well, i would hardly consider two imported cases of a mild virus to be an emergency. this, like it is elsewhere, is an abuse of power. and, i will stand with those who end up victimized by any rights abuses.

i hope this doesn't result in hassles at the border....

https://www.wxyz.com/news/read-gov-whitmers-state-of-emergency-declaration-amid-first-coronavirus-cases

but, the capitalist narrative is...

according to capitalists, europe is struggling to contain the disease because they have thousands of cases. meanwhile, america is containing the disease effectively because it only has 1000 cases.

it's perfect ostrich logic.

in reality, europe (with the exception of italy.) is testing people at 100x the rate that america is, so it's finding a much higher percentage of the weaker cases. 

but, in america, if you can't see something then it's not there.

even in italy, what they're saying is that the system is overwhelmed, and there aren't enough resources to test everybody. so, we know there's a high number of unreported cases - just like in the united states.

there's 12,000 cases and 800 deaths. but, what we know about the mortality rate suggests that if there's 800 deaths then there must be closer to a million cases - and the data coming out of northern europe is proving that point.

again, we don't yet know exactly what they did wrong, but it's probably some combination of the way italians live, with a confusion of symptoms for the flu and a higher than average lifespan.

see, this is a crass and stupid political response intended to deflect attention from america's failing capitalist catastrophe. 

the europeans are the ones doing this right by actually carrying out a sufficient number of tests. that's why the mortality rate in germany is actually at the 0.1% threshold that so many experts want to put it at - they've done enough testing to actually catch enough of it. germany has proven that if you do this right, it really is about the same mortality rate as the flu. and, it's why norway and denmark have hundreds of cases and no deaths.....they're testing people at high enough levels to find cases.

on the other hand, there are tens of thousands of undocumented cases in the united states, and officials don't have the slightest concept of where they are, how they're spreading or how the virus is evolving along with them.

it's a startlingly terrible response.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-statement/index.html

or, don't cancel church?

no. you know what i always say about religious folks, but i'm just being an ass. you cancel church....

they're cancelling concerts here. it's hysteria.

if you're going to cancel events, they should be events with lots of old people, not events where essentially everybody is under 35. so, church services should definitely be cancelled. i'd probably accept them cancelling events at the dso without much pushback.

but, i'd rather see venues put out warnings that tell concert-goers to enter at their own risk.

i'm willing to avoid old folks for a while, but i'd rather catch this thing and beat it than try and hide from it. i'm not afraid of this...

we can control how much equipment we have. we'll have to act quickly, granted. and, the provinces have to fucking do it. but that's a budget choice. we control that.

we cannot control the spread of this virus.

we don't know how many cases there are. we don't know where they are. and, we have a massive economic relationship with a country we're in close proximity with, and that we know these unknowns are exponentially worse in. 

policy should be based around what we know we can control, not what we know we can't.

yeah, i'm a downer. but, i'm right.

our hospitals need to update their gear anyways, right?

if you put a large amount of resources into "flattening the curve", and you fail, as all evidence suggests you will, then you're just caught in a worse situation when the cases spike.

which, i believe, is actually the mistake they made in italy.

if we buy more gear, we can use it later; buying gear is never wasteful.

"If you can slow it down enough and flatten the curve, so the same number of people get infected, but over a much longer period of time, then ... what you're allowing is that the capacity will not be exceeded," said Dr. Anand Kumar, a critical care physician at Winnipeg's Health Science Centre. 

yeah. and, if you can splice narwal dna with pony dna you can genetically engineer unicorns.

we need funding announcements, not delusional appeals to positive thinking.

we got some today.

i haven't been very critical of what the government has been doing here in canada, because there hasn't been much to criticize. but, let's keep the debate evidence based. let's avoid the magical thinking.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-covid-19-coronavirus-spread-hospital-surge-capacity-ventilators-1.5493178

if you refuse to test people, you can manufacture what looks like a slower transmission rate. sure. and then you can tell people that your policy was successful, by cutting out proper measurements of the data.

i would hope that would fail a peer review because you're not actually flattening the curve, you're just sticking your head in the sand, in ignoring what's actually happening.

but, none of the policies they've tried have been effective in slowing the spread; they've probably just increased transmission rates. it's nice to talk about flattening the curve, but can you give me concrete suggestions as to how you plan to do it, that will actually work?

so, one of these options exists in reality; the other doesn't. and, these finite resources should not be squandered chasing fantasy realities that don't exist, they should deployed in the most efficient way possible to deal with what is real on the ground.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/science/coronavirus-curve-mitigation-infection.html

there's an old cliche.

"those who would exchange liberty for security will receive neither".

the direct quote from franklin is:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." 

this is a little taste of the wisdom that is so lacking around us right now.

these quarantines are not preventing the spread of the disease, they are making the situation worse, and they need to be stopped.

seems like this guy has a hunch, too.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-strictly-by-the-numbers-the-coronavirus-does-not-register-as-a-dire/