Oh come on, this virus wasn't engineered.  China's not hiding some bioweapon program, they're hiding improper containment procedures.

Coronaviruses are in many different species, from bats to beluga whales to humans (some strains are part of what we call the "common cold").
Unfortunately, bats are hosts to many different strains of Coronaviruses, and being an RNA virus instead of a DNA virus, Coronaviruses mutate very rapidly, which allows them to jump species.
SARS-CoV was Bat->Civet->Human
MERS-CoV was Bat->Dromedary->Human

Sars-CoV2 is looking to be possibly Bat->Snake->Human based on studies of the genes of the virus and comparison to other Coronaviruses.

The Wuhan wet market did not sell bats.  It also is an indoor market in the middle of a city, so bat droppings are an unlikely cause.
There are, however, two different Viral Labs studying Bat Coronaviruses in the city of Wuhan, one of which is 300 yards from the market.

We'll never get the full story from China, but improper containment leading to Bat Coronavirus transmitted from a Viral Lab scientist to the Wuhan wet market, possibly to the snakes there, from which it jumped to humans.  There's reports that some of the earliest Wuhan victims had nothing to do with the wet market.

In this country, the CDC would trace the connections between every person working in those two labs and cross with their usage of the wet market for them or family members.  They'd also take samples from the market, and both labs and compare to the current Coronavirus.  China may have done that, we'll never know.

In any case, it seems now that we have flattened the curve.  The city hit the hardest, New York, has mostly empty beds in the health system now, BUT...everything is locked down.  In other states like Michigan, it seems to be still ramping up.  Shelter-in-place orders will definitely continue through the first of June in most places I would think.

Saying "Everything is back to normal, GO!" is probably not the best way to go about it, it could spike the number of cases.  A more measured lessening of restrictions, perhaps with other restrictions in place (masks, etc) to see if that spikes the spread is hopefully what will happen.

I moved my 82 year old mother in with me due to increasing vascular dementia, but luckily she's never had any heart/lung/diabetes problems, but I'm still being very cautious and I'm the only one who leaves the house.

Rolling out the National Guard and Army/Marines to the streets of every city and enforcing mandatory 3 week quarantine, with delivery of emergency rations/etc to people would probably eliminate the virus entirely, but we're obviously not going to do that with this virus.  It's dangerous, but hardly a doomsday scenario.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1126728Oh come on, this virus wasn't engineered.

Except it was.

I would not have thought that GameDaddy would fall for the CNN Fake News.

Quote from: Brad;1126746Except it was.

Based on what, that it came from a lab?  Virology labs are full of non-engineered viruses as well as the host organisms.

The patent Gamedaddy's talking about is for chicken coronaviruses.  SARS-CoV2 bears genetic resemblance to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV bat coronaviruses with possible relation to snake coronaviruses.

Quote from: Pat;1126722Everything I said is easily verifiable, and your link in no way contradicts it. Your source is talking about a third-party organization's proposal to cut the CDC's funding. The proposal hasn't turned into policy.

As I mentioned, the actual funding for the CDC has increased every year, for Trump's entire presidency (2017 to 2020). And as I also mentioned, Trump did initially propose cuts each year, but each time Congress passed a bill increasing their funding, and Trump signed it.

This was widely reported, so you can verify it nearly anywhere, but here's one with some graphs:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/28/michael-bloomberg/did-donald-trump-fire-pandemic-officials-defund-cd/

Incidentally, we should defund the CDC. They failed, badly. As a matter of general principle, we should stop rewarding ineffective agencies and administrators with additional funding and status when that happens, because it creates a perverse incentive. And more specifically, having a central source that monopolizes the official response to a pandemic is clearly a bad idea. We need more agencies and labs working on things like tests, instead of a single-agency serving as a bottleneck. We should look into a more dispersed response, perhaps state-based.

They failed badly because their budget was cut, for the last twelve years consecutively. Sadly we still seem to be funding CDC initiatives overseas with foreign countries in ridiculous amounts, however protecting Americans is not their top priority based on how they are actually spending their money... For our dear readers here, the actual operating budget for the last three years, 2018, 2019, and 2020 directly from the CDC.

Here is the 2020 Budget, notice how there is $43,119,000 less than there was last year for Immunizations and Respiratory Health. DO YOU SEE IT IN RED? CAN YOU SEE? HOW ABOUT THE CDC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE HAS BEEN CUT BY $5,000,000 DO YOUR EYES WORK? NO!!! BECAUSE YOUR MOUTH IS TOO BUSY RUNNING!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4264[/ATTACH]


Here is last years Budget. 2019. They cut immunizations by 43 Million dollars, and added just six million dollars for respiratory diseases. This was offset by a decrease of $704 Million Dollars for buildings and facilities, In fact, what was actually spent by the CDC was $914,550,000 less than what was actually approved in the budget at the beginning of the 2019 fiscal year. So a net cut of almost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!!! YOU ARE SO FULL OF BULLSHIT EVERYONE CAN SMELL IT EVEN OVER THE INTERNET!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4265[/ATTACH]


So you can verify this for yourselves, the actual link to the CDC 2019 Operating Budget
https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2019/fy-2019-cdc-operating-plan.pdf

Alright, let's have a look at 2018... the actual budget for Immunization and Respiratory Health was up $5,131,000 over 2017. The 2017 spending was $3,811,000 Less than 2016, and 2016 Spending was $115,000,000 less than 2015, so from 2016-2018, the overall budget for Immunization and Respiratory Health been cut by $112,000,000 Over what the budget was in 2014! QED!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4266[/ATTACH]

The last six years of the CDC's Operational Budget. And we haven't even started looking at the National Health Service yet!
https://www.cdc.gov/budget/fy2015/operating-plans.html

First, the news media is full of BS. They are only interested in ratings not truth. Congress and the government have been playing a shell game for years, just one step ahead of a major disaster, and they have collectively defunded the CDC and the National Health Service, and many other branches of public service as well. The money which should have went to the CDC and NHS has been going to pay down the national debt, to keep that from rising out of control and derailing our economy. It is a serious problem, and only one solution has historically worked to correct that, and we are not exercising that solution right at the moment.

I just want it to be over - so that stores can re-open. Really, really miss the regulars at the store...

- Ed C.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126776They failed badly because their budget was cut, for the last twelve years consecutively. Sadly we still seem to be funding CDC initiatives overseas with foreign countries in ridiculous amounts, however protecting Americans is not their top priority based on how they are actually spending their money... For our dear readers here, the actual operating budget for the last three years, 2018, 2019, and 2020 directly from the CDC.

Here is the 2020 Budget, notice how there is $43,119,000 less than there was last year for Immunizations and Respiratory Health. DO YOU SEE IT IN RED? CAN YOU SEE? HOW ABOUT THE CDC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE HAS BEEN CUT BY $5,000,000 DO YOUR EYES WORK? NO!!! BECAUSE YOUR MOUTH IS TOO BUSY RUNNING!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4264[/ATTACH]

Have you completely lost it?

In any case, you've clearly never read a budget before. There was not an overall decrease in spending on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases between FY19 and FY20. That $43 million was subtracted from one of the line items (BA), while almost $50 million was added to the other line item (PPHF). I&RD saw an overall increase, of $6.6 million.

But we weren't talking about the allocation of funding within the CDC. We were talking about the overall funding levels for the organization as a whole, from year to year. And the FY20 operating plan shows an increase over FY19 of either $370 or $645 million, depending on whether things like some prevention and nonrecurring expenses are included.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126776Here is last years Budget. 2019. They cut immunizations by 43 Million dollars, and added just six million dollars for respiratory diseases. This was offset by a decrease of $704 Million Dollars for buildings and facilities, In fact, what was actually spent by the CDC was $914,550,000 less than what was actually approved in the budget at the beginning of the 2019 fiscal year. So a net cut of almost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!!! YOU ARE SO FULL OF BULLSHIT EVERYONE CAN SMELL IT EVEN OVER THE INTERNET!!!

First of all, you mean billion, not trillion. The entire federal budget is roughly $4 trillion. The CDC's budget doesn't fluctuate by a quarter of that, from year to year.

And you're also mixing up years. It was the FY20 operating plan that reduced one of the Immunization and Respiratory Diseases line items by $43 million (while increasing the other line item by a greater amount, for a net gain). The FY19 operating plan shows a decrease in one of the line items by $3.8 million, and an increase in the other by $5.4 million, for an overall increase of $1.6 million. There's also no $6 million line in the FY19 operating plan, so I have no idea where you got that number from.

You're also reading the buildings section incorrectly. Between FY18 and 19, the operating plan for buildings and facilities was reduced by $480 million. The $704 million decrease is for the CDC, overall. So the FY19 operating plan does show a decrease from FY18, of either $704 or $940 million (again, depending on whether some prevention and non-recurring expenses are included).

But if we look at the operating plan more closely, nearly every section and line item is in the black. In other words, the spending on nearly everything increased between FY18 and 19. The reason the overall budget decreased was because of two unique expenses in FY18: A $600 million expenditure on the strategic national stockpile, and $240 million spent on buildings and facilities. Which is perfectly reasonable -- expenses for things like building or restoring facilities, or replenishing a depleted stockpile, tend to be intermittent. You won't see them, every year.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126776Alright, let's have a look at 2018... the actual budget for Immunization and Respiratory Health was up $5,131,000 over 2017. The 2017 spending was $3,811,000 Less than 2016, and 2016 Spending was $115,000,000 less than 2015, so from 2016-2018, the overall budget for Immunization and Respiratory Health been cut by $112,000,000 Over what the budget was in 2014! QED!!!

What does that have to do with anything? We were talking about the budget for the CDC, overall. And if you're trying to make a point about COVID-19... it's still not relevant because there's a whole section for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases that you're ignoring. E&ZID showed an increase of $31 million between FY17 and 18, on top of the $5 million increase in I&RD.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126776First, the news media is full of BS. They are only interested in ratings not truth. Congress and the government have been playing a shell game for years, just one step ahead of a major disaster, and they have collectively defunded the CDC and the National Health Service, and many other branches of public service as well. The money which should have went to the CDC and NHS has been going to pay down the national debt, to keep that from rising out of control and derailing our economy. It is a serious problem, and only one solution has historically worked to correct that, and we are not exercising that solution right at the moment.

I agree the news media is crap, and I'm not familiar with the NHS, but the rest of that is nonsense. They haven't defunded the CDC, and the national debt is increasing, not decreasing.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126691The pandemic did start in China, it just wasn't their creation. The virus was likely engineered elsewhere, until of course, it became illegal for Americans to engineer viruses, which was back in 2015. Of course, the Americans shared their newfound love for virus engineering with their "respected peers" in a fucking communist Chinese country. And they are still so scientifically incompetent there, that they unleashed the beast.

You should really go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under, and just quit lying, it doesn't suit you well here. Even better you should learn how politics really works in the U.S. today and what is broken in our system:

https://online.hillsdale.edu/landing/congress?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=congress&sc=MK1018SO57&fbclid=IwAR0limNXrqL_uydYD2Fe4aB8dFN2mkF5N_9Le0rvbNm_L0ALv1tv06Zhg4Q

Go back to watching Alex Jones and drown in your own froth.

Quote from: Pat;1126785I agree the news media is crap, and I'm not familiar with the NHS, but the rest of that is nonsense. They haven't defunded the CDC, and the national debt is increasing, not decreasing.

That would be the budget of the CDC you are talking about. Each line item is a separate expense, The facts are plainly presenting themselves when you read through it. In any years that the total CDC budget is actually increased actual spending for Immunization and Respiratory Health is cut, and when funding for Immunization and Respiratory health is increased and used, funding in other areas of the CDC are being cut. In 2018 funding was increased for Immunization and Healthcare by like six and a half million dollars. Meanwhile the same year seven hundred and four million dollars worth of buildings, warehouses, and office space was closed, because no money was spent to keep it open. Doesn't help to have more money for your pet program, if the offices, hospitals, and research facilities where the program facilities are being run, are closed.

That same year 2018, the budget for the CDC national stockpile was also eliminated. That would be money for the purchase and storage of ventilators, EKG, and other medical test and test equipment needed by the CDC for emergencies and crisis.

Having worked on the federal budget (in the Defense sector), any federal budget request, even if approved, is a use it or lose it deal. If you don't spend the money allocated, you don't get it. Worse, if you don't spend all of the money already allocated in the current budget, you don't get to ask for a budget increase the following year, so you have to spend it all to even get a shot at getting more.  When I worked R&D, my director would give me a credit card and invariably, at the end of any year we had a budget surplus he would say, "Go online and order some more equipment/supplies. Anything you even think we need, or anything that you might want to conceivably experiment with next year, we have to spend the budget so we can ask for an increase for next year." May God bless John Baldwin, P.hd, he's looking down from Heaven at you right now, and laughing out loud. We had a great warehouse to store all the stuff I bought too. It seemed liked that warehouse in the Indiana Jones movie, only for electronics, tools, and test equipment instead of archaeological artifacts. LoL.

Yes, the CDC, and NHS has been defunded, as has the National Science Foundation, also the National Endowment for the Arts. Even NASA has seen severe funding cuts over the years. The only branch of the government where the fed has been expanding budgets every year is the MILITARY, and rebates and tax credits for the PETROLEUM INDUSTRY and that money is going straight to private corporations, and private defense contractors, who don't have to report their actual expenditures, unexpected cost overruns, and actual operating budgets under the umbrella of the Patriot Act for national security. NASA doesn't get the money it needs for space exploration, but the United States Space Force has a pretty much unlimited budget to develop new toys in space that can kill. go figure.

Here is what is really happening. That very same hospital that charged me $7,000 for a seven hour stay in the E.R. back in 2015 for kidney stones (By the way, here is what I got for my money spent, a battery of useless tests by a variety of nurses and techs completely unrelated to my actual condition, ten minutes with an ER doc that confirmed my case of kidney stones after reviewing an X-ray, and MRI... and one bottle of muscle relaxant pills which also had some painkiller mixed in. Seven hours, seven G. Three weeks ago they came to me with their hat in hand, asking if I would help manufacture face masks for them, because they ran out, as they didn't actually plan for having enough reserves for a real pandemic, and couldn't get any from the CDC BECAUSE IN 2018 THE CDC NATIONAL STOCKPILE WAS DISCONTINUED, AND CUT COMPLETELY OUT OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET.

The government doesn't work the way you think it should be working. Go back and examine your theories and premises. compare that to what is actually happening and adjust your working model so that the facts are matching what is actually happening. What you'll find is what I have said, the parts of Federal Government that traditionally served the public are being defunded with budget cuts and budget transfers and shutdown behind the scenes, while money is being handed over by the truckload to drive-by capitalists who contribute absolutely nothing to actually solving the problems the people are having, or the problems that  America is having.

Case in point, the federal reserve offering no-interest loans to banks in February of this year when they actually realized a new financial crisis was occurring... more on this here:
https://needtoknow.news/2020/03/the-federal-reserve-has-already-pumped-9-trillion-into-wall-street-in-the-past-six-months-and-now-is-offering-banks-another-1-5-trillion/

Case in point, the CARES act. The $550 Billion package to help small businesses. Is it really helping small businesses, NO!!! First off, these are loans that the small businesses are receiving, and are not income, operational funds, or even emergency reserves. These small business loans for payroll or whatever can't replace the actual income that businesses forced to close have lost being shuttered. Businesses traditionally get to keep their income less their expenses, but now businesses are being forced to take loans to replace that income. Congresses idea of saving all small business  involve LET"S FORCE ALL SMALL BUSINESSES TO GO DEEPLY INTO DEBT!!! and trust that the bankers and other private lenders they go into debt to is going to be all kind and forgiving. What a bunch of dicktards!!!

It gets worse though... the Payroll Protection Plan rollout has been a disaster so far. Here is the deal: Disaster. Fiasco. Debacle. That's how the rollout of the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) is widely described. PPP is the loan program aimed at helping small businesses and the self-employed keep their employees paid through the coronavirus crisis, with loans that can be "forgiven" – in other words, turned into a grant.  But frankly, it's just a mess.  

As part of the CARES act passed in late March, Congress allocated $359 billion for small-business relief. PPP enables businesses to get loans of 2.5 times their average annual "payroll costs" and have those loans forgiven if they spend at least 75% of those funds on "payroll costs" within eight weeks. It's designed to get paychecks to those working in small businesses quickly. It immediately became a very, very popular program.

Even though it is supposed to be "Forgivable" if the small businesses for any reason can't pay they are not being "forgiven" because of the way the program is being administered. The Senate wanted these funds to go through banks instead of the Treasury Department or the SBA.  This was supposed to get money to businesses faster. Instead, it created mass confusion and frustration. "Talk to 20 business owners, and they're all hearing something different from their banks," said Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of Main Street Alliance, representing more than 30,000 small businesses. Banks each have different online processes and require different documentation to meet federal guidelines. Most banks are accepting applications only from existing customers; at least one bank limits applications only to those with business accounts, wrongly shutting out those sole proprietors with only personal accounts.

More on this train wreck here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/usaandmain/2020/04/07/ppp-loan-plan-rollout-disaster-small-businesses/2963901001/

It gets worse... Banks under fire for coronavirus loan tactics
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52043896

"Banks have been criticised by firms and MPs for insisting on personal guarantees to issue government-backed emergency loans to business owners. The requirement loads most of the risk that the loan goes bad on the business owner, rather than the banks. It means that the banks can go after the personal property of the owner of a firm if their business goes under and they cannot afford to pay off the debt. Their main home would be protected but the bank could go after other assets. Those can include things like personal savings, shares or holiday homes. And some think that will stop business owners from making use of the emergency loan scheme, which the government put in place to stop businesses from going under during the coronavirus crisis."

With friends like this, who needs enemies? As a small business owner, I am not and will not take out loans for my business to replace income lost from being forced to close. That's just like digging the hole deeper.

I really need to get back to that train wreck that is the financial shenanigans of the federal government, and how it is quietly being looted behind the scenes, without the knowledge, approval and consent of the American people.

...and yes, the National Debt is increasing, but not for the reasons you currently think!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126806That would be the budget of the CDC you are talking about. Each line item is a separate expense, The facts are plainly presenting themselves when you read through it. In any years that the total CDC budget is actually increased actual spending for Immunization and Respiratory Health is cut, and when funding for Immunization and Respiratory health is increased and used, funding in other areas of the CDC are being cut. In 2018 funding was increased for Immunization and Healthcare by like six and a half million dollars. Meanwhile the same year seven hundred and four million dollars worth of buildings, warehouses, and office space was closed, because no money was spent to keep it open. Doesn't help to have more money for your pet program, if the offices, hospitals, and research facilities where the program facilities are being run, are closed.

That same year 2018, the budget for the CDC national stockpile was also eliminated. That would be money for the purchase and storage of ventilators, EKG, and other medical test and test equipment needed by the CDC for emergencies and crisis.

Citation needed. The CDC operating plans don't corroborate those claims, and every article I've read contradicts it.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126806The government doesn't work the way you think it should be working. Go back and examine your theories and premises. compare that to what is actually happening and adjust your working model so that the facts are matching what is actually happening.

You can't make that claim, because you have no idea how I think the government works, or should be working. We haven't talked about any of that.

I'm quite aware of the new round of quantitative easing by the Fed, for instance. But it started before the coronavirus, last year, as they bailed out the repo market. The new wave that kicked off in February is just a continuation. They had gotten out of the money printing business for just the blink of an eye, and now they're doing more of it than ever. They clearly intend to keep propping up the financial industry and businesses that aren't making any money but can continue to grow as long as they take on more and more debt, at the cost of deflating everyone else's wages and savings. It's particularly disturbing that they stealthily eliminated the reserve requirement for banks, for the first time in American history

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126806...and yes, the National Debt is increasing, but not for the reasons you currently think!

Again, you have no idea what I think. We haven't talked about this at all.

Nothing else you posted has any bearing on what we were discussing, either.

Quote from: Pat;1126811You can't make that claim, because you have no idea how I think the government works, or should be working. We haven't talked about any of that.
.

Shit. Everything he posted tracks with what I've heard and suspect about the government. A corrupt and inept government! Who would have imagined!

Quote from: Koltar;1126782I just want it to be over - so that stores can re-open. Really, really miss the regulars at the store...

- Ed C.

I do too, man. Our Pathfinder Society group started playing online last weekend, and that's something. But it's just not quite the same.

Quote from: Pat;1126811Citation needed. The CDC operating plans don't corroborate those claims, and every article I've read contradicts it.

Again, you have no idea what I think. We haven't talked about this at all.

Nothing else you posted has any bearing on what we were discussing, either.

Yah, I see now the CDC's actual reports on it's spending is too dense for you to read, and doesn't count as an actual citation, not that you know what that even means.  I know exactly what you think, you are just here just fucking off, and wasting time, and pissing on other people. You sure aren't here talking about games. There are plenty of pages of us talking about this, You were lying when we started, and you are lying right now, ...rather unconvincingly by the way.

Everything I'm posting has a bearing on what we are discussing, What we are discussing is the budget of the CDC and the NHS, which has been cut, or curtailed every single year since 2008. What we are discussing is how the American government is getting hijacked by a few oligarchs stuffing moneys into their pockets with the average citizens having their rights, their civil services, and benefits that they have traditionally received from a free democratic government  curtailed or otherwise removed entirely by corrupt government officials at the behest of a few. What we are discussing is a government that right up until 2015 allowed private corporation free reign in genetically modifying coronaviruses for a wide variety of reasons. What we are seeing is a new coronavirus that was accidentally released into the wild with the Americans blaming the Chinese, but the fact is the virus is a direct variant of an already existing virus, one that was part of American experiments, that has been publicly documented in a variety of scientific journals.

With the current unchanged trajectory and trends our government is exhibited in actively suppressing democracy, and the will of the majority of people, none of this is going to end well.

For GameDaddy to have lost it, GameDaddy would have had to have had it, once.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126819Yah, I see now the CDC's actual reports on it's spending is too dense for you to read, and doesn't count as an actual citation, not that you know what that even means.  I know exactly what you think, you are just here just fucking off, and wasting time, and pissing on other people. You sure aren't here talking about games. There are plenty of pages of us talking about this, You were lying when we started, and you are lying right now, ...rather unconvincingly by the way.

Everything I'm posting has a bearing on what we are discussing, What we are discussing is the budget of the CDC and the NHS, which has been cut, or curtailed every single year since 2008. What we are discussing is how the American government is getting hijacked by a few oligarchs stuffing moneys into their pockets with the average citizens having their rights, their civil services, and benefits that they have traditionally received from a free democratic government  curtailed or otherwise removed entirely by corrupt government officials at the behest of a few. What we are discussing is a government that right up until 2015 allowed private corporation free reign in genetically modifying coronaviruses for a wide variety of reasons. What we are seeing is a new coronavirus that was accidentally released into the wild with the Americans blaming the Chinese, but the fact is the virus is a direct variant of an already existing virus, one that was part of American experiments, that has been publicly documented in a variety of scientific journals.

I have no problem reading budgets, as should be clear from the way I pointed out the many mistakes you made in reading the CDC's operating plans.

The CDC operating plans we discussed either show an increase in the overall CDC budget, or an increase in all areas of the CDC budget except for 2 non-recurrent expenses. That does not support your claim that the CDC's budget has been cut for 12 years in a row. The article I cited in my first post also contradicts that claim, as do all of the other sources I've read. That means the obligation is on you to provide a source for your claims, or at least a plausible argument of some kind. Which you haven't; you're just ranting.

Are you confusing me with other posters? Because we haven't been discussing this for "plenty" of pages, nor have we talked about anything on that long list of things you claim we've been talking about, except the CDC's budget.