[DyslexicAtheist]

> those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistle-blowers, and refused to let international experts in.

I'm scared that it will become a lot worse than that. The pandemic gives them a real-life stress test and lessons to harden the surveillance state and further improve technical controls and tweak the technology to become more effective. It's another step on the road to integrating and normalizing intrusive and outrageous ideas for government to retain control. (-> both in China and the West!)

From the videos I watched from Chinese pigs (aka LE) in uniforms beating old people not wearing a mask and welding the doors shut of giant apartment blocks where people live like ants (or slaves), I tell myself this will not happen in the West. Then I look at our current research and Europe's own ambition to create a central biometrics database (along with tweets from the UK LE which ask you to report anything people see online that may look like terror and all I think is "STASI!" neighborhood watch. These days I see a uniform and my first reaction is disgust mixed with fear, the sort of claustrophobic feeling normally only Orwell brings up in me.

I get that quarantine laws (locking people in their homes, issuing a curfew, rations etc) can be harsh but important to combat a deadly problem. But looking at the authorities in charge in the West I wouldn't trust them for a second and think it's also a play with fire. There are lots of edge-cases everywhere for this to be a massive human rights violation (elderly care facilities, prisons, migrants, the homeless, and more power to the rigged justice systems and corrupt EU institutions and generally everyone already wielding lots of power)

The CDC and WHO have utterly failed. Why are there no hand-outs of free face-masks and other PPE - oh because there are no stocks! - instead the problem is downplayed (by both WHO and the dear leaders). Why is there no transparency (constant news) about how many people an individual country is testing? Oh because we don't have adequate testing right now. Instead medical professionals were arguing on France24 yesterday whether the game between Juventus/Lyon should go ahead and they felt that they're not qualified to make a statement on a complex subject like this. Instead Italy and other countries are reminding us not to press the panic button just yet and media should be "more responsible in their reporting".

[stef25]

What would have to take place for you to stop thinking this virus is going to push the entire world over the edge and fully in to 1984?

CDC and WHO are probably not perfect but saying they "utterly failed" because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.

[DyslexicAtheist]

> because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.

my partner is a health care professional and there aren't enough masks for them (this is central Europe btw). but yeah tell me about how hard they work and how I don't appreciate them.

[stef25]

Here in Belgium it's almost impossible to find masks as well, except if you want to pay 70+ EUR https://i.imgur.com/dGd56Ng.png I suspect Asian customers have been plundering online EU shops for a while.

Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.

[marcosdumay]

The WHO acts like an advisory board that could have recommended governments to stockpile them before the disease appeared.

Whether they should or not is a different story.

[stef25]

An article in the Guardian just mentioned France will make 15 million masks available to the public.

So it looks like perhaps they have stockpiled. Until there's no recommendation to wear masks, any shortages are just private businesses that have run out. No failure of govt or WHO.

[chefkoch]

There are emergency stock piles, but not enough for everyone and clearly we haven't reached the point where we would need to use them yet.

[iudqnolq]

N95 masks are available on eBay from sellers with good reputations for around 2x normal prices.

[DyslexicAtheist]

> Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.

it's the CDC's who acts on advise and recommendations made by the WHO. The WHO has in 2018 warned about a disease X[1], so the CDC and local health ministries would have had 2 years to prioritize and make sure there are enough stocks for PPE in the country. It's not only about the masks for a theoretical pandemic that may or may not play out. There are shortages in other areas as well on a daily basis which are more complex and require structural cahnges. Take Germany as an example that hires Eastern Europeans as health-care workers (mostly for disabled people and elderly facilities) with salaries of ~€600-€800/month where they are placed on contracts from Slovenia and Poland to avoid paying the local insurance. (so some of the people working in healthcare can be put on crazy shifts under what is for EU standards a slave-labor condition). I won't even mention the health-care facilities in Croatia, Romania, Slovenia where elderly facilities buy drugs illegally because they want to pocket the difference, or where somebody who is hired as a nurse has actually never had any training as a nurse.

I know of some elderly care facilities in Croatia which are run by a lovely Albanian couple that branched out into this (their other businesses is bars/cafes). The wife of the entrepreneur/owner drives a fat Mercedes and goes on holidays to Paris, but the residents are lying in their own shit and swallow counterfeit drugs - also their employees are paid cash because they are usually elderly women themselves who have a lot of private debt - so this is the only way for them to survive.

This isn't whataboutism but an example of the places which won't stand a chance when this disease really hits. They aren't rare either, we just don't see them because it's disgusting and easier to look away.

As you said the price of masks has increased (in my experience by a factor of 10x !!) because people see an opportunity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_X

[stef25]

Hiring practices of elderly care facilities in Croatia aside, I very much doubt that EU hospitals are already short of facemasks at a time when there's less than 500 cases among a population of over 700 million.

That there are no facemasks available to the general public is a result of people plundering the stocks of private businesses.

European disease control agencies aren't even recommending that people wear masks. Until they do and they can't provide any I don't see any failures on their part.

[iudqnolq]

N95 masks are available on eBay from sellers with good reputations for around 2x normal prices.

[trengorilla]

From what I understand the masks are utterly useless against this anyway.

[el_cujo]

The common surgical face masks you'll often see people from Asia wear in public are only useful if YOU have the virus by reducing the chance of people catching the virus from you. There are, however, N95 respirator masks that are useful for protecting the uninfected from catching the virus.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use...

[biztos]

> only useful if YOU have the virus

Yes, but given the incubation period and so on, how do you know you don't have the virus?

I'm not going to wear a mask in Central Europe (at least not yet) but I probably would in Asia just in order to not be selfish.

[numpad0]

Also, you and I random are not wearing it correct, that’s basically given. It requires regular trainings and tests.

[trengorilla]

What about catching the infection through the eyes?

[stef25]

They do stop you from breathing in contaminated particles, from spreading them when coughing / sneezing and they stop you touching your face with contaminated hands.

They aren't perfect because you still need proper technique when removing them and they "leak" along the sides etc. Still better than nothing, especially in crowded places.

[wst_]

They won't help you at all. All they do is creating false sense of safety. Viruses are too small and will go through the mask anyway. Also they may protect half of your face against your hands but they won't protect other half, say, against rubbing your eyes.

They may help you to minimize the spread if you are already sick, sneezing and coughing. Droplets are big enough to be stopped by mask. This is actually the reason why surgeons are wearing masks in the first place - not to contaminate the patient.

Unless we are talking about something more advanced. Like above mentioned N95.

[ddxxdd]

Even a regular surgical mask that doesn't have the effectiveness of the N95 can stop water droplets (as you said) and hence, it can stop viruses.

The key insight, though, is that water droplets carry viruses; viruses can travel through masks, but they can't travel by themselves without hitching a ride on a water droplet.

This is why flu season is during the cold winter, when there isn't enough heat to instantly evaporate the moisture in the air. And this is why even a regular surgical mask can offer some protection for a healthy wearer.

[slowmovintarget]

The N95 masks require training, and they're not for everyone. It is possible for young children to suffocate because their lungs are not strong enough to pull air through (it takes some effort).

I have asthma, and even a few hours of wearing a procedural mask, let alone an N95 mask are very taxing. Maybe for brief periods in public... But sweat transmitted by hand onto a surface is enough. Sewage in a building is enough to infect residents that don't otherwise encounter each other.

[ptero]

To add to your point, if one is worried and wants a face mask, in the US, right now, they can make effective masks in a few minutes using some gauze (cheap and plentiful in pretty much any US pharmacy), tape, a stapler and a few ribbons.

While this may not be beautiful and might be slightly less effective than a standard surgical mask, it should be good enough unless one is spending significant time inside with infected, coughing folks. In which case one should be doing more than just wearing a face mask. My 2c.

[oefrha]

Surgical masks are three-layered with an outer layer that’s waterproof and an inner layer that stops microbes. Pretty sure your makeshift gauze mask would be largely useless at stopping anything.

(Source: Family member who worked in the operating theater for 30+ years.)

[ptero]

> Pretty sure your makeshift gauze mask would be largely useless at stopping anything.

That's a pretty bold statement. As someone who grew up in a less-well-off part of the world where medical supplies were not always available I have personally seen makeshift masks made and used by both doctors (rarely) and visiting relatives (more frequently).

The key problem with homemade masks is durability -- they do fail much quicker than a professional surgical mask that lasts many hours. But then, unless you are a medical professional, you do not need to wear them for hours. Wearing one in the open air environment is almost always an overkill.

First link that comes for me (below), when Googling for evidence, seems to indicate that homemade masks in some small trial were worse than professional but still pretty decent (1 hour with homemade ~ 3 hours with professional mask), although I barely skimmed it and might have misunderstood the results.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...

[vxNsr]

> Chinese pigs (aka LE)

This sort of editorializing immediately makes your whole opinion moot.

If this is how you talk about people you don’t know it’s unlikely your opinion is valid or even remotely unbiased in any other regard.

[electriclove]

Watch some of the videos on Twitter and it is easy to understand why those words were used.

[vxNsr]

You can make this claim about any group, minority or not. Every single group of people has bad apples and some groups are even 51%+ bad but trying to use anecdotal evidence from twitter as proof is really not great.

Additionally using epithets and dehumanization of any group no matter what they've done is a road to more hate and violence and will never resolve anything. I find it pretty ironic that some on the left are ok with insults and dehumanization as long as it's of the right group of people that they've deemed "undesirable" even if that group of people really should stop what they're doing, using insults and animal comparisons is a road that takes you right back to what they claim to be fighting.

This got kinda long winded and preachy...

tl;dr calling cops "pigs" is a slur like any other and will only cause more problems.

[tripzilch]

> that takes you right back to what they claim to be fighting.

... is also the kind of editorialising we don't need, when describing political views that don't align yours.

Shall we stop, or what?

[vxNsr]

it's not different than using "allegedly" which is kinda the point... we can't know what someone thinks all we can do is guess based on actions.

[DyslexicAtheist]

my brother is a pig and he has no problem being called that. He is also suffering from depression because 9/10 of his colleagues are literal Nazis in a uniform and openly admit that they vote far-right (in my place that is the people who still use the Nazi salute until today). They not only hate just foreigners but are constantly abusing their power.

The other pigs I met were happy to take bribes and one (in Ireland) even bragged about how much he loved to use his pepper spray every time he gets a chance (he rarely does).

fwiw, pigs in colloquial english is not just a slur but silly slang, unless you are bold enough to call a whole class of blue-collar people (who hate pigs) problematic. Maybe read Orwell (Animal Farm) or the later Irvine Welsh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filth_(novel)

Never ever trust a uniform whatever country you're in. Btw I also do consulting for LE and the "sane" ones usually don't deny that they have a problem with racism. I'm not even talking about the videos from China where people get beaten with sticks or dogs get clubbed to death by men in blue while their colleagues are laughing before they move on to terrifying citizens.

I don't think getting upset about what is "natural language" in blue collar surrounding is going to do any good. I know the pigs are OK with it. (watch out for those who are not though)

[perseusprime11]

You have a good reason for your paranoia. Even today, we have flights from Italy, South Korea, and Japan coming into U.S and nobody is bothering to contain this situation seriously. Unsure how Insurance is going to treat a spread in U.S. We are not set up for success.

[hempti]

So thats how panic looks like.

Great.

[heartbeats]

Yeah, but if 2% of all the Chinese die that's going to mess their economy up real good. Considering the whole thing is a house of cards, I'm bullish on the coronavirus.

[whoevercares]

For the virus the biggest challenge is if it survives the weather. If it’s in the same family as SARS, summer will kill it. The window is closing and My bet is it won’t have chance to infect more than 1M people within China. Btw I think 1M infected Chineses are bad enough to bring the economy down seriously, let alone 2% died of the whole population (280M dead people? Oh lord)

[mishac]

that would be 28M, not 280M (Which is still a huge number, obviously)