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Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

cdc.gov

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Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#131

Post by simonh »

hurricanetc wrote: post #113
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC doesn't do much local testing. Mainly they provide test kits to local labs which do the tests. Please bear in mind that CDC funding for international coordination on pandemic control was cut by 80% a few years ago, and since 2018 they have not had a representative on the National Security Council, and had their senior Pandemic response positions eliminated. Reports that their overall funding was cut are not a…

The CDC doesn't do much (any?) local testing but they established ridiculously stringent guidelines for having people tested. There was a case in NYC over the weekend from a man who had recently returned from a trip to Japan. The CDC wouldn't test him because Japan wasn't on the list at the time and so his case didn't meet their overly strict criteria. The hospital discharged him and he went home... on the subway. Fl…

I agree completely, the response internally, and co-ordination with international agencies have both been woeful. My point is that this is hardly surprising considering 80% of their budget for international operations was cut, along with their NSC representation and a handful of their most senior positions responsible for pandemic response. What effect would you expect that to have, when within a year or two of that happening suddenly there's an international health crisis and pandemic?

The CDC, WHO and health care experts all over the world have been saying it's only a matter of time before something like this happens again ever since swine flu, MERS and SARS, but they have been treated like scare mongers and jumped up welfare programs by politicians. Of course they're not up to the task. If they're going to be sidelined, derided and de-funded how on earth could they be?

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#132

Post by newhere2020 »

TMWNN wrote: post #129
sizzle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a failure of our politicians who have been slashing funding of said institution. How do you expect them to do their job properly when underfunded?

No. The CDC budget was never slashed. The president proposes budgets, but that's the starting point of negotiations within Congress. Congress has consistently increased the CDC budget. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104

The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.

Snopes TRUE https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#133

Post by newhere2020 »

sizzle wrote: post #126
aazaa wrote: post #56

> An important part of CDC’s role during a public health emergency is to develop a test for the pathogen and equip state and local public health labs with testing capacity. Testing for COVID-19 has been an unmitigated failure in the US. Whatever advantage may have accrued from closing travel routes has been fritted away by preventing local authorities from testing. Without testing, there's no way to say anything abou…

This is a failure of our politicians who have been slashing funding of said institution. How do you expect them to do their job properly when underfunded?

Yes. The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#134

Post by hurricanetc »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #125
hurricanetc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First tested and confirmed case in NYC. There have been numerous reports from NYC residents who returned from areas with community spread, got sick, tested negative for the flu, and the CDC wouldn’t test them. I think in a few weeks we’ll find out that Coronavirus has actually been spreading in NYC for 3+ weeks. The CDC is incompetent.

> The CDC is incompetent. Incompetent in achieving what goal? Building an accurate Coronavirus map has a questionable value, considering that Coronavirus is quite similar to a regular influensa. CDC was successful so far in delaying Coronavirus panic. Now the US public will learn that the scary disaster did happen several weeks ago and nobody even noticed. That cognitive dissonance will cause brief embarrassment, but…

Testing is starting to ramp up now and because the CDC is incompetent the numbers are likely going to grow from 80 to several thousand in the span of a week.

Let’s see if people freak out when the CDC tries to explain why that is. “Don’t worry, these numbers are normal, we are just incompetent and weren’t testing thoroughly.”

The panic hasn’t even started yet. It will.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#135

Post by jdance »

lurquer wrote: post #128
eqdw wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this very report, 80% of cases are "mild or moderate". This can mean anything from getting the sniffles for a while, to full on pneumonia (but not enough pneumonia to have to go to the hospital). Yes it is technically correct that the majority of cases are mild. I wouldn't call that "inconsequential", or "similar to the flu". Maybe "Similar to the worst flu you've ever had", although the important distin…

Thanks for the response. But, my question remains... what evidence is there that this virus is new as opposed to something that has been in the milieu -- causing pneumonia and deaths in the elderly -- for decades? Put aside the 'confirmed cases' and the like, and focus on sheer symptoms: is there any statistically significant uptick in the number of seriously ill people in the non-Wuhan populations? (I exclude Wuhan…

I dont have much to add I’m afraid (feel free to downvote me) but I’m quite intrigued of the HN reaction to this thing. The smartest people in the world (kind of) are also just scared I guess. The usual coolheaded rationalism seems for the first time skewed towards ”its bad I just know it”. I look at the numbers and still cant quite understand what they’re seeing that I dont. I guess its the fear doing it, because we really dont know, and thats just plain scary. And maybe a tinge of satisfaction to be part of this huge drama plays a part too :)

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#136

Post by TMWNN »

newhere2020 wrote: post #132
TMWNN wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The CDC budget was never slashed. The president proposes budgets, but that's the starting point of negotiations within Congress. Congress has consistently increased the CDC budget. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104

The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. Snopes TRUE https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. Both the NBC News and Washington Post articles the Snopes piece cites describe the action as part of moving people to related departments as part of the new National Security Advisor's desire to have his own hierarchy, and the head of the dedicated team resigning after not getting his desire to keep the team the way it was.

You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#137

Post by dennisgorelik »

hurricanetc wrote: post #134
dennisgorelik wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CDC is incompetent. Incompetent in achieving what goal? Building an accurate Coronavirus map has a questionable value, considering that Coronavirus is quite similar to a regular influensa. CDC was successful so far in delaying Coronavirus panic. Now the US public will learn that the scary disaster did happen several weeks ago and nobody even noticed. That cognitive dissonance will cause brief embarrassment, but…

Testing is starting to ramp up now and because the CDC is incompetent the numbers are likely going to grow from 80 to several thousand in the span of a week. Let’s see if people freak out when the CDC tries to explain why that is. “Don’t worry, these numbers are normal, we are just incompetent and weren’t testing thoroughly.” The panic hasn’t even started yet. It will.

These new [bigger] numbers will show that Coronavirus is less deadly than a regular flu. That happy news will quickly stop the panic.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#138

Post by nickjj »

nickjj wrote: post #106

So here's a serious question. What are the odds of you getting this virus by handling a DVD that was shipped in the mail from someone who is infected? I'm actually thinking about suspending my Netflix DVD subscription for a bit because if people are put on "self quarantines" then they might be inclined to watch movies which means they are potentially shipping contaminated DVDs around the country. Can this virus live…

If anyone is reading this a few days after this post.

Medical experts who are working with this specific virus wrote:

> Many believe that in most circumstances, the virus can live for a couple of hours to a couple of days, depending on the surface and the environment around it.

That is taken from one of the "verified" replies in https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fdf5fq/we_are_....

So a DVD being shipped "in a few days" (which is completely reasonable) falls in line with potentially still being infected if a glossy coated DVD sleeve or DVD is a material that can host this virus for days.

I called Netflix about this and they said they do sanitize DVDs between shipments since they contain personally identifiable data like fingerprints but didn't mention how it was sanitized or guaranteed it would be sanitized. They also didn't mention the sleeve being sanitized that contains the DVD which is definitely re-used between shipments since it's always in questionable shape.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#139

Post by justforyou »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #54
6d6b73 wrote: post #27

I find it interesting to compare what's CDC is doing right now ( messed up tests, not enough testing, protecting markets but not people) to what we can see CDC doing in movies like Contagion where they are on top of everything before anyone else even knows that the there is a new virus in the wild.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that the CDC often does know about outbreaks and events before it's generally known to the public. Usually these instances are only of interest to the local communities they are operating in. This is of a different magnitude, and while they haven't slept on the job there's been both external factors and misjudgments in the response that have left them playing catch-up.

You know a handfull of people at the org, and were downplaying problems at the CDC last month.

The CDC slept on this during critical periods, and employees at the CDC did not step up and whistleblow when there was a chance to have a meaningful impact on the spread of the virus.

Stop making excuses for them.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#140

Post by justforyou »

nickjj wrote: post #106

So here's a serious question. What are the odds of you getting this virus by handling a DVD that was shipped in the mail from someone who is infected? I'm actually thinking about suspending my Netflix DVD subscription for a bit because if people are put on "self quarantines" then they might be inclined to watch movies which means they are potentially shipping contaminated DVDs around the country. Can this virus live…

Serious answer: If you're that concerned, disinfect the DVD.
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