Good point oeb, that was a good move by Trump. You might find this interesting:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/europ...ntl/index.html
Russia's not getting hit hard by this, at least yet, even though it has a 2600 mile border with China. One of the main reasons is they shut off travel to China, Iran and South Korea early on. They didn't do that with Europe, and majority of the cases in Russia originated in Italy.
More importantly I think, the Russians were testing and isolating people much more aggressively than we were.
We'll get through this OK if we pursue the Russia/Chinese/South Korean/Japanese model, by identifying and isolating people and communities. Otherwise we'll follow Italy and Iran. We're only 8 days behind Italy right now in terms of the total number of cases, although thankfully we've got 5X the population and 32 times the land area.
Originally Posted by Tiny
Thank you, Tiny - good to have your comments.
The LSM is whole hog into reporting China with "No new cases", and Russia with few.
If One believes their reports - from authoritarian governments which can use Orwellian methods to control their citizens - and care less if a portion die from government action/inaction.
Do China and Russia have the testing kits to test adequately - ??? we know many more people are infected and asymptomatic/minimally symptomatic - a large proportion v those severely ill who do get tested. . Hw accurate are China nd russia testing kits - and how available in very large land mass countries with large areas with very primitive medical care.
I do not believe the russian and Chinese news releases - they have "face" to maintain - and China is doing its' best to blame America for the virus - they claim the american military brought the virus to Wuhan - an blantant attempt to avoid their responsibility. They are not trustworthy. I think it not unlikely that many citizens - particularly in china - who test positive - are treated with 7.62 therapy - which reduces the reportable cases.
Lots of reasons to distrust China and Russia - and Putin is in the middle of a flagrant takeover of Russia - he is becoming Tsar for life. Same as Xi= two megalomaniacs who will never step down - and only end their tenure in death.
Can we do much different - politically No - IMHO - and trump has been reasonably forward responding in this matter.
There is real question whether we truly have the data to justify our response of shutting down the economy. See Dr. Ioaniddis article from Stanford in a thread on this forum. This bug acts like Influenza A - which may well have a higher mortality rate. Difference is we have some treatment for Influenza A - and none yet for Wuhan virus. vaccine - minimum of a year - perhaps!
Treatments - chlorquine - a malarial medication - may have some action in lab studies. It has a very toxic profile - double the usual daily dose for malaria - 1gm per day - may be fatal in adults. Lots of complication potential. At least the research medical establsihment is motivated and looking into the virus energetically . Perhaps we will come up with something soon.
Best we can hope for - imho- is the summer months cause a spontaneous regression of the disease. given the behavior of other common cold corona viruses - a good possibility.
You thoughts are always welcome - good Sir - thank you , Tiny!