Yep. When I was there (2012) the air in most places was bad, except at the great wall. The air in Beijing was VERY bad. When I got back to the USA, I had the worst walking pneumonia I’ve ever experienced. I was hacking, wheezing and feeling faint for two months after that trip. Glad I went. Never going back.
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…Which means that quarantine and isolation are going to be nigh impossible. As others have pointed out the real problem isn’t the 1-2% mortality rate it’s the ~15-20% of patients that have serious cases needing medical intervention. The American healthcare system is better at wealth extraction than it is at dealing with public health crises, but no nation can put one out of five people in hospitals.
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I hope this doesn’t come across as patronising but I just wanted to say kudos for being receptive to new information and not doubling down. Wish more people did this (IRL and on t’interwebs), myself included.
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I think this is true. It’s tempting to assume this virus is the world-killer, because that plays into our perception that Trump is an idiot. But the two are mutually exclusive. Trump is an idiot whether the virus turns out to be a big deal or not. And anyway, you’ll note that he covered all the bases in his speech, so if it is a world-killer, it’s just like he predicted, and if it’s not, it’s just like he predicted.
It will be interesting to see what kind of stats we get from South Korea and Japan, compared with mainland China. The 2% death rate may not hold in countries with smaller rural populations and better access to healthcare for those populations. It also seems to me that China values human life differently than South Korea and Japan, and that shows through in their handling of the pandemic.
I would also add that as the epicenter for this, China was naturally caught unprepared. The rest of the world can see it coming, and hopefully put plans in place. Like putting Pence in charge! So presumably we would have lower death rates…
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Well, the Great Orange God has spoken so I’m sure we are now safe especially with acolyte Pence handling the daily rituals and blessings.
Tell that to HIV+ folks in Indiana. I am sure they could use the laugh.
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What happens if the blue States hold it anyway?
That’s a real all-or-nothing gamble, especially given that the 1918 election was held while the Great Flu Epidemic was killing whole families AND the country was at war. The 1864 election was held in the midst of the Civil War, and the 1944 during World War II.
However, as you observe, he’s not terribly bright and tends to play out his fantasies regardless of reality.
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Any bets that Trump will tell any of his rocket scientist followers that happen to contract it that they don’t have it, there is no need to worry, and to go about their business?
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Good question, and one I really hope we never have to answer. 
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That’s typically the case but even with the flu you can have odd variants like in 1918 where the mortality rate for people in their 20’s was higher than for some younger kids. Check out this weird “W-shaped” mortality graph for the 1918 flu:
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The 1918 flu was thought to kill the young adults by cytokine storm - a systemic inflammation that can be thought of as the immune system’s burning down the body to get at the infection. Patients with mild immunocompromise may have fared better with the 1918 virus than their healthier peers!
Any infection can trigger cytokine release syndrome, but CoVID-19 doesn’t appear to be following the pattern of the 1918 flu. Fewer than 1 percent of otherwise-healthy patients have died from it, but the elderly and ill die in much greater numbers, suggesting that in this case at least, a healthy immune system is an asset rather than a liability.
As with most viral diseases, the best protective measure anyone can take is washing their *&!@#$ hands.
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There is also a theory that a pretty nasty flu strain that circulated in 1898-99(?) was similar enough to the 1918 strain that the generation that went through that was partially immune and so dealt better with the pandemic strain. As with most things like this, it’s more complicated that any single factor. Biology is always gonna be a science rife with squishy imprecision.
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This concept is also associated with some cancers, and was actually discovered in the late 1800’s, where some cancers could be eradicated when the patients were infected with streptococcus. It was considered a fringe treatment for nearly a century, and then was brought back. Capitalizing on certain viruses is now a central idea of modern immunotherapies and probably how we will eventually conquer all forms of cancer, as cancer is essentially an autoimmune disease as much as it is mutagenic.
In the case of the Spanish Flu of 1918, coinfection by streptococcus INCREASED mortality:
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They’re going to fix this with messaging. Only Pence can say what’s happening. And what’s happening is everything is fine. 
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It occurs to me that Trump may have thought this would be over by April because he’s used to television seasons, and plot devices like epidemics don’t extend past the season finale?
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Bernie Sanders to Mike Pence: Is the Coronavirus Going to Catch Your Prayer Hands Like the Last Epidemic You Faced?
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The original CDC testing kits were flawed, and they won’t have new ones until March. Until then, make do.
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