Coronavirus
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- yuekit2
Intelligence officials' early alarms about possible pandemic went unheeded
https://www.thehour.com/news/art…
The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.
The surge in warnings coincided with a move by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to sell dozens of stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72 million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly classified reporting on the coronavirus.
Inside the White House, Trump's advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously, according to multiple officials with knowledge of meetings among those advisers and with the president.
On Jan. 27, White House aides huddled with then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his office, trying to get senior officials to pay more attention to the virus, according to people briefed on the meeting. Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, argued that the administration needed to take the virus seriously or it could cost the president his reelection, and that dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.
Mulvaney then began convening more regular meetings. In early briefings, however, officials said Trump was dismissive because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.
By early February, Grogan and others worried that there weren't enough tests to determine the rate of infection, according to people who spoke directly to Grogan. Other officials, including Matthew Pottinger, the president's deputy national security adviser, began calling for a more forceful response, according to people briefed on White House meetings.
But Trump resisted and continued to assure Americans that the coronavirus would never run rampant as it had in other countries.
"I think it's going to work out fine," Trump said on Feb. 19. "I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus."
As the first cases of infection were confirmed in the United States, Trump continued to insist that the risk to Americans was small.
"I think the virus is going to be - it's going to be fine," he said on Feb. 10.
"We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it," he said four days later. "It's like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we're in very good shape."
On Feb. 25, Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC official, sounded perhaps the most significant public alarm to that point, when she told reporters that the coronavirus was likely to spread within communities in the United States and that disruptions to daily life could be "severe." Trump called Azar on his way back from a trip to India and complained that Messonnier was scaring the stock markets, according to two senior administration officials.
Trump eventually changed his tone after being shown statistical models about the spread of the virus from other countries and hearing directly from Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, as well as from chief executives last week rattled by a plunge in the stock market, said people familiar with Trump's conversations.
But by then, the signs pointing to a major outbreak in the United States were everywhere.
- First QBN post on the virus back in mid January
https://www.qbn.com/…yuekit - So apparently we were better informed about what was going on than the actual president of the USAyuekit
- Imagine we're better informed than the actual president of the USA about lots of things.webazoot
- Who downvoted this and why?Bennn
- lol @ downvotes. This is relevant info guys. Even on this site the Trump fanboys can't stand any criticism of their hero, so pathetic.yuekit
- He's informed, just chooses to ignore. The man's a fucking idiot.monoboy
- He's proved beyond doubt, that ability and intelligence are no barrier to high office if you're conservative, white, male and wealthy.monoboy
- First QBN post on the virus back in mid January
- allthethings0
Here's somebody who should run the daily briefings.
One doctor’s straight talk about the coronavirus strikes a chord with anxious Americans
https://www.washingtonpost.com/h…
- grafician0
"Corporate Goodwill Efforts During COVID-19 Outbreak"
google docs link, mostly for the US resources, but helps to take a look and make the best of it:
- allthethings-1
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/…
This ‘Imagine’ Cover Is No Heaven
The actress Gal Gadot assembled celebrities singing John Lennon’s anthem on social media. The result is far from inspiring in a time of crisis.
You might say that every crisis gets the multi-celebrity car-crash pop anthem it deserves, but truly no crisis — certainly not one as vast and unsettling as the current one — deserves this.
The actress Gal Gadot, on her sixth day of precautionary coronavirus self-isolation, orchestrated a line-for-line baton pass of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a song that, over five decades, has been sturdy enough to hold up to Pentatonix, Corey Feldman, the cast of “Glee” and Blake Lewis on “American Idol.” (He didn’t beatbox, thankfully.)
In this clusterclump of hyperfamous people with five seconds’ too much time on their hands, however, “Imagine” may have met its match. By the end, it has been pummeled and stabbed, disaggregated, stripped for parts and left for trash collection by the side of the highway. It is proof that even if no one meets up in person, horribleness can spread.
The performance is two minutes long, but watching from front to back requires about 20, with breaks for snarfing, ear-canal cleansing and bursts of who-the-hell-is-this? It begins after a brief, platitudinous monologue from Gadot, who may be on lockdown, but whose mind has been freed, bro.
When she sings the opening line — “Imagine there’s no heaven” — she grins at the camera as if she’s about to pick your pocket. Or like a joyfully masochistic nurse about to administer a gruesome shot. It feels oily. Distressing. Up next, Kristen Wiig, out in nature wearing a wide-brimmed hat, looks dour, as if her ramble had been interrupted.
This misadventure turns to true chaos, though, when Jamie Dornan arrives, his hair wet-like and his voice a hollow rasp. “No hell below us,” he ... I guess, sings? More like woofs. Expectorates. Dornan is not on Instagram, so perhaps he is unaware he looks like he’s reluctantly filming a hostage video, and can’t decide if he even wants to be rescued.
A little later comes a one-two punch of disinclination: Natalie Portman, head tilting side to side like a metronome, biting on words like they taste terrible, like she wants them whooshed off her tongue; followed by Zoë Kravitz, sitting fireside in glasses, whispering drawn-out syllables first by speaking, then singing, like a turntable confused about its speed setting.
Of all the participants here, only the actor Chris O’Dowd — singing alongside his wife, Dawn O’Porter — appears to understand the horror on the horizon: His worry lines are deep, his eyebrows seem to want to jump off his face and the left side of his mouth curls up toward the end of his line (“I wonder if you can”) as if pleading for forgiveness.
The brutality is relentless. It is difficult to measure which section is the most unsettling — Will Ferrell’s arch sincerity (although not his Lynchian electroshock hair)? Sarah Silverman’s whoopsy-daisy tartness? Mark Ruffalo’s bohemian-of-the-mind riffage? James Marsden’s this’ll-fix-it earnestness? Each is so destabilizing it necessitates a quick hit of the pause button, and maybe a walk around the block.
Let’s be gentle with the real singers here — Norah Jones, Leslie Odom Jr., Labrinth, Sia, someone called Eddie Benjamin. Their presence is welcome; they are the high school quarterback invited to a party only to find out the only other people who R.S.V.P.’d were friends with their youngest cousin who they haven’t seen in like 12 years. If everyone was in the same room, they’d be regarded with slack-jawed awe. They are the sunlight that allows the weak plants a chance to grow.
But they would never be in the same room, of course. That was true long before coronavirus. Challenging times have made unlikely studiofellows for decades: think “We Are the World,” “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and the like. But the chaotic evil of social media means borders are permeable now, and the bar for participation is distressingly low. (The emerging wave of parodies is already vicious: Tavi Gevinson’s Cindy Shermanesque routing of Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” ESPN’s Pablo Torre leading a sports media all-star spoken word version of Linkin Park’s “In the End,” the deadpan reading of a decidedly salacious old song from Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia by Zack Fox, Thundercat and others.)
On social media, Gadot and her crew were lambasted for bumblingly contributing, well, whatever this is as opposed to money or resources. Their genial naïveté is blinding them to the grossest sin here: the smug self-satisfaction, the hubris of the alleged good deed. The presumption that an empty and profoundly awkward gesture from a passel of celebrities has any meaning whatsoever borders on delusion — what you see in this video is nothing more than perspective-fogged stars singing into a mirror.
In times of crisis, some think it’s enough to throw something slapdash together, serve it to the world and hope it heals some people. But that’s just not how things work.
- https://www.instagra…PhanLo
- wut? the writer is mad at this? defug?
they're just trying to lift people's spirit up. what else you want them to do? cure people?!?!pango - The writer expressed what I felt when seeing it. It did not lift my spirit up. Them shutting the fuck up would help a lotallthethings
- This is classic. https://www.instagra…allthethings
- really? that's the bar to tell someone to shut the fuck up? because its not for you? them shut the fuck up would help how?pango
- Bennn1
For my province (Queb) Gov prediction is 18k cases peaked in 40 days. And we acted quickly at the beginning of it... We have a population of 8M. So it's easy to predict this is going to be something in the USA. We're in this for a while.
- I like that you saved two whole keystrokes by writing Queb********
- I like that you saved two whole keystrokes by writing Queb
- neverscared4
- thats great... too bad they don't have room for coffins in cemeteries, crematoriums can't keep up, and they are starting to use churches for coffin storage.Nutter
- pango3
well... good luck...
- Lol that picture! I was missing it hahaBennn
- Oh my...OBBTKN
- if officials dont close the beach cause lots of money cming in, no wonder youngsters party hard :) just close the beaches - party is over.api
- is she wearing Covid-19? stylist down.MrAbominable
- A snapshot of America's future...it looks bright. #MAGA Pride standup for your freedom!utopian
- mg331
Nice data visualization I just found on Reddit. The “Change” tab is great.
- Beeswax0
Official cases are doubling everyday in Turkey
Two days ago 359, yesterday 670
and just by testing 3600 people a day.Despite all the warnings, people are crowding the parks and beaches because the weather is a little bit warmer.
I'd say it's natural selection but it won't just effect these idiots.
We need a state enforced total lock-down now!
- This was pretty much the scene for the whole of this week in Munich. Idiots.Continuity
- Erdogan should just pretend that there’s another coup attemptGnash
- Meh, spaced apart, outdoors - not the end of the world, imho.Nairn
- experts say its not problem if you hang out with your familyhousehold since you hang out with them all the time in the same household.api
- also with space more than 2 meters the virus has no chance to infect others. indoor its much more of a problem.api
- @Cont isn‘t Bavaria/ Munich under lockdown now?NBQ00
- Yep took the dog out this morning and lots of large groups of people in the local park enjoying the weather and acting as normal(UK).webazoot
- This makes rather terrifying reading as to transmission https://nymag.com/in…webazoot
- @NBQ00: Yup, and it's under lockdown precisely because people were crowding into parks, green spaces, along the river in Munich, etc. Large groups of them.Continuity
- They ignored official guidance, acted like twats, and so the state government told us all to stay home or face a 25 000 € fine if we're out without valid reasonContinuity
- 3days ago: gov asked ppl to stay home. 2days ago: groups of 10ppl max. 1day ago: groups of 5ppl max. today: fines 100.- if you are in a group of 5+.uan
- police closed parks and rivers in main cities this weekend. in switzerland.uan
- Maybe it'll be better on Monday when everyone goes back to w...
Oh.webazoot - the problem they try to avoid: even if you feel save in a small group outdoor, chances of contact with others is not equal zero. so the spread grows.uan
- took my daughter for her sunday walk today - busiest i've seen the park since last summer. was tricky maintaining distance at points.Nairn
- every cunt was looking at every other cunt, thinking 'what the fuck are you doing out?'Nairn
- NBQ000
China now spreading propaganda that the virus is not "Made in China" but "Made in USA".
- it's the gringo virushotroddy
- sighBennn
- It's probably Russia having a jolly old chuckle about it all.PhanLo
- This American guy living in Shenzhen often makes propaganda-ish pro-China videos
https://www.youtube.…yuekit - And I thought that one was going to be the same, but in the second half he suddenly turns skeptical and questions the whole thing. Kind of funnyyuekit
- did you notice Russian Spetsnaz has a bat in the logo?uan
- PhanLo1
It's really a post for Intellectual Dark Web, but Alex Jones predictions for C-19 were too god not to put here.
Stay safe everybody.- „Buy the Infowars Silver Bullet and resist the Coronavirus World Order! Only $59.99!“NBQ00
- LOL he's insanerenderedred
- This guys awesome! Love the Schtick Can’t wait to see him at wrestlemania 79!_niko
- Bennn0
In the worst-case scenario, the pandemic could kill 2.2 million people in the United States, according to modeling created by world-renowned British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson.
His most optimistic scenario? A million dead.
- neverscared0
- Water is clear in Venice only because boats aren’t stirring up the silt. It’s nice to think that it’s nature bouncing back but not in that caseGnash
- ********-1
For non-Canadians, the NDP is the far-left in Canada, recently placed a peripheral 4th place in national elections.
- Poor thing, I feel badly for her. Her son is a nut job.Gnash
- Press should lay off her familyGnash
- ^ a member of her family dearly seeks press and is actively providing content********
- Ya, that’s true but it just feels mean.Gnash
- hahahaha********
- 27 going on 16.webazoot
- Holy fucking shit. Never thought posing with hoarded toilet paper is what would constitute gangsta. Lol_niko
- Also Jesus Christ this kid needs a beating. And I’m going to go out on a limb before I google it and say horvaths a single mom._niko
- He’s been on a nosedive for the past few years. SadGnash
- If the son's opinion represents mom's, at least they have something in common with the far right. Guns and conspiracies.pango
- the far left and far right have some much in common these days, I wonder if they will join up, the far centre movement?fadein11
- *sofadein11
- The Post Millennial is an alt-right rag with ties to the Conservative party and Prouds.i_monk
- And the NDP are the Opposition (2nd) in Ontario. Federal and Provincial are different parties.i_monk
- The Ontario NDP ran to the right of the centrist Liberals in 2014, so pretty much every word of your post is garbage.i_monk
- To be honest. NDP isn't exactly far left. They want better wage for labour workers and unions. Don't think thats exactly far anything.pango
- NBQ00-3
I can‘t imagine this virus ever going away. How would it? Unless we build sterile jail cells for every human being on planet earth and never let it out until the virus is over.
But that won‘t be possible. Even under a lock down ppl still have to get groceries and new infections will happen again. More and new waves of the virus spreading happening.
I really hope we see some miracle and it could be over in the next 1-2 months but this sounds far too optimistic. As in many countries it‘s just starting and they soon will reach triple-digits while others will be in the 5/ 6 digits of test result cases per day and so on.
And if it does go on for a year or more then if the virus doesn‘t cripple this civilization then probably the crash of our economic system will.
- We might also be at least half a year away from some meds or vaccine that is successful. And then maybe much longer until enough quantities can be reached.NBQ00
- We'll likely develop a vaccine, that's how. Those who survive should develop natural immunity. The focus now is to keep as many people alive as possible.********
- Yeah, about 18-20 months to get a vaccine tested, then another year or so to get it produced - we're looking Late 2021 for a "final cure"grafician
- But until then, we will be already at 60-80% infected. But like I said before, not afraid of the virus, as much as about economic instability.grafician
- I just hope the internet will still work until 2021 and QBN still online.NBQ00
- Vaccine will be here eventually and it will be added to the regime.monospaced
- Viruses can also mutate and peter out, the hope is that it does that and before it bounces back, which it will, we have a vaccineallthethings