Preliminary Study Reveals How Long the Coronavirus May Linger On Various Surfaces (buzzfeednews.com) 142
An anonymous reader writes: The coronavirus appears able to linger in the air for up to three hours and on plastic and stainless steel surfaces for two to three days, according to laboratory tests run by a team of federal and academic scientists in the US. It's unclear whether the virus would behave the same way in the real world. The new study, published Tuesday, was uploaded to MedRxiv, a repository of early-stage scientific papers that have not yet been peer reviewed.
The new tests found that the ability of the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, to stay in the air and on surfaces was highly similar to that of SARS, which is also caused by a coronavirus, according to the paper, which was done by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, UCLA, and Princeton University. The scientists ran a battery of tests with a strain of SARS-CoV-2. They sprayed it into a rotating drum and measured how long it stayed in the air: three hours. They also deposited small amounts on plastic and stainless steel (up to two to three days), copper (up to four hours), and on cardboard (24 hours). The CDC says person-to-person contact is believed to be the main way the new virus is transmitted, though transmission through contaminated objects and surfaces "may be possible."
Currently, the agency advises staying at least six feet away from people who are coughing and sneezing, and cleaning and disinfecting touched surfaces in household common areas, from sinks to light switches to tables.
The new tests found that the ability of the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, to stay in the air and on surfaces was highly similar to that of SARS, which is also caused by a coronavirus, according to the paper, which was done by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, UCLA, and Princeton University. The scientists ran a battery of tests with a strain of SARS-CoV-2. They sprayed it into a rotating drum and measured how long it stayed in the air: three hours. They also deposited small amounts on plastic and stainless steel (up to two to three days), copper (up to four hours), and on cardboard (24 hours). The CDC says person-to-person contact is believed to be the main way the new virus is transmitted, though transmission through contaminated objects and surfaces "may be possible."
Currently, the agency advises staying at least six feet away from people who are coughing and sneezing, and cleaning and disinfecting touched surfaces in household common areas, from sinks to light switches to tables.
Also heat affects this (Score:1)
Happily there is also a study [ssrn.com] that shows heat affects Covid-19 the same as it does for seasonal flus, which means that the virus simply will not last very long and thus have less of a chance to spread as temperatures increase across affected areas.
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I live in Canada, you insensitive virus!
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I live in Canada, you insensitive virus!
It's okay, we just have to hope that it's a warm summer unlike last year's. The type that some /. posters don't believe happen, it's probably because they don't understand Canada is a land of extreme weather. It can be -35C with 10m snowfalls in Southern Ontario in the winter and 40C with 85-95% humidity in the summer.
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And the wildfires burn the entire country twice over.
Too bad like the person who replied to me, you're both idiots that can't read. Give you a tip: Canada is one of the largest forested and grassland covered countries in the world.
Re:Also heat affects this (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you live someplace where there are lots of visitors from the other hemisphere... where July is the middle of winter, regardless of how hot & steamy it might be in Miami (Argentina, Chile) or London (South Africa, Australia), just to name two cities that have a relatively large number of visitors from somewhere in the southern hemisphere on any random day.
This is part of the reason why it's not particularly uncommon for office workers in Miami and London to catch the flu in the middle of summer. The virus might not last long outside... but indoors, where it's air conditioned, relatively airtight, air is getting recirculated, and 30 degrees colder than outside... well, that's another story. Not to mention, the interiors of the air handlers and ductwork in most single-family homes (and, I suspect, way more commercial buildings than anyone wants to admit) are literal biohazards and petri dishes (hint: the oily brown goo that builds up and eventually clogs most air conditioner drain pipes in Florida isn't algae... it's a biofilm broth). I suspect this is the norm rather than the exception in most 'Alpha' world cities (including New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, etc).
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Which means of course the far most likely place to catch the virus is well protected from environmental extremes, the supermarket and all of it's groceries and packages and of course the cash flowing through the till.
All this hype about blocking transmission is looking as suspicious as fuck, you will get the contagion and most you will delay it but they way they rabbit on about isolating populations looks more like setting up the third world for a complete border shut down as the get ravaged by the worst va
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All this hype about blocking transmission is looking as suspicious as fuck, you will get the contagion and most you will delay it
Delaying is important. 10% or more of cases require hospital beds. The US has 2.8 hospital beds per 1000 residents. Spread it out as long and far as you can.
When the number of cases exceed the healthcare capacity (see Italy) the actual mortality rate goes up. Pneumonia is not something that easily gets better without treatment.
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> the vastly lower number of Covid-19 cases in Mexico, or South America, and the lack of spread there.
Wait until July, then go check the infection rates in Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Lima, and Santiago again. Right now, it's mid-autumn there. THEIR winter illness season hasn't even ARRIVED yet.
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I wouldn't count on the coming, warmer months to solve this issue.
Infection rates do seem to correlate with population density. And since all of Europe is rather densely populated and as people in many European countries are quite social it shouldn't be surprising that an infectious disease can spread rapidly under such conditions.
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20C is 68F, the recommended indoor room temperature during winter. That's not even warm weather, much less hot.
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In central Europe those temperatures would be shorts and shirt and barbecue weather. And that probably won't be reached until around the middle of May.
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Madrid is also a hellhole, similar to LA and NYC, tons of unemployed, tons of homeless, tons of gatherings of the young and reckless. Just went there, we saw people breaking into cars with the Guardia Civil standing right there, my grandparents don't even lock their cars (who live there) because they get broken into for something as simple as clothing items.
The rest of Spain isn't that hot yet either, all of Europe has been relatively cloudy and weather has been colder than usual, leading to eg. Germany not
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Too early yet, it will get much, much warmer there in about two months.
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For example when Trump stated the virus will die in April due to higher temperatures (paraphrasing and by now an outdated statement anyway) how would that apply to the entire US? The US cover a large area and quite different clime types.
So that might apply for places like Texas, California, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana and so forth. But how long will it take for places like Wisconsin to reach those temperatures?
Conversely E
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Indeed. Also by June, probably anybody that will get it will already have had it. While I have not seen any definite statement, your risk of infection should be drastically lower after you had it once.
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those predictions are grounded in computer models rather than experimental evidence.
Yes, but those models have real life cases to back them up - for instance the vastly lower number of Covid-19 cases in Mexico, or South America, and the lack of spread there. It's not like Mexico is massively better at healthcare than Italy.
The issue there is that it raises the question as to how accurate those low figures are due to the number of tests performed. According to a Bloomberg [bloomberg.com] report, only 278 people had been tested as of Tuesday the 10th of March in Mexico.
Re: There is real evidence (Score:2)
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Drawing conclusions from from a nation with poor medical care and a history of lying to the world at large seems..... well unwise. Shall we call data from there anecdotal, rather than confirmed?
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But at least, you know, the Chinese don't greet with hug and kiss each other.
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That is actually unclear at this time (but I agree). The research hasn't been completed; focus is on preventing spread, mitigation and healing (medical services).
Check the "Will warm weather stop the outbreak of COVID-19" question, per the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru... [cdc.gov]
37 days (Score:2)
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I'm going to rely on Hollywood, by doing a self-quarantine and only coming out 28 Days Later.
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Current wisdom is that this can only be slowed down, not stopped. Hence quarantining people while they are most infectious is the way to go.
This is all just to reduce the load on the medical infrastructure to avoid a situation like Italy where they currently are sending people over 70 and those with relevant previous conditions home, because they just do not have the means to treat them due to overload. (Italy has starved its health system to death over the last few years in addition, so they are as badly p
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"Italy is the result of not having adequate testing available to coordinate an organized response at lower than the "everything we control" level."
The UK, US and European countries and indeed most of the rest of the world are now only 2 to 4 weeks behind the growth curve of Italy.
We're not making the right choices. Due to the fact that this virus causes at least 5% to need breathing support and other advanced medical equipment, once the infections pass a certain amount the excess people needing machines wil
4 hours on copper? (Score:2)
This is why brass doorknobs and handles are a good idea.
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Better get out there and load up.
Re:4 hours on copper? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The mythology of certain metals being proof against supernatural beings goes back further than germ theory.
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The mythology of certain metals being proof against supernatural beings goes back further than germ theory.
That in no way counters Solandri's guess. You don't have to know about germs to observe that a wound with silver pressed into is less likely to turn red and fill with pus than one that doesn't. I don't know if he's right, but your response isn't a counter.
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If you pressed silver into a wound of a wounded werewolf and it prevented it from getting red and infected, wouldn't that be the opposite of what we are trying to say? Silver heals werewolves! Now we just need to find a werewolf and test this out. ;)
Actually reading up... this guy did some great research it seems that the silver thing is only in the last 100 years or so!!! I had no idea:
https://scifi.stackexchange.co... [stackexchange.com] ...start quote...
"That connection, which is now an un-avoidable cliché, was m
Re: 4 hours on copper? (Score:4, Interesting)
Six feet away (Score:2)
Or six feet beneath?
Amazon Prime (Score:2)
Opportunity for Disney (Score:2)
Disney announced that its parks will be closed for at least two weeks... possibly longer. If it looks like it'll be longer, I can DEFINITELY see Disney reopening with temporarily-increased ticket prices of $2,500/day (or $6,000 for a 3-day passport to all of their parks) and strict limits on the number of guests allowed (say, 5-10% their usual number).
While that's a staggering amount of money to spend on admission, I suspect it would ironically end up INDUCING a few hundred thousand people who otherwise wou
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Disney announced that its parks will be closed for at least two weeks... possibly longer. If it looks like it'll be longer, I can DEFINITELY see Disney reopening with temporarily-increased ticket prices of $2,500/day (or $6,000 for a 3-day passport to all of their parks) and strict limits on the number of guests allowed (say, 5-10% their usual number). While that's a staggering amount of money to spend on admission, I suspect it would ironically end up INDUCING a few hundred thousand people who otherwise wouldn't have gone within a hundred MILES of WDW to drop everything and run there for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience it with no crowds or lines.
And they'd get massively chewed out in the media for encouraging lots of random folks to travel long distance to meet in one spot, to then disperse back into their community. Their brand is worth way more to them than that, they got the deep pockets to ride this one out. I suspect that there will be a lot of small businesses where the owners and employees are equally desperate, if they don't stay in business there's no money for anyone and a dead company's reptutation doesn't matter. They'll be the ones try
Re: Opportunity for Disney (Score:2)
My argument is that by the time the first guest arrived, it'll *be* in nearly every community *anyway*, and the only remaining goal will be to slow its spread. By keeping guests relatively isolated from others & surrounding them with a moving bubble of disinfectant, they'd probably be *safer* than they'd be just going about daily life in any major city anyway.
Disney could reduce the risk further by bundling a resort stay into the package, requiring a 2-3 day enforced quarantine at the resort with no sig
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I don't see it. They would still need the employees, perhaps extra to do the sanitation you propose. And I would think they would worry a lot about liability if some guest caught the virus there despite their precautions.
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Liability would kind of be a dice roll. If Disney opened the parks against official advice, that might expose them to liability. If the Florida legislature quickly passed a law granting safe harbor to venues that follow a specific laundry list of best practices (under threat of mass layoffs by Disney if they didn't, and quickly), Disney is probably in a better position than anyone to actually IMPLEMENT a big laundry list of best practices.
Make no mistake... in Florida, the Mouse gets pretty much whatever it
What about sewer pipes ? (Score:2)
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An open pipe to the roof is a required feature of sewer systems, you need air to fill the pipes so the sewage goes down. These pipes are in American homes and buildings too.
Dollar coins (Score:2)
They didn't test paper money, but it's probably a lot like cardboard. Dollar coins aren't pure copper, but the various coin alloys contain copper and probably have similar antimicrobial properties. If ever there was a time to get the American public turned on to Dollar coins, it's now.
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Tests with droplets with bacteria on paper money have shown that survival of the bacteria differs a lot between different materials. Some bacteria lived longer on US Dollar bills (75% cotton, 25% linen) but other bacteria live longer on Euro bills (lacquered cotton).
However, all tested bacteria lived the longest on plastic notes (Australia, UK, Romania).
I suppose it a issue of how much the material will absorb and distribute moisture. If a droplet dropped on a material spreads out across the material, it co
Sneezing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sneezing isn't a symptom of COVID-19 (or even the flu). If someone is sneezing they are likely to have a cold (or allergy) rather than COVID-19 or the flu.
https://www.health.harvard.edu... [harvard.edu]
https://imgur.com/a/x4H4bDo [imgur.com]
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/0... [cnn.com]
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In general it is a good idea to avoid people SNEEZING AND COUGHING no matter why virus strain is going around. People are so dumb. All of these "precautions" should be done regularly. Wash your hands. Avoid sick people. Clean surfaces.
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Sneezing, coughing, runny nose, excessive sweating, skin irregularities like rashes or blisters and so forth would be common causes for people to feel some kind of disgust and rather keeping their distance.
An underestimated problem is probably when infected people do not show any noticeable symptoms. Which reminds me of a line from The Big Bang Theory when I still considered it to be somewha
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To be honest I don't even want a cold because a cold can be pretty annoying. But spreading disinformation annoys me. The disinformation is so bad that Wikipedia even lists the influenza as a cause of the common cold (it's not). I'm not even going to try and fix the Wikipedia page though because the conflation between a cold and flu is so entrenched in the vernacular that my edit would be reverted immediately.
In my experience sneezing, coughing, runny nose, excessive sweating etc are not enough to cause alar
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Most people are just that superficial and tend to judge others by their appearance since that is the first thing their senses tell them about someone else. A bit more understanding may happen later af
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Someone with COVID19 and allergies or a cold would be an excellent transmission machine, spewing virus laden mucus all over the place.
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If someone is sneezing they are likely to have a cold
About 10% of common colds are coronaviruses. Not COVID-19 obviously.
Beware the cash (Score:2)
Dozens of viruses and bacteria were found on 1$, 10$ and 20$ bills, DNA tests showed fecal bacteria of dozens of people, horses, cats and dogs and even, for some strange reason, a northern white rhinoceros.
They didn't check bigger bills, I guess because like Kim Jong-il, rich people don't go to the toilet, they work it out, for the good of the people.
PS. It also means the Germans are doomed.
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Would ironing money affect covid virus spread? (Score:2)
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That's a bit of an overcomplication when you could just use a debit card.
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Sanitizing your cash in the clothes washer would give new meaning to the phrase, "money laundering"...
It's just a new created version by the Chi-Coms (Score:2)
literally, no. (Score:5, Informative)
ITS JUST THE FLU!
Influenza is a completely different virus. This is a mutantion of the SARS virus. Furthermore, it has a much higher mortality rate in the elderly and there is absolutely no immunity for it.
You might as well be the black knight declaring that having your arms cut off is "just a flesh wound".
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Furthermore, it has a much higher mortality rate in the elderly and there is absolutely no immunity for it.
The error bars on that statement are so wide as to be meaningless.
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Not really. It's pretty obvious what the trend is if you just look at a graph [ourworldindata.org], and at this point we have thousands of deaths in our sample pool, so the error bars are fairly small. Moreover, it's worth pointing out that that graph is based on the early stage case fatality rate, but a CFR usually has a depressed value until an outbreak hits its peak (since it's effectively counting sick people towards the "good" outcome, even though some of them will die), so even those graphs may be downplaying the reality.
Re:literally, no. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's actually not true. Take a look at what happened with H1N1 2009. It looked like it was going to have a low-double-digit CFR, IIRC. It ended up being comparable to normal seasonal flu, or almost four orders of magnitude lower than we would have guessed just by looking at the deaths in the first few weeks.
Whenever there's a new outbreak, the estimate of the number of people who actually report getting sick is often orders of magnitude smaller than the number of people who actually got sick, because most people don't bother reporting a minor illness. It is only after you start broadly testing everybody with a slight sniffle that you start to approach real numbers. Until then, the CFR is frequently massively inflated.
In other words, the current CFR estimates are an upper bound, not a lower bound.
Re:literally, no. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can’t speak to H1N1 numbers since you didn’t link anything and I didn’t find them in a quick search, but look at SARS, of which this current outbreak is a variant, which had its CFR grow until its end (scroll down for a graph of CFR by date). Likewise Ebola followed the same trend of growing until its conclusion (see graph at link).
https://avatorl.org/en/novel-c... [avatorl.org]
And no, the only way it’s a guaranteed upper bound is if no one else dies while the number of infected continues to grow. That’s mathematically the only way it can be a guaranteed upper bound. Likewise, it’s not a guaranteed lower bound either, since care and treatment can oftentimes improve with time, leading to better outcomes. That said, the concern here is that the rate of spread is outpacing our infrastructure’s ability to keep pace. Italy went from having far more than enough to not having enough ventilators in the span of two weeks. If that sort of thing happens elsewhere, the level of care will decrease, leading to worse outcomes and an increasing CFR.
The only thing we know for certain is that, as you alluded to, we don’t know the final numbers. But based on what we do know, I’ve heard no one suggesting we expect it to go down, other than random commenters on the Internet.
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To be fair, Ebola had almost a 100% CFR until they found an antiviral that was effective, and we can be certain that nobody shrugged it off as "just a little
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By contrast, the number of people got sick, but didn't report it because they thought it was just a cold, often results in a multiple-order-of-magnitude error in the CFR numbers. I would be shocked if the CFR numbers weren't massively elevated from their true numbers, when all is said and done. But we won't know for sure unless somebody decides to do a random sampling screening of an entire state or country to get a ballpark estimate of how many people have actually gotten it.
Agreed, but it's a distinction without difference, which people seem to keep missing. Whether you use confirmed cases or actual cases as your denominator, you get the same result—number of deaths—either way.
There's already a hypothetical statistic called the IFR—infection fatality rate—that operates in the way you want; it uses the number of actual cases as its denominator, rather than the number of confirmed cases. That is:
CFR = deaths / confirmed cases
IFR = deaths / actual cases
But
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That's actually not true. Take a look at what happened with H1N1 2009. It looked like it was going to have a low-double-digit CFR, IIRC.
Actually, it is true, and your recollection of H1N1 appears to be incorrect. Sorry for the double-post in response to you, but I've now had time to look up more numbers.
As it turns out—like the SARS and Ebola outbreaks [avatorl.org] that I already mentioned in my previous response—the 2009 H1N1's CFR also grew over time after an initial period of instability. The highest CFR for H1N1 that I can find being reported back then was a mere 1%, rather than the 10+% you claim, though even that 1% number was quickly
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Pretty sure technically it isn't a mutation of the old news-famous 2003 "SARS" virus, which is how I was reading your comment whether you meant the 2003 one or not. The new one is a related but different branch on the evolutionary tree, at least that's what they were saying a couple of weeks ago. It is very closely related to I think another version of a Bat virus (Bat-SARSr-CoV RaTG13).
Wikipedia has some good info (ever changing I bet):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Quote, "This article is about the viru
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And in addition, there is both pre-existing partial and full immunity for the different flu variants and people in risk groups are usually vaccinated (at least if they are smart). The problem with this thing is that your immune system has not seen anything like it before and is hence slow to respond.
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I'm so conflicted. On the one side you say it's just the flu demonstrating some severe mental derangement. On the other hand you say the Orange man is bad which is a perfectly normal statement given his actions and perfectly true in every way.
Help us diagnose your problem, because you can't be that dumb and that reflective on reality at the same time. Is it bipolar? Split personality disorder?
Re: Damn son. (Score:2)
Not really. It sounds like it behaves similarly to known similar viruses.
I'd be careful of reading too much into novel research, especially as we don't know how detectable survival translates to infectiousness. Even if this is replicated it doesn't really suggest that we take any steps experts in infectious diseases haven't already recommended.
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Up to" is the qualifying word here. It is possible portions of the virus remain activatable, it hasn't been demonstrated whether it would be any useful to the virus to spread, under what conditions the spread would happen (does it have to be moisturized and aerosolized at that point?) or if it's RNA is sufficiently damaged which is how eg. a copper surface or bleach acts as a disinfectant.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gain of function (Score:4, Interesting)
"basic health care just needs to be a fundamental right"
I would agree with you, as long as we can keep - and put in concrete - the word basic.
The problem is: give people basic care for free, and they will want to expand "basic" to mean "anything that affects me". Every treatment available for incurable cancer. Rare diseases with horrendously expensive medicines. Liver transplants for alcoholics. You name it, and for someone it will be critical - but the money does simply not exist to provide unlimited care to every person.
Refusing care is a hard choice, but an essential one if you are going to pay for care with other people's money. But the press will eviscerate the politician who stands up to say that. And the next cute kid or tiny infant who needs $millions in care to have a micro-chance of survival? All over the headlines, how can you be so heartless? Solve this problem, and I'll agree with your socialized medicine for basic care.
Isn't expanding the definition of "basic" (Score:2)
I suppose if you're at the top though the point of civilization is to serve your wants and needs.
And if you're a hard core capitalist civilization only exists as an abstraction to server the needs of the market.
But the latter two purposes will eventually lead you to an authoritarian dictatorship. If you want to avoid that you need to keep taking as much quality of life stuff off the table as you can.
Sur
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the money does simply not exist to provide unlimited care to every person.
However the money exists for unlimited military spending.
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No it doesn't and the US is spending a ton more on welfare than it does on military spending. The US spends 52% of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, only 15% on defense. Given that we are the biggest spender in the world on our military, that also means we're by far the biggest spender on government provided healthcare and social safety nets. We already have UBI in the form of unemployment and social assistance of all sorts (housing, food, medical, cell phone, transportation etc), we alr
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The US spends 52% of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, only 15% on defense. Given that we are the biggest spender in the world on our military, that also means we're by far the biggest spender on government provided healthcare and social safety nets.
That doesn't follow. It may be that we are, but the facts that we spend more on welfare than on defense and more on defense than anyone does not imply that we spend more on welfare than anyone.
Did WindBourne teach you logic? (Score:2)
The US spends 52% of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, only 15% on defense. Given that we are the biggest spender in the world on our military, that also means we're by far the biggest spender on government provided healthcare and social safety nets.
LOL no it doesn't.
Easily proven by the simple case of a Hypothetical country spending 0 on military and all of it's money on healthcare.
Crimson Tsunami Logic shit (Score:2)
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What is the budget for a country with no defense?
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What is the budget for a country with no defense?
More irelevent nonsense from you.
What's the name of a poster severely lacking in logic?
Trick question there are two. WindBourne and guruevi.
You still haven't explained your magical link between defense spending and healthcare/safety nets..
Re:Gain of function (Score:4, Insightful)
We already have UBI in the form of unemployment and social assistance of all sorts
That is a complete load of horseshit. There is nothing universal nor basic nor is it classified as income. I'm not sure if you don't understand the USA or don't understand UBI, but claiming that you effectively have it shows a gross lack of understanding of one of the concepts.
we already have Universal Healthcare
Never mind. We figured it out. You don't understand the system in the USA, why it is so bad and why Universal Healthcare is a discussion. Please PLEASE, stop spouting bullshit and educate yourself to the massive problems that the welfare (both social and medical) that the USA currently has. It's your only hope for actually support improvements to the bullshit systems you have in place to fuck over the poor and keep them that way.
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We already have UBI in the form of unemployment and social assistance of all sorts
That is a complete load of horseshit. There is nothing universal nor basic nor is it classified as income.
As somebody that has been on unemployment before, it most certainly counts as income and they will certainly tax you for it as such.
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The US spends 52% of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security,
And they are funded from their own set of payroll taxes (or at least would be if they weren't ever pillaged).
we already have Universal Healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid), the fact YOU don't have it means YOU are richer than a ton of people that do get it in this country. Think about that.
So your claim is that the reason people can't afford healthcare is that they're too rich?
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Think about that.
I have.
No it doesn't and the US is spending a ton more on welfare than it does on military spending.
Considering that 1 million dollars weighs 10 kilograms, military spending exceeds healthcare spending by well over 100 metric tons.
The US spends 52% of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, only 15% on defense.
Well I wasn't talking about Social Security or Welfare, I was talking about Military budget that could be allocated to healthcare. I found this great visualization [demonocracy.info] of the US Budget [usa.gov] that puts things into perspective:
Defense (Attack) $902.2 Billion
Health Care $846.1 Billion
Pensions $819.7 Billion
Welfare $451.9 Billion
Interest $224.8 Billion
Othe
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The US government spends about $3.5T on health care, about twice as much as the next nation. This is funding your health care, the world's health care research. It doesn't matter what portion of the budget it is. Sure there COULD be more health care spending, we'd probably need it when the rest of the world is overrun with theocrats or communists.
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The US government spends about $3.5T on health care,
Over what period of time? The figure I gave you is the yearly spend as allocated by the house bill for health spending Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020 [congress.gov]. That is the law that dictates spending or "Appropriations".
about twice as much as the next nation.
Which nation is "the next nation"?
This is funding your health care, the world's health care research.
The world is a lot bigger than the U.S so extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
It doesn't matter what portion of the budget it is.
Yes it does. You made a baseless claim and now you are using weasel words to attempt to backpedal
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There is no unlimited military spending in the US.
it IS, however...one of the few, enumerated responsibilities the Federal Govt actually has assigned to it by the US Constitution....defense.
I agree we should cut some spending on this, by cutting back our military coverage of so many other countries in the world and have THEM spend more of their own money on their own military defense instead of us footing the bill so much.
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All healthcare systems have to triage as healthcare is a limited resource. The difference is in your system, the rich alcoholic outbids the kid for a liver while here the rich alcoholic goes to the bottom of the list due to alcoholism and the kid that would benefit from a liver transplant goes to the top of the list.
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The problem is: give people basic care for free, and they will want to expand "basic" to mean "anything that affects me". You name it, and for someone it will be critical - but the money does simply not exist to provide unlimited care to every person.
The civilized world seems to manage those decisions just fine. Sure, not everyone is happy all the time, but it's not like in the USA you will get every treatment available for incurable cancer, rare diseases with horrendously expensive medicines or liver transplants for alcoholics unless you are a one percenter anyway.
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Even if that lab exists
Well that lab definitely exists. It's an internationally recognised lab certified to BSL-4, the highest biosafety rating of any lab. The odds of a virus "escaping" from that lab are close to zero. There's some 50 odd of these things around the world including the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] which happens to have some 70 years experience operating virology labs (though the level 4 lab is only 5 years old).
But this "conspiracy" has another problem. The making of a good conspiracy requires some intent on
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Who stood to gain from releasing a pandemic in Wuhan?
The CIA was just trying to get a sample.... But no, seriously - the people claiming China caused a mess in their own country just to hurt our economy is silly.
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I think this kind of conspiracy theory comes from the human desire to have someone to blame. Trump and those like him, particularly play to those desires. Remember the escalator, where Mexicans were rapists and murderers and such, but there were "some" that were good people. It's the same thing. Simplify a problem, so you have an "enemy". Fight the enemy in big and small ways.
Kind of like how some people blame deplorables, working class, rednecks, white people in general, etc? Unfortunately this dynamic is very much used by both sides.
Like How China Says US Released COVID-19 in Wuhan (Score:2)
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"Still think it was bat soup?"
Nobody ever thought it was bat soup, you moron, it was pangolin stew.
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this virus do not a high mortality, not even close!