich through O'Hare March 25th was amazing.

As soon as the narrower corridors widened, there were at least 50 people and a maze handling passengers.

First thing was an infra red temperature aimed at your temple, then splitting the passengers into those with temperatures and those without, recording names and points of origin.

They had at least 10 tents set up inside with cots ready to examine people with fevers.

I got waved through, one more double check about where I had been and then out to pick up my skibag, drag it a couple of hundred feet, go through the usual passport check and drop the bag at luggage to be loaded into the connecting flight.

I was amazed at the preparedness and efficiency, not only of the government employees/contractors but at the O'Hare staff as well.

I grant this may be purely anecdotal and isolated.

[bobz]

Most thru hikers had their permits in hand before Trump flu hit. The PCT permit covers all jurisdictions along the hike they were permitted for, and these permits weren't cancelled by the Forest Service.

News today: Yosemite NP is opening the PCT through the park, for now ONLY for PCT (not JMT) thru-hikers.

[Deebased]

Not pretending. See Taiwan's response.

Did Taiwan ever have a lockdown? I don't think they did.

Recently in Taiwan: 3 days no new cases. 28 days no domestic transmission. https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202005100004
Also their economy appears to be running 100%, reporting small growth for Q1.

You're correct no full lockdown for Taiwain it was keeping schools closed (they were fortunate to already have them closed for NY.)

Taiwan & China do airport temp checks (random or strategic) in non-pandemic times. It wasn't until the CECC was promoted to level 3 on 1/20 that coordinated actions were taking place.

There's no argument Taiwan did a much better job and Trump is both directly and indirectly responsible.

[MultiVerse]

Syrian hamsters have been used for studying stress-induced weight gain and other metabolic phenomenon that can't be tested in other rodent models. I assume that they still are. Some k00l behavioral research into anxiety and depression is also being done on these buggers.

I like it. But what you summarized above is not thorough- are the infected animals actually suffering COVID-19 (as you wrote above) or are they asymptomatic hosts? Were the viral loads of each infected animal assessed? My understanding, to date, is that humans, and presumably hamsters, with COVID-19 symptoms are far more likely to spread infection than, seemingly, non-symptomatic hosts. Would you post a link, please? Thanks!

The paper was released Sunday and will be published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases medical journal, but isn't available on the internet yet.

I couldn't find better info on symptoms and viral loads other than the viral loads of hamsters that became infected despite the mask barrier were found to have less virus in their bodies than those without the barrier.

There is an earlier April study by the same group on the pathogenesis and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Golden Syrian hamsters showing viral replication and pathological changes over the course of an infection:

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-20774/v1

In the hamster model peak infectious viral load occurs on day 3 post-infection, followed by a rapid decline in infectiousness which is not dissimilar from what has been observed in humans.


Edit to add, this is what the SARS2 immune response looks like in humans:




https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?...2820%2930212-0

[Casey E]

28/02 the dear leader takes another dump on his country



If more evidence is needed, check this link.

https://giphy.com/stories/a-gif-time...-f9782d28-5f1d

[Ottime]

It's certainly possible another administration would have blown it, too. Plenty of the world's governments failed to act strongly early. However, most also look at the US and CDC response on epidemic issues. Would CDC have been more successful in another administration? Almost certainly. Successful enough to stop covid early? No way to know.

People and governments feed off each others actions. Remove the wet blanket approach in the Whitehouse, and epidemiologists do more sooner. Any response in the US encourages response elsewhere.

For example, look how quickly the US went from a few local shelter-in-place orders to Trump's national guidelines in just days. One CDC official in early January might have escaped the bureaucratic slow roll and triggered more action starting then. In the current "you're fired" / government bad era these hero officials are less likely to appear.

Would the CDC still have their scientist in Wuhan had this been another administration? There was one consulting there until June of 2019, and they were recalled. Would having feet on the ground have been enough to alert the US of what was going on in early December?

I believe almost any other leadership would've moved quicker. I'm no scientist, doctor, epidemiologists, statistician or anything professionally related to virus spread, but in late January, I was worrying that my President's Week road trip to Mammoth would need to be cancelled due to spread of the pathogen. So I am sure that the scientists, doctors, epidemiologists and statisticians were also had pandemic concerns and many of them wanted to do their jobs to stop it. Ultimately, we did nothing until the high school districts in Loudoun County announced closures, soon followed by Bay Area schools, ski resorts closed the next day, and then BA counties announced Shelter in Place, followed by the state in mid March. No national leadership during that time period except to say the virus was hoax, would go away in a few days and then eventually some vague notion of social distancing. Sure, there was the "China ban", then the "Euro ban", but nether of them stopped travel, and there were few controls to limit entry other than your citizenship. Little screening, little quarantining.

As was said above, if they just funded shit and let the experts run the show, I am sure their were plenty of excellent professionals that were looking to hop on board well before a dumb ass like me started to worry about his vacation.

[Adolf Allerbush]

FWIW, coming back from Zurich through O'Hare March 25th was amazing.

As soon as the narrower corridors widened, there were at least 50 people and a maze handling passengers.

First thing was an infra red temperature aimed at your temple, then splitting the passengers into those with temperatures and those without, recording names and points of origin.

They had at least 10 tents set up inside with cots ready to examine people with fevers.

I got waved through, one more double check about where I had been and then out to pick up my skibag, drag it a couple of hundred feet, go through the usual passport check and drop the bag at luggage to be loaded into the connecting flight.

I was amazed at the preparedness and efficiency, not only of the government employees/contractors but at the O'Hare staff as well.

I grant this may be purely anecdotal and isolated.

3-weeks earlier or so I came back from mexico city through DFW. At that time the process was more or less unchanged compared to what I experienced a few months prior (i.e., pre-COVID-19). the only differences I experienced was being asked if I was feeling well by the guy checking my passport. Otherwise it was completely the same. Good to hear they eventually changed the process, at least at ORD.

[AK47bp]

28/02 the dear leader takes another dump on his country



If more evidence is needed, check this link.

https://giphy.com/stories/a-gif-time...-f9782d28-5f1d

How dare you.

Our Supreme Dear Leader is NEVER wrong! YOU are wrong.

His lies are a test of our faith and we love him for this.






Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Ottime]

Late March is not the milestone for screening incoming passengers. Late January would have been the goal. Along with travel alerts. And letting traveler know that they would need to be screened to re-enter the county if they left. Sure, hindsight. But I was talking with my friend of Taiwanese organ, living in Queens, in early February. He was all doomsday, concerned that no one outside of Southeast Asia was seeing what was coming. I was more optimistic, bringing up the CDC and past US leadership in crushing these things. He kind of laughed at me, asking if I still thought they allowed scientist to make decisions anymore.

On a totally other note, good news, maybe. My buddy is driving home. He winters in L.A. and runs a summer business in Maine. He was finishing up work in his home, but his family has been in Maine since mid March. He is somewhere in Indiana, or was at least last night. Comping along the way. Campgrounds mostly open other than NM. Oklahoma and Texas were the most "open for business" of the places he drove through. The promising thing, to me, is he said masks are fairy ubiquitous across everywhere he has been. Of course, he only really stops when he needs to, so it is not a full study, but hopeful.

[schuss]

Eh, we have a decent record with modern viruses and the early containment steps would only have been intrusive only for travelers from impacted regions.
I'm confident there'd at least be good testing and some semblance of a coordinated fed response, which would have done wonders for limiting the spread

[The AD]

Interesting story on how weather may affect the COVID-19 infection rate:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...nfections.html

Executive summary: weather alone isn't going to slowdown the virus even in the hottest regions of the U.S. Weather plus continued social distancing measures can, though, but the virus is likely to spread more extensively again when the weather begins to cool.

[Adolf Allerbush]

Interesting story on how weather may affect the COVID-19 infection rate:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...nfections.html

Executive summary: weather alone isn't going to slowdown the virus even in the hottest regions of the U.S. Weather plus continued social distancing measures can, though, but the virus is likely to spread more extensively again when the weather begins to cool.

Interesting, thanks.

I saw this and thought I'd ask the folks more knowledgeable (Old Goat, Multiverse) if it means what I think it does? Which is that getting to herd immunity is going to take a long time in Sweden and would probably take even longer here.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...en-coronavirus

[Rideski]

27 more denver grocery workers test positive yesterday, pushing it over 100 now. 1 dead.

Polis to announce tests available and free testing for all starting today.

[LongShortLong]

Would the CDC still have their scientist in Wuhan had this been another administration? There was one consulting there until June of 2019, and they were recalled. Would having feet on the ground have been enough to alert the US of what was going on in early December?

I believe almost any other leadership would've moved quicker. I'm no scientist, doctor, epidemiologists, statistician or anything professionally related to virus spread, but in late January, I was worrying that my President's Week road trip to Mammoth would need to be cancelled due to spread of the pathogen. So I am sure that the scientists, doctors, epidemiologists and statisticians were also had pandemic concerns and many of them wanted to do their jobs to stop it. Ultimately, we did nothing until the high school districts in Loudoun County announced closures, soon followed by Bay Area schools, ski resorts closed the next day, and then BA counties announced Shelter in Place, followed by the state in mid March. No national leadership during that time period except to say the virus was hoax, would go away in a few days and then eventually some vague notion of social distancing. Sure, there was the "China ban", then the "Euro ban", but nether of them stopped travel, and there were few controls to limit entry other than your citizenship. Little screening, little quarantining.

As was said above, if they just funded shit and let the experts run the show, I am sure their were plenty of excellent professionals that were looking to hop on board well before a dumb ass like me started to worry about his vacation.

Amen

[KQ]

[Casey E]

Going back to January: "Its going to be just fine"





Then in February



Then when the shit hit the fan, "Nobody saw this coming", and the blame game gets rolling. I don´t see any past president dumbing down so much even if it was an election year. Elect a malignant narcissistic grifter king, with dementia, and this is what you get. What is most amazing is how he has survived so long and that the GOP is still behind him for re-election.

I have said my bit and will (try) not to mention the Dear Leader, Who is a Perfect Incarnation of the Appearance that a Leader Should Have, again here.