Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19) and Tinnitus

[linearb]

That implies that the death rate is lower than what is believed by the population (as we have a better estimate of the deaths than of the number infected).

In general yes, but in this specific case n,o because I was talking to her in early march -- the time when NYC spread and spread other places was definitely happening based on the places we are seeing large numbers of deaths. (One stat I saw said for fatalities, the average time from getting sick to dying was averaging 6-8 weeks, which surprised me).

I bet we don't know about the death rate until we have systemic antibody testing being used intelligently in grid patterns for some period of time.

The overall trend isn't looking great; part of the bump is probably the usual pattern we've seen of lower reporting over the weekend and then a catch-up, but new highs are... not inspiring, especially as NYC numbers continue to seem to at least plateau if not be falling off a cliff.

 

[Bill Bauer]

the average time from getting sick to dying was averaging 6-8 weeks, which surprised me

Very strange. I thought it was 2-3 weeks...

 

[all to gain]

What's the fall out of all of this going to be?

I see Missouri has filed a civil lawsuit acccusing China of deception over coronavirus. This will obviously get nowhere, but what about on the national level? Will it fuel further distrust?

Will there be a move away from any type of collaboration and trade with China? Will the UK halt China's involvement in building a nuclear power station and its involvement in 5G? Questions had already been raised about these pre-coronavirus, but the UK seems to be still going ahead. The other four partners in Five Eyes seem to have seen sense in regard to 5G.

For the UK, in particular, which is looking to form new economic ties, any reliance on China may be a dangerous move. But maybe it is aready too late?

Strangely a friend and I were talking in October last year about the future. I said, "Look, you never know what's going to happen. For example, China looks like it's unstoppable and becoming the dominant world power, but a disease could hit tomorrow and wipe out half of it's population and productive power. We just don't know." In no way am I saying I predicted coronavirus, but talk about timing. But instead of China being worst hit, it looks like the rest of the world is taking the brunt of it all. What will the world's response be?

 

[linearb]

What's the fall out of all of this going to be?

No one knows and all the math models are based on sketchy data and extremely incomplete testing.

I see Missouri has filed a civil lawsuit acccusing China of deception over coronavirus. This will obviously get nowhere, but what about on the national level? Will it fuel further distrust?

It is and will be used politically by the same forces already trying to foster sinophobia in the US and EU.

Will there be a move away from any type of collaboration and trade with China? Will the UK halt China's involvement in building a nuclear power station and its involvement in 5G? Questions had already been raised about these pre-coronavirus, but the UK seems to be still going ahead. The other four partners in Five Eyes seem to have seen sense in regard to 5G.

For the UK, in particular, which is looking to form new economic ties, any reliance on China may be a dangerous move. But maybe it is aready too late?

Trump had already put us on a trajectory of radically changing our relationship with China. Even though I might accuse him of using a hammer rather than a scalpel, and too much nationalistic rhetoric, it's one of the few things I would identify as good moves by this administration.

My own guess is these projects will all proceed but obviously no one really trusts networking equipment made in China -- nor should they -- nor should the Chinese trust routers if we suddenly started manufacturing them here. It's become too attractive to compromise things at an infrastructure level, and too easy to do it in ways which are obfuscated and don't become clear until much later if ever.

The 5G rollout will continue, one way or another; if Chinese equipment is deemed unusable in some places, there are other manufacturers.

In no way am I saying I predicted coronavirus, but talk about timing. But instead of China being worst hit, it looks like the rest of the world is taking the brunt of it all. What will the world's response be?

We don't know who's going to take the worst hit.

We're in the first wave of something that's going to go on for years.

Blaming China seems profoundly idiotic to me when the entire world has had this exact fear firmly in mind since the first SARS epidemic, infectious disease experts have been warning about this exact scenario for decades, and Trump's own admin did an epidemic-modeling wargame in the summer of 2019 which modeled a Chinese-origin flu that overwhelmed the US healthcare system called "Crimson Contagion". Meanwhile, Hopkins modeled a coronavirus epidemic last fall in a separate project. There's no need to resort to conspiracy theories to explain this; diseases out of SEA and coronavirus epidemics specifically are something which have seemed "very, very likely" as world population has increased exponentially along with travel patterns.

We talk about exponential growth a lot in this thread:

Pandemics are inevitable in this situation.

This won't be the last, because it's not a particularly nasty virus, given the entire spectrum of possible viral behavior.

 

[Daniel Lion]

The Torrey minister acknowledged that 15,000 people continue to arrive each day into the UK with no screening. The least they could do is have the visitors quarantine for 2 weeks or prescreen before coming.

Meanwhile China and South Korea have set up fast tracking and screening for business people. Very different.

@linearb speculated that the average Americans knowledge of virology was that of a tenth grader. What would be the education level of the Trump administration and that of Mr. Johnson in the UK in terms of virology and common sense? 6th grade?
Good leadership would help create a sustainable and cohesive national response and not the shit show we are seeing.
We will be clapping for a long time with governments like this.
Pandemics are unavoidable, but smart, educated responses are something governments can control.
Read about the inbound flights to the UK if you don't believe me, the minister is on the record saying it wouldn't make that much of an impact anyway. What's the point of social distancing when the government undermines it, or stirs up anti social distancing sentiment contrary to the medical community's advice.

Just watch, the US will get sucked into another war soon...
Unbelievable.

 

[Bill Bauer]

What would be the education level of the Trump administration

In contrast to the administrations in Canada and the UK, Trump administration has stopped the flights from China as early as January, and stopped the flights from Europe soon after the outbreak in Italy got going.

 

[Bill Bauer]

or stirs up anti social distancing sentiment contrary to the medical community's advice

There is a difference between not having social distancing and not having a lockdown, but making sure that everyone wears masks and isn't in a crowded space.

 

[Lane]

Dosing of Oral Vitamin C for Viral Infections

Some of the best information I've found on oral dosing of Vitamin C, from THIS ARTICLE.

"Over many years of treating thousands of patients, Bob had seen that the oral dose of vitamin C that a person could tolerate would vary from day to day and week to week. A dose too large would cause diarrhea, because the portion of vitamin C that was not absorbed would attract water into the gut. He found that the sicker a person was, the higher the dose of vitamin C they could tolerate before they got diarrhea. The greatest reduction in symptoms occurred just below the dose of vitamin C that caused diarrhea.

Due to many questions his patients and colleagues had about this effect, Bob coined the term "bowel tolerance" for the varying dose of vitamin C that could be tolerated. He found that the amounts taken over a 24-hour day (in divided doses) could vary from 4 to 100 grams or more for acute illness. He published several influential papers about the bowel tolerance in 1981, and the term has become widely used because of its descriptive clarity!"​

Suggested Reading and Viewing

Cathcart RF (1981) The Method of Determining Proper Doses of Vitamin C for the Treatment of Disease by Titrating to Bowel Tolerance. J Orthomol Psychiat, 10:125-132. -- http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1981/pdf/1981-v10n02-p125.pdf

This is the landmark article, the definitive text, which set the record straight on the healing impact of vitamin C on viral diseases. The message is simple: given the widely varying potency of viral diseases, it is necessary to adjust doses of ascorbate accordingly. Cathcart describes how ascorbic acid supports the healing processes for non-viral diseases as well. (See also: Vitamin C, Titrating to Bowel Tolerance, Anascorbemia, and Acute Induced Scurvy. http://www.doctoryourself.com/titration.html )​

 

[Daniel Lion]

There is a difference between not having social distancing and not having a lockdown, but making sure that everyone wears masks and isn't in a crowded space.

Fair play. I am aware of the difference and why and when nations resort to lockdowns.

I am disappointed in the WHO and my government's late response and what i see as a lack of cohesion and leadership with states to navigate the problem.

Trumps cancelling of flights doesn't negate the fact that he has showed himself to know little or care about science or virology, my main assertion.

 

[all to gain]

The Torrey minister acknowledged that 15,000 people continue to arrive each day into the UK with no screening. The least they could do is have the visitors quarantine for 2 weeks or prescreen before coming.

Good leadership would help create a sustainable and cohesive national response and not the shit show we are seeing.

Out of all the places that you would think could contain the virus, surely an island nation the size of mainland UK would be somewhere near the top. But, no, let's keep shipping them in (by plane)...

I wonder what the thinking has been? Maybe one or more of the following:

• not taking the virus seriously
• wanting to be seen to upholding human rights and freedom of movement, i.e. not wanting to be seen as authoritarian
• dismal advice from the medical establishment
• wanting to keep the economy intact
• heads stuck too far up their own arses to realise that, yes, this can happen to the UK too

This is one of those rare occasions where I feel Russia seems to have got it right, i.e. banned all incoming flights, but even it was way too slow in taking action. I say seems because I'm only going by what I read. That said, I still don't believe the figures here for the number of deaths from the virus (they will be far higher), and sending medical supplies to other countries for nothing other than political gain, while "Russia was itself experiencing severe shortages of medical supplies in some regions", is pretty repulsive. But at least, if we are to be believe reports here (big if), it's not letting in 105,000 people a week and not quaranting them. Crazy stuff...

Honestly, has any country done a stellar job in dealing with the virus?

We will be clapping for a long time with governments like this.

This neatly sums up the situation (and this has nothing to do with being left or right).

Just watch, the US will get sucked into another war soon

Who will the combatants be on the ground and who will be the combatants behind the scenes? The latter is more obvious than the former.

 

[GregCA]

By what metric is Sweden doing well? If you normalize by population size, it is ranking 12th in the world in deaths, higher than the US (15th). Source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Sweden has now "climbed" a couple of spots on that list, to 10th.
(remember to click on the column header "Deaths/1M pop" to see this sorting)

One concern is that their death curve shows no signs of inflection/flattening yet.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Trumps cancelling of flights doesn't negate the fact that he has showed himself to know little or care about science or virology

Please provide an example of him demonstrating that he knows little about virology.

 

[FGG]

Please provide an example of him demonstrating that he knows little about virology.

Here is a great example: he asked pharmaceutical companies at a recorded meeting why they can't use the flu vaccine for coronavirus.

 

[all to gain]

No one knows and all the math models are based on sketchy data and extremely incomplete testing.

It is and will be used politically by the same forces already trying to foster sinophobia in the US and EU.

I have no doubt you are correct about this, but maybe this gives them just cause, ie if it is shown that China has been holding back on the facts? I, for one, certainly don't believe the figures coming from China (but I have nothing against the country or its people).

My own guess is these projects will all proceed but obviously no one really trusts networking equipment made in China -- nor should they -- nor should the Chinese trust routers if we suddenly started manufacturing them here. It's become too attractive to compromise things at an infrastructure level, and too easy to do it in ways which are obfuscated and don't become clear until much later if ever.

The 5G rollout will continue, one way or another; if Chinese equipment is deemed unusable in some places, there are other manufacturers.

I really think the UK should rethink letting China build a new nuclear power station and being involved in 5G. These are massive security risks. But China may well have the UK in a bind as it can use it's trading leverage over it. The US is in a much stronger position in that regard.

We don't know who's going to take the worst hit.
We're in the first wave of something that's going to go on for years.

This is where a big war could start.

Blaming China seems profoundly idiotic to me when the entire world has had this exact fear firmly in mind since the first SARS epidemic, infectious disease experts have been warning about this exact scenario for decades, and Trump's own admin did an epidemic-modeling wargame in the summer of 2019 which modeled a Chinese-origin flu that overwhelmed the US healthcare system called "Crimson Contagion". Meanwhile, Hopkins modeled a coronavirus epidemic last fall in a separate project. There's no need to resort to conspiracy theories to explain this; diseases out of SEA and coronavirus epidemics specifically are something which have seemed "very, very likely" as world population has increased exponentially along with travel patterns.

It really boggles the mind why nations have done nothing (or so little) to prepare for such an outcome. It's like a warship FFBNW a weapons system. When the war starts, it's already too late.

That said, the virus did start in China, and it must take responsibility for that. And, as above, we just don't know the true figures of how many have contracted and died from the virus in China.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Here is a great example: he asked pharmaceutical companies at a recorded meeting why they can't use the flu vaccine for coronavirus.

I couldn't find this recorded meeting on YouTube. May I ask for a link?

In any case, are there examples where one of his corona virus Policies contradicts virology, that can't be explained by him taking other things (like the fact that the economy pays for the healthcare, and that the less money is available for healthcare, the fewer lives will be saved) into account?

 

[Bill Bauer]

An interesting Twitter exchange

So IFR of 0.6%. Sounds about right. Worse than seasonal flu and not nearly as bad as Spanish flu, more like 1957 Asian Flu and 1968-1969 HK Flu

Yes, but Slightly different as most patients were pretty old..unlike spanish flu...as you mentioned. This Sounds Callous, but it's just pulling deaths forward from 2020-2021 flu season...which should be lower since vulnerable are not around any longer

 

[FGG]

I couldn't find this recorded meeting on YouTube. May I ask for a link?

In any case, are there examples where one of his corona virus Policies contradicts virology, that can't be explained by him taking other things (like the fact that the economy pays for the healthcare, and that the less money is available for healthcare, the fewer lives will be saved) into account?

Here you go:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...demic-meeting-leonard-schleifer-a9371286.html

 

[Bill Bauer]

Here you go:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...demic-meeting-leonard-schleifer-a9371286.html

That

I actually told the pharmaceutical companies that they have to do a better job on that vaccine

is a pretty dumb thing to say.

Other than that, I don't see other evidence of incompetence in that article. His background isn't biology, and as far as I (another educated person whose background isn't biology) know it is common for a drug or a vaccine that is effective against one type of a bacteria to be effective against a different type of a bacteria. What's wrong with a quick question to verify that this isn't the case for this particular set of viruses?

By the way, did you know that

"In order to get a [coronavirus] vaccine that is practically deployable for people to use, it's going to be at least a year to a year and a half at best," Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week.

MIGHT not be true? I've seen several explanations for that "18 month" figure. Damn, now I can't find those links. The best I can find is a forum post that I will quote below (which is consistent with the explanations from more reputable sources that I've seen). If someone could point me to more official sources that explain how they got a year and a half, please do so.

If you dose people with a new vaccine, you'll need to monitor them 6 months at a minimum. 12 months would be better.

It takes 3 months to nail down the protocol and for all the sites to be ready. Then you start recruiting and for a vaccine, you'd want a large population (reflects usage). So assume 6 months to recruit 1000 people. They don't all start at the same time, so if you're tracking for 6 months, it will probably take 9 months for the last person to finish the trial.

Then you need to analyze all the data you collected, so another 3 months. Then the FDA takes 3 months to review and approve.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589776

If the above is true, the authorities could have offered to pay each volunteer enough to immediately get volunteers, and then they could have gotten the vaccine 9 months earlier, saving countless lives and dollars. Ethics are important, but some of us believe that if they were to not have an ethics review once, this one incident would be it. Also, surely if an unlimited number of researchers and FDA officials work day and night, they can reduce that 3 months to analyze the data, as well as the 3 months to review and approve.

If the above is true then it shows how when an expert states a fact, it might still be a good idea to get them to spell out exactly why they think it's a fact.

 

[Jack V]

Please provide an example of him demonstrating that he knows little about virology.

When Americans first started testing positive, he declared that the number of infected in the US would soon be zero.

 

[Daniel Lion]

@Bill Bauer, if you think Trump has done a good job and respects the opinion of scientists and the medical community, then so be it. I feel he has done anything but that.
We watch and read the same news but come to different conclusions.
So be it...
Take care.

 

[Lane]

Please provide an example of him demonstrating that he knows little about virology.

Can anybody really forget his "miraculously goes away" comments?

On Feb. 10, he repeatedly predicted ― at a meeting with governors, at a campaign rally and in a Fox Business interview ― that the coronavirus would no longer be a problem by April. He then made this claim at least three more times a few days later.​

• "Now, the virus that we're talking about having to do ― you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat ― as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We're in great shape though. We have 12 cases ― 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "I really believe they are going to have it under control fairly soon. You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And that's a beautiful date to look forward to." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "We think and we hope, based on all signs that the problem goes away in April." [Feb. 13]
  
  
• "There's a theory that, in April, when it gets warm ― historically, that has been able to kill the virus. So we don't know yet; we're not sure yet." [Feb. 14]
  
  
• "I think it's going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus." [Feb. 14]

 

[Bill Bauer]

@Bill Bauer, if you think Trump has done a good job and respects the opinion of scientists and the medical community, then so be it.

I don't think anything. I am Canadian. I am just looking for

examples where one of his corona virus Policies contradicts virology, that can't be explained by him taking other things (like the fact that the economy pays for the healthcare, and that the less money is available for healthcare, the fewer lives will be saved) into account

I feel he has done anything but that.

Are you saying that you can't come up with any examples, but that you are assuming that he is thinking a certain way, and the things that you imagine must be happening in his head make you feel bad?

When Americans first started testing positive, he declared that the number of infected in the US would soon be zero.

I searched news.google.com and YouTube, but couldn't find anything. May I ask for a link? I would like to see whether this has had any influence on his policies.

Now that I think of it, the first US case was reported on January 22. On January 30 when he took the action of banning flights from China (while being subjected to massive criticism for it), there had been 5 US cases. So at what time back in January wasn't it reasonable to believe that there was still a high chance that the contact tracing teams would be able to identify and isolate everyone those few patients had had contact with, and put an end to the epidemic (similarly to how the original SARS outbreak was ended in China, back when there were a lot more than 5 cases)? Also where is the evidence that him not believing that "I am from the government and I am here to help" are the scariest words in the English language (i.e., his misguided optimism in the capabilities of those contact tracing teams) has had negative influence on the actual policies that got implemented?

 

[Bill Bauer]

Can anybody really forget his "miraculously goes away" comments?

On Feb. 10, he repeatedly predicted ― at a meeting with governors, at a campaign rally and in a Fox Business interview ― that the coronavirus would no longer be a problem by April. He then made this claim at least three more times a few days later.​

• "Now, the virus that we're talking about having to do ― you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat ― as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We're in great shape though. We have 12 cases ― 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "I really believe they are going to have it under control fairly soon. You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And that's a beautiful date to look forward to." [Feb. 10]
  
  
• "We think and we hope, based on all signs that the problem goes away in April." [Feb. 13]
  
  
• "There's a theory that, in April, when it gets warm ― historically, that has been able to kill the virus. So we don't know yet; we're not sure yet." [Feb. 14]
  
  
• "I think it's going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus." [Feb. 14]

He must have been talking about

Coronaviruses are known to go away in April.

In April we began to see a decline of new COVID-19 cases everywhere, including in the countries and US states that haven't implemented any lockdowns/social distancing measures. It is certainly reasonable to contemplate the possibility that COVID-19 is just behaving similarly to the other Corona viruses that had been studied in the past.

So that's him demonstrating being familiar with science. Right?

 

[FGG]

That is a pretty dumb thing to say.

Other than that, I don't see other evidence of incompetence in that article. His background isn't biology, and as far as I (another educated person whose background isn't biology) know it is common for a drug or a vaccine that is effective against one type of a bacteria to be effective against a different type of a bacteria. What's wrong with a quick question to verify that this isn't the case for this particular set of viruses?

By the way, did you know that
MIGHT not be true? I've seen several explanations for that "18 month" figure. Damn, now I can't find those links. The best I can find is a forum post that I will quote below (which is consistent with the explanations from more reputable sources that I've seen). If someone could point me to more official sources that explain how they got a year and a half, please do so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589776

If the above is true, the authorities could have offered to pay each volunteer enough to immediately get volunteers, and then they could have gotten the vaccine 9 months earlier, saving countless lives and dollars. Ethics are important, but some of us believe that if they were to not have an ethics review once, this one incident would be it. Also, surely if an unlimited number of researchers and FDA officials work day and night, they can reduce that 3 months to analyze the data, as well as the 3 months to review and approve.

If the above is true then it shows how when an expert states a fact, it might still be a good idea to get them to spell out exactly why they think it's a fact.

Re: length of time to develop the vaccine. Joe Rogan had a guest (a notable infectious disease specialist from University of Minnesota) on his show explain the vaccine process. There are a few of the usual reasons (as in your link) but there are also others unique to certain kinds of diseases:

Essentially, you can have certain diseases where your immune system is primed in a way that can do more damage with a vaccine (e.g.. like the Dengue vaccine and antibody-dependent enhancement) in certain populations (in that case, children who had no previous Dengue exposure). Many children in the Philippines died of more severe Dengue because of it. You need a longer follow up time for vaccines of novel diseases as a result of those sorts of reactions, if they occur, don't become apparent right away and don't effect all populations equally. There is a lot of tweaking that goes into making a vaccine safe and effective.

 

[Jack V]

I searched news.google.com and YouTube, but couldn't find anything. May I ask for a link? I would like to see whether this has had any influence on his policies.

I'm not here for political debates, but obviously Trump, whether you support him or not, regularly conveys that virology is not his area of expertise.

 

[Bill Bauer]

One of the possible reasons for New York becoming a hotspot - "forcing nursing homes to take on coronavirus patients, in order to free up hospital beds"
https://nypost.com/2020/04/22/forci...coronavirus-patients-is-just-insane-and-evil/

 

[Lane]

It is certainly reasonable to contemplate the possibility that COVID-19 is just behaving similarly to the other Corona viruses that had been studied in the past. -- So that's him demonstrating being familiar with science. Right?

@Bill Bauer -- I have to say, your logic eludes me. While it may be "reasonable to contemplate the possibility that COVID-19 is just behaving similarly to the other Corona viruses", it doesn't excuse the President of the U.S. to be inordinately and dangerously cocksure of this. At a time when the ecnomic and physical health of the American people are facing daunting threats, he goes on ad nauseum on how it's all going to "just go away"???

His "penchant" for "trusting his gut" instead of listening to health professionals who urged him since early January to take this potential pandemic seriously has cost the country dearly. What he essentially did for several months was sit on his a** while the urgent measures that would need to be taken just in case it doesn't miraculously go away in April, were by most accounts, tragically neglected. It's not a mystery why there's a severe shortage of PPE, and the U.S. is still plodding along with agonizingly low levels of testing, making the reopening of the economy infinitely more difficult.

He should have since early January been super focused on an unfolding national emergency, but instead chose to boast about the ratings his press briefings were supposedly getting. He became even more cantakerous with the media, the Democrats, and went out of his way to pick fights with the state governors who were literally pleading with him for a coordinated national response. In other words, sewing divisiveness wherever he could; essentially throwing red meat to his base.

The U.S. has actually been diligently planning for a pandemic for the past 15-20 years, and the National Security Council had a special department on how to best address the myriad difficulties that would arise. In all that planning over so many years, one thing that was never taken into account was that the U.S. would have a President as derelict as Trump. He disbanded that pandemic preparedness department in 2018. Would somebody who really understood virology and pandemics do that? What happened when the (inevitable) pandemic finally hit is pretty succinctly summed up in the following quote:

from Dr James V. Lawler on March 12

"we are making every misstep leaders initially made in the table-tops at the outset of pandemic planning in 2006. We had addressed all of these and had a plan that would work — and has worked in Hong Kong/SIngapore. We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making decisions based on intuition."

 

[FGG]

My friend just sent me this but here is another example of Trump being pretty confused about medicine/virology as well (watch the whole thing):

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/t...to-the-body-to-treat-coronavirus-824709817524

At one point he suggests looking into injecting the body with disinfectants.

 

[Bill Bauer]

It's not a mystery why there's a severe shortage of PPE

It's not
https://thecity.nyc/2020/04/nycs-ventilator-stockpile-was-auctioned-before-coronavirus.html

Another reason - "price gauging" is illegal and so prices don't reflect reality, leading to the Quantity Not reflecting reality.

from Dr James V. Lawler on March 12

This Dr. Lawler?

Dr. Lawler says the best way to stay collected about the coronavirus is to pay attention to credible sources of information like the CDC and the world health organization.

"Sometimes when people are driven by more fear and panic the discussion becomes unproductive," said Lawler.

CDC and WHO that had been urging the people to not use masks at the time.
https://www.wowt.com/content/news/O...victims-debunks-misconceptions-567993371.html

At a time when the ecnomic and physical health of the American people are facing daunting threats, he goes on ad nauseum on how it's all going to "just go away"

His actions had been fine (banned flights back when there were only 5 cases). On February 10 there had been only 12 cases in the US. On February 10 NONE of the OECD countries (except for South Korea) had implemented ANY measures regarding that pandemic (e.g., school closures)(see the link below). WHO hasn't even began urging the people to NOT use masks. At that time there was still a chance that it would end up like SARS-1, and a more likely threat was a recession as a result of people worrying about something that had a chance to never be serious.

Most people know that the flu is seasonal, but they didn't know whether coronaviruses are seasonal. What's wrong with reassuring the public and letting them know that there is a high chance that this virus is seasonal and will go away in April (something that seems to be coming true)?

Do you also have a problem with the attempt to reassure the public described below?
https://www.amny.com/politics/coron...s-big-a-threat-as-other-illnesses-cuomo-says/

or

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-city-officials-were-slow-to-take-coronavirus-seriously/

New York City politicians urged residents not to overreact to the threat. City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot on February 6 acknowledged that the virus could spread from person to person, but attempted to reassure residents that that type of transmission would be rare outside of households.

"The important thing for New Yorkers to know is that in the city currently, their risk is low and our city preparedness is high," Barbot said. "We know that this virus can be transmitted from one individual to another, but that it is typically people who live together. There is no risk at this point in time…about having it being transmitted in casual contact." Earlier in the month, Barbot encouraged residents to attend the Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown

health professionals who urged him since early January to take this potential pandemic seriously has cost the country dearly

You mean like

"When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there's just no comparison," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison. The risk is trivial."

https://khn.org/news/flu-far-deadlier-than-wuhan-virus/

Or are you talking about
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/28/coronavirus-major-test-for-trump/

The coronavirus gives Trump his biggest outbreak emergency yet — and experts are worried. (January 28, 2020)

When Ebola was spreading in West Africa in 2014, Donald Trump took to Twitter.

"STOP THE FLIGHTS!," he blasted in all capital letters. "NO VISAS FROM EBOLA STRICKEN COUNTRIES."
...
"We are likely to see trade bans, quarantines and other overreactions that are very harmful," said Lawrence Gostin, a senior professor at Georgetown University and an expert in global health law who has advised several administrations. "With the Ebola epidemic, it was urging quarantines, travel bans, overreacting in all the ways that would be counterproductive. I would hate to see that now."

Back in January and even February there had been many stories like this one.

Do you want a link to WHO saying that travel bans shouldn't be used to control this pandemic?

Or are you talking about the "experts" projecting over two million Americans dying?

In any case, here are a bunch of links for you to remind you what other politicians and experts thought about COVID-19 just a few months ago
https://hannity.com/media-room/medi...ched-the-growing-coronavirus-crisis-coverage/

There is a database available on
https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/coronavirus-government-response-tracker

that computes "stringency index" for various countries based on measures like travel bans, school closures, investment into a possible vaccine, etc. The index is a number from 0 to 100. For the US, the index turned 76 on March 19. The only OECD countries (there are 35 of them) that had an index above 75 points earlier than March 19 were Italy (no wonder!), Austria (the index exceeded 75 on March 16), Switzerland (March 17), Czech Republic (March 16), Belgium (March 13), Spain (March 15), Finland (March 18), France (March 17), Hungary (March 16), Israel (March 17), Luxemburg (March 16), Netherlands (March 17), Poland (March 15), Slovak Republic (March 16), Slovenia (March 17), South Africa (March 18). I got this data from another source, but I did some random checking and the database confirms the data above. So the majority of developed countries reacted slower than the US, and the vast majority of those that reacted earlier did so 2-3 days before the US.

instead of listening to health professionals who urged him since early January to take this potential pandemic seriously

Are you trying to rewrite history on purpose, or as a result of just not knowing any better and repeating something written by a journalist who has attempted to deceive you?

 

[Bill Bauer]

There is a lot of tweaking that goes into making a vaccine safe and effective.

Fair enough.

Has the guest confirmed that it will take them months to find volunteers?