Greg.D.

You’re right, nothing he presented is confirmatory. I take exception to his claim that job announcements for studying bat coronaviruses is somehow suspicious. This is an established field and that virology lab would naturally have an emphasis in an area for which it has a world renown leader on staff. I have felt that lab should not have been so close to the city center, however and I would need to hear first hand accounts about their ability and certification to work with select agents like that. Based on phylogenetic analyses performed on publicly available sequence data, I see at least 5 major trunks of this virus already present in Wuhan on Dec 15 and the last or last two job postings could have been related to that. The missing researcher profile: she could be dead! Or, is being silenced, or, is working somewhere else. All possible. But why not use your fluent Chinese and ask the other lab members what’s going on? He could be right but he wove together a “theory of everything”. That’s not science and it’s not journalism. It’s definitely one of the things that is wrong with the internet. This is why you can’t be your own producer or editor.

Hysterical headline of the day? New estimates show 25% to 50% of coronavirus carriers don't even have symptoms and can infect others blindly So, what makes somebody infectious? You need more than some amount of viral load, you need to be expelling the inoculum in an amount, form and location such that another person can become infected by it. So, we know coronavirus can can be peed and pooped out and, thus, the gold standard fecal-oral transmission route may come into play. We don't know anything about contraction of Covid-19 by this method. We do know from SARS 1 that transmission via the plumbing of apartment buildings in Hong Kong occurred. So, prior to this blockbuster announcement by the head of the CDC (famous for having said something stupid that gave China a weak excuse to say the Wuhan virus is from the US), we have long known that people can be infected but also asymptomatic. This is nothing extraordinary: you can have an infection but not be sick. Happens all the time. But, we have long said that, regarding coronavirus-19, to get sick you probably need somebody to cough or sneeze (or something other violent expulsion of crud) nearby, or previously into their hand, etc. Had to come from the lungs in "droplet" form - which is the virus maybe associated with protective moisture, sputum, from the infected lung. Oh, and we said kids can be infected but almost never symptomatic. But, really, a cough from an adult gasping for air through heavily infected lungs is quantitatively different from normal respiration in your presence by someone with minor proliferation of virus in their airspace. The ability to infect another is correlated with symptoms - esp pulmonary distress - and viral load. Now, there are people like myself who are so used to coughing, blocked sinus, etc that we may not self-report as having signs or symptoms of an infection - sure, they can communicate coronavirus to you and later, in hindsight, realize they were having symptoms at the time. Infecting people blindly? Nice headline. CDC: sadly, as has been the case this year, too little, too late

Well, when 5G comes to your neighborhood, I'm sure she'll let you tether you PC to it!

After looking at a few of those links I realize people have been to Guelo for some time. A good article showing strain mutation of the virus and where it traveled to. Easy to read and follow: https://dna-explained.com/2020/03/12/phylogenetic-tree-of-novel-coronavirus-hcov-19-covid-19/ Has some good pics I can't embed because they are png

They work and (to add to the above post) need a direct line of sight to affect the target microorganism/virus. So, the tubes are about 1 inch in diameter? Don't think it would work there. I would be thinking bleach, not knowing the fine details. Your bulb might be LED? Bert says he is suspicious about some aspect of them. I think you could use your lamp to sterilize your Amazon packages and groceries. Don't look at it.

My wife just checked the Chicago consulate web site and it says they will be here in Denver in April. The exact day to be announced later. Don't know where she finds it but it's April every year. We have to renew the travel card for Junior.

I think the “online” functionality they had in place was never supposed to do more than augment classroom activities. The server power and bandwidth isn’t there so that teachers sit in front of their laptops with an integrated camera and start teaching. Probably would have needed to have invested in and built the platform starting long ago. My sister teaches at a private - think expensive - college and they can’t do more than use the online classroom platform they’ve had all along. Basically asynchronous.

Same deal for me. The Al Bundy in me says roll with it. I am adapting to being with with the three year old 24/7. But, preschool was really good for him so we’re trying hard to keep him evolving as a human.

BUILD THAT WALL! BUILD THAT WALL! BUILD THAT WALL! BUILD THAT WALL! BUILD THAT WALL!

He gets it wrong - perfectly 180 degrees wrong - by saying "all the variations are the trunk of the tree". Indeed, they are the BRANCHES of the tree and I guess we can thank him for providing the evidence that the U. S. is, therefore the least likely place for the origin. The genetic analysis shows, through normal variation, that the UR strain is from China, as all scientists including Chinese ones agree. Now that I'm dotty, stuck in a room with amazingly good bandwidth on my vpn and shameless, I'll start giving equal footing to conspiracy theories that coincidentally support ccp dissembling.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/488645-study-nearly-half-of-covid-19-patients New study finds nearly half of coronavirus patients experience digestive issues Chinese researchers analyzed data from more than 200 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals in the Hubei province and found almost half said their main complaints were digestive symptoms. Story at a glance The study found 48.5 percent of participants experienced symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain.The most common issues associated with novel coronavirus are respiratory symptoms, such as coughing or shortness of breath.Patients without digestive issues were more likely to be cured and discharged from the hospital.

A coworker died yesterday morning from the coronavirus. He was in a conference call with us just the day before (well, I heard him call his name during roll call). I last worked with him on Friday the 13th. I'll have more details this afternoon but I am waiting to hear if we all get tested. This guy had lush health insurance and was going to retire this year. He lived alone but another coworker went to check on him and found him dying. He died in his arms as he tried to get him to breathe. Good thing we were shut down last Monday (the 16th). Could have been worse. Every story is a one off anecdote and we need the state to assemble the bigger epidemiological picture. I am not sure he even saw a doctor for this. He did have a regular appointment last Monday for something else. So, you know, it's real and we are one unwanted phone call away from finding out it is has kicked in our front door and invited itself in.

Yeah, but they did that because China has now been flying into Taiwan airspace at night they say to show off their night time capabilities and generally threaten them with their ability to steal technology from other countries. They do this you map the perimeter and gauge their willingness to respond. They also learned that, for now, the U. S. will respond, too, despite the dear friendship of the two leaders. I have wondered if they were planning to go in to Taiwan after the Olympics and before/during the election.

I think things aren’t so bad here for my wife. As the U. S. takes a more confrontational stance against China people will come to understand that it’s the party, not the people you have to keep an eye on.

I understand. I feel it was a nice order given the high chance that China or any country will have a boomerang return of the viral illness. I would say that the Chinese research articles coming out are decent quality and WRT trust in their numbers they tend to refer to focused defined populations. Generally, I don’t trust Chinese research articles either as I know most of them are incentivized to commit fraud. Note the shadow puppetry: Xi speaks when it’s for glory, Li Keqiang when a head may need to roll at some future time (his). i am optimistic that warmer weather will help keep it a calmer summer.

This follows a paper estimating 60% of Wuhan infections were never tallied. Which helps explain why the Wuhan fatality rate was so high. Anyway, this is just a correction to practices in order to restore credibility to government announcements. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/asia/china-coronavirus-li-keqiang-intl-hnk/index.html China's premier warns local officials not to hide new coronavirus infections Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has warned local officials not to hide new coronavirus cases, after the country reported several days of no locally transmitted infections in a major turnaround in its fight against the deadly pandemic. Li, the country's second-in-command, urged local governments Monday to "seek truth from facts" and be "open and transparent" in releasing information on the epidemic."Being open and transparent means a new case must be reported once it's discovered. It is what it is. There must be no concealing or underreporting," he told senior officials tasked with battling Covid-19 during a meeting he chaired, according to an official government statement posted online Tuesday......Being transparent also means the public is less likely to let down its guard, which can help the implementation of epidemic control measures and prevent a rebound in cases, Li added.On Tuesday, after new cases dropped to zero for five consecutive days, Wuhan reported a new confirmed case -- a doctor working at the Hubei General Hospital. The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said in a statement that the possibility of cross-infection within that hospital could not be ruled out......In China, only patients showing symptoms and positive results in nucleic tests are included in the official tally of confirmed cases. Asymptomatic patients who have tested positive are monitored and placed under quarantine until they develop symptoms or turn negative in later tests.The World Health Organization, however, says in its guideline that "a person with laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection, irrespective of clinical signs and symptoms" should be counted as a confirmed case.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/30/life-on-lockdown-in-china A nice, in English account of an American professor's lockdown in Chengdu. You can feel how insanely efficient the neighborhood committee's are. Property Management: O.K., I will send somebody immediately to check it out. Resident 2: What the fuck? This is not funny! Resident 1: Please have the door guard pay attention . . . Resident 2: I think that now we should show our I.D. card to go in and out!!! Resident 3: Quickly, call 110 [police] or 120 [emergency ambulance]!

Re co-mingling: in short, I don’t think I know one Chinese person who follows all the rules. In short. Regarding getting in a cop’s or official’s face: I have seen that a lot. What would get you tased here often is tolerated and the berater and the berated calmly go their separate ways. The thing most video tour guides to China fail to accomplish is showing life inside the home. That’s what I want to see. Those are the memories I bring back. Or ... getting into the small towns rather than the typical tourist places. Gweilo and others walk around with the selfie stick showing you people on the street; it’s dizzying. Been there done that please please please do something else. Amy Blondie can pull it off and the motorcycle guys did it especially well in their travel documentaries (one has been on amazon, don’t know if it’s still there) Small town life is some of the best in China (of course, I would go crazy without a free internet)

I sent a really nice box of 20 n95 3M foldable health care (not industrial) + 6 of those stiff 3M masks in January. They got them in China 2 weeks later. I noticed the U. S. was very late in increasing domestic supply. I’m sure a lot of individuals sent masks to family and friends. But, the material has to be limiting and the machinery to make the masks would be the bottleneck here, too. I heard that China issued a ban on mask export and then a day or two later the 100% independent citizen/not a tool of the party Jack Ma was sending us a million or so out of his private reserve. If you don’t live in NYC you might only need a mask for going to the store. If you do live there, you should be worried. Mrs Greg went to Walmart this past Sunday to pick up an online order (they moved such pickups to an inside the store location rather than bringing it to you in the parking lot. Thanks, Walmart). She said there were entire multigenerational families shopping together, from infants to grandparents. She was the only one with a mask. The next morning at 7 AM she went to our business Costco and it was a different scene: single shoppers, only a few white people without a mask. Most had gloves. Staff didn’t touch anything of yours. People spaced at 6 feet in the lines. No raw meat on the shelves. Still.

You’re right: peppier and more to the point. Even after major sleep deprivation. But, may have been the subject matter or several months of breathing cleaner air that invigorated him. I assume after they check in they can they can join each other in their rooms.

Your only option is the online service. My governing embassy is the Chicago one and they say you must use an online service, no walk up. Since you are unemployed and will want to be doing some work soon, how long do you really need to stay in China, esp since you want to get the son here? Can't mom go alone? I hear, since there are far fewer flights now, that tickets are very expensive now. But, congratulations! Nice to push back on the growing stack of paperwork for each stage of the immigration process. Hang in there

Delusional

If/when you do your shopping, think way ahead and try not to go out again for a week at least and, pending the rise of cases in your area, maybe even longer. I am in the heart of Denver and in a small but most-infected county. People came directly from Italy (Alps) to Vail and Aspen for skiing and, once in the hospital up in the mountains, are advised to move to a lower elevation and, apparently, the Mile High City is low enough. Most of my neighbors either don't care to or don't understand how to use their recycling bins and I doubt I'll see them give a sheet about their neighbors and the coronavirus. Wish I was hunkered down somewhere out on the fringes rather than in a densely populated part of town.

We're down to 38 rolls of toilet paper.

If they want to become the hermit kingdom again, they can. The people know what they have seen when they travel abroad, especially to Tawain: a democracy full of Chinese people. Probably why Xi hates Tawain so much. The ccp rejects ideological bias from foreigners but insists on it everywhere else - including among overseas Chinese.