Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

I'm imagining Trump in 1345... which is where, I think, his head is at. "It's all a Chinese hoax. There's no risk with this 'bubo-plague' thing. God will provide." Meanwhile Pence will be conducting "pray the disease away" days with his fellow flagellants.

I am praying for novel ways to increase the severity of said flagellation. This is a job for the producers of Fear Factor and Mythbusters. They need to get together to invent a method of flagellation that is capable of concentrating the collective pain of the proles onto the backs of the flagellants the way a thermal solar focusing mirror array concentrates sunlight.

Oh wait, maybe we could just construct a "Holy Tower" that they climb while steeped in prayer, then when they are all huddled and on their knees, we just open the barn doors and "Let God's pure and holy sunligtht in"..."to cleanse them", of course.

Then we can pay people to sweep up the ashes and use them to make construction materials for homeless shelters.

My wife went out and bought a pile of face masks yesterday. She likes to be ready.

The simple facts have not changed. The United States, working under jackass Trump, is so far behind the curve its a wonder to behold. We have actually tested, maybe, two hundred people. South Korea is testing 5000 a day! I also read that they have offered to send us 10,000 test kits but we have chosen to do that on our own. The guy in charge figures they can roll out tests in, maybe, two months. It will be interesting. By that time I suspect they will find people in trouble all over the place! The important thing about that is that our genius idiot president Trump has already set it all up so that we will never know.

Its really amazing, our dear leader thinks he can make sure that we will never learn the facts by putting the anti-science guy vice president Mike Pense in charge to make sure of that. I also find it interesting that the Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, have apparently decided to never mention Trump's clever hand in this mess. They hold firm to the Hillary plan (she has been raked over with lies and innuendos for over 30 years and never fought back even once - the woman is a modern saint!) of never rocking the boat and say a mean thing about the opposition. I think the only one to say anything is Bloomberg the hated billionaire who is trying to buy the presidency (basically doing exactly what all the other candidates are doing but is paying for it all himself thereby making sure he will not be beholden to anybody).

It will be very interesting when all of this is over. The market is tanking bigtime, we are being threatened with a world wide epidemic, the Democratic elections for this week and next are, arguably the most important for the Democrats, and a bunch of Shrinks have released a book explaining that Trump is going publicly insane. I think this may qualify as being, perhaps, one of the more entertaining and interesting periods?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40698138-the-dangerous-case-of-donald-trump

One can only guess the what the variety of outcomes will result in all of this. It will, however, be a miracle if something just doesn't melt down. As usual, and in the fullness of time .....

Did anyone get the feeling Mr Trump's response is similar to Pres Bush's response in Iraq when Senor dissolved the Iraqi army which precipitated the militia wars?

The United States badly bungled coronavirus testing—but things may soon improve (Science).

A blurb just passed through my newsfeed about the cost of being tested for Coronavirus. $3370 for an uninsured patient.

$3918 if you're one Frank Wucinski of Pennsylvania...

Kept at the Hospital on Coronavirus Fears, Now Facing Large Medical Bills


The government demanded that he submit to quarantine.
Now his source of funding to pay for it might well be...GoFundMe?

Yeah, we're soooooo ready to deal with this crisis, said NO ONE EVER.

I posted this elsewhere, but a) the tests should be free (public health, b) quarantine should result in an immediate payment of unemployment insurance to compensate for lost pay, and c) guaranteed reemployment protection to prevent employers from discriminating against "sick" employees. The employment issue may prove a serious financial crisis.

Sounds like Soshulizm!! Only poosies need safety nets - this Amerka, gol-durn it!

Other than that, those sound like good and considerate ideas...

the feds have now allowed private labs to start producing test kits. Pretty soon, after they really figure out how to make them, the big drug folks will descend to produce them. It will probably cost them about 3 bucks to do that so the price, to the american consumer won't be much more than 50/60.00 each.

I am not sure where the FDA figures in all of this. Last I heard they figured they could certify a test kit in about 2 months. Well, I think that was before the CDC screwed up their test kits so they didn't work.

As you say, China, and South Korea can produce these kits and are shipping world wide, except for the united states. I wonder what they are getting for them.

Here is a link, from the NY Times, that explains the incredibly screwed up response of the United States government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/fda-coronavirus-testing.html

This is recent which means that we still don't really have test kits that work and our gov is insisting we work it out instead of using the standards of the World health organization. Kinda odd I think?

Just saying............