Tim_N
1753
Going back to the colloquial naming of COVID-19.
Calling it Wuhan Virus and using it to justify xenophobia is obviously terrible and shows the very worst impulses of humankind. Yet I also think it’s important to remember that the evidence so far indicates that this is not a virus that appeared randomly in China, and trying to stamp out the racist reactions to the virus should not mean that we pretend the virus has no human cause.
The evidence suggests the global recession we are about to face and the many deaths are due to the exploitation of wild animals. China has always been a hotbed of this activity and is the enemy of endangered animals everywhere because they use parts of the endangered animals for their medicine.
What we are dealing with is the economic and health costs of fucking with nature so ruthlessly, and we all share that blame collectively. Hopefully in a couple of years we can look back on this as a cautionary tale of how fragile we are as a species, and despite all of our advancements and progress we remain utterly at the mercy of the planet and its impulses. The Chinese government looks like it is trying to dampen the wildlife trade for food (but not for chinese medicine), hopefully it will get extended to medicine in the future and the rest of the world can also come together for climate change and the collapse in biodiversity as well.
But of course that won’t happen, 50% of the population will blame Chinese people and the other 50% will be focused on arguing with them about how prejudicial they are.
Mr.GRIM
1755
Well said. There are very real practices that happen in China and a few other countries that lead directly to virus outbreaks. If nothing is done, it will happen again.
Wild meat was banned in February. Even deer apparently. Ah, there’s no finalized list because it’s a temporary ban and the final law needs to be passed later in the year.
Mr.GRIM
1757
I wonder how they determine “wild”. As shown in the video, they now farm a variety of wild species and I wonder if those farmed animals fall under the same blanket ban. Worth noting that it is not just wild animal eating that is to blame. Sars and Swineflu came from domesticated species, pointing to a flaw in how the food supply chain is managed.
The hypocrisy in which animals are food and which are not is going to be a huge tangent. Pigs probably smarter than my puppy yet one is food and one is not.
Mr.GRIM
1759
agreed. Seeing that bear farm made me feel very uneasy. Then I realized that we do the same thing to pigs cows and chickens, and it doesn’t seem to illicit the same response from me.
Trump forgot how to pronounce industry. Apparently from briefing today?
It’s not like our food practices are great either, my pretty annoying (and unmanaged, still) intolerances are 100% made in Europe. And so was BSE, it turned out eating brain wasn’t so enlightened after all.
Without question. This disease may kill more people in the US over the next year than all other causes of death combined.
Extraordinarily unlikely, 2.8 million people died in the US last year. I think there be a case for it China hadn’t manage to contain the virus. I know Trump is charge, but the US is still the world leader in researching and dealing with pandemics. So even if we are 100 time less effective than China we have 1/4 the population and 1/4 the population density of China that puts at around 80k deaths about equal to Drug overdoses
Aceris
1764
A disease which has killed 177 people over over 20 years.
The problem with wild animals is the heightened potential for a zoonosis which is highly alien to our immune systems. As was mentioned upthread the most likely zoonoses from domesticated animals have already occured.
On the subject of China’s culpability, the cover up of the disease for the first ?month? was incredibly damaging. I think it was very unlikely it could have been successfully contained, but contact tracing early on could have made a huge difference and bought the world a couple of months.
Mr.GRIM
1765
I wonder if they will bother putting the tables out tomorrow.
That’s actually funny. You really do drink the koolaid dont you.
Applying linear math to a near exponential problem is a bad model fit.
jsnell
1767
All seven of your first examples are independent events. If 10 people get trampled to death in the burning building where they were overdosing on heroin, it does not increase the chances of that happening again a week from now. That’s not the case for contagious diseases. If you catch Covid today, in a month you will have transitively transmitted it to 80 people (on average, and assuming and r0 in the middle of the 2.2-3.9 range).
Exponential growth changes the tradeoffs quite a lot.
What about other diseases? Well, there isn’t really much to compare with that would have a similar profile of being highly infectious, lethal, and a green field population with basically no immunity. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. (For example of course I’d rather have Covid than smallpox. But I’m not going to catch smallpox at a concert, right?)
Sure, I’m not doing an equivalence between two specific things, I’m saying our production of food like if it was just any other commodity is also shedding externalities we’re not aware of, like any other commodity (hi, AGW). Not all dietary changes people make are fad diets out of the blue, believe me; I’d like very much to eat wheat again, but at least it’s not killing me, unlike other people.
China screwed up containment, but not I’m seeing how “wait and panic” is any better. We’ve all fucked up, maybe this will wake up rulers to do better and care about healthy, sustainable food production. (they won’t)
RichVR
1769
Well… maybe at a Ted Nugent concert…
That would be Bartonella.
One thing that may not be noticed: Series A in Italy is suspended. That’s basically like suspending the NFL in mid-season.
