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"Kentucky Republican Rand Paul is the first US senator to test positive for coronavirus, throwing an even greater sense of urgency into Senate negotiations over a massive stimulus package that had yet to come together Sunday afternoon.
A statement from Paul's office posted to his Twitter account Sunday said he was "feeling fine" and was "tested out of an abundance of caution." But some senators and aides are angry at Paul for not doing more to self-quarantine earlier and for potentially exposing senators to the coronavirus.
[...] Senate Republicans, emerging from their closed-door lunch where they received the news, were extremely unsettled.
GOP senators told CNN Paul was in the gym with colleagues Sunday morning, and several pointed out how close Paul had sat to others during Senate lunches in recent days. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said he saw Paul in the Senate swimming pool Sunday, according to a source in the GOP lunch.
"This is a different ballgame now," one Republican senator told CNN."
If one ignores the guidelines for social distancing like the above Senator, as well as the President in his daily briefing such as 6 foot separation and avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people, one may well expect to become infected. One's status and position will not provide protection.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/22/politics/rand-paul-coronavirus/index.html
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @01:34AM (32 children)
This thing is gonna turn into another seasonal flu - low lethality and asymptotic carriers means this virus, unlike ebola that kills its hosts too quick to let it spread wide, will be around for long-ass time. The only long-term answer is vaccine and treatment drugs.
Thanks, CCP, xi jin flu fuck, thanks for exporting new contagious disease almost annually.
We need an economic divorce from China. The whole world needs it, The Russian menace looks trivial in comparison.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday March 23 2020, @02:05AM (13 children)
It might become a seasonal virus, but coronaviruses don't have the flu's unique, easily mutated topology that makes it so resistant to inoculation, whether natural or vaccines.
Temporarily endemic, but it might be possible to entirely eradicate in human populations once vaccines are available, the way we do polio.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @02:10AM (6 children)
Or we could eradicate it the old fashioned way... infect everyone, lose 4% of the population (mostly old white men so no great loss to the economy), develop herd immunity, and then get on with life.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @03:11AM
What a deal that the fatality rate will likely be a lot less than even 4%. We could all be working and getting on with our life, but that would deprive the government from conducting a grand social experiment.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 23 2020, @03:34AM (2 children)
There are indications that could be read as "Having gotten over it once doesn't leave you immune.". There are also other ways to read them, of course, if you're feeling optimistic.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday March 23 2020, @03:54AM (1 child)
For example, there was the Japanese lady who was apparently re-infected.
It doesn't seem to be common.
A priori SARS COV 2 could be expected to behave like other coronaviruses, which do cause immunity. The question of how long the immunity lasts is critical and AFAIK open.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @04:23AM
Eh? The original SARS does not result in immunity upon infection. That was the main reason developing a vaccine failed.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 23 2020, @03:40AM (1 child)
No, the problem is that a lot of younger and healthier people also require hospitalization and ventilator support. I think I read somewhere that 20% of those hospitalized were under 40. So if we infect everyone, we'll completely overwhelm the hospitals in most countries (esp. America, where we really don't have very many beds for the size of the population), and then tons of people will be dying from all kinds of other ailments because there's just no capacity to treat them all.
But you might be onto something: if things get that bad, they'll enact severe triage measures, which means that older people (esp. men) will be lowest-priority, so we'll lose a large chunk of the population older than 50 or 60 years old. This will probably result in a massive change in the electorate, the GOP being killed off very quickly (because they won't have that many voters left), and Bernie-loving voters taking over and finally getting single-payer healthcare in this country for the 200 million people who survive.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @03:46AM
Cause, like South Korea lost half its population, you know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @05:57PM (2 children)
i know you're a suckass propagandist for big pharma and big gov, but polio was largely eradicated b/c people got indoor plumbing and were able to wash their hands after shitting.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday March 23 2020, @06:10PM
"I know you're a shill for things that work, but other things that work also happened"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 23 2020, @08:33PM
...my car still drives.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday March 23 2020, @06:11PM (2 children)
Have you heard of the anti-vaccine movement?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Monday March 23 2020, @06:54PM (1 child)
Get out now! The antivax is coming from inside the thread!
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 23 2020, @10:02PM
I suppose it had to happen eventually, but Soylent News has attracted it's very own anti-vaxx flat earther.
Yes, it is weird.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 23 2020, @02:10AM (12 children)
Greed will probably keep that from happening. Western companies want access to the Chinese market. Moving manufacturing back out would take years. Institutions like the WHO have played China's tune. Leaders, including President Trump, have been lenient towards China.
As the U.S. Blames China for the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Rest of the World Asks China for Help [archive.is]
Until recently, Trump was praising China. It's probably too late for any change in messaging to have a big effect. It would be interesting to see some bombshell information dropped, but who is going to do that? The CIA?
Coronavirus Drives the U.S. and China Deeper Into Global Power Struggle [archive.is]
Don't hate, cooperate!
Coronavirus Pandemic Changes Forever The U.S.-China Relationship [forbes.com]
China is supposedly ramping up manufacturing right now [cnbc.com]. But this is the short term stuff. In the long term, it makes sense to move manufacturing for products back to countries like the U.S. Another option would be to move manufacturing to countries with much lower labor costs than China, but factories will become even more highly automated than they are today, making labor costs irrelevant. Tariffs and lower transportation costs could counter the costs of stricter environmental regulations.
China Is Avoiding Blame by Trolling the World [theatlantic.com]
China has a good chance of getting away with it. As the chaos of the pandemic subsides, economic opportunities will be created. For all we know, China will be in a better position post-pandemic.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday March 23 2020, @04:01AM (11 children)
In the long term, it makes sense to move manufacturing for products back to countries like the U.S. Another option would be to move manufacturing to countries with much lower labor costs than China, but factories will become even more highly automated than they are today, making labor costs irrelevant.
Why would Chinese companies want to move manufacturing to the US or any other country besides China? This statement sounds completely arrogant, as if Western nations are the only ones that know how to set up factories. Chinese factories aren't run by Western companies; they're run by Chinese companies that Western companies have outsourced their operations to. How are you going to "move manufacturing back" when you don't have it any more, and you don't remember how to do it because you long ago laid off all the institutional knowledge holders that knew how to do it? Some manufacturing is still done in America, but I'm sure those companies are busy running their own operations, and have no desire to move into some totally different industry manufacturing something completely different. The fact is, all that stuff made in China is stuff that America no longer knows how to do, or for newer technologies, never knew how to do in the first place.
Tariffs and lower transportation costs could counter the costs of stricter environmental regulations.
So you want to set up big tariffs for Chinese-made stuff, hoping that somehow, magically, American companies will start making that stuff instead? This reminds me a lot of Robert Mugabe's thinking in Zimbabwe, that he could seize farms from white people who had been farming there for decades if not generations, then give it to black people who had never run a farm before, and somehow this was going to be successful, and of course it wasn't, it was a total disaster that resulted in massive hyperinflation.
China has a good chance of getting away with it. As the chaos of the pandemic subsides, economic opportunities will be created. For all we know, China will be in a better position post-pandemic.
They absolutely will. You might as well get used to thinking of China as the new sole superpower. This is what happens when one big, economically powerful nation manages to have halfway-competent leadership, and competing nations continue to shoot themselves in the feet and choose utterly incompetent leadership. China's made plenty of screw-ups, but when their competitors have absolutely no idea what they're doing, that's still good enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @04:20AM (1 child)
Your implication that entire industries migrate atomically is absurd. There's many fields where the same type of product is made in China for cheap, and also made in the US expensively.
Please, cite some examples. Can't wait.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pav on Monday March 23 2020, @02:29PM
China hasn't surpassed the US in many areas? You're kidding right? Other than the knowledge that authomatically comes from doing such massive production of goods and infrastructure, in a few short years they have more and better high speed rail infrastructure than the rest of the world combined, paradigm-busting artificial intelligence technology [medium.com], they're leaders in rare earth mining technology, are leaders in anti-ship ballistic missile technology [wikipedia.org]... their current crop are called "carrier killers" with a range that can reach almost the entire world from within the borders of China. Their biotech industry doesn't have as many controls so stem cell ltechnologies... not just using stem cells on knees etc... but lung regeneration, human genome editing in embryos, world leading genome editing and sequencing techniques, cloning of primates (and probably humans) etc... and those are just the things on the tip of my brain from reading sites such as this.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 23 2020, @06:33AM (7 children)
That seems almost silly. A mere fifty years ago, China was pretty much incapable of heavy industry. Thirty years ago, they were getting clues. Then, all the rich people in the US hopped on board with exporting industry to China.
The US, EU, and all the rest of the more-or-less developed nations in the world can relearn what they have "forgotten" in pretty short order. That is, it won't take fifty years to ramp up again.
If the flow of industry were to be reversed, back into the US, we still have the expertise around to run a factory. Maybe we don't have the most expert people around anymore, in some cases. But we can do just about anything, or we can find the people necessary to get it done. One to six experts running operations, and training assistants, and in three years, we are a going concern again.
That goes for just about anything. Iron, steel, tin, plastics, high tech, low tech, whether it be in the Sun Belt, the Rust Belt, east coast, west coast, Gulf Coast, or flyover country.
All it takes is determination. We can do it. If we wait a hundred years before we decide to do it, then it would be a real bitch. No more experts, or they are so very rare as to make little difference.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @03:39PM (6 children)
> back into the US, we still have the expertise around to run a factory
For $95/hour vs $15/hour
It keeps equalizing but not there yet
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 23 2020, @04:01PM (5 children)
I don't know where you get your $95/hr. Here, in Arkiesaw, with their right to work laws, the top dogs who get stuff done in factories may be getting half of that. Not likely, but maybe. Management? Hell, they're skimming everything they can off the top, but they aren't the experts I was referring to. Management, on a good day, can pour piss out of a boot, if the instructions are printed on the bottom. Men and women out in the foundry produce iron and steel, aluminum and glass, parts and components. Management produces nothing but bullshit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @07:27PM (3 children)
Yet you seem to keep supporting the system. I blame your ignorance, you THINK you're doing the right thing by voting for leopards, so it isn't your fault when they rip your face off.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 23 2020, @07:34PM
Maybe. And, maybe better the leopards that I know how to deal with, than the snakes in the grass who sneak up behind me and poison me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 23 2020, @08:35PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:00PM
Ah the defenses of fools.
What a sad state conservatives are in.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 23 2020, @10:32PM
It doesn't really matter what the exact number is. Once capitalism decided more money was to made from China, and the Chinese government made the deal that has given the west access, places like Arkansas become irrelevant.
Unfortunately, in my view.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @06:08PM
"as if Western nations are the only ones that know how to set up factories"
not now, but we were the only ones who knew how to do anything modern before sell-outs gave it away to the mongoloids.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday March 23 2020, @04:15AM (3 children)
The people whose job it is to have the information (ie. the unaccountable three-letter agencies) got the information. They passed it to the people whose job it is to act on that information (ie. Congress). And act on it they did. By selling their stock before the price went down.
You see? The system works.
Of course, the next line in the script is to plead "intelligence failure" and/or blame another country.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @06:27AM (2 children)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/ [foreignpolicy.com]
Note the date on the article above. Trump didn't even acknowledge an issue until 13 March.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @05:22PM (1 child)
Publically, he didnt acknowledge it publically. There is a reason you don't hype up events, people respond like morons. Case and point Costco out of milk paper towels and tissues, but plenty of dehydrated milk.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @09:35PM
Riiiight....
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-calls-democrats-coronavirus-criticism-a-new-hoax [thedailybeast.com]
Which is a bald-faced lie.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/486559-trump-fake-news-media-democrats-working-to-inflame-the-coronavirus [thehill.com]
Which is *another* bald-faced lie. What's more, in this case, he's directly saying that what we *know* to be true is a lie meant to damage him politically.
Damn, you just have to defend that piece of shit don't you?
Wake the fuck up!
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday March 24 2020, @03:00AM
If they manage to do it, wouldn't it prove a long standing conspiracy theory? No virus respiratory ilnesses were ever treated by the western medicine for some reason.
My only optimistic bet is that the bug mutates to friendlier form by itself. Yes, it will be a slow and painfull process.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.