That’s the thing. See people keep blaming our government for the reason why this thing is spreading so fast. Yes, there’s a lot of baffooning that happened for failing to take this thing seriously once China started to officially report an outbreak. But there’s a bigger problem. China officially reported this virus very very late. 2 months or more and by that time it had already spread outside its borders from all the commerce that happens between there and other places
The virus was probably already here in the US back in late December maybe even earlier.
After talking to the folks that were from my previous company there were a lot of people that came down with similar things my colleagues did thing before and after when they came back: flu like symptoms, sometimes worse, high fever 104-105, extreme soreness, difficult breathing, dry cough… despite testing negative for for flu, and have a flu shot. Doctors they saw here were puzzled, but after about 2 weeks their symptoms went away and they didn’t think anything more of it. These folks were all the people that went back and for between here and China, none were in Wuhan. So it suggests even in December the virus had already left Wuhan and was already in other areas like Beijing, and already infecting a lot of people. Good luck trying to trace whom these people had contact with 1-2months ago.
This is just a small group out of a smaller company. I’m sure it wasn’t alone. For example, tskke a large company like Qualcomm that had a remote office location there and have a lot more people going back and forth between China and here. I suspect there were some folks that came down with the same thing, like a few of us had a cough for 2 months that didn’t go away, and some folks who normally would shake a flu ended up with bronchitis this year.
Expanding even further, Washington state has a lot of people going back and forth to China, so does the Bay Area, same with LA. And notice those are the areas with a much larger concentration of outbreaks. Vancouver too. I looked it up , I think they are close to 400 cases.
Before naysayers say this is being alarmist it isnt. For the majority of the cases that come down with this, it will probably be similar to 2 weeks of severe flu like symptoms and it will pass. For a smaller percentage of the population , it will be high risk. And going to lockdown is necessary not so much because we can contain the virus. We are well past containment, and probably never had a chance to contain it anyway. We need this lockdown so we don’t have a huge population infected flooding the ICU infecting all the nurses and doctors. Even wearing an N95 mask is not going to really stop a virus from infecting someone, it just reduces the chances significantly. Afterall, in San Diego County there will be roughly 1 ICU bed for 30 people unless we get a lot more makeshift beds setup soon. And even then, I don’t know if there will be a lot of ventilators to go around. It’s not like they can be procured as quickly as as a face mask. And if you try to buy a real ventilator that normally several thousands, they aren’t available, and if you buy the cheaper concentrators like the one above, they are slowly not available too. That’s why some people are creating the Arduino hack to turn more readily available CPAP machines into higher flowing machines because in the short term that might be reality if you need one.
Interestingly though, here in San Diego, the majority of the people infected are less than 60 years old. Probably because people older than 60 don’t go out as much and travel/interact as frequently. But definitely, young people are getting affected by it.
It was a Chinese virus, China didn’t disclose of this sooner. The virus already left its borders. The rest of the world had a much later start. Then, the governments didn’t take things seriously after that, and some still aren’t taking it seriously. China doesn’t want to lose face, so redirects and blames US army for planting a virus and gets butt hurt calling this a Chinese Flu, despite everyone calling the pandemic flu of 1918 “Spanish Flu”.
China’s Fault; 70%
US governments lack of readiness: 30%
