[Irinikus]

Watch this to see what the outlook is, if the economy remains shut down:

[Geoman]

I was so occupied with work on "my" ICU and fiddling around with my Tezro-Flame-setup in my now rare freetime, that I missed this interesting discussion, which went on some time! Which, btw, I find very civilized in spite of the very opposing points of view.

I side with hamei on this topic, meaning that I don't think it's a bioengineered entity from a lab, though one can never be sure 100%.

For some opinion and information on this matter I can recommend a YouTube Channel of an UK-colleague: "Medlife Crisis"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgRBRE1...HTH9j_L4OQ

[Raion]

Respectfully, hamei has lived in China for decades. While I don't think he's a Chinese plant, and I enjoyed hanging out with him, I think there's nothing that can be trusted from 維尼熊. I mean, would this face lie to you?

   

Satire aside, there's suspicions I hold on the wet market claim for a few reasons:

1. While I never visited Hubei province, I was in Zhejiang and Anhui, which aren't too terribly far away, and visited wet markets. You don't see pangolins or bats being sold there. I don't buy it being a local tradition.

2. Commonly cited photo of bat soup

Was filmed in Palau's Seafood House years before COVID-19 was a thing. Palau is a micronesian island far away from China.

3. 中国科学院武汉病毒研究所 aka Wuhan Institute of Virology was knowingly studying SARS in 2017. It's one of the ONLY facilities of its kind in the PRC.

No matter how much the MSM wants to blame poor Chinese people in a wet market, I don't believe it. It doesn't add up. I don't care if this is seen as conspiracy because several other communist "conspiracies" turned out true, i.e. Holodomor, mass internment, the 大躍進 mass famines, etc.

[jan-jaap]

There aren't enough people dying to warrant the actions the authorities are taking. Trust me, far more people will die when your economy collapses completely, as you just can't have people not working in a capitalist society!

The predictions are that you could end up with a 30% unemployment rate in the US after this!!! Honestly, do you think that many will die from this virus???

Even if 250000 Americans die from this, that's an incredibly small number if you compare it to the total population size of 330 million!!! (The current population of the United States of America is 330,520,584 as of Wednesday, April 1, 2020, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.) For that matter, even if 20000000 had to die, it would still be a small number!

That's pretty harsh, but you have the right to your opinion I guess. There are a few errors in your math, though:

The number of casualties (250K) is the upper end of the 100-250K range which is the predicted number of casualties if the US imposes social distancing and everybody obeys. If the US does absolutely nothing, the number of casualties is predicted to be 2.2 - 4 million (apparently it's this Imperial College report which made Trump change his mind and cancel his idea to 'open the place up' after Easter). That's 0.7 - 1.2% of the population.

For the record: The US suffered a total of 671,801 casualties during WWII, which adds up to 0.32% of the 1939 population so you might want to reconsider what these numbers mean.

This means that if 30% of your population was unemployed, that would be somewhere in the region of 99000000 people!!!! Think of the civil unrest in that situation!!!

Unemployment figures are usually not the percentage of the entire population, but the percentage of those fit to work, e.g. age 15-65 and not physically or mentally disabled. I think they also don't count the people who are not looking for paid work, e.g. house moms.

Do you really think the economy would simply continue as if nothing was happening while a virus was making the rounds taking out millions of people? That this wouldn't cause social unrest and the collapse of business?

Think about it, even in my country, we're under a 21 day lockdown because of this. The question is: how many infected people do you need for it to start all over again? The answer is 1!!!!

So do you honestly think that there won't be at least 1 active case after the 21 day lockdown, rendering the actions taken by our local authorities useless! Just think of the cost?!!!

Not true, what you need is a virus transmission rate well below 1 for the population as a whole. You will have new, localized outbreaks which need to be dealt with, but won't require the entire country to be shut down. Recommended reading: Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

Zero COVID-19 cases is an illusion. But once there's a vaccine, the weak and the elderly can be protected. Those who get the annual flu shot now.

[Irinikus]

I

That's pretty harsh, but you have the right to your opinion I guess. There are a few errors in your math, though:

The number of casualties (250K) is the upper end of the 100-250K range which is the predicted number of casualties if the US imposes social distancing and everybody obeys. If the US does absolutely nothing, the number of casualties is predicted to be 2.2 - 4 million (apparently it's this Imperial College report which made Trump change his mind and cancel his idea to 'open the place up' after Easter). That's 0.7 - 1.2% of the population.

For the record: The US suffered a total of 671,801 casualties during WWII, which adds up to 0.32% of the 1939 population so you might want to reconsider what these numbers mean.

Unemployment figures are usually not the percentage of the entire population, but the percentage of those fit to work, e.g. age 15-65 and not physically or mentally disabled. I think they also don't count the people who are not looking for paid work, e.g. house moms.

Do you really think the economy would simply continue as if nothing was happening while a virus was making the rounds taking out millions of people? That this wouldn't cause social unrest and the collapse of business?

Not true, what you need is a virus transmission rate well below 1 for the population as a whole. You will have new, localized outbreaks which need to be dealt with, but won't require the entire country to be shut down. Recommended reading: Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

Zero COVID-19 cases is an illusion. But once there's a vaccine, the weak and the elderly can be protected. Those who get the annual flu shot now.

As a worst case scenario, if the US population lost between 2.5 and 4 million people, the total impact on the population will still be less severe than the economic situation that they face, if the economy remains in a state of lockdown. Last week you had about 3 million applying for unemployment alone!

I'm well aware that the US, like most countries downplay their unemployment statistics. (There are actually much more people not working than what the statistics show.)
The question is: What is a man without his work? (There are loads of useless people in this world!)

Rather than shutting down the whole economy, all of the attention should be focused on those who are afflicted with this illness. (Quarantining, hospitalisation and the like.)

This virus is very contagious, so you would only be able to keep its transmission below 1 if you knew where all of the active cases were. This is not the case as all! All you would need to start it all up again would be a few active cases that you're unaware of. By the time you pick them up the virus has begun to spread like wildfire again! (The case of no herd immunity still exists.)

A bit off topic but, I'm not a fan of the current human condition at all!!! (Billions upon billions of Face-bookers!!!) Just look at what we're doing to the planet! How much longer do you think this can be sustained, before a complete systemic (planetary) collapse. This virus is more than likely the Earth giving us the finger (Maybe we should pay attention to this!) If a huge portion of the human population has to die in order to restore balance, then so be it!!! (I'm man enough to say that if it is my time to go then it's my time! I've already experienced a great deal in my life, so if it ends here, it's not the end of the world!)

People view death with a great deal of childlike ignorance (Oh it won't or can't happen to me). We live in a duality (An Action-Reaction based world ) Whenever a sequence it initiated, its end state is realised simultaneously. Therefore the beginning and end of all sequences in this reality coexist. (The Alpha and the Omega are coexistent!) Therefore, the instant you're born, your death is realised. Therefore we're all on borrowed time! (People die, it's a fact of life!!!)

[jan-jaap]

Just finished this piece : Coronavirus: Out of Many, One

It's worth reading, but if you wonder about the economic cost of suppression vs. mitigation, at least read the second half.

[Irinikus]

Just finished this piece : Coronavirus: Out of Many, One

It's worth reading, but if you wonder about the economic cost of suppression vs. mitigation, at least read the second half.

It was an interesting read. (you can't argue with history) Let's see how it turns out this time. 

There are two things that may play a difference today, the US government is in-fact bankrupt, and the US economy was already teetering on the edge before this outbreak began. You were also dealing with a very different population back then. Most people were far more self sufficient and capable back then. (There weren't so many Face-bookers back then! )

We'll just have to wait and see. (Maybe we can learn something valuable from our current situation.)

I'm just not a fan of humanity in general (especially what humanity has become - a product!), present company excluded of course. (As, if you're a member of this forum, you're not an average joe! )

[Irinikus]

Because of the direction this thread has taken, I as the originator of the thread I request Raion to close it, as it will best serve the well-being of this forum.

If I've offended you I apologise, I'm unfortunately not a very emotional person and I apologise for that!

I really only want the best for humanity, but change is necessary.

[Raion]

As requested, it's been locked, but i'm not afraid to reopen it at user-request. Other staff such as Dexter1, Kaigan, Dodoid etc. are also free to override the decision. This kinda caught me out of the blue, but that was what Irinikus asked, so I'll honor it.