COVID-19: The real reason for the panic.
Disease Days before symptoms manifest
SARS 2 to 7
1918
Flu 1 to 4
Swine
Flu 1 to 4
Ebola 8 to 10
COVID-19 11.5-14
Politicians weigh in on COVID-19, Physicians weigh in on COVID-19, Conspiracy Theorists weigh in on COVID-19, so why are governments losing their minds over this disease if it's just no worse than a cold? Remember, the 1918 flu pandemic only had a 3% mortality rate too, but there is more to it than that.
Part of the problem is culture. The United States was founded by a group of rough individualists who were not afraid to take risks. Immigrants landing at Ellis Island were people willing to leave everything behind and start over with the hope of receiving a better life than the one they left. Most of the rest of the world does not share this attitude. Most people are OK with being sheep governed by royalty or dictators. They are willing to tolerate a minimal existence rather than fight to achieve more.
Under the old Soviet Union, the people had access to minimal food and consumer goods. They were willing to wait in line for hours for a couple of gallons of milk or wait 10 years for a poorly made small car. Their situation never got so bad for them that they were willing to die trying to overthrow a lousy government. Scripture tells us to accept governing authority, but there are a limited number of instances that we can change it. Americans got rid of a tyrannical government and replaced it with one that valued "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Most citizens of other countries tolerate any degree of mischief their leaders throw at them. While our government acts in the best interests of our country, there is an overriding interest in protecting the individual citizen.
Our military has an order to defeat the enemy, but with as little cost to our soldiers as possible. As Patton said.."it's not your job to die for your country, it's your job to make the enemy die for his." Also, when we had the option of invading the Japanese mainland to end WWII or dropping atomic bombs on Japan, we nuked them because the casualty estimates of an invasion of the Japanese main islands were in excess of 2 million.
The Chinese government and people tend to think a bit differently. The United States is a country with about 320 million people while China's population is around 1.4 billion and the city of Wuhan has around 11 million inhabitants or roughly the population of the U.S. state of Ohio. An estimated 70% of Chinese ag land is contaminated. China's one child policy lasted from 1980 to 2016 and prevented a net increase in population growth of 600 million but was considered a failure. The Chinese government has to get a better handle on its population. A while back, two Chinese generals indicated that in a large scale military conflict they would be OK with a 60% loss of their people. That is the number the Chinese leadership would like to see their population reduced by.
There has been speculation as to the origin of COVID-19. The Chinese claim it came from people eating bats. While not my first food choice, when you have to feed 1.4 billion citizens you pretty much let them eat what they want.
One thing we do know about Wuhan, China, the COVID-19 point of origin, is that it actually is home to a BSL 4 facility. BSL=Biosafety level. So you want to control your population and your one child policy fizzled out, what next? You use a limited test of a biowarfare agent on your own people and tweak it so the next time you hit a good bit closer to eliminating your target number. Your agent of choice for this run is a weaponized flu virus. A look at the chart at the top of this article gives you at least one modification. While EBOLA has an 8-10 day incubation and a 40%-90% fatality rate, it can only be spread by direct contact. An 11-14 day incubation rate with COVID-19 allows a much greater dissemination of the virus. On certain surfaces, the COVID-19 virus can last for days but 4 hours is the average.
This is the reason for the panic. "The Curve" that we hear so much about is why it is important to contain this virus. Italy has been overwhelmed and we do not want to see that happen in the U.S. Take every reasonable precaution you can and note that factory workers are at special risk and if you pump gas or go shopping be sure to disinfect the pump handle and shopping cart handle. Take reasonable precautions and remember that this is part of God's plan and HE is in control.
Official Chinese government death toll 3,300 but the Chinese government is reporting 21 million fewer cell phone users since the COVID-19 outbreak. Do the math.
ReplyDelete03/27/2020, 10.08CHINA Send to a friend
DeleteWuhan, endless queues for ashes of coronavirus dead cast doubts on numbers
by Lu Haitao
During the epidemic, the dead were cremated immediately, without ceremonies and without specifying the cause of death. Now family members are waiting to bury the urns containing the ashes of their loved ones. About 45,000 urnes will be distributed in Wuhan alone. The number of coronavirus deaths in China is deliberately underestimated. In the days of the peak of the epidemic, the crematory ovens worked for 19 hours a day. Journalists Li Zehua, Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi have disappeared. Photos and videos of queues at Funeral Parlors and cemeteries are blocked on social media.
Wuhan (AsiaNews) - Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are queuing in front of Funeral Parlors in Wuhan to collect the urns with the ashes of their deceased who died in the coronavirus epidemic during city’s forced isolation.
All those who died during the epidemic were immediately cremated, without any funeral ceremony and without specifying the causes of death. Family members had to wait for the authorities' notice to retrieve the ashes of their loved ones.
On the brink of a profound economic crisis, China is pushing to restore normalcy to the country, and has scheduled the reopening of communications in Wuhan on April 8. A sign of this "normality" is the collection of urns by relatives in preparation for the feast of Qingming, on April 4th, when the tombs of the deceased are honored.
The queues and the dead
The long queues in front of the Funeral Parlors provoke the question of how many coronavirus deaths there really were. So far China has only reported 3298 deaths.
A photo released yesterday on social media (see photo) shows a long line outside the Funeral Parlor in Hankow, a district of Wuhan. Online comments say that people have had to wait for hours while public security and plainclothes policemen were watching that no one took photos. To take the ashes of their deceased, family members had to be escorted by Funeral Parlor staff members or city officials. The comments speak of "a form of surveillance".
Caixin magazine notes that the queue outside Hankow's Funeral Parlor was approximately 200 meters long; thousands of empty urns were unloaded from a truck and stacked in the Funeral Parlor.
Another "funeral hall" in Wuchang (another Wuhan neighborhood) has announced that family members can come to collect the urns with ashes from 23 March. The Funeral Parlor plans to distribute 500 per day, up to Qingming. This means around 6500 urns throughout this period.
Wuhan has seven Funeral Parlors: if it is calculated that each of them will distribute urns at the same rate as the one in Wuchang, it adds up to an estimated 45,500 urns for the city of Wuhan alone.
Perhaps not all of these deaths can be attributed to coronavirus, but it is almost certain that the official figures are purposely underestimated.
A Caixin reporter said earlier that the Funeral Parlor cremation ovens worked for 19 hours a day in February.
Li Zehua, a former CCTV television presenter who came to Wuhan as a freelancer to report on the epidemic, has been arrested and there has been no news of his whereabouts for over a month. Two other journalists have disappeared, Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi: they too were working in Wuhan. Li Zehua reported his visit to the Funeral Parlor in Qingshan between 10 and 11 p.m. on February 19 when the crematoria were still in operation.
Videos also appeared online showing long queues of people outside the Biandanshan cemetery, waiting to bury the ashes of their deceased. But even these photos and videos have been censored and taken down.
In all likelihood the exact number of coronavirus victims will never be known. During the days of the peak of the Wuhan epidemic, the health system collapsed and many patients did not have the opportunity to be hospitalized. They died before any diagnosis and were cremated without being included in official statistics