outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Be well and maintain your crank, Morbsy.

good wishes morbs :)

Virtual hugs until I can give you a real one, Dr. Morbius!

Hope you feel better soon, Morbz

sending you good wishes Morbs

Good luck Dr. M

best wishes dr m

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/07/peru-jungle-iquitos-coronavirus-covid-19

A hospital in Alsace reports that they had a case of the virus already on 16 November.

I saw Goody Sibber with the virus in November

I saw Goody Proctor with the virus in August

Not sure how credible miscellaneous French doctors are, as a class or individually.

t'inquiètes, j'ai un ordonnance pour ça

I can't imagine a chest CT scan that reveals bilateral interstitial pneumonia would have much specificity - there are other diseases that have similar presentations. If there was a preserved blood sample from that 16 November patient for a rtPCR test, which has pretty much perfect specificity, though lackluster sensitivity, I'd give the report more credence.

i liked my joke better

lol

this is depressing as hell, passing along in case DJP or the late Fred B may find interesting
https://www.middleclassartist.com/post/nats-panel-of-experts-lays-out-sobering-future-for-singers-no-vaccine-no-safe-public-singing

I've been mostly avoiding CNN lately--Doomsday Central, which I hate; do not in any way take that as cutting slack for Trump--but I just watched the whole of this segment from last night's weekly town hall, Laurie Garrett, and she's really good.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/08/entire-may-7-coronavirus-town-hall-part-4-sot-vpx.cnn

Ya, I recently started following Laurie Garrett on Twitter. Once your emotions adjust to her "36 month best-case scenario" position, she's a welcome resource.

Another sobering read.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/finally-virus-got-me-scientist-who-fought-ebola-and-hiv-reflects-facing-death-covid-19#

The kind of piece that defines that self-censorship poll last week. I hesitate to link, but I will.

http://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/

I realize it's written from the right and has a definite agenda. I'm aware of that, so I roll my eyes at things like "Was there a political element here in that the media blew this wildly out of proportion as revenge against Trump and his deplorables?"

I think the basic question, though--what changed between then and now?--is interesting. It goes along with something I said about CNN the other day, that they've become Doomsday Central. Trump and CNN right now are two sides of the same coin. Trump tries to sell you the Yellow Brick Road; with CNN, they're selling the end of the world. They do it because 1) they hate Trump and don't want him reelected--that's a good reason; 2) because something more nuanced than those two extremes is hard work and requires thought (the in-between is how I've experienced this: one bit of news looks promising, the next looks dire); 3) something more nuanced doesn't make for good TV (very influenced by Audience of One here.)

Something's obviously changed even between SARS and now.

Cable news and Donald Trump are two sides of the same heap of fecal matter is basically how I'd sum it up.

xpost talked a little bit about that here: Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020. several factual mistakes in the article, but he refuses to acknowledge them or amend his article (he wrote back to me defensively and ignored 85% of my points and just attached an academic article that didn't even bolster his point.

the basic difference is that 100,000 people died over 4 years whereas he tried to present it like they died in a similar timeframe to COVID, and lots of people likely had antibodies to this flu because it was similar to the 1957 flu.

my mother didn't even remember the Hong Kong flu when I talked to her this morning, and Woodstock occurred during a period of time when deaths were down (the second wave killed maybe 10-15k people). it never would have taken place during the first wave.

Good points. I figured his science was highly selective.

But I think the broader point about media response is still interesting.

we also have a 24/7 media cycle, with pressure to keep 'updates' coming to keep up with other networks. which leads some networks to 'finesse' existing information into a new development.

Here's the kind of thing that drives me up the wall. CNN is all over Trump, non-stop, for rushing into a reopening--good, no problem with that, that's necessary. But they're also all over him, non-stop, for the unemployment numbers; you can't really have it both ways. More realistic would be to keep up with the former, and instead harp on providing relief so people can stay at home--that would at least be consistent.

One Thing All Cable News Channels have in Common. It Will Shock You.

The lack of preparation and response by the Trump administration made the job losses far worse than they could have been. I don't think it's inconsistent to criticize him on both counts.

Even if you think the US should take more stringent shut down measures, the unemployment numbers are indeed a problem because the federal government has only done the barest minimum to support people through a massive yet predictable loss of jobs.

Agree on both counts, and if CNN took the time to frame everything that way, that'd be fine. But they really don't--it's more like a barrage of screaming "Worst economy since the depression" headlines, and, when yesterday's jobs report came out, there was an undercurrent of shock at how bad it was. Really? Shocked?

Well yeah CNN is garbage. Avoid cable news like the uh plague

clemenza i find bob somerby's "daily howler" to be powerfully trenchant on the question of "what changed between then and now?" be advised though that i've never found anyone else who shares my opinion, he's been at it for about two decades so there's an almost overwhelming amount to read, and there's very little sunshine in his world view. he was a philosophy major at harvard and college buddy of al gore, 5th grade teacher in baltimore, political stand-up comic, and one of the first political bloggers.

Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

By the way, I realize I'm going on about something--the 24/7 panic mode in the media--that is hardly new. I'm just feeling it more acutely during this than ever before. Felt it a little during 9/11, but I had the cushion of being in Canada.

Cable news is not a good source of information probably.

sigh.

Dr. Anthony Fauci now going into “modified quarantine” after being in close proximity with the White House staffer who was positive, @jaketapper reports. Fauci joins CDC’s Dr. Robert Redfield and FDA’s Dr. Stephen Hahn who are also in quarantine as a result.

— Alexander Marquardt (@MarquardtA) May 10, 2020

Kind of a chilling article, I worry about this stuff a lot more than hostile AI taking over the world:

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/1/21243148/why-some-labs-work-on-making-viruses-deadlier-and-why-they-should-stop

clemenza, I have the same feeling you do sometimes about that stuff, the coverage does seem a lot more incendiary and unhelpful than it *should* be, but I think a lot of it comes from growing up with old school cbc news, which truly was what tv news should be. I hate to encourage current crits of them, and yet, it’s not what it was.

I think a lot of it comes from growing up with old school cbc news, which truly was what tv news should be

i would like to see this! the closet thing i knew growing up was the macneil/lehrer newshour, which i found boring as a kid and then missed when both of them were gone.

The one thing I'm mad at myself for not pointing out sooner to that Woodstock douche is by Woodstock, there was already a vaccine. Actually was a vaccine after the first wave

xps: Honestly, I only wish I could pay $0.70/mo in carrier fees to CNN without paying $2/mo in carrier fees to Fox News. I haven't had cable since I left my parent's home, and it's not like there's any lack of news competing for my attention...

the macneil/lehrer newshour

the newshour does a pretty good job, considering its limited budget when compared to cable and broadcast network news, or a newspaper-of-record like NYT or WaPo, but its reliance on filling much of its allotted time by interviewing experts to act as explainers is a weakness as well as a strength. Actual reportage is very rare.

Yeah, I agree. But sadly, that’s the best I can think of for American network/public television. I was trying to think of what we have that can stand up to my idea of whatlevel-headed straightforward CBC news from a few decades ago

damn Sanpaku, i wasn't aware of this. sad

I feel like the American 60 minutes is still good. Idk they’re probably doing something awful I don’t perceive

I didn't watch a lot of CBC news, Kim--for me, it'd probably be memories of staid old Cronkite growing up. Anyway, it's not like I don't get reeled in by the very thing I'm complaining about; I've posted about murder hornets four or five times this week.

won't someone think of the killer bees

I'm rooting for the killer bees to kill the murder hornets, then I want Godzilla to kill them all.

this Plandemic/Mikovits shit is the most successful disinfo/propaganda campaign I've ever seen.

i had to stop watching CNN because it seems to be all Cuomo all the time now