Given the fact that thousands of people from the Wusan epicenter entered multiple points in North America from Dec.15-Jan23, there is little doubt that the virus is here. also given the fact that there are relatively few diagnostic kits, it is likely that many more than the 500 or so documented infections exist in the United States. However it is somewhat reassuring that there have been no China or Korea like outbreaks thus far in the United States. The ICUs are not full of desperately ill people in respiratory failure with ground glass lesions noted on Chest CT scan. It just might be that Caucasians and Africans are simply not as susceptible to serious disease as Asians unless they are elderly, immunocompromised or have significant underlying pulmonary disease.
Consider the following:
1) At the Wusan epicenter there were many Caucasians and Africans living and working. They did not become seriously ill and none have been reported to die
2)The region in Italy that had the breakout is heavily populated with Chinese immigrants and Asian workers.
3) The modern Iranian population has a large Asian contribution to its population genome. The Silk Road transversed Iran and the Mongols once conquered it
4) Unless the race, age and underlying medical conditions of those afflicted as well as the severity of the disease is revealed by the CDC or the press, total numbers tell little about the nature of this disease and just who is susceptible and likely to become seriously ill. The CDC and the MSM thus far, for whatever reason have not shared that information.
I look forward to seeing the test results for the passengers on the Grand Princess cruise ship. I bet we are going to learn a hell of a lot about COVID-19 over the next week.
Perhaps we'll even learn why it does not attack kids.
You can’t assume most, or even many, of those that left Wuhan in the early stages were infected. Perhaps they caught most of the people who were infected in the quarantines. Clearly they didn’t get everybody, but perhaps they put a crimp in it.
Based on incubation periods and the secrecy of the state governments about where it came from, I think it is far more likely that the major spreading was done by illegals coming across the border from Mexico or Canada.
And the racial stuff is essentially conspiracy theory material. Could it be true? Maybe. Is there any solid evidence to substantiate it? No, or not yet, at least. The original claims to that end were based on old, incomplete data that was at best reverse engineered to produce a predetermined result. Not properly vetted.
Our ICUs are not full, but we are weeks behind S. Korea (due to the actions of President Trump) instead of racing them for the highest case count outside of China. Trump’s early and subsequent calls were correct and probably the most he could do at the time. It may be that Italy’s patient 0 was a Pakistani engaging in virus jihad, but it isn’t just Chinese/Asians dropping like flies in Italy, Washington, Korea, etc.
Africa, Africa. There are only 2 places in Africa where they can even do real CV tests. Egypt and South Africa. Both have cases. In the rest of Africa the health care systems are so poor they probably don’t even know what’s going on. Add to that that in much of Africa life expectancies are pretty low - well under the 80/20 threshold for fatalities (80% of fatalities in people 65+) observed in western nations. Once testing gets going in Africa we’ll see what the data shows.
All in all, I strongly suspect that pollution, more than any other factor, determines how sick you will get (but what about India - I dunno). The pollution band stretches from Morocco to China. Korea, Japan and Italy are at the edges, Iran is smack in the middle of it. The West Coast gets its pollution from China and India but is clean compared to them. Then, if you are silly enough to believe the Chinese numbers, since their industry stopped and their skies cleared, CV cases have dropped to nearly zero outside of Wuhan. I don’t happen to believe them, myself.
Oh, there is another guy on here that says that Asians are *less* susceptible due to their history of flu epidemics. He cites stats from the Spanish Flu which allege that the Spanish Flu barely hit China. His contention is that we are gonna get hit harder than the Chinese. I don’t buy that, either.
FD: I personally don't resent, as a White person, that the Chinese are a little smarter than I am on average. If they were free, they would be world-beaters, but they are led by Winnie the Flu and his gang of idiots.