2019.

So why the unpreparedness? Why the lack of strategic reserves for these events? Why the disregard? You do take terrorism seriously, so why not these kind of possibilities?

The unpreparedness is a world-wide phenomenon. According to the Global Health Security index, "no country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address". The US, however, was ranked first in preparedness out of 195 countries. So they do take it seriously.

What I just cannot understand why US President's have not prepared for these emergencies: hurricanes, earthquakes and pandemics with a OPPLAN as the military does for war. These events do come, the administration is judged by it's performance and even in the libertarian US there is a consensus that it's the government's role to react to natural disasters, pandemics and war. Having a gameplan before would make any government be far more responsive and smart.

The response to disasters in the US is premised on the federalist system. The State and local governments own the assets to deal with disasters, each with their own laws, emergency services, hospitals and Emergency Operations Plans. Local and state governments are responsible for the response and preparedness in their jurisdictions. The federal government only offers support if/when they need it. They do this through FEMA.

The Italians have had more deaths so let's call it the Italian Virus. When us Americans have more dead, we can call it the American Virus.

Traditionally viruses have been named after where they come from—west Nile virus, MERS, Zika virus, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, Asian flu, Russian flu, Ebola virus. But I won’t be using that nomenclature to describe this virus because it appears some people have difficulty differentiating between the origin of the virus and the people living there.

You’ve said that before, abruptly left debates, then kept coming back for more. Hilarious.

Uh oh, Benkei has run out of arguments again. Surprise surprise.

No, using the adjective “Chinese” is not racist by any stretch of the imagination, save for perhaps in the pliable brains of the politically correct. Your European (oops, racist) double-speak doesn’t translate well over here.

So, your theory is there is a conspiracy to insist China is a race not a country in order that people don't believe the CCP is guilty of... something. Please explain how that works and what evidence you have to support the assertion.

I said the charge of racism for criticizing the Chinese response to the pandemic is used to suppress criticism of the Chinese. I say this because Chinese propaganda makes the same claim, and this from a country that puts ethnic minorities into concentration camps.

OK then. You can stop the "Chinese aren't a race" complaint forever.

If the Chinese are not a race, how can it be racist to criticize the Chinese response to this pandemic?

No shit.

Racism? China is a country, not a race. In fact it’s racist to imply otherwise, and such a charge is an underhanded political ploy to absolve a totalitarian regime of guilt.

Of course. You can be like the Philippine dictator who orders to shoot people.

Yes, very effective. Perhaps effectiveness isn’t the best principle to be utilizing here.

That didn't happen.

From your link: “ Police have welded doors shut in order to monitor who enters and leaves buildings.”

I’m not doubting the effectiveness—Chinese authorities welding the doors of apartment buildings so residents couldn’t leave was effective; shipping the ill to a coronavirus colony would be effective—what I’m doubting are the ethics and proportionality of such measures.

And the response is these kind of things that you feel are authoritarian. Society simply doesn't work the way that somehow without any coordination each individual just comes to the conclusion that voluntarily social distancing is necessary.

They are authoritarian, and no amount of euphemism can disguise that. Ordering people under de facto house arrest, checkpoints, curfews, fining people if they get too close to one another, locking down the people and the economy, is not “coordination”.

Let me ask. Would you physically distance yourself from others if there was no authority to force you to do so?

Do you honestly think that the economy won’t tank regardless of what we do? Or that people would adequately social distance themselves without coercion?

Corona has shown what a house of cards the entirety man made economy is.

Do you need to be coerced to practice physical distancing?

The virus has exposed how inadequate most governments are: their preparedness, their healthcare systems, the ease with which they turn to tyranny.

The Great Recession a decade ago was entirely man made. You lived through that. If this downturn is similar in severity, would you prefer the death of 1.25 - 2 million Americans in order to avoid it? White House estimates show 100 - 240k deaths with social distancing and 1.5 - 2.2 million without.

This of course assumes that the economy would somehow not be effected by the pandemic if it were somehow ignored, and also that no one would adopt social distancing without direction.

It’s a stupid and bad faith argument because it is not about preferring death to recession. That’s a false dilemma. The argument is that we do not need to tank the economy and suppress basic liberties to teach people wash their hands, to sneeze into their sleeves, to self-quarantine, or to physically distance themselves from others.

Well, people are willing to make sacrifices if that keeps a million or more from not dying. Without anything done that would be the case.

I've said it from the start of this pandemic: in this Century (or Millennium) people aren't willing to have epidemic diseases ravage through our population as in the old times. They aren't taken as a given.

I think it’s simply untrue that people would have done nothing, as if there was no virus ripping through the population. Only a population that has been trained to await the orders of its masters would do nothing in the absence of their guidance.

This is not a war. It is a pandemic, more analogous to a natural disaster, a plague. The coming economic collapse, and the reason many of us will be without work and homeless within a year, is entirely man made.

Perhaps NOS4A2 hope is now that Sweden is successful in it's permissive stance in order to get herd immunity. But then again, this policy has authorities and their schemes behind it too. Above all, it has NOTHING to do with political ideology:

On this matter I think according to principle rather than political ideology. The authoritarian measures have been taken by governments spanning the entire political spectrum. So perhaps you’re projecting a little bit.

Is it possible that women may think fundamentally different from men, unless they are pressured to think like men, and that that difference is important to humanity? What if it is our potential to be more like bonobo (female domination) and less like chimpanzees (male domination)?

Male and female brains are “wired” differently, to use that old cliche.

“Male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes”.

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/823

Given that it makes sense that both genders should cooperate with one another rather than dominate. It’s why the emancipation of women is so important to the development of a society.

That would work. I just don’t think we need fines to wear masks. I would prefer a solution that is both effective and that doesn’t result in the suspension of rights and movement.

Now that he has turned authoritarian, you support him?

I make my predictions distinct from my comments on what measures should be taken. Trump has eventually fallen into line behind the likes of me and Street. Time for you to follow suit. There is no-one out there now arguing that measures aimed at enforcing social distancing are a bad idea.

No, sorry, I will not fall in line behind these authoritarian schemes. Street likes being told what to do; I don’t.

It’s a nice little racket. If your predictions are right you can say I told you so but if they’re wrong you can say your measures worked.

Don’t bother. They believe China is a race and the Politburo is a knight in shining armor. Then they’ll spin around and shit on Americans and call for the executions of their leaders.

We tried without fines and people wouldn't keep their distance (we had gridlock to the beach). After that weekend they instituted fines. So you get a warning first and then a fine if you persist. Usually the 1.5 m rule. And they broke up a student party once.

To answer your question, it sounds like the Dutch lockdown is far more strict than the Swedish one.

So, what's your estimate then? 3-month timeline. Shoot.

I try to refrain from fortune-telling. I simply don’t know enough. Even Fauci doesn’t want to be held to his predictions.

I’m not sure I believe that speculation, no.

One has to assume that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases to get anywhere near an influenza pandemic. So it’s a big assumption, but I think a warranted one.

I did think I read what I posted but if I'm wrong so be it. I don't dive too deeply into all the claims and counterclaims. So much conflicting information and politicized spin out there.

It’s an important point. To be explicit, Fauci and his co-authors wrote this in a recent paper.

On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387

1) Is it right to ask another culture to change its practices, when those practices affect the health of the whole world, or would this be just cultural insensitivity played out as public health missionizing?

It’s an age old problem. It’s difficult to say that the British Empire was wrong in banning Sati, for instance, the practice of widows sacrificing themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. I think that a cultural practice can be right or wrong, better or worse, and people would be right to criticize them.

But that is a question of Justice. I don’t think such a question could extend to matters of health, for instance cultural eating practices, because it is not an unjust practice, and is often a matter of basic survival.

I’m not aware of the extent of the measures in place in either country. Can you get fined in the Netherlands for disobeying any public health order?

I hope you’re wrong for the obvious reasons.

The “lockdown” metaphor is used to describe the strict nation-wide measures to implement social distancing, like locking up prisoners in their cell.

Sweden is an interesting case as they have avoided going full authoritarian and is instead banking on the personal responsibility idea. In due time we’ll see how this approach has fared in comparison to the lockdowns and police-states of their neighbors.

Sweden Defies Lockdown Trend

We know the CCP suppressed and coerced its own doctors in the typical bureaucratic form of Communist parties throughout history, but now US intelligence is saying they are faking their numbers, which could prove disastrous.

China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.

The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.

China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

I don’t think these people should be fired over these social media posts, but their rhetoric gives a clear window into the soul of anti-trumpism.

NY health care executive fired over posts on coronavirus and Trump supporters

In a conversation with Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute Director of Development Lisa LaTrovato, Krolczyk wrote, "Trump supporters need to pledge to give up their ventilators for someone else ... and not go to the hospital."

In response, LaTrovato wrote, "I think they should be the only ones in packed churches on Sunday," to which Krolczyk replied, "They should barricade themselves in there and ride this out."

New York has also done more testing than the UK, France, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing

You guys are really going to let the CCP and WHO slide on this, aren’t you? On January 15th the WHO said there was no evidence of human-to-human infection. Months later you’re huddled in your house avoiding your community. The pangs of dissonance must be extraordinary.

You were almost right. Our resident shit-for-brains has been sicced onto the WHO instead. We should take bets next time.

You guys have lost it. While you stretch your imagination to blame “capitalism”, there are verifiable links between the spread of this virus and the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup. Fucking hilarious.

Wow, Nos is really totally insane. Conspiracy theory nonsense, none of those links suggest anything like he thinks they do.

Anyone can read them and see otherwise. What is weird is why anyone would refrain criticizing the WHO, and worse, obfuscating any criticism of them. That’s strange.