Off Topic Coronavirus

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It does in the context of 2 million cases though.

so you reckon 50% of the chinese population flying/fleeing were infected?

We haven't even hit that in London and people are packed in tubes everyday buddy.

Likewise 4 million passengers is hardly anything (i'm guessing thats over weeks?) when apparantly there are ~12.5 million passengers flying a day. In the UK alone we do 800,000 passengers a day and the U.S do 2.7 million a day
 
so you reckon 50% of the chinese population flying/fleeing were infected?

We haven't even hit that in London and people are packed in tubes everyday buddy.

Likewise 4 million passengers is hardly anything (i'm guessing thats over weeks?) when apparantly there are ~12.5 million passengers flying a day. In the UK alone we do 800,000 passengers a day and the U.S do 2.7 million a day
Those numbers would drop if there was two weeks quarantine added to the end of every flight
 
Those numbers would drop if there was two weeks quarantine added to the end of every flight

pretty sure those flight numbers have been decimated now.

planes grounded, airline companies going bust, even flights at a later date they have them dirt cheap (as i think you cannot get compensated if the planes are grounded for covid19 i think in recent policies).

Hows kiwi land at the moment?
 
pretty sure those flight numbers have been decimated now.

planes grounded, airline companies going bust, even flights at a later date they have them dirt cheap (as i think you cannot get compensated if the planes are grounded for covid19 i think in recent policies).

Hows kiwi land at the moment?
Very quiet
No flights unless it's citizens or residents
Then two weeks of quarantine
All businesses shut
People told to stay at home
Only shop's open are supermarkets and pharmacys
Into week four of the four week level four lockdown
Find out Monday if that's it or Will it be extended
Not much changes in level three really
Afternoon tv will still be ****
 
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We should be questioning and demanding why thousands of people are landing daily at airports and then are just free to go wherever they like without even a single check on their health! We should be asking why PPE has been and still in some places is a problem to obtain. Ventilators etc, lockdown restrictions etc. Apparantly (according to matt hancock) in january we were one of the best prepared countries in the world for what was coming. We have the right to question that but unfortunately, Joe Public doesn't have the voice.

Being prepared and being pragmatic in this situation was key to minimising the impact.
Good article about four countries that appear to have got it right. The common denominator is testing, which we are hopelessly lacking in the UK especially for our frontline NHS staff.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/world/coronavirus-response-lessons-learned-intl/index.html
 
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Thread / Article from LBC Presenter Maajid Nawaz ...

[HASHTAG]#Covid19[/HASHTAG] has exposed the grave political miscalculations behind decades of western geo-strategic relations with China. We have sleepwalked into a supply-side over-dependency, believing China would embrace democratic norms. We’ve been played. China is now on a war footing.

Here’s how:

1) For clothing (factory-fashion), PPE, IT parts & more, too many manufactured goods rely on a ‘Made in China’ supply-chain. And yet while owning the supply-side of our economies

2) China’s been cloning western software via her lackadaisical respect for copyright. So as we rely on China for hardware, China avoided software dependency on us by creating TikTok to replace snapchat, Weibo for Twitter, WeChat & RenRen for Facebook and so on. They have a Chinese version for everything.

3) OK, so manufactured goods & hardware are ‘Made in China’. Software is ‘Cloned in China’. What of natural resources?

Through China’s ‘Belt & Road’ initiative she has lent money to developing nations while securing key infrastructure such as mines & ports as collateral for loans. Look to Pakistan, African & South East Asian nations to see China’s rapid expansion of ownership of mines & ports. Look to the UK for her attempts to secure our telecoms industry via the Huawei deal, her offer to buy British Steel & her offer to develop our nuclear power stations.

4) Over decades we naively outsourced (or lost) manufacturing, software & natural resources to China. Yet as [HASHTAG]#Covid19[/HASHTAG] highlights, during a crisis (or a war) our society is at a standstill & we are unable to manufacture PPE etc.. Meanwhile, China has achieved *self-sufficiency*.

5) Let’s move to China’s domestic politics: while doing the above economically, China’s communist one-party state has centralised political power, gained unprecedented command over her own population via spy-tech, placed up to 2m Uigurs in gulags & made President Xi, president for life.

6) Now, you tell me from basic knowledge about British colonial history, the East India company & the British Raj: which type of state seeks to centralise domestic power under one strong leader, own global supply chains, monopolise industry, while expanding abroad to secure natural resources?

7) there is little room for doubt that China is at a pre-colonial stage. She is *aggressively* pursuing self-sufficiency from internationalism. The question arises: WHY?

My unavoidable conclusion is: China is preparing for war. If/when this happens (not yet), is distinct from her preparing for it.

it pains me to say that the type of war China is preparing for is total, not partial war. The kind of war that rebalances the world order, tipping it in her favour by replacing the US as the dominant power.

9) Also (crucially, unlike us) China is not preparing for past wars. China is preparing for the next type of war. China knows that she cannot beat the US militarily. But that type of ground war is almost over. By securing supply chains, having an iron grip on her own population China can focus on building her cyber & biological war capabilities while remaining relatively safeguarded against the same herself, because she is not dependent on the world for supply chains or tech.

11) considering this, from steel, to nuclear to telecoms, our policy towards China hitherto can be best described as one of miserably failed economic appeasement.

So, what’s the solution? Take their bait & prepare for war too?

12) No. We must first understand what happened & why we are in this darkly comedic position where we willingly handed China the tools by which to beat us. If this (terrible, but not devastating) [HASHTAG]#Covid19[/HASHTAG] outbreak were harsher (eg: Black Death) lacking PPE, we’d all be dead by now

13) we must urgently pivot our strategic relationship with China. I repeat, this does NOT mean go to war. It means: have a strategy!

i) assume China is in a Cold War with us already (the above thread shows she indisputably is) & respond with this in mind (ie: end the naivety)

ii) end this naive global supply-chain total dependency on any one nation

iii) trade with China, yes, but always ringfence critical infrastructure: nuclear, telecoms & natural resources eg: steel

iv) the post-WWII international community via the UN (as recent politicisation of WHO shows) is no longer serving its purpose. We must reorder our strategic & military alliances around the Pacific (NATO style) & build an international consensus against the communist Chinese state

v) just like nuclear non proliferation, there must be global consequences for cyber & bio hazard. Post Covid, we must build a new global consensus on which punitive measures are suited to states that violate our cyber or bio safety

14) as I tried to show, due to our ‘othering’ of China, our hubris & our naivety, we have been outmanoeuvred by a people & culture who brought us Sun Tsu’s the Art of War. This outbreak has magnified these failures & we would be deserving of loss if we did not learn lessons now.

15) Finally, those asking whether China “released” [HASHTAG]#Covid19[/HASHTAG] deliberately. No, I don’t think she did. Covid-19 provided us with the perfect (albeit tragic) dry-run for a future aspect of warfare &lessons in how to be better prepared. It doesn’t suit China for us to learn these lessons
 
A nurse who used full ppe has gone down with covid 19 in Wellington

Two more deaths
One of those picked it up at a St Patricks Day celebration in a pub
Eleven in total
7 from the same rest home


8 new cases
1409 cases in total
816 people have recovered
14 in hospital
3 in icu
2 serious

74401 tests completed

Ten billion dollars paid out in wage subsidy
 
We should be questioning and demanding why thousands of people are landing daily at airports and then are just free to go wherever they like without even a single check on their health! We should be asking why PPE has been and still in some places is a problem to obtain. Ventilators etc, lockdown restrictions etc. Apparantly (according to matt hancock) in january we were one of the best prepared countries in the world for what was coming. We have the right to question that but unfortunately, Joe Public doesn't have the voice.

You’d hate to see what state we’d be in if we weren’t one of the best prepared countries in the world.

The testing rate is improving though. Hoping we can close in on Djibouti today.