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It's impossible to cover up the level of deaths some people are speculating about occurring from the entire world in China. They only expelled a small handful of US journalists, and surely some drunken bureaucrat would have whined to a foreign journalist about having to fill out so many extra death forms. Hell, if there were the necessary mass graves I'm sure there we would have satellite images of it.
Russia's bad numbers were really obvious because they kept saying they had almost no cases, while their deaths from pneumonia were skyrocketing. The only real example of anything like this in china that I've seen given is some funeral parlors buying extra urns.
The reality is that most of the cover up happened at the local level, before there was involvement from the central government there. Are the numbers accurate now? Probably not, but I don't think that's intentional (more that it's impossible to test everyone). I doubt it was entirely contained to Wuhan, but much of CNY travel is from urban to more rural settings. China also already has draconian measures in place that would make it easier to track its populations movement
Shutting down theaters, etc. are something you would do if you even think there's a chance of it coming back into the population (such as via travel into the country) or that there may be some people loose with it, even if you aren't positive that there are. I'd take that more as "China is better at preparing for catastrophes than the West is" than "China is covering up millions of infections".
Additionally, a coverup on that scale is almost impossible - we'd already know if the numbers from Jan/Feb were intentionally inaccurate. There are just too many people involved for that conspiracy. What happened to some of the early doctors is horrible, but they are how we know that there was an initial coverup.
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I'm not even sure what the point of the China discussion is. It is kind of irrelevant for people outside of China what the situation in China is, and whether the chinese government is lying or not.
We have pretty good information on this disease from very reliable sources right now. The China thing seems to mostly be a distraction from the stuff that we need to do locally.
If China has their infections under control like they claim, good for them. If they don't, not that good, but still not problematic for us.
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On April 02 2020 00:04 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2020 17:19 Artisreal wrote:On April 01 2020 10:40 JohnDelaney wrote:On April 01 2020 09:34 RenSC2 wrote:
Universal Healthcare could quite possibly lead to even less hospital beds, less ventilators, and less masks when hospitals can't gouge patients anymore. Is there any study with past documented cases from other countries with universal healthcare that supports this speculation? the only reason I can see that there are more ICU beds is that ICU patients bring in more revenue. One of the few benefits to the "we love surgery and we love a lot of it" attitude of the US, much of which is profit-driven, is that operating rooms are negative pressure rooms that make great places to care for patients with COVID. The pre-op beds can also be shifted into places to care for normal patients with very little fanfare. One of the first things the major hospital system run by my university did back in February was postpone all elective surgeries indefinitely. That said, even converting all ORs to ICUs in the US is not going to make up for negative pressure room/ICU shortfall, especially in rural communities.
A brief aside from the last page, why in the world would you want operating theatres to be negative pressure?
They are normally positive, because the goal is a sterile environment. Constantly bringing outside air in is the last thing you want. I'm aware of a couple that were converted to operate on patients with SARS, but that would be much worse for routine use.
Surely this isn't some American exceptionalism thing...
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On April 02 2020 05:55 Nevuk wrote:
It's impossible to cover up the level of deaths some people are speculating about occurring from the entire world in China. They only expelled a small handful of US journalists, and surely some drunken bureaucrat would have whined to a foreign journalist about having to fill out so many extra death forms. Hell, if there were the necessary mass graves I'm sure there we would have satellite images of it.
Russia's bad numbers were really obvious because they kept saying they had almost no cases, while their deaths from pneumonia were skyrocketing. The only real example of anything like this in china that I've seen given is some funeral parlors buying extra urns.
The reality is that most of the cover up happened at the local level, before there was involvement from the central government there. Are the numbers accurate now? Probably not, but I don't think that's intentional (more that it's impossible to test everyone). I doubt it was entirely contained to Wuhan, but much of CNY travel is from urban to more rural settings. China also already has draconian measures in place that would make it easier to track its populations movement
Shutting down theaters, etc. are something you would do if you even think there's a chance of it coming back into the population (such as via travel into the country) or that there may be some people loose with it, even if you aren't positive that there are. I'd take that more as "China is better at preparing for catastrophes than the West is" than "China is covering up millions of infections".
Additionally, a coverup on that scale is almost impossible - we'd already know if the numbers from Jan/Feb were intentionally inaccurate. There are just too many people involved for that conspiracy. What happened to some of the early doctors is horrible, but they are how we know that there was an initial coverup.
I've seen conspiracy theories about satellite images showing massive amounts of SO2 coming out of China and that is only created by burning of biological matter - as in they're burning all the bodies, but I didn't poke around it further than that before moving on.
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Laredo Texas is starting to fine people for going out in public without a mask on.
If people are caught not covering their nose and mouth, they face a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 in Laredo.
abc7.com
It is clear now that the attempts to keep people from getting masks was a result of being unprepared, not best practices imo.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
These rules on "must wear masks" seem quite poorly considered in light of how hard it is to actually get a mask these days.
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Wait, do we actually need mask now? I thought we were good without them?
Jesus christ how are you supposed to get a mask now
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On April 02 2020 23:44 LegalLord wrote:
These rules on "must wear masks" seem quite poorly considered in light of how hard it is to actually get a mask these days.
You can wear pretty much anything so long as it reduces you spreading droplets. The thing is that while something like a bandanna is pretty much useless when it comes to preventing you from getting sick it is much better than nothing (or just your elbow) at limiting droplet spread. With millions of people still having to work daily (sick or not) there has to be something to mitigate the spread (not just keep medical people from getting sick) among the workers in the supply chain at minimum.
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To me the current push towards masks reeks of wanting to do something, anything, to deal with the outbreak that "makes sense" and "can't hurt," reality be damned. I just hope people don't react negatively when they get sick despite wearing the masks.
On April 02 2020 07:23 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2020 00:04 TheTenthDoc wrote:On April 01 2020 17:19 Artisreal wrote:On April 01 2020 10:40 JohnDelaney wrote:On April 01 2020 09:34 RenSC2 wrote:
Universal Healthcare could quite possibly lead to even less hospital beds, less ventilators, and less masks when hospitals can't gouge patients anymore. Is there any study with past documented cases from other countries with universal healthcare that supports this speculation? the only reason I can see that there are more ICU beds is that ICU patients bring in more revenue. One of the few benefits to the "we love surgery and we love a lot of it" attitude of the US, much of which is profit-driven, is that operating rooms are negative pressure rooms that make great places to care for patients with COVID. The pre-op beds can also be shifted into places to care for normal patients with very little fanfare. One of the first things the major hospital system run by my university did back in February was postpone all elective surgeries indefinitely. That said, even converting all ORs to ICUs in the US is not going to make up for negative pressure room/ICU shortfall, especially in rural communities. A brief aside from the last page, why in the world would you want operating theatres to be negative pressure? They are normally positive, because the goal is a sterile environment. Constantly bringing outside air in is the last thing you want. I'm aware of a couple that were converted to operate on patients with SARS, but that would be much worse for routine use. Surely this isn't some American exceptionalism thing...
Yeeeah, I misspoke. They're positive pressure by default. It's mostly that they have the equipment to control pressure at all, making it possible to swap them over more easily than e.g. a standard hospital room (see here). The main other reason is that key tools like anesthesia machines, ventilators, IV setups, etc. are almost all present in individual ORs.
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The CDC was saying they're reviewing the policy of asymptomatic people being fine without masks.
Personally, I'm fine with it even just being security theater in a pandemic.
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On April 02 2020 23:48 IyMoon wrote:
Wait, do we actually need mask now? I thought we were good without them?
Jesus christ how are you supposed to get a mask now
Etsy. People make them for about $6 each. I bought some with the replaceable filters. Better hurry before its impossible.
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On April 03 2020 00:15 Gahlo wrote:
The CDC was saying they're reviewing the policy of asymptomatic people being fine without masks.
Personally, I'm fine with it even just being security theater in a pandemic.
The problem as I see it besides the obvious supply one that is clearly the driver behind discouraging mask usage, is that people have poor understandings of what masks do what and how to use them.
No medical professional has said that properly used masks in addition to social distancing and hygienic practices don't reduce transmission. What they've been saying is we lack supply and using them wrong or thinking they do things they don't can do more harm than the masks themselves do good.
Somehow that is too complicated for people to explain or process for us to just have a sensible national policy on mask usage.
Proper preparation would have a population familiar with mask usage (and an ample reserve supply) in the event of epidemics generally.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On April 02 2020 23:48 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2020 23:44 LegalLord wrote:
These rules on "must wear masks" seem quite poorly considered in light of how hard it is to actually get a mask these days. You can wear pretty much anything so long as it reduces you spreading droplets. The thing is that while something like a bandanna is pretty much useless when it comes to preventing you from getting sick it is much better than nothing (or just your elbow) at limiting droplet spread. With millions of people still having to work daily (sick or not) there has to be something to mitigate the spread (not just keep medical people from getting sick) among the workers in the supply chain at minimum.
Well... if nothing else, sounds like a perfect excuse to start wearing a snazzy scarf. It's about as good as it gets for being a makeshift mask.
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On April 03 2020 00:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2020 23:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 02 2020 23:44 LegalLord wrote:
These rules on "must wear masks" seem quite poorly considered in light of how hard it is to actually get a mask these days. You can wear pretty much anything so long as it reduces you spreading droplets. The thing is that while something like a bandanna is pretty much useless when it comes to preventing you from getting sick it is much better than nothing (or just your elbow) at limiting droplet spread. With millions of people still having to work daily (sick or not) there has to be something to mitigate the spread (not just keep medical people from getting sick) among the workers in the supply chain at minimum. Well... if nothing else, sounds like a perfect excuse to start wearing a snazzy scarf. It's about as good as it gets for being a makeshift mask.
I mean like I said, proper usage and understanding what they do are important to make it a net positive. In the case of simple/makeshift face coverings you aren't protecting yourself so much as preventing you from unknowingly (presuming you're isolating if you can and know you're sick) shedding virus through things like coughing.
They won't protect you from inhaling virus oneself, and touching your face with unwashed hands is a way to contract the virus that is more likely with something covering your face. So it takes some mindfulness to use the concept of reducing droplet transmission with rudimentary (or even quality) masks.
The west has several reasons they've been resistent to the public wearing masks but our health wasn't a primary driver for most of them imo. What I've seen is sinophobia and concerns about supplying medical professionals that should have had stockpiles specifically allocated to them and the public given a stipend of masks for free.
CNN has something up on how western governments are starting to come around to the data Asia may have been right about coronavirus and face masks, and the rest of the world is coming around
Speaking to CNN, Ivan Hung, an infectious diseases specialist at the Hong Kong University School of Medicine, said that "if you look at the data in Hong Kong, wearing a mask is probably the most important thing in terms of infection control."
"And it not only brings down the cases of coronaviruses, it also brings down the influenza," he said. "In fact, this is now the influenza season, and we hardly see any influenza cases. And that is because the masks actually protected not only against coronaviruses but also against the influenza viruses as well."
Masks aren't a reason to not practice social distancing or proper hygienic practices of course. Basically the idea behind discouraging mask use in the west boils down to the proposition that people are too dimwitted and ill supplied to use them correctly and with limited supply they are wasted on them, not that properly incorporated into a pandemic response by the general population they don't work (that was a reductive extraction that became widespread).
EDIT: I'd approve of cops being tougher on enforcing people stay apart, wear masks, and stay inside if they took their guns, pepper spray and riot gear and gave them these get ups they have in India though:
+ Show Spoiler +
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There is a difference between believing people are dimwitted and believing that people are imperfect. I could equally argue that those in favor of global masking believe people are too stupid to cough into their armpits and wash down with hand sanitizer-that's ~90% of the way to masking with no consequences to the uninfected. Everything we know about the biological nature of COVID-19 points to standard or ad hoc masks increasing one's chances of contracting COVID-19-it does not help you at all, as you admit, and can hurt you-but preventing one vector of transmission for the infected.
That's a textbook public health tradeoff, and at some point case load will be so high it makes sense to make it, but pretending it's the best policy everywhere is overly simplistic nonsense.
Attributing the success of Asian countries to masking instead of their much faster and more universal acceptance of social distancing is...interesting, to say the least.
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On April 03 2020 03:27 TheTenthDoc wrote:
There is a difference between believing people are dimwitted and believing that people are imperfect. I could equally argue that those in favor of global masking believe people are too stupid to cough into their armpits and wash down with hand sanitizer-that's ~90% of the way to masking with no consequences to the uninfected. Everything we know about the biological nature of COVID-19 points to standard or ad hoc masks increasing one's chances of contracting COVID-19-it does not help you at all, as you admit, and can hurt you-but preventing one vector of transmission for the infected.
That's a textbook public health tradeoff, and at some point case load will be so high it makes sense to make it, but pretending it's the best policy everywhere is overly simplistic nonsense.
Attributing the success of Asian countries to masking instead of their much faster and more universal acceptance of social distancing is...interesting, to say the least.
The acceptance of social distancing is certainly helpful, as is collective social perspectives, and reverence for elders. Masks aren't a silver bullet, just a common sense measure the west will increasingly adapt as it realizes it should have a long time ago (and had stockpiles ready for both medical professionals and the gen pop, but was too busy at every level and in media talking trash about how other countries were handling it to realize how far behind they were by no one's fault but our own).
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EPT![[image loading]](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/200402111910-01-coronavirus-outbreak-0402-exlarge-169.jpg)
