I was in imigration last Thursday and there was a guy who’s landing visa ran out Friday and had been told he had to go back to NYC. Sounded upset.
Didn’t hear how the discussion concluded though,
You’re not supposed to boot people in the dick, however big the target.
You’re supposed to aim a bit lower.
More follow-up on tracing cases, but in California rather than Taiwan: I guess this San Francisco Chronicle story goes into this, but it’s paywalled so I’m not sure. Going into private mode doesn’t break the paywall; maybe signing in would give it for free.
https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1241836608309080067
https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/The-man-behind-the-sequencing-of-coronavirus-15148437.php
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My students have gotten amazing at reminding each other to use soap when I’m around. My coworkers still come out of the toilet and rinse their hands with water for 2 seconds, say hi to me, and dash off. WHAT THE FUCK?!
Today I wasted half of my class time in all classes drawing a graph showing the increase of cases in Taiwan since last week and showing them the Vox soap video. I know my students are still rolling their eyes at my reminders (this whole semester has been about disease spread and prevention), but they aren’t hearing it. So grateful for my co-teacher who made a point of pointing out how everyone is buying up all the TP, hoarding alcohol and wearing masks on their chins but still not using soap to wash their hands. She even had students who washed their hands with soap today raise their hands (less than half of the class) and basically shamed them. It’s disgusting.
My students are also being little s**** thanks to some moronic family member or other, saying things like “yeah but if there’s a bad infection we get to stay home and the government will give us lots of money”. I think explaining the reality of the US at the moment might have sunk in with them. It’s hard to tell.
I told my students that if any teacher yells at them for showing up late for class because they were washing their hands (most common excuse), they need to tell that teacher to come talk to me. (I also told them that if they’re more than 2 minutes late for class I won’t defend them.) I hope they take me up on this offer so I can punch a few co-workers in the face.
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Anyone interesting in guessing what would happen next?
Things like would the global economy collapse? and what each country would react once the pandemic is eventually over?
My guess is, countries like the US and the UK will not reflect on their great loss and how they ended up with anti-science leaders who doomed 20% of the population to severe chronic illness or death. Those isolationists would leverage both countries broken political system by pointing out how both nations would be better off left lone. Both countries could become even more radical than they already are.
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How many cases has Taiwan had today?
you may find the info here.
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It’s not just them, though. For some reason that I cannot fathom the leaders of Italy, France and Spain seem to be getting a pass from mainstream media. The leader of one of the two parties of the ruling coalition in Italy AT THE END OF FEBRUARY (I believe it was the 27th) was inviting all the Italians not to worry and to go out and enjoy life because Italy = strong. Not only did he test positive (Google: Nicola Zingaretti coronavirus), but the peak of infections in Italy started a couple of weeks into March, so 10/15 days after the government essentially told everyone not to worry. In France Macron spent weeks downplaying the situation, and then last week some doctors sued the prime minister Philippe and the former Health Minister for withholding critical information because their hospitals are filling up way too quickly. Macron went from saying:“All’s good”, to:“Old people please stay home” then:“Ok maybe everyone stay home”, but it was already too late. Spain witnessed what was going on in Italy and their reaction had been:“Lmao whatever la”, and now their situation is catching up with the Italian one.
Basically, all the Asian countries around china that are used to their fuckery reacted quickly and for the most part have been able to contain the damage, while Western countries that enjoy the flow of rmb have decided to wait to avoid angering a huge trade partner. I believe Italy few months ago even entered the belt&road meme in order to increase its exports toward china (lol).
Many world leaders will end up under scrutiny when things settle down.
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I will miss the Singaporean Laksa instant noodles.
They were 100NT per single pack (quite a steep price) and surprisingly they are also all gone.
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China is enjoying some respite now that everyone else is too busy cleaning up the mess the virus made in their respective countries to pay them much mind. I’m curious to know how their relations with the rest of the world will be affected once the pandemic begins to dissipate and people remember who started it all.
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Very true. I suspect / hope that the relative lack of criticism of Italy and France is because a lot of those news stories are in the local languages, and haven’t yet reached English-language media.
The most critical piece I’ve yet seen about Italy, from Foreign Policy (paywalled, but accessible in private mode):
An ABC Australia account of Italy’s mistakes:
A Guardian piece without many details, but it thankfully avoids the annoying Confucian cultural stereotypes, and instead emphasizes how SARS scared Taiwan and Singapore into developing countermeasures, whereas other countries perhaps learned “Huh, these epidemics get nipped in the bud - no need to worry”:
A Vox piece that’s a little forgiving of Italy, with this key quote: “The lesson from Italy isn’t just that you have to act before your hospitals are overwhelmed. It’s that you have to take steps that appear in the moment to be an exceptional overreaction — because by the time it looks like the steps you’re taking are appropriate, it will have been too late.” General tenor is “They probably should have known how bad things would get, but didn’t act early enough - and the rest of us don’t even have that excuse.”
EDIT: and a long New York Times piece exploring the mistakes in Italy - maybe the most detailed account I’ve seen:
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There’s almost certainly some coverage of this in their respective languages. We just can’t read them.
We have a number of German posters. I’m aware that, despite having a large number of cases, Germany has kept the mortality rate quite low compared to its neighbors. I wonder how they’ve managed that. German efficiency, I guess?
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In the week that followed the March 2 return to work, there were only five new cases in Hong Kong, most of which were imported. Numbers remained low until around March 16, when dozens of new cases were confirmed. It soon became clear that while the majority were coming from overseas, quarantine measures in place were not sufficient, and local transmission had resumed.
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Not sure I like that CNN article. Headline and tenor of article is along the lines of “Oh no, Hong Kong messed up and is now doomed!” But substance of article is mostly “Not out of the woods yet, because other cases are coming back in - they need to be careful.” I wish they’d provided more details on how much local transmission there is, and whether or not it’s been traced.
Trump predicts victory, ““It’s gonna be a victory that, in my opinion, will happen much sooner than originally expected,” Trump said at a 90-minute news conference with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.”
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Maybe china and the US are actually at war bombing each other. The chinese virus doesn’t exist and it’s a code word for war casualties. Nato allies joined late so they started to register casualties late. Italy was the first one to send troops but the commie sleeper cells in the illegal textile factories have been causing massive damage.
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