Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[mackie1402]

1 hour ago, abcdefg said:

I'm in Los Angeles now, Monday evening 3 Feb, and it is pretty much business as usual. Very few face masks. Seems so strange, coming from China. 

 

Yeah it's amazing when you're in China, then go on Facebook and see everyone else just living a normal life. It feels like we are in a film over here. 

[Tomsima]

https://b23.tv/av86696259

 

did another short video blog today, keeping us in good spirits. Thought it might be interesting to share what its like out in the countryside here in Hubei - a mishmash of factories and vegetable patches. According to the news here, Yichang was sprayed with disinfectant (is that the right word for this sort of scale?) by helicopters yesterday evening. Our area is meant to be being sprayed this evening. Ive never seen a helicopter or plane ever here, but one flew over yesterday evening, then heard another one this morning. Have no idea what sort of effect it is meant to be having, perhaps just to show everyone the government is trying?

 

also, as expected, all the middle aged and above here still not wearing facemasks, the logic being, they never leave their street and drink loads of baijiu, 10/10 爺們兒

 

edit: So just as I finished typing this, one of those water lorries just came down our street spraying disinfectant. It was manic trying to get everything in from outside, screwed up the filming, heres some screenshots of it spraying though. Luckily its street by street, not from the air, so the vegetable patches should be fine.

[Flickserve]

57 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

did another short video blog today, keeping us in good spirits.

I concur with you about spraying disinfectant from the air. More symbolic than anything else. 
 

Like the way you arranged the sound at the start of your video - the typical cackle that precedes a projectile object from the oral cavity. Had a chuckle at that.

[Brassneck]

My daughter is waiting for more news on whether her University in Shanghai is likely to start again. One thing I’ve noticed is that outside of Hubei the numbers of infected have plateaued over the last week and also that the death rates are much lower. Could be loads of reasons for this but one I am clinging on to is that maybe the control systems in place are working because authorities got their act together quickly elsewhere. More pessimistically might just be lags in response to the virus elsewhere as it spreads.    Would be interested in the thoughts of others.

 

Also if anybody works in the university sector, do you think classes are likely to start at all within the next few months? I think one problem is that she is unlikely to be insured for studying in China until Governments withdraw the ‘no travel’ recommendations. That might not happen until infected numbers are increasing at only tiny rates.

 

Thanks.

[ChTTay]

The U.K. government has now advised people to leave China if they are able to. 
 

If you’re in China and able to leave, you should do so.

 

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china

[roddy]

Wow. 

[889]

Day-by-day, returning by anything other than a non-stop flight back to your home country -- if such a flight even exists -- is become more difficult, as the list of areas blocking entry, including transit, to those who've been in China grows ever longer.

 

Today, for example, Taiwan announced that visas would be required from anyone who'd recently been in China, including those normally permitted visa-free access.

 

The U.S. restrictions announced a few days ago especially affect those returning to Latin America, since most routings to that area from Asia require a transit in the U.S.

 

I'm afraid the U.K. advice is spot on.

[DavyJonesLocker]

42 minutes ago, ChTTay said:

The U.K. government has now advised people to leave China if they are able to. 
 

If you’re in China and able to leave, you should do so.

 

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china

 

 

I wonder how much posterior-covering is included in that advice though. In the immediate term, sure there will be travel disruptions which can be a major concern for people, but long term (1year)  I don't think 1/5th of the world will be walled off. I am not bothered at all and think social media while can be useful in this situations, can also be fan the flames of mass hysteria . A weeks ago WW3 was about to break between USA and IRAN. I am still waiting to be killed by Ozone layer depletion, Y2K or the AIDS epidemic (or possibly eating too many eggs, or too few, which is it again?) 

 

 

 

 

[Flickserve]

It could have something to do with the quarantine facilities in UK. Like how many people could they handle if repatriation occurs. There’s also other logistics such as local  opposition to having people in quarantine nearby, cost of repatriation of a large number of citizens (Australia charges their citizens or tried to). 

[roddy]

Wonder what that means for health / travel insurance for those who opt not to leave. That’d be (among) my concerns - not catching the bug, but having something else go wrong when there are no hospital beds / flights available, and a “you were warned” from the insurance folk.

[889]

It's like a lot of things in life: if you wait until it's absolutely clear you have no choice but to act, you may find it's too late to act. Like those people living near a threatening volcano who refuse to move out until it starts to erupt.

[Flickserve]

Just a note, we are still not yet two weeks from the semi lockdown of Wuhan. 
 

It’s still concerning about the travelling back of people after the lunar new year break. I hope those that travel might take another ten plus days before going back to the office

[realmayo]

31 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

Just a note, we are still not yet two weeks from the semi lockdown of Wuhan. 

 

Absolutely. The key word at the moment has to be "lag".

[roddy]

20 hours ago, vellocet said:

Nah.  The one flight out of Wuhan was arranged by the US State Department for its own personnel.

Do you / did you want to get out? 

 

I'd have thought (pre-Wenzhou lockdown [edit: although flights are still running?]) your best route would have been to avoid the hot zone and head via BJ/SH/GZ, depending on where has best onward connections.

[mackie1402]

3 hours ago, ChTTay said:

The U.K. government has now advised people to leave China if they are able to. 
 

If you’re in China and able to leave, you should do so.

 

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china

 

So after a quick phone call, it looks like we will be stuck in Hangzhou for a while. My son can't get an emergency travel document because there are no couriers running. On top of that, my wife is a local, so we are what they class as 'unable' to leave. Time to stock up on a bit more food before deliveries companies start suspending their services. 

[vellocet]

3 minutes ago, roddy said:

Do you / did you want to get out? 

No, I don't think it's a big deal as they're making. And to abandon my family here?  WTF.  But I appreciate you carrying water for the powerful and asking tough questions to the powerless.  The issue is that while other countries are bending backwards to accommodate their nationals, the US State Department couldn't care less.  This is a recurring pattern with them, this isn't the first time they pulled a stunt like this.  They got their own people out - because they're important, you see? - they're us - and the rest of us can scramble for seats and cough up $1000 in US dollars or GTFO - we are The Other.  They literally wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire.

 

But you have to understand just how dull people's lives are.  They love having something to get excited or angry about, for good or ill.  We all saw the example of Flora.  Following the infection numbers is like following baseball scores.  This outbreak has created several very excited people in my Wechat groups who finally have a time to shine.  All their negativity towards China is finally validated and they get to shout, "I TOLD YOU SO!"  They get to be the bearer of bad news, again and again.  It's exhilarating.  

 

And since you're all here staring at the scene like a car wreck, here's a tidbit guaranteed to excite.  A buddy of mine:

 

"I'm locked in my apartment, but only because I just came back to Wenzhou yesterday. People who have been in the city for the past X amount of days are allowed to leave one every two days. For people like me, there's a WeChat group where we can write grocery requests and they'll bring anything we want to us the next day"

 

I received the notice by SMS today: 【南汇街道】辖区广大居民：根据市疫情防控领导小组6号通告，即日起至2月8日每户家庭每两天只能指派1名家庭成员出门就近采购生活物资等。请您遵照执行，共克时艰，战胜疫情！“宅家”，就是对战胜疫情的最大支持！

 

And the signout  card taped to my door:

 

 

I'm not worried about the whole thing.  We'll be fine.  Even if we catch the virus, it just gives you cold-like symptoms.  I liken the entire experience to a hurricane with electricity.  I, for one, will be proud to live through this.  It's going to be a collective shared experience like Hurricane Harvey was in Houston.  A chance for us all to show our humanity and grace under fire.  I'd rather have this than a big Gulf hurricane any day. Those things knock the power out for weeks in the middle of sweltering summer. Or a tornado hit you, or a flood, or, or, or...   I'm snug as a bug in a rug at home.  

[suMMit]

33 minutes ago, vellocet said:

The issue is that while other countries are bending backwards to accommodate their nationals, the US State Department couldn't care less

To be fair, only Hubei is on lockdown, and they've evaced 3 planeloads, 2 planes tonight for a total of 750+ Americans. I have a colleague who got on tonights flight. Additionally , they said there may be more flights. They're advising Americans against being in the rest of China now, So what more are the supposed to do?

[889]

And you can't really expect American taxpayers to pay for your ticket back can you, not that I've got much nice to say about the State Department generally. (Maybe if they were charging $10,000 apiece I'd feel some outrage, but $1000 each for a special charter flight -- it flew empty into China no doubt -- doesn't sound like scalping to me.)

 

Remember, lots of foreigners from lots of countries are stuck in Hubei because their countries aren't in a position to arrange evacuation flights. This is one of those cases where that nice U.S., U.K., etc passport really starts to count.

[vellocet]

Other countries seem to do it just fine, and they're not nearly as wealthy as the US.  

[Dawei3]

On 2/3/2020 at 11:20 AM, Jan Finster said:

It is 100% not racist.

In the US, my experience is that those most concerned about Chinese are the Chinese nationals living in the US.  Both 2 weeks ago and last week, 2 different US-based Chinese organizations that I'm involved with cancelled their New Years dinners in the US due to concerns about the coronavirus.  Chinese friends also have said they stopped going to Chinese restaurants (but not American ones).  

 

Regarding the comment on whether people outside of China are getting worried - probably not - but they should be.  On Friday's (31 Jan) RTE radio podcast (from Ireland) noted that Ireland should have learned from SARS, but did not.  That Limerick, their 3rd largest city, has only 14 isolation beds and the rest of the country has relatively few - and all are fully occupied, i.e., even before a pandemic.  There is no surge capacity.  When asked about building new facilities (like China is doing with amazing speed), the General Secretary of the Irish Nurses & Midway assoc noted that you need highly trained individuals to man any new facility. I expect the US has limited surge capacity as well. 

 

(to be clear, I'm not criticizing Ireland, but using it as an example.  To me, Ireland is a clean, well-run country, yet the above suggest strong limitations in how it could cope).   

 

Hence, leaving China may provide a temporary respite.  The question is whether we can control further spread across the globe, i.e., beyond the few cases we've seen in various countries.