Do they speak Spanish?

If the EU reciprocate our new migration laws, they will have to "overwinter" in Bognor Regis in a caravan and eat SPAM 

 

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13,000 cases out of a population of over 1.3 billion.  

That's one thousandth of a percent.

13,000 cases over two months works out as around 200 per day and the rate has been declining for some days, so is a reduction of 90% really outside of the believable range?

 

I think it has zilch to do with China getting people back to work. That would be completely counterproductive if the virus then takes hold and nullifies all their efforts at containment. The resulting damage would do more economic harm that sitting tight until it dies away.

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.... is the right question to ask

 

This site has a lot of statistics and seems to be up to date 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#daily-cases

 

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Tone from CDC has changed. Prepare is the watchword

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Interesting site, thanks. This graph (total cases minus (deaths + recoveries)) is interesting, but I assume it includes China. It will go to zero when we all die. 

 

 

But we know how contagious it is , it takes very little to get a surge in cases. It's strange how you believe China but don't believe Iran. Look how the Chinese treat the Uyghurs Muslims and covering that up. If they are capable of that they are certainly capable about lying about new cases.

 

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It's not strange at all: Iran is run like a medieval state run by religious zealots with seemingly precious little understanding.

 

I really don't have time for this conspiracy nonsense, sorry.

 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration seems ill-prepared; by all accounts a shambolic display today in a closed meeting.

 

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 That’s what I think!  Which would bring the morbidity and mortality rates down considerably.  Also, the recovery time seems quite quick in otherwise healthy people.  

I’m of the opinion that it is as contagious as people think, but not as deadly.  

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Yes, that certainly seems to be the evolving consensus view.   Somewhere I saw: 80% of cases mild, 15% serious and 5% requiring intensive care - but obviously that depends on the age and health profile of those affected.

 

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indeed, why believe one horrible dictatorship but not the other....

And there are no figures at all for those who haven’t been tested!   

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Indeed and China did cover it up.

The difference though between China and Iran is one of competence. When China realized it screwed up it put extreme measures in place. Iran is just clueless.

 

The other elephant in the room is North korea which almost defintiely has it's own epidemic going on.

 

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The exponential rise in less than a week in S.Korea is what's worrying - from about ten to almost a thousand.
While the  funny church is partly to blame how different is that to say a football match or concert.

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Care to elaborate on how the country with probably some of the tightest border and indeed overall state controls could not crack down on any potential outbreak? Did you guess or just make an unprovable claim? 

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It is even worse than that where Iran is concerned.

When it comes to Iran, you have two specific problems - one is the insane regime in Iran which is covering up the true extent of the calamity there, whilst exporting it to the surrounding region, whilst two is the Muslim fatalistic attitude - if something happens to you by the "will of Allah" that is your fate - so if millions catch COVID-19 and many die, it is the will of Allah and there is nothing to be done about it. That is why they won't lockdown like the Chinese, close mosques and gatherings or stop the followers of their religion from travelling to the "holy" sites and spreading the contagion.
 
The Black Death tells its own story on that front:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/history13/Readings/MichaelDol.htm
 
"...
All three traditions were attributed to the Prophet. Muhammad was reputed to have prohibited flight from a plague-stricken community, and this belief was the subject of considerable controversy between the caliph and his military commander in Syria when plague struck the Arab army severely in 638-639. The prevalence of the other two principles cannot be established so firmly in this early period but were fully established by the later Muslim jurists in the eighth and ninth centuries. Accordingly, Muhammad was understood to have denied the pre-Islamic Arab belief in contagion. Consistent with this idea that plague was a divine selection is the principle that plague was a mercy from God for the faithful Muslim but a punishment for the infidel. While the latter was based on biblical sources, the claim for a mercy and martyrdom was a major theological invention of Islam and is, to my knowledge, unique to Semitic religions. In the variable lists of the five Muslim martyrdoms, deaths by plague and by battle are always included; both are equal in God’s favor and the believer is assured of reaching paradise. Moreover, the descriptive terminology of plague is closely related to that of the actual jihad or holy war. The ideology of the jihad may have served as a conscious and useful analogy for the Muslims jurists when they were confronted by the problems of plague and of explaining the traditions of the Prophet.
..."
 

 

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On the surface yes it looks unlikely NK would be affected. However keep this in mind. While NK is the most isolated country in the world it is also entirely dependent on China. Almost the entirety of NK's imports and exports are with China. Of all the countries in the world there is the most diffusion from China. Although ordinary citizens do not leave the country NK's plutocrats and diplomats do regularly leave the country and the overwhelming majority of those go to China. NK also has a tourist industry, again a sizeable portion is with China.

NK's best chance was shutting down it's border in totality. However if it had got into the country, and given some measures we are seeing in Pyongyang that seems to be the case, it would be unstopable. NK's healthcare is virtually non existent, and any supplies they need to cope with the infection would usually come from China.

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You would hope that cults tend to keep to themselves. Football matches and concerts less so.

 

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I doubt that - members of cults have families too and depending upon the cult of course, they will mingle with family members who are not members of the cult.

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Once again you make very categorical statements with an air of (non existent) authority. I have no idea about the NK healthcare system and I am sure the data is limited, but in 2010 the WHO had described the NK healthcare system as 'the envy of the developing world'.

 

This is just going to spread - from the Independent on the cases in Austria:

"...

Austria reported its first two cases of coronavirus on Tuesday and sealed off a hotel in the Alpine tourist hub of Innsbruck where one of the infected people works, in an effort to contain the outbreak.
 

The infected people are an Italian couple, both aged 24, who last week visited their home town of Bergamo in Lombardy, northern Italy, before returning to Innsbruck.
 

The regional government in Tyrol said the woman works as a receptionist at the hotel. 

..."

Many Italians work in the hospitality industry. Welcome and enjoy our corona virus special ski season.

 

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Latest - Germany, France, Algeria and Romania all have new coronavirus cases connected to Italy. 

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Wow, the Internet certainly is such a wonderful source of penetrating insights.

Pity about the lack of accuracy and balance.

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so just today Italy has passed infections to Spain,  Tenerife,  Germany, Algeria, Croatia, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, and France. It must be rife in northern Italy. 

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Similar to what Iran did and no surprise. The actions the effected countries have taken will hopefully keep the numbers down.

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A divinely inspired spread of disease, BBC reports that Islamic clergy have prevented any quarantine measures being applied in Qom which appears to be the centre for most of the coronavirus deaths in Iran (Iran govt says 12 deaths there, whistleblowers say 50)

Reason? It is important that foreign pilgrims can continue to travel to and from the Shiite holy places there. I suppose they have got their priorities clear.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51628484 (section by Rana Rahimpour, scroll down)

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