No, my opinion only, but it hasn't flattened. I suspect transmission has accelerated. Watch what they do, not what they say.

Another 40 million are under draconian lockdown since Friday, they're welding doors shut on apartment tower blocks SE of Beijing, the "stay home from work" order has been extended from feb 10 to feb 20, two new social order laws with the death penalty are on the books (evading quarantine, telling the truth on social media i.e. "fear mongering"), and all ships at sea holding hospital supplies are ordered to return to port.

They are crashing their economy and risking every strategic initiative of the last 10 years: Belt and Road, Loan/Build/Foreclose on strategic African assets, the South China Seas Rodeo Roundup, 2025 tech dominance initiatives, etc. They all require China humming on all cylinders, and they're risking it all.

Add in the fact that the economy is drowning in provincial and corporate debt--denominated in $USD BTW--that most thought required inspired finesse and good luck to get past, they are risking a huge problem by effectively shutting 7 of the worlds 10 largest ports.

Something scares them more.

No other country in the world has the totalitarian will and sheer ruthlessness to effect the measures the Chinese are implementing. They are excising great swaths of their people and economy in an attempt to save whats left. I don't think it's going to work but I sure hope it does. Then again, I also don't think it matters: imagine this virus in India, Nigeria, Mexico.

If you want another line in the sand, the Celestials have granted two highly visible exceptions to the "stay home" order: Foxconn and Tesla. They will be flogging and threatening and cajoling those companies to stay open. If Foxconn resumes iphone production and maintains it for a week, cool--I'm full of shit. Again. :) If it can't stay open then you have your answer. Canary. Coal mine.

Personally, Twitter is certainly more dangerous to my health than this virus currently is--what a herd of eff-tards, I'm like to stroke out--but if you're selective and follow the right people you can get the real story from primary sources...assuming you can believe the translations that are being rendered. (But there are enough western SJW Chinese apologists to keep the "Taiwanese agitators", the current Commie trope, honest.) These guys are risking their lives.

The most disconcerting recent trend is the circulation of "this is a Satan USA bioweapon" from what I assume is the Chinese troll farm. It ties into another trope--"WHO and the USA refuse to help"--which is exactly counter to the facts.

I think they know the scientific community will reach a consensus that this was a genetically engineered virus and they are positioning themselves for that day. I also thing that's why Trump called for a crash assessment of the virus's provenance last week. Boy, did THAT trigger the twitter lefties.

Add in the fact that H5N1 bird flu has started raging through the poultry flocks and 2/3 of all Chinese pigs have died due to an uncontrolled hemorrhagic fever epidemic and you have a populous primed to believe they're the victim of a series of biowarfare attacks.

Interesting times.

Just don't voice an opinion on twitter. Read, and STFU.

I said that I've worked with Chinese researchers and IT guys for 20 years and found them great fun over a beer and totally unscrupulous in their zeal to scoop up every bit of data they could.

Banned, lol.

Say Trump is sodomizing Baron and live streaming it to Putin: local hero. State an opinion counter to the SJW mantra: banned.

Indeed. Was perusing a blogger today (ER Nurse x many decades in major metro area). He reported just for shits & grins he tallied up some major items he uses in the ER (you know, stuff in the drawers, on the shelves, but stuff you gotta have on hand, most rikki-tik). 43% produced/sourced in China.

Ponderable: What might be eventually falliing into the "Unobtainium" category if they suddenly decide they need it worse than we do?

What a time to be alive. :cool:

WWII biowarfare
 

I recall that in WWII, there was some biowarfare in Asia - Japan to China I think. Involved bats or birds or fleas incoculated with bubonic plague, put in little cages with little balloons and a release timer.

There is also an island used for testing... something... still quarantined 40 or 50 years later.

EDIT - well, Japan came cleaner on their CBW in 2018:
Unit 731: Japan discloses details of notorious chemical warfare division

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...cond-world-war

Didn't know about this webpage on Unit 731:
http://www.ww2pacific.com/unit731.html

Book:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/91409.htm

Daniel Barenblatt, author of, A Plague Upon Humanity
>
The biowarfare weapons were sprayed by aircraft on villages, or distributed in food, or passed on through bacteria put in wells. Some early weaponry involved dropping ceramic-shelled bombs filled with live disease-carrying flies and jellied cholera emulsion.
...
The biowar effort -- founded with explicit approval by Japan's Emperor Hirohito, himself a trained biologist
>

Published research:
Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2004 Oct; 17(4): 400–406.
doi: 10.1080/08998280.2004.11928002
PMCID: PMC1200679
PMID: 16200127
Biological warfare and bioterrorism: a historical review
Stefan Riedel, MD, PhDcorresponding author1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200679/

An autoclave might be really useful. Knives, bandages, sterilize any object...

There are quaternary ammonium powders etc that are used as well for sterilization by soaking, probably cheaper to buy a supply. But not really good for sterilizing bandages.

Agree, have had zofran while in the hospital, and it did work very well.

Have had OTC Emetrol here at home for nausea, and it works adequately. Can be found at walmart, cvs, etc... 4oz cherry liquid around 6$.

FWIW, we are always adding to our "be prepared" kit.


Holly

Pressure cooker or insta-pot works just fine.

Got instructions - time & temp & pressure for various materials? Otherwise your results can't be presumed to be any better than just boiling in an open pot. I don't even know how long for that...

I'm having trouble finding details on killing various organisms; its become a black-box process with commercial autoclaves.

https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol...ion/steam.html


https://ehs.research.uiowa.edu/biolo...d-content-id-6

Standard Autoclave Cycles for Commonly Used Material

Laundry: 121°C for 30 minutes with 15 minutes pre-vacuum of 27 inches of mercury (in. Hg).
Glassware and trash: 121°C for 1 hour with 15 minutes pre-vacuum of 27 in. Hg.
Liquids: 121°C for 1 hour for each gallon.

I agree they would work just fine as an autoclave

Latest analysis from Neil Ferguson at Imperial College: case fatality ratio estimated at 18% in #Wuhan, 1.2-5.6% outside China, 1% if you include all infections (i.e. asymptomatic). Singapore is estimating 0.2%. Flu is 0.1%.

How’s that for a range? From a bad case of the flu to Raccoon City. Statistical confidence limits in the analysis are comparable to wild-ass guess. We still don’t know what’s going on, or why things are so much worse in China.

Singapore is the current global gold standard in pandemic response. As with most things they have it all in one sock. It’s a hopeful sign that if we emulate their response we too can keep this thing manageable. On the other hand, they were hammered by SARS and have relatively huge stockpiles of PPE and medical supplies.

And that drop in “confirmed” cases being reported by China. They changed the definition from positive test=confirmed case, to positive test+symptoms=confirmed case. So if you get tested positive prior to symptoms, then go home and croak you weren’t a confirmed case. Congratulations.

If you can’t show progress, move the goalposts.

I don't understand why they would administer a test to anyone who is not showing symptoms. Is "test" defined as checking the DNA/RNA or something less? They can't have been going door to door taking sputum samples.

EDIT: a bit more detail on the changed definition, but Zero Hedge needs some salt with it...

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/how...rus-infections

IMO the problem is that China is not making any raw data available. Not possible to back-calculate previous data, or to continue the "old" methodology going forward.

I don't understand how their government can be so stupid as to not realize that the free world won't be fooled for long.

Does "asymptomatic" mean "not bad enough to a) goto the doctor or b) get hospitalized or c) something else ? There must be some epidemiologic math guesstimation to come up with an "asymptomatic" number.

How do these fatalities compare with various years of seasonal flu?
1) Chance of death if you are bad enough to go to the hospital.
2) Chance of being infected by the flu.
3) Chance of death for all cases of the flu (mild + hospitalized).

4) Any breakdown yet on severity vs age and underlying bad health?

Doesn't the autoclave & pressure cookers break/disturb most bonding agents? Fine for metal medical tools, but not so good for things that are made using epoxy glues, wood, plastics? :confused: