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Forums - General Discussion - Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

crissindahouse said:
Quartz said:
This might upset a few people in this thread. The relation of the W.H.O to China and the Director General of the W.H.O not even having a medical degree. Even the Guardian had to admit (despite the title they used in the article) that China held off information relating to the virus for at least 6 days which could have saved lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykTrxXT_FKg

I would have expected the W.H.O to be a organisation that isn't influenced by politics...now I see why people are edgy about funding it altogether, even though it is supposed to help everyone.

I don't think the director needs a medical degree. Many politicians also never studied what their position in a government is. It's just important that these people understand the information they get from those who really do the work.

Most here also know that China and the WHO did a lot of shit. That doesn't change that without the WHO, the situation around the world would be much worse now and that we might have heard about this virus and how bad it really is much later as we did. 

There is a lot which can be done to improve the WHO but not having the WHO or a similar world wide operating organization would be stupid. 

Sorry but this is ridiculous. WHO should not be equated to politics. WHO is an organization inherently rooted in science and should absolutely have people of scientific qualifications running it. This is one of the key reasons we are in this mess. 



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newwil7l said:
crissindahouse said:

I don't think the director needs a medical degree. Many politicians also never studied what their position in a government is. It's just important that these people understand the information they get from those who really do the work.

Most here also know that China and the WHO did a lot of shit. That doesn't change that without the WHO, the situation around the world would be much worse now and that we might have heard about this virus and how bad it really is much later as we did. 

There is a lot which can be done to improve the WHO but not having the WHO or a similar world wide operating organization would be stupid. 

Sorry but this is ridiculous. WHO should not be equated to politics. WHO is an organization inherently rooted in science and should absolutely have people of scientific qualifications running it. This is one of the key reasons we are in this mess. 

I doubt we are in some mess because the director has no medical degree. Whatever he did wrong, he did it because he was stupid, stubborn or whatever and not because he didn't understand the problem just because of some missing medical degree.

And if the health minister of my country decides some stuff not as he should (which can also cost many lives dependent of what it is)  than he will also not do that wrong just because he was never a doctor.  



SpokenTruth said:

Who the hell said he doesn't have a medical degree?



Spoke, please don't kill the messenger. I only posted about what Quartz said.



Not sure when the US can start lifting restrictions, here in Canada it won't even be considered until May


https://globalnews.ca/news/6816754/coronavirus-canada-lift-restrictions/

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it will be “weeks” before Canada can “seriously consider loosening the restrictions.”Last week, Trudeau said based on federal modelling, some of Canada’s restrictions could potentially be loosened sometime in the summer — if the first wave of the virus subsides.He cautioned that Canada could see additional “wavelets” of the COVID-19, and said the country will not return to normal until a vaccine is developed.


Steven Hoffman, director of the Global Strategy Lab and a professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at York University, said the measures probably won’t be lifted at the same time across the country. “We might start to see some provinces open schools and others not –that doesn’t mean that one province is right and the other province is wrong — that might just mean that there’s a different situation in each province such that there’s a different strategic choice that should be made,” he said. “If we just lifted all the measures we just go right back to that time when there was exponential growth in cases of COVID-19,” he explained. “We are almost as susceptible now as we were some weeks ago, unless we keep the measures in place which are protecting us and helping stop the spread of the virus.”

When the time is right, Janes said he expects the first things to be reopened will be businesses where people can work safely. “I suspect that things like restaurants and other venues that really depend on bringing people into fairly crowded spaces, I suspect that those were probably the last ones to open,” he said. He said it will need to be a “gradual easing,” with only a certain list of essential services allowed to open “a bit at a time.” Janes added, though, that everything is interconnected and government will need to consider that when lifting measures. “Everything is linked, so you open up one thing — say you suddenly open up workplaces — you can’t without also thinking about how you’re going to open schools or daycares or day camps for kids,” he said.


The tight rope dance begins this summer :/




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Oh boy....ST vs. NP is like WW3. God help us all. Just saying.



SvennoJ said:

This indecisiveness is exactly what's making it worse. If everyone does there part it could be contained within a month, then with accurate tracking and tracing we could start 'living' again. South Korea is doing it! I don't know what area you're in but here there is only one real hospital close with had 4 out of 9 ICU beds available and are currently in use to ventilate covid19 patients. The hospitals in bigger cities further away are also dealing with the covid19 outbreak. Sedatives and pain killers are running out. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/painkillers-and-sedatives-may-reach-critical-shortage-emergency-physicians-group-1.4895462 We're barely hanging on with the current extreme measures in place where basically everyone has to self isolate.

I've read people have been tested for anti bodies and the tests turned out to be wrong, identifying the wrong anti bodies or simply generating false positives. I've also read that minimal anti bodies from minimal exposure doesn't mean you'll be immune for heavier exposure. If you're going to let it run through the younger population, you'll get a much bigger virus load from all different angles. I've also read about the virus re-activating again in some people, making them contagious again etc.

I was wrong in my 2 month assessment though, it won't pass through that fast, at least 3 months, then another month for hopefully most people to recover. There are still 60+ active cases from the Diamond Princess since the start of Februari. Of course you also pretty much disrupt your essential workforce for months by letting it eat its way through it.

This is a time to listen to the experts and the scientists or things will get much worse. It can be contained, it's up to the people how well we get through this. Which is the biggest problem :/

It's probably not worth getting into a back an forth beyond this because it will just go on. Many details aren't consistent and maybe because that's legit how the illness widely impacts people perhaps, along with plenty of unknowns yet.

The issue with your final statement though, is that the experts themselves don't seem to agree on a wide scale, and each country is deciding to handle things differently. What are people worldwide supposed to make of that? Clearly either some the experts are wrong, or the leadership is, or possibly both. There is a glaring problem when this is a now a worldwide dilemma, and everyone is handling it differently. How can you expect people to simply obey when the solution clearly isn't obvious. To add to that, while a complete lock down does seem to make sense from an immediate laser focused life saving measures viewpoint, the world is a much more complex place than just that, and the future needs to be taken seriously as well, even for the same reasons.

It's a conundrum it is.



crissindahouse said:
newwil7l said:

Sorry but this is ridiculous. WHO should not be equated to politics. WHO is an organization inherently rooted in science and should absolutely have people of scientific qualifications running it. This is one of the key reasons we are in this mess. 

I doubt we are in some mess because the director has no medical degree. Whatever he did wrong, he did it because he was stupid, stubborn or whatever and not because he didn't understand the problem just because of some missing medical degree.

And if the health minister of my country decides some stuff not as he should (which can also cost many lives dependent of what it is)  than he will also not do that wrong just because he was never a doctor.  

Thankfully it was false info and the WHO is led by a qualified guy, but my point stands that people of high health leadership positions should absolutely have strong biological science backgrounds period.



NightlyPoe said:
SpokenTruth said:

There is a big difference between debunk and trying to rationalize away something.

And if the WHO has a lot to answer for, Trump has significantly more.

No, debunk is the right word.  When put into context those quotes that you obviously just copied and pasted almost all are invalid to the point you're trying to make.  It's a lousy, cheap way to get your point across.  I know late-night and cable news have devolved into playing that type of gotcha, but let's have higher standards.

And, no Trump doesn't have more to answer for than the WHO because of a few stupid quotes.  I'd judge Trump on if he took the matter seriously early, whether he's followed expert advise on the subject, and whether his administration has been effective at getting states what they need.  On the first, he did indeed set up the task for and made the first major call very early.  On the second, I've seen no evidence that he hasn't been following the advice of Dr. Fauci and Dr./Col. Birx practically to the letter.  On the last, there was an initial failure in regards to testing, but everything since then appears to have been handled very well and states have generally found the government very responsive.

In the end, those are the things that actually matter.  Not whether you can cut and paste Trump's sloppy and meandering style of speech into what you'd like it to be.

I watched some of the early live conferences of Trump when they happened. I saw the context, it wasn't pretty. Maybe it wasn't that way later but the ones I saw was Trump saying all is fine, under control, no worries, while the CDC guy was trying to warn people. Then the experts had to check in with the administration first for the next conference not to say conflicting things to what the president was saying, or making sure the president didn't say conflicting things. Whatever you want to make of it.

He's the president, it's his primary job to be a good speaker. He is not. I don't watch those conferences anymore, pointless. Better to get it straight from the experts.

Anyway this sounds perfectly fine

https://www.ft.com/content/d0f75be8-9849-4cd1-990d-17f7bafd58dc

The White House guidelines recommend that before moving to phase one of reopening, US states ensure there has been a downward trajectory in confirmed coronavirus cases over a 14-day period or a downward trajectory in positive tests as a percentage of total tests over the same period. The plan also suggests that there should be a “robust testing programme” in place for health workers who remain at risk, including antibody testing that helps determine if someone has previously contracted the virus.

Indeed, don't listen to what he says, look at what actually gets done.



The source of the virus may be China, but it is the country's responsibility not to be able to control the infection.