Silentbudda, I doubt that China has deliberately not reported detected cases, at least after late January. If anything, it was initially the other way around; they had been under reporting deaths in the early stages, labelling them as pneumonia or heart failure.
shepherdless
JoinedPosts by shepherdless
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49
The Coronavirus Is Trump’s Fault!
by minimus inyes, it’s donald trump’s problem and he has no idea of how to take care of this!
and he gets his vp mike pence to oversee this situation.
donald trump doesn’t care about who could get this virus.
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49
The Coronavirus Is Trump’s Fault!
by minimus inyes, it’s donald trump’s problem and he has no idea of how to take care of this!
and he gets his vp mike pence to oversee this situation.
donald trump doesn’t care about who could get this virus.
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shepherdless
A couple of quick comments in relation to death rate (percentage). It is actually a complicated topic.
Let’s assume the official data is correct. (Probably isn’t, but...) So far, there are 85,691 cases, and 2933 deaths. You may say, that indicates a death rate of 3.4%.
However, the majority of those cases are still in hospital, and thousands are still in a serious or critical condition. If you compare deaths to those fully recovered (39,766 people), you get a death rate of about 7%. This number has been steadily improving. A couple of weeks ago it implied a death rate of about 18% or so. I suspect (but don’t know) that what happened was that when a massive number of cases came in, in China, they just didn’t have enough mechanical ventilators to keep all the more serious cases alive.
I suspect the death rate will end up being in the 2 to 3% range, and better than that if the number of new cases are kept low.
The death rate also dramatically changes with age. If you are below 40, it is not much more dangerous than the flu. At least until recently, there has not been a single death of anyone under 10. It seems that if you have any heart or respiratory condition, it is a very dangerous virus. There is some anecdotal evidence (not yet substantiated) that smokers are twice as likely to die. From what I have read, I wonder if people getting their aerobic fitness up a little (say eg by doing a 5km walk once a week) might make them more resistant to the virus. (Disclaimer: I have no medical qualification whatsoever.)
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Corona beer sales vs coronavirus ?
by smiddy3 ini`m just curious as to whether the corona beer sales have plummeted since this coronavirus has spread in different parts of the world .. it wouldn`t surprise me if sales had a nose dive since this outbreak and just wondered if anybody has any information concerning this ?.
word association plays a big part in many peoples lives..
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shepherdless
I believe they are trialling a name change to get around the negative connotation:
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34
They Are Already Talking About Impeaching Trump Again!
by minimus inbecause he voiced his opinion on roger stone’s recommended sentencing as being grossly unfair, the democrats are talking about impeachment.. do they really think that impeaching him will mean that a democrat will get into the white house??.
it is crazy!!
!.
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shepherdless
In Australia, if a politician made a Twitter like that about a person facing a court sentence, that politician would most likely have to defend criminal contempt of court charges.
It is baffling to me that it can be allowed in another first world country.
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IRAN - An inevitable clash of civilizations just up ahead (1953-1979)
by Terry insatan peeks over the horizon in qatar :).
arbitrary borders on a map of the middle east, post wwi.. .
civilizations were uprooted.. .
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shepherdless
PS: I an not saying the Iranian Govt are good guys. Far from it. Just trying to explain the dynamics.
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IRAN - An inevitable clash of civilizations just up ahead (1953-1979)
by Terry insatan peeks over the horizon in qatar :).
arbitrary borders on a map of the middle east, post wwi.. .
civilizations were uprooted.. .
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shepherdless
My 2c worth:
disagree with parts, agree with others.
Firstly, the area that the Brits and the French divided up after WW1 was the Levant, ie Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Also Iraq. These were all under the loose control of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Iran was separate and already under the influence of the Brits as part of “the great game”. Iranians are insulted if you call them Arab. They are a different people, with a different language and culture.
I agree that the Brits and then USA behaved appallingly in relation to Iran after the Second World War. Won’t go into the history, but appalling. Corporate economic interests trumped a promising democracy.
Part of the promise of Ayatollah Khomeini returning to Iran and the deposing of the Shah in 1979, was the restoration of democracy. Instead they got a brutal theocracy with a weak elected parliament and a president with little power. It has been evolving into more a democracy, but it has been a case of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. The last general election virtually wiped out every hardliner from every significant elected government position. (By the way, what defines a hardliner over there, depends on what issue is being discussed, so it is complicated.)
The following is what I have learnt, primarily from Talking to Iranians:
Despite the theocracy, and the various rules and restrictions, citizens, particularly in urban areas side step the rules. Unusually in that part of the world, they struggle to get younger people to attend mosques for Friday prayers etc.
It is simply untrue that they are natural enemies of USA. They are enemies because of 1979 in particular. Their theology is Shiite (only 10 to 15% of muslims are Shiite) and Iran is the leading Shiite country in the world. They tolerate Christians, Zoastrians and Sunnis in their midst (although Sunnis keep a low profile). Jews were virtually wiped out or left in the mid-20th Century. Members of the Baha’i faith are persecuted and are not allowed to attend university.
From what I have read in their media: They hate ISIS, Taliban and Al Qadea. No other religious group has suffered from ISIS as Shiites, because all hard line Sunnis regard Shiites as infidels. In Pakistan, for instance, on days of Shiite religious festivals they used to turn off the mobile phone networks to reduce the number of remote bombings, such is the hostility between the two branches of Islam.
During the height of the fight against ISIS, I read Iranian media which included conspiracy theories about ISIS being a creation of the CIA to kill Shiites, and allegations of secret flights from USA providing arms to ISIS to help them. This might all seem absurd to us, but it was in their media, and gives you an idea of how they see things.
in short, Iran is not a natural enemy of the West. It is the enemy due to unfortunate historical circumstances. History writers in the future will struggle to explain why USA was so keen to be friends with Saudi Arabia, where almost all the funding and theology for radical Islam has arisen from, and enemies against what should have been a natural ally.
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Jesus said Truly I tell you This Day...
by JohnTron72 inadam was told not to eat from the tree of knowledge for upon the very day of eating from it, he would die.
i had someone say that god lied because, adam didn't die that day but, the scriptures say to god a day is as a thousand years so, since adam lived 900+ years after eating , he indeed died within god's view of a day.
methuselah the oldest to ever live 969 years still within god's set time of a day.
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shepherdless
I think I have seen this issue about whether the passage should be read as having a comma before or after “today” being debated extensively on another thread a long time ago.
For what it is worth, I have to agree with Diogenesister. I would add that the alternative reading would imply that the “criminal” became one of the anointed, in an instant.
(I also agree with Half Banana, but it is sometimes interesting to hypothesise that the bible is not a contradictory collection of imprecise mixed messages, and try to identify the least inconsistent interpretation.)
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The sky is falling- maybe
by joey jojo ini am actually not a 'sky is falling' guy, but i wanted to comment on the australian bushfires.. you may or may not believe the science behind global warming, however i personally put more faith in verified, scientific data than the words of fat cat, self-serving politicians.
climate science has predicted, based on data, that we will see more prolonged, extreme weather events, higher average temperatures, rising sea levels due to ocean expansion and glacial melting.
and this is exactly whats happening.
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shepherdless
There have been something like 180 cases of arson...
I saw that (or something similar) on Fox News’ website:
https://www.foxnews.com/world/australia-brush-fire-24-charged-new-south-wales
Here is a link to an ABC (the national broadcaster in Australia) article today, debunking that claim:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-08/fires-misinformation-being-spread-through-social-media/11846434
The article refers to the above claim and says the actual number of people charged is 24, and not all of those charged “...managed to spark large blazes”.Many fires were started by dry lightning, and that is not unusual in Aust, and for some reason common in my particular area. A fire near where I have property (burnt 40,000 hectares) was definitely lightning. There are other things that trigger bushfires as well, and whenever you have hot windy conditions over a large area, especially when everything is tinder dry from a long drought, something somewhere often starts a fire, whether sparks from a power line or transformer, vehicle exhaust in long grass, overheating bearings in agricultural machinery, etc.
Of course it is not just Fox News giving false info. Progressive news sites have been just as bad, if not worse, with their garbage maps:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-08/misleading-fire-maps-go-viral-during-australian-bushfire-crisis/11850948
It is annoying, because the truth is very bad, so why undermine it with falsehood and exaggeration. -
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What The Fossils Say
by cofty inthe old creation book had a lot to say about the fossil record.
if i remember correctly it was some lie about all the fossils ever found would fit on a single table.
the reality is that there is an embarrassment of riches illustrating the evolution of life.
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shepherdless
Sea breeze, by chance, the following cartoon specifically deals with the evolution of whales in considerable detail:
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Canadians and Europeans, what do you think of your national health care ?
by RubaDub inwe have been in a battle over health care for so long here in the us regarding public, private, gov't subsidized, obama care, medicare for all, and just about every permutation of the above.. we hear the horror stories here that people wait 20 years for a check-up (ok, bit of an exaggeration), but you get the point.
one side tells us that canadians flock across the border when they are sick and need to see a doctor.
the other side says that is simply not the case.. so tell us, if you live under one of the government systems would you replace it?
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shepherdless
Healthcare in USA is ridiculously expensive in relation to the rest of the Western World, and people often argued that it was because there was no government healthcare system. However, from what I understand, a major reason for the additional cost is the litigious environment and the propensity for US civil juries to award huge amounts in punitive damages for medical malpractice.
In Aust (which has what has been described as a hybrid public private healthcare scheme), due to various reasons, and various laws applying in various circumstances, there are no punitive damages, it is almost impossible to get damages for lottery ticket type numbers. Even negligence that kills someone might lead to an award in the order of $100,000 or so. Instead, a lot of effort is taken to ensure underperforming medical practitioners lose their right to practice. As a result, it seems healthcare is way cheaper.