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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,141 |
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Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 2,526 |
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Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 2,526 |
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Here's what I don't understand:
There's no mention of people who have recovered; either people are recovering or there's a 100% mortality rate. There's no mention of the underlying circumstances of the Italian outbreak beyond the vast number of elderly in the nation. There's also the issue that Italy has been a continual point-of-entry for Chinese folks, even after COVID-19 sunk its' teeth into the country. Further, according to a virologist in Italy the spread of the disease was due in part to a desire for politcal correctness, going so far as the Mayor of Florence encouraging it's citizens to literally "hug" a Chinese person, to offset any mention of this virus coming from China...which is apparently racist. By that metric the Spanish flu, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus are racist as well. There's also no mention of what I sourced in an earlier post that UV light (sunshine) kills viruses. A look at the map and a scan of nations along the equator offers lower rates of COVID-19, given they get more "quality" UV light than anywhere else. There's evidence of that anti-malarial drug used commonly in those same countries works...it could be a combination of the two. In the end faith is a powerful, legitimate, and effective drug for many things, and so is hope. Unfortunately you gotta dig to find either right now because the media wants to keep the public riled up and tuned in, since many of us are at home with nothing better to do. Keep washing your hands, get outside (I know many of you already are, it's in your job description), and support your local businesses. Work on your pullers, buy some parts, maybe even buy some reading material too. I'm confident we will have a pulling season and when we do it will be unlike anything we've seen in years. Bryan Lively - 
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Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 2,526 |
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,141 |
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,141 |
Some actual statistics. Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com] |
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,141 |
"Next week I think the numbers are high enough to give a better answer as then there should be enough data to make sense. So still stay on the couch."
So - it is "next week" and the numbers are - not too promising. The "newly infected" curve here has turned into up and downs and it's difficult to say whether the peak has been reached yet. Given our "contact restrictions" were introduced basically a week ago, it looks like it will get worse for a few more days. My personal take of this is, that the actual outbreak was pretty much under control, but then we had thousands of people coming back from skiing vacation in northern Italy, where a lot got infected and then spread all over the country. We have some little villages out in the southern countryside with huge problems and which are completely locked down, because people roamed around after coming home from Italy. So there were several starting points at different times. Strangely enough, we still have a very low mortality rate - so the actual number of people who died all over Germany is actually 1/4 lower than in NYC as of now - and our health system (not a single payer) can cope with a lot the way it looks (we have, per population, 4 times the hospital beds of the US and they are not stressed yet, so we are currently taking in patients from France and Italy) - but the denser populated areas might run into problems later. Again - the mortality rate heavily depends on the number of tests (infected people who are not tested, are not in the statistic). We're currently testing at a rate of more than 160,000 a week (they said by the end of the weeks more like 200,000). So basically similar numbers as the US - even though we're 1/4th of the population. The Virologist here say, even though they are sure there are a lot of unknowns, they still think that the number of "infected and not caught" is rather low compared to the rest of the western world. [ourworldindata.org] An anecdote: A huge delivery of masks from China was stolen at an airport in Kenya. It wasn't paid for yet - but one still wonders why the Chinese deliver via Kenya?! Companies here are now also making masks and protective clothes. So all very similar to the US. Good news: Bosch today announced they now have a test machine to be out in April, which will spit out the results within 2 hours and doesn't need labs. So the tests could be done "on site". Which is good, to get more data, which is important to get things back to normal. 
Which is of course what they are wondering here, too. For now, as the government has been rather tight with money for the last ten years, the stimulus package etc. is not going to bring us into a dire financial situation, but of course, this can't go on for long. The idea here, once the storm is over, is, rather similar to the US, to let younger people out first and hope for medication & vaccine. There is a real race going on with companies all over the world developing and testing. Well - this situation is becoming more and more alike here and in the US (I am still out in the country where there are low numbers or infected and deaths) ... I will let you know when it starts to get better here. Update - just on the news. Testing in Germany is up to half a million per week now and currently 6% come back positive. (FAZ - 11:44 CET) (Die momentanen Tests seien entweder kontakt- oder symptomgebunden und werden in einer Größenordnung von einer halben Millionen Tests pro Woche in Deutschland durchgeführt. Davon seien derzeit etwa sechs Prozent positiv, erläutert Virologe Christian Drosten über die Coronavirus-Tests.) Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com] Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2020 10:09AM by Sascha. |
