Coronavirus - the new pandemic

[clearspira]

Eh, eventually China is going to use WMD chem-bombs to conquer the US steel and uranium supplies and force USA to retaliate with bio-weapons the makes C-19 look like a simple flu virus. Not saying of China wanting to be evil, but the world is filled with enough predictability that human annihilation or self-slavery via incompetence will happen.

The next big war won't be fought with guns, it'll be fought with hackers. Whoever can control the other side's satellites and internet will control the battlefield.

[clearspira]

In other news, British scientists have discovered that the steroid Dexamethasone can dramatically improve the chances of Covid patients. And best of all, its a very cheap drug that is already used widely.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Rewatching B5, I was struck by how shockingly timeless Confessions and Lamentations was to the modern era. I mean... we even had the Markab ambassador try and redirect the blame back onto the human crew, that they were just trying to stir up dissent and divide their people, which is exactly how China is spinning this. My God, we really haven't improved at all in the last thirty, last fifty, last hundred years at all, have we? Puts me in mind of two quotes from Dr. Franklin.

"It's going to take more than a hundred years to evolve a better human."

And also:

"Nothing changes."

The last one? Just chilling...

I'm with you on that one. Or "I hear this whole thing was a Vorlon plot" and the 5G towers. People attacking Markabs, racist violence against Asians. Just...bleh.

I pray for a day when that episode stops being timeless.

[Captain Crimson]

Rewatching B5, I was struck by how shockingly timeless Confessions and Lamentations was to the modern era. I mean... we even had the Markab ambassador try and redirect the blame back onto the human crew, that they were just trying to stir up dissent and divide their people, which is exactly how China is spinning this. My God, we really haven't improved at all in the last thirty, last fifty, last hundred years at all, have we? Puts me in mind of two quotes from Dr. Franklin.

"It's going to take more than a hundred years to evolve a better human."

And also:

"Nothing changes."

The last one? Just chilling...

I'm with you on that one. Or "I hear this whole thing was a Vorlon plot" and the 5G towers. People attacking Markabs, racist violence against Asians. Just...bleh.

I pray for a day when that episode stops being timeless.

Also noteworthy, especially since I note your social passion to belong in the LGBT community, is how the Markab population's entire view on the plague is eerily reminiscent to the attitudes we have today from the hard-line religious preachers insisting that hurricane tore up the coast because of decadence and immorality by having the AUDACITY to propose to let gay people get married or some other BS like that.

[ProfessorDetective]

Rewatching B5, I was struck by how shockingly timeless Confessions and Lamentations was to the modern era. I mean... we even had the Markab ambassador try and redirect the blame back onto the human crew, that they were just trying to stir up dissent and divide their people, which is exactly how China is spinning this. My God, we really haven't improved at all in the last thirty, last fifty, last hundred years at all, have we? Puts me in mind of two quotes from Dr. Franklin.

"It's going to take more than a hundred years to evolve a better human."

And also:

"Nothing changes."

The last one? Just chilling...

I'm with you on that one. Or "I hear this whole thing was a Vorlon plot" and the 5G towers. People attacking Markabs, racist violence against Asians. Just...bleh.

I pray for a day when that episode stops being timeless.

Also noteworthy, especially since I note your social passion to belong in the LGBT community, is how the Markab population's entire view on the plague is eerily reminiscent to the attitudes we have today from the hard-line religious preachers insisting that hurricane tore up the coast because of decadence and immorality by having the AUDACITY to propose to let gay people get married or some other BS like that.

Or how folks in the 1980s thought AIDS was the Finger of God smiting down the unnatural abominations (AKA noncishet people).

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

[Darth Wedgius]

Unfortunately, it became political before it really hit America. China let politics interfere to the extent of threatening doctors with legal action for saying there was a problem. The WHO let politics interfere because of Taiwan. Then, in the US, some protests became OK and some weren't; that's politics, and I suspect that in the eyes of many that damaged the credibility of those telling us to stay at home.

I'm in California, where the number of active cases has pretty much always been on the rise since the infection was known, and things are loosening up, regardless. Me, I'm glad that hiking trails have opened back up, but I'm not planning on taking a trip to the beach any time soon. And I'll be spending most of my time isolated, in front of my computer, with just my wife and I; so, no real change there. My attempt to give myself a hair cut was useful, in that at least it probably gave amusement to people.

I'm glad that dexamethasone is showing promise in the worst cases, by suppressing, to some degree, that immune over-reaction that's doing a lot of the damage in those cases. It looks like the hope Trump (and a lot of doctors) had in hydroxychloroquine didn't pan out. If that one helps, it doesn't seem to help very much. There's a lot of hope for a vaccine in 2021, but the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 seems to be really variable from person to person ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/antibody-testing-suggests-immune-response-post-covid-is-very-variable/ ) so I'm going to be pessimistic. So, also no real change there.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

[Antiboyscout]

The conservative parts of America tend to be rural instead of jam packed in cities that make disease spread like wildfire. Add in that no conservative governers pulled a Cuomo and forced retirement homes to take in infected people, so what seems like the end of the world in NY is merely an annoying slow burn in 'flyover' country.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The conservative parts of America tend to be rural instead of jam packed in cities that make disease spread like wildfire. Add in that no conservative governers pulled a Cuomo and forced retirement homes to take in infected people, so what seems like the end of the world in NY is merely an annoying slow burn in 'flyover' country.

Only curious if you got any data on this. I'm only getting a bunch of paywalls as far as any articles that talk about it.