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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better.
On the federal level, the Department of Homeland Security recently added gun dealers, manufacturers and rangers to its list of "essential workers" during the coronavirus outbreak. The list includes first responders, utility staff, grocery store employees, and more.
The agency said the list is an "advisory in nature," not an order, adding that "individual jurisdictions should add or subtract essential workforce categories based on their own requirements and discretion." Here's the full list.
Im not sure theres a rationale beyond the typical "don't fuck with our guns" mentality we have in the US. I suppose the places where gun stores are being left open are the ones that heavily prioritize less gun regulation in general.
Maybe theres something to be said for people who need guns for their property? Deal with coyotes or something?
On April 16 2020 15:15 Firebolt145 wrote: What is the rationale behind keeping gun stores open?
I recognise this question could lead to politics discussions so I'm just interested in official published rationale rather than anything else.
I haven't bothered to dig too deeply myself but it varies, what I read in the article matches my experience though. Which is basically variations on "self defense is essential" and "can't legally shut them down because of the 2a"
The state AG's statement from the Texas article was:
Paxton said in his nonbinding opinion that state law prevents cities and counties from "adopting regulations related to the transfer, possession, or ownership of firearms, or commerce in firearms."
Several news sources are now saying the virus may have originated in the Wuhan virology lab. A reporter asked Trump if this is what he had heard from officials. Here's the clip, via CBS, on streamable. https://streamable.com/msb7ej
On April 16 2020 17:24 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Several news sources are now saying the virus may have originated in the Wuhan virology lab. A reporter asked Trump if this is what he had heard from officials. Here's the clip, via CBS, on streamable. https://streamable.com/msb7ej
Its nice to hear how small the world is. For sure this post is not political and fits "coronavirus and you".
In other news finnish fashion firms start to product facemasks so we don't have to rely buying from outside Europe with steep prices. We bought some defunct masks from China and there is quite a bit of scandal in making
Our numbers recarding infections are still looking pretty good, and testing capacity is rapidly increasing. Hopefully some restrictions can be loosened up towards autumn.
On April 16 2020 17:24 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Several news sources are now saying the virus may have originated in the Wuhan virology lab. A reporter asked Trump if this is what he had heard from officials. Here's the clip, via CBS, on streamable. https://streamable.com/msb7ej
Could you please link a trustworthy source for this before discussing it further.
On April 16 2020 17:24 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Several news sources are now saying the virus may have originated in the Wuhan virology lab. A reporter asked Trump if this is what he had heard from officials. Here's the clip, via CBS, on streamable. https://streamable.com/msb7ej
Could you please link a trustworthy source for this before discussing it further.
Note: This isn't PROOF that it did come from a Wuhan lab. It's proof that the US is INVESTIGATING that claim. (So I'm not sure how well it really fits the thread)
I'm still very skeptical. The articles I've read about WHY scientists are convinced it wasn't manufactured were pretty convincing. I can't find it at the moment, but the key one I read essentially explained that the bonding mechanism used is one that would never have been developed artificially, because it's TOO good, and too different from any known effective ones (it's found in a pangolin virus only), with a very counterintuitive shape.
Some of the US explanations are also... odd. I think it's more about saving face in light of how awful the US response was.
The Yahoo News reporter Jenna McLaughlin spoke with nine current and former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the investigations for her report.
She wrote that one of the things that raised suspicions in the US intelligence community was the fact that China was so quick to peg the virus' source as the wet market. "I find it very funny that China very quickly blamed the market," a retired intelligence official told Yahoo News.
I mean, it's not weird. Several came from one before.
So the important distinction is that US intelligence is exploring the possibility of it being released from a lab by accident, and not that they are accusing China of this at present.
That's fine, and all we can do is wait and see without jumping to conclusions.
For the future please try to find sources such as these rather than clips of a press conference on its own. Cheers.
On April 16 2020 23:42 Firebolt145 wrote: So the important distinction is that US intelligence is exploring the possibility of it being released from a lab by accident, and not that they are accusing China of this at present.
That's fine, and all we can do is wait and see without jumping to conclusions.
For the future please try to find sources such as these rather than clips of a press conference on its own. Cheers.
It's possible, but for a bioweapon it would be close to harmless in comparison to other things if it doesn't have yet unknown long-term effects. If it's a leak, it was most likely something natural held there for research.
There's plenty of nasty bugs much worse than this one could release if done intentionally, drug-resistant TBC, anthrax etc.
I'm more worried about how successful governments were at disguising a baked-in economic crisis as being the result of this virus, and how little attention all these bailouts are getting. Thanks to that and everyone more worried about being locked in, there won't be an outcry like after 2k8. Skyrocketing unemployment will be blamed on the Chinese virus, to quote Trump's playbook.
On April 17 2020 00:22 Vivax wrote: I'm more worried about how successful governments were at disguising a baked-in economic crisis as being the result of this virus, and how little attention all these bailouts are getting. Thanks to that and everyone more worried about being locked in, there won't be an outcry like after 2k8. Skyrocketing unemployment will be blamed on the Chinese virus, to quote Trump's playbook.
The economic aspect of the coronavirus is only going to really show itself once the active phase of the virus is over. Though the data looks bad, the fact that everything is locked down means we aren't going to see the system break quite yet. The aftermath of the lockdown in many countries will likely be a large-scale financial crisis.
On another note: my work has told me that if I come into the office, I have to wear a mask. Having doen it a few times I have to admit, I'm very skeptical of its effectiveness. Wearing a face covering is irritating enough that I think it does more harm than good. I can't work that way for more than 20 minutes at a time, and touching my face to put on / take off the mask gets really germy, really fast.
Fyi, worldometers is overcounting France's numbers. It's not that bad. The real data is available here : https://dashboard.covid19.data.gouv.fr/ They are counting double on nursing homes confirmed cases (as they are already included in the total), and they are also adding suspected cases (symptoms but no test).
The difference between confirmed cases in nursing homes (17k) and suspected ones (32k) that haven't been tested is kinda crazy and a huge fail in my opinion. You should absolutely test these people due to the risk of complications (age) or because they are carers....
Well. The real number of cases is either 108 847 for confirmed cases 140 722 for confirmed + suspected cases
But definitely not 165k as reported.
In good news, hospital numbers are finally dropping a lot, we are down to 6.2k in ICU compared to more than 7k a week ago, and regular beds are lowering as well.
On April 17 2020 05:50 Aveng3r wrote: For those who were discussing the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan virology lab, please skip to the 18:00 mark of this video and watch:
It did not come from a lab. It jumped from an animal.
Well, to be fair, their P4 lab studies natural Coronaviruses in animals. It could have escaped from there without it being a bioweapon, so it makes sense to investigate the possibility. It is not fair to draw conclusions though.
I believe there is a consensus that it is not manmade nor tinkered with. But these lab study live viruses.
On April 10 2020 18:36 TT1 wrote: This is Canada's projection for the virus, pretty startling to see how much of an impact epidemic control has on infection/death rates. We'll have a better picture of how we're doing on April 16th (for Quebec where i live, on April 30th), we're aiming for strong epidemic control:
We have to isolate for a few more months and ramp up testing, it's the only way. Too many lives will be lost without strict measures. Re-open the economy in waves and have proper testing done for the next year. Take the economic hit to save lives, not doing so is irresponsible. Dunno what game Sweden is trying to play, even if they're right it's not worth the gamble. There's no data on herd immunity. Also, there's no concrete info on full immunity (or length) either..
Any similar gov. projections available for the US? Interested in comparing the numbers.
So i wrote the above post about a week ago, Canada missed on their projected deaths but the amount of cases is within range.
Deaths were projected to be around 500-700, it's over 1200. The increase in deaths are being attributed to the high infection rate in long term care homes.
On April 17 2020 06:11 Nouar wrote: Fyi, worldometers is overcounting France's numbers. It's not that bad. The real data is available here : https://dashboard.covid19.data.gouv.fr/ They are counting double on nursing homes confirmed cases (as they are already included in the total), and they are also adding suspected cases (symptoms but no test).
The difference between confirmed cases in nursing homes (17k) and suspected ones (32k) that haven't been tested is kinda crazy and a huge fail in my opinion. You should absolutely test these people due to the risk of complications (age) or because they are carers....
Well. The real number of cases is either 108 847 for confirmed cases 140 722 for confirmed + suspected cases
But definitely not 165k as reported.
In good news, hospital numbers are finally dropping a lot, we are down to 6.2k in ICU compared to more than 7k a week ago, and regular beds are lowering as well.
On April 17 2020 05:50 Aveng3r wrote: For those who were discussing the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan virology lab, please skip to the 18:00 mark of this video and watch:
It did not come from a lab. It jumped from an animal.
Well, to be fair, their P4 lab studies natural Coronaviruses in animals. It could have escaped from there without it being a bioweapon, so it makes sense to investigate the possibility. It is not fair to draw conclusions though.
I believe there is a consensus that it is not manmade nor tinkered with. But these lab study live viruses.
Its perfectly fair to draw conclusions. In your post you conclude that Worldometers is overreporting French casualties, in my post I conclude that Covid-19 did not come from a weapons lab because I've listened to an expert.
On April 17 2020 05:50 Aveng3r wrote: For those who were discussing the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan virology lab, please skip to the 18:00 mark of this video and watch:
(video)
It did not come from a lab. It jumped from an animal.
He said there was no evidence whatsoever that it was a bioweapon or accidentally released from a lab. I know people here are familiar with the saying, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." So you are wrong in saying it did not come from a lab. To be perfectly clear, I'm referring the possibility that it was accidentally released from a lab where it was being studied, not the highly conspiratorial view that it was created in a lab. This was recently addressed in several news articles:
Washington Post State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses - Warning from two years ago from US officials that actually visited the lab Washington Post How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. - scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan might have spread a deadly bat virus that had been collected for scientific study. Sources include Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert "But Ebright cautioned that it "also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4."
Let me give the standard disclaimers: it's far more likely to have come from the animal transmission than accidental lab release, the bioweapon argument and intentional release is conspiratorial nonsense, it's perfectly fair to say scientific experts disagree on how strongly to state relative likelihoods, and all that.
A sampling of some of the portions of the storeis:
As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.
There’s a competing theory — of an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus — that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?
Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,” with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4.
Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures” so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.”
On April 17 2020 05:50 Aveng3r wrote: For those who were discussing the possibility that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan virology lab, please skip to the 18:00 mark of this video and watch:
(video)
It did not come from a lab. It jumped from an animal.
He said there was no evidence whatsoever that it was a bioweapon or accidentally released from a lab. I know people here are familiar with the saying, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." So you are wrong in saying it did not come from a lab. To be perfectly clear, I'm referring the possibility that it was accidentally released from a lab where it was being studied, not the highly conspiratorial view that it was created in a lab. This was recently addressed in several news articles:
Washington Post State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses - Warning from two years ago from US officials that actually visited the lab Washington Post How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. - scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan might have spread a deadly bat virus that had been collected for scientific study. Sources include Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert "But Ebright cautioned that it "also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4."
Let me give the standard disclaimers: it's far more likely to have come from the animal transmission than accidental lab release, the bioweapon argument and intentional release is conspiratorial nonsense, it's perfectly fair to say scientific experts disagree on how strongly to state relative likelihoods, and all that.
A sampling of some of the portions of the storeis:
As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.
There’s a competing theory — of an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus — that scientists have been puzzling about for weeks. Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?
Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,” with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied in Wuhan at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared with the top BSL-4.
Ebright described a December video from the Wuhan CDC that shows staffers “collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices.” Separately, I reviewed two Chinese articles, from 2017 and 2019, describing the heroics of Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, who while capturing bats in a cave “forgot to take protective measures” so that “bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops.”
Okay, thats fine. My response was to a post that seemed to be suggesting that this was an accidental release of a known, home-grown pathogen which does not appear to be the case here.
I'm sure that Covid-19 has been, in a literal sense, "in a lab" before, as with all virus's that have been studied.
EPT
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