Generational Dynamics World View News

[FishbellykanakaDude]

** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Exponential growth of new Wuhan coronavirus cases

This graph exhibits exponential growth, and perhaps even parabolic growth:

[im g]https://static.politico.com/32/8d/2d9aa ... feb-03.jpg[/img]

• Exponential growth of new Wuhan coronavirus cases

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/0 ... rus-110550

As I've been writing in my articles, we should know by March 1 whether
this rate of growth will continue, or whether it will level off.

Exponential growth is "worse" (faster) than parabolic growth, as a parabola increases at a constant acceleration (y=x^2) while an exponential curve increases at an accelerating acceleration (y=c^x).

Of course, it does depend on what the term "worse" means, as the less "sharp" curve of the parabola at it's "kicking in" point MAY be either "good" or "bad" in terms of epidemiological process.

The parabola really doesn't have a "kicking in" point (an "elbow"), as it's rate of change of change is constant, while the exponential curve goes "vertical" at (usually) a distinct kink/elbow.

..just sayin'...

[FishbellykanakaDude]

...
These "pop-up hospitals" are a very interesting development. The
Chinese developed this technology as part of "lessons learned" from
the SARS crisis in China in 2002-2003. The Chinese are staffing them
with military medics. I believe that three of these hospitals have
been built, as each one can be built within a week. In the months to
come, there should be some reports on how well they worked.

However, the obvious point is that no such "pop-up hospitals" are
possible outside of China. And so if there are outbreaks in other
countries, there will not be enough hospital space, the the death rate
may go much higher than 2.1%.

The Chinese have entire cities of empty buildings. Fully plumbed and powered.

They don't want to be seen as "sending thousands to death camps" by using them as hospitals.

Is it REALLY possible to build a thousand-bed hospital in a week?

..how long does concrete need to cure?

This whole situation does not pass the "Lacy Peterson" smell test.

What is it that the Chinese are up to?

[jmparret]

One of the problems with antibiotics is the chinese have gained control of manufacturing the crucial ingredients of antibiotics, steroids, and many other drugs.

https://dailycaller.com/2014/02/17/repo ... tibiotics/

The chinese cut the price for these drugs and took over all manufacture of these things.

Joe

[richard5za]

One of the problems with antibiotics is the chinese have gained control of manufacturing the crucial ingredients of antibiotics, steroids, and many other drugs.

https://dailycaller.com/2014/02/17/repo ... tibiotics/

The chinese cut the price for these drugs and took over all manufacture of these things.

Joe

Starting to get a bit scary!

[richard5za]

One of the problems with antibiotics is the chinese have gained control of manufacturing the crucial ingredients of antibiotics, steroids, and many other drugs.

https://dailycaller.com/2014/02/17/repo ... tibiotics/

The chinese cut the price for these drugs and took over all manufacture of these things.

Joe

It is a plausible theory that this Wuhan coronavirus is a bio-weapon that escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. It doesn't mean that the Chinese wanted to use it, or perhaps not yet, but as negotiating tool to get the USA to stay out of a conflict against Taiwan or Japan, it could be very strong. To put a little light heartedness to a serious subject (for those who play Contract Bridge) it could be "7 no trumps"

[Tiger]

** 04-Feb-2020 World View: Asia's economic outlook

> Asia here. Again. The weekend saw a collapse in local business,
> unless your business was connected to food deliveries and selling
> clothing and shoes online. Stores are nearly empty as people are
> afraid to venture out from their homes. Restaurants are nearly
> empty, if not entirely empty. Many business owners sent their
> employees home early or gave them the weekend off. Many were told
> not to come in on Monday unless they were telephoned to do
> so. It's only a harbinger of what is to come.

> I don't live in China. I can assure you, this is the situation all
> over the region. Asia's economic outlook is catastrophically
> bad. I expect a quarter of all small businesses in this country to
> be bankrupt by spring, if this keeps up. If this isn't a 'Black
> Swan', then I can't imagine how terrible one would be witnessing
> after this.

> All this and I'll can think about is: I hope I don't get
> sick.

You wrote this on Sunday. Two days have passed since then. Do things
look any different today? Are restaurants starting to fill up again?
Are people beginning to shop again? Or are things getting worse and
worse?

It's difficult tell. Some customers have started to return to restaurants, but I'm not one of them. Online stores are flooded with business. I went grocery shopping at a department store, and it was about half the normal amount of shoppers. The movie theaters are nearly empty. Almost everyone is wearing a mask. I think the fear is growing, but people don't want to appear panicked. People don't show up for meetings. They postpone them now.

Ask me every one or two weeks, the incubation periods. People are WAITING to see what happens. Children don't go to school. Parents keep them at home. I think, my opinion, everyone is waiting to see if the Wuhan outbreak burns out or explodes. I don't think day by day indicators really matter anymore. Every day the number of infected increases, but until the numbers explode, everyone is just waiting...

Getting infected seems like something that only affects other people, until people you know get infected. When they start dying the mood will swing wildly. For sure.

[Tom Mazanec]

Is it any good, if China can build one 1000 bed hospital a day, if cases are growing by 2000 a day as they soon will?

[John]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Coronavirus slowing?

> Very interesting graph, John. The doubling time is under 2 days
> until January 29, at which point the graph starts dropping away
> from exponential growth.

> You may be interested in this:

> https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-says ... listb_pos1

> A man from Hong Kong had the coronavirus and was aboard a cruise
> ship with 3700 people. 273 people on the ship who had fevers or
> close contact with the infected man were tested. 31 tests have
> come back so far, and 10 of them are positive. With the ship
> being quarantined now, I'm not sure whether I should expect 100
> our of the 273 people eventually to test positive, or 1000 out of
> the 3700, or maybe all 3700.

That may be true, and if the growth is slowing, it would be a big
relief to everyone. Just keep in mind that a lot of people believe
that the Chinese are hiding cases, so we really won't know for a
couple of weeks.

[John]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Fox News vs mainstream media

> Forget Fox Business Network, and tell me what was playing on the
> Fox Network: do you watch Fox and Friends?. Of course the
> business networks focused on business issues. The political
> networks focus on politics. I assume their viewers expect that in
> both cases.

Sorry, I can't tell you that since I don't watch Fox and Friends. I'm
interested in news, not in fatuous political nonsense.

There was a time when I watched CNN almost 24 hours a day, but that
was before they turned into a sewer.

I try to watch MS-NBC for a while every day. NBC News used to be a
legitimate news operation, and there are still occasional remnants of
it on MS-NBC. I make a point of watching Hallie Jackson at 10 am ET.
I've found that her show is 75% fatuous nonsense and 25% news, and I
watch it for the 25% news.

This discussion gives me an opportunity to repeat and update stuff
I've written before about Fox News vs the mainstream media.

I've been following this issue off and on since around 2005. As I've
written in the past:

• Half the country is left of center and half the country is
  right of center. If you don't believe this, then consider that this
  is the definition of the word "center."
• All the mainstream media -- CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, BBC,
  Al-Jazeera -- all of them are left of center. That means they're all
  competing with each other for 50% of the national audience.
• Only FNC is right of center. That means that FNC essentially has
  no competition whatsoever for 50% of the national audience.

That's why Fox News consistently gets around 50% of the audience,
while all the other stations compete for the other 50%.

Furthermore, since Fox has no effective competition, it can afford to
be "fair and balanced," while all the others have to compete with one
another to be as loony left as possible.

So Fox News channel is definitely right of center, but also has any
number of regular moderate left-wing commentators, including Mara
Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf.

If all you watch is CNN and MS-NBC, then you're only hearing the loony
news, and you owe it to your own intellectual honesty to balance it in
some way. There are two shows that you might consider.

The best general newscast on tv today is the 6-7pm newscast on FNC,
currently called "Special Report With Bret Baier." Both Bret Baier
and Martha MacCallum (who comes on at 7 pm) are right of center, but
give a great deal of time to "fair and balanced coverage" of
Democrats.

The best hard news analysis show is Hannity at 9 pm. Noone would ever
call Hannity "balanced." He is definitely right of center. But he's
very much highly analytical and not loony right. (I would say that
Tucker Carlson, at 8 pm ET, is loony right.)

I started watching Hannity regularly around a year or two ago as
counterweights to the daily nonsense from Adam Schiff and others who
made one "explosive" revelation after another, every day, and every
single one turned out to be a lie and a fabrication. The Mueller
report eventually proved that Schiff's "explosive" revelations were
all lies, but Hannity showed the same thing every day.

A good example of Hannity's show is that he frequently had reports
from John Solomon at The Hill. Solomon actually went to Ukraine and
got the proof of Schiff's daily lies, reporting on what was really
going on with Burisma and Ukraine's politics. Solomon himself began
getting attacked by the left-wing media because he was too effective,
and was forcing Schiff to change his story. It was really an amazing
situation.

So you have a choice. If you want to just believe Schiff's crap, then
just listen to CNN and MS-NBC and revel in the sewer. If you'd like
to see the counter-analysis, and find out what's really going on, the
only place you can get it every day is Hannity.

> "Fox News Channel Dominates Weekly Cable Ratings Charts

> Network's Impeachment coverage helps generate weekly primetime,
> total day wins

> R. Thomas Umstead Feb 4, 2020

> Fox News Channel was the most watched cable network last week as
> its Impeachment coverage helped the network generate strong
> ratings both in primetime and total day.

> Fox News -- bolstered by record performances by series Tucker
> Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle, averaged 3.3 million
> viewers in primetime during the week of Jan. 27 through Feb. 2,
> according to Nielsen. MSNBC was a distant second with 1.5 million,
> followed by ESPN with 1.2 million viewers.

> HGTV finished fourth with 1.1 million viewers and CNN rounded out
> the top five with 1 million viewers.

> On the total day front, Fox News --bolstered by its coverage of
> Donald Trump's Impeachment trial -- generated its best week since
> January 2017, averaging 2 million viewers and easily outdistancing
> MSNBC, CNN, HGTV and ESPN, according to Nielsen."

> https://www.multichannel.com/news/fox-n ... ngs-charts

[FishbellykanakaDude]

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594

"Tencent briefly lists xxxx infections and xxxx deaths from Wuhan coronavirus"