Coronavirus COVID-19

[mainejeff]

So when are you guys getting back to work?

[mainejeff]

Let Trump just "wash over" America like he wants to. Would kill Baby Boomers in record numbers....I'm OK with that.

[Gil Dobie]

So when are you guys getting back to work?

Been working thru this, most of our campus is working remote.

[89Hen]

So when are you guys getting back to work?

Never left.

[Silenoz]

So when are you guys getting back to work?

Never left.

Ditto

[BDKJMU]

Video Bass Pro e-mailed yesterday to all of its account holders:

Seeds are also a banned item in Michigan...

Yep
viewtopic.php?p=1305353#p1305353.
And so is getting your grass cut. The blow up in Mich is a new expanded order that Whitmer issued a few days ago. At least sounds like some local govts are saying they’re not enforcing this ridiculousness..
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/loc ... utType=amp

[JohnStOnge]

Seeds are also a banned item in Michigan...

Yep
viewtopic.php?p=1305353#p1305353.
And so is getting your grass cut. The blow up in Mich is a new expanded order that Whitmer issued a few days ago. At least sounds like some local govts are saying they’re not enforcing this ridiculousness..
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/loc ... utType=amp

Yeah. As I've said I think Louisiana's Governor is managing it well. I think Louisiana got whacked by having Mardi Gras right when this thing was getting established. So it was a bad situation. But I think the Governor has been very reasonable about things like that.

When I went fishing in my kayak yesterday the boat club I went to was obviously under heavy use. Lots of Trucks with boat trailers having launched boats. But there was no problem with social distancing except with a group of hispanic looking people I saw fishing off the bank. And I don't know that they weren't all from the same household anyway.

The only thing I can guess as to why Michigan doesn't want to allow motorboats is that motorboats have to buy gasoline. Maybe somebody else can think of other reasons.

[BDKJMU]

Yep
viewtopic.php?p=1305353#p1305353.
And so is getting your grass cut. The blow up in Mich is a new expanded order that Whitmer issued a few days ago. At least sounds like some local govts are saying they’re not enforcing this ridiculousness..
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/loc ... utType=amp

Yeah. As I've said I think Louisiana's Governor is managing it well. I think Louisiana got whacked by having Mardi Gras right when this thing was getting established. So it was a bad situation. But I think the Governor has been very reasonable about things like that.

When I went fishing in my kayak yesterday the boat club I went to was obviously under heavy use. Lots of Trucks with boat trailers having launched boats. But there was no problem with social distancing except with a group of hispanic looking people I saw fishing off the bank. And I don't know that they weren't all from the same household anyway.

The only thing I can guess as to why Michigan doesn't want to allow motorboats is that motorboats have to buy gasoline. Maybe somebody else can think of other reasons.

Did have a 5/4 night fishing trip scheduled for this upcoming week (3 days fishing, 2 guided) with my brother to Niagara Falls, NY (bout 6 1/2 hrs from NYC). Cuomo’s initial shutdown order hadn’t shutdown guided/chartered fishing. So the trip was still barely on until this past Wed, when NY state extended its shutdown past 4/15, and fishing guides & charters were added to the list of ‘non essential’, and boat launches & marinas were closed for recreational boating. It would have been tough to go regardless, with the stay at home orders (my brother lives in CT, we both would have had about 6 1/2 hrs drives), and my GF, SIL, sister and mom were all on us about not going).

[Ibanez]

MrsCCU and I were discussing this earlier. Trump was given too awful choices to make. Any
President would’ve made 1 of 2 made choices. It was lose-lose.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What?

Trump had 2 choices to make
1) Do Nothing and potentially allow COVID-19 spread unfettered and cause serious impact

or

2) restrict travel, gatherings, etc... Do what he's done and see thousands of businesses destroyed, trillions wiped out in the markets and everything else that has happened.

Either way, it was an unpopular decision that had to be made. As a leader, he had no good options w/regards to facing COVID-19. It's not his fault.


His response to his decision is all his. But his hand was forced.

[Ibanez]

So when are you guys getting back to work?

Never stopped.

In fact, we never layed off a single person due to COVID-19. That includes those who can't do their work at home (receptionists, mail clerks, tellers). They're still getting paid. And we're still hiring 3,000 PAID interns this summer.

[CAA Flagship]

You are assuming that the first vaccine to be tested will work. It may be that the first 1, 2, 3, etc. fail and the one that works is developed from the lessons learned in the early ones.

So when does 12-18 months turn into 9-15 months?

Never. When they say that the earliest a vaccine can be tested and approved is 12-18 months, it means that is the timeline for the one that works. It will always be 12-18 months and suddenly go to 0 if found to work. The only clock is the one that counts down to the efficacy determination date.

[CAA Flagship]

What?

Trump had 2 choices to make
1) Do Nothing and potentially allow COVID-19 spread unfettered and cause serious impact

or

2) restrict travel, gatherings, etc... Do what he's done and see thousands of businesses destroyed, trillions wiped out in the markets and everything else that has happened.

Either way, it was an unpopular decision that had to be made. As a leader, he had no good options w/regards to facing COVID-19. It's not his fault.


His response to his decision is all his. But his hand was forced.

I see.

But did Trump do any restrictions other than international travel?
I'm thinking all of the economic shutdown came from voluntary actions and/or state and local governments.
I think there are 8 states that do not have stay-at-home orders. I mentioned earlier that, in this particular pandemic, there should not be a national stay at home order. It's a big country with diverse population densities. If you do a national shutdown, undoing it will be problematic. Some areas will not be ready yet. You can't hold back the entire country based on a few bad areas. The messaging of lifting a national order and immediately imposing a local order would be confusing.
Individual states will have to deal with this problem as they try to open up parts of their state. But there's no way around that.

[Chizzang]

[Ibanez]

Trump had 2 choices to make
1) Do Nothing and potentially allow COVID-19 spread unfettered and cause serious impact

or

2) restrict travel, gatherings, etc... Do what he's done and see thousands of businesses destroyed, trillions wiped out in the markets and everything else that has happened.

Either way, it was an unpopular decision that had to be made. As a leader, he had no good options w/regards to facing COVID-19. It's not his fault.


His response to his decision is all his. But his hand was forced.

I see.

But did Trump do any restrictions other than international travel?
I'm thinking all of the economic shutdown came from voluntary actions and/or state and local governments.
I think there are 8 states that do not have stay-at-home orders. I mentioned earlier that, in this particular pandemic, there should not be a national stay at home order. It's a big country with diverse population densities. If you do a national shutdown, undoing it will be problematic. Some areas will not be ready yet. You can't hold back the entire country based on a few bad areas. The messaging of lifting a national order and immediately imposing a local order would be confusing.
Individual states will have to deal with this problem as they try to open up parts of their state. But there's no way around that.

The restrictions on international travel had effects (airlines, tourism, etc...) and it was a tough decision but he made the right one.

I don't put what Fort Mill SC did on Trump. The states, taking direction from the federal government and taking the advice from the CDC made the best decisions for themselves. Any decision to deal with an unknown contagion that may prove difficult to mitigate/contain will be lose-lose.

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

What?

Trump had 2 choices to make
1) Do Nothing and potentially allow COVID-19 spread unfettered and cause serious impact

or

2) restrict travel, gatherings, etc... Do what he's done and see thousands of businesses destroyed, trillions wiped out in the markets and everything else that has happened.

Either way, it was an unpopular decision that had to be made. As a leader, he had no good options w/regards to facing COVID-19. It's not his fault.


His response to his decision is all his. But his hand was forced.

He should have done nothing months ago

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[Ibanez]

Trump had 2 choices to make
1) Do Nothing and potentially allow COVID-19 spread unfettered and cause serious impact

or

2) restrict travel, gatherings, etc... Do what he's done and see thousands of businesses destroyed, trillions wiped out in the markets and everything else that has happened.

Either way, it was an unpopular decision that had to be made. As a leader, he had no good options w/regards to facing COVID-19. It's not his fault.


His response to his decision is all his. But his hand was forced.

He should have done nothing months ago

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

That is one of the options. I'd be interested to see where we would be if he had done nothing. Probably a lot more dead.


And a 1,000,000,000% increase in democrat pearl clutching.

[SDHornet]

He should have done nothing months ago

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

That is one of the options. I'd be interested to see where we would be if he had done nothing. Probably a lot more dead.


And a 1,000,000,000% increase in democrat pearl clutching.

I think the unknown of this thing warranted shutting down the borders/international travel even though it came later than it should have (thanks again China and WHO for lying to the world). But like you said, aside from that it was all up to the states to determine their best course of action with Fed support as needed. Won't stop the "Trump's fault" narratives though.

[kalm]

He should have done nothing months ago

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

That is one of the options. I'd be interested to see where we would be if he had done nothing. Probably a lot more dead.


And a 1,000,000,000% increase in democrat pearl clutching.

His was forced. He will always reassuring to his 20% base. His lack of honesty and reassurance to the rest shows what a shitty leader he is. People confuse bullying powers with strong leadership throughout history.

[Ivytalk]

That is one of the options. I'd be interested to see where we would be if he had done nothing. Probably a lot more dead.


And a 1,000,000,000% increase in democrat pearl clutching.

People confuse bullying powers with strong leadership throughout history.

Yep. Hitler. Mussolini. Khrushchev. Kim Jong-Il. Obama.

[SDHornet]

kalm, here's your link to hospitals furloughing staff you wanted:

[SDHornet]

I'll just leave this here:

[kalm]

I'll just leave this here:

Good evening, I took a few hours away from everything this evening to just chillax, so I was late in posting this up but here are today's numbers.


First the UK, the Power of Social Distancing is kicking in hard core. The US IMHE Model is still predicting some pretty cataclysmic stuff for the UK but it is trending down fast for the situation to be closer to a Lite version of a New York style cataclysm, versus one that was headed for 5X worse than New York. Here are some comparative numbers to show just how powerful and how fast & effective social distancing and stay at home orders are once they are at full power. In the UK the Peak Hospital usage date has moved up to 2 days to 4/15/20, the Hospital Bed Shortage has been cut from 85,000 beds to 46,000 beds, the ICU Bed Shortage has been cut from 24,000 to 7,400 and the ventilator shortage has been cut from 21,000 to 12,600. Additionally the projected cumulative death count through July 2020 has been cut from 66,000 to 37,500. This is a HUGE Improvement and show the power of the mitigation measures being used. My expectation is that we will see additional massive improvements over the next few days. The trends are suggesting the UK can potentially handle this in a very ugly and painful manner while still maintaining its NHS, just barely. Hopefully it will be even better. This just shows a stoic truth about the British, when they resolve to do so something with a war time effort and mobilization they do it forcefully and completely, they, of all of the western countries, have not forgot the painful lessons of world war and what it takes to win and appear to be fully engaged in winning this war now.

Now for Sweden. Things have not gotten better, they have gotten worse, far worse. The projected Peak has pushed out seven days to 5/3/2020 and its not because the curve is flattening. The projected Deficit in Hospital Beds has increased massively to 12,700 from 2,900, the projected deficit in ICU beds has shot up from 1,090 to 3,300 (Remember Sweden only has 80 ICU Beds) and the ventilator deficit has increased from 994 to just under 3,000. Additionally the projected deaths through July 2020 has skyrocketed from 4,000 to 13,250. The only good news in this is they still have a little time for social distancing to potentially blunt this, but this is looking bad, very bad. Unlike the Brits, I'm not sure what the Sweeds are doing at this point. This is the first time in over a month where Ive see the UW IMHE Projection Model accelerate after a location is in the mature portion of the infection wave of the the disease curve. About a month ago, this would happen early on in the United States when a location would refuse to social distance, but once they did, the projection started to decisively go the other way at an accelerating rate as time took hold. Again, what is happening in Sweden is decidedly NOT good. This should also be a cautionary tale for everyone in the US who wants to relax stay at home orders right now.

2) What is the Epicenter of this Pandemic? In the United States both the Media and the National Political Leadership both keep pushing the narrative that the Epicenter of the pandemic is someplace other that where it is. Fortunately in the last 48 hours the media is starting to see the error in its reporting, for whatever reason, and are starting to get closer to reporting the true Epicenter of this Pandemic - EUROPE. While the Scientist are fairly sure the evidence supports the theory that COVID-19 Started in Bats, transited to Pangolins and then transited to Human in Wuhan, China. From there there two primary expansive shots of infection from China to the rest of the world, the first a shot to Europe and the second a shot to North America. The North American Shot landed in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver. It infected all of those areas and there surrounding areas but while the virus did travel outward from there, relatively speaking that travel was not very much. Now in Europe, when the disease landed there cooked off quickly, seeding the entire continent and then seeded pretty much rest of the entire world (there are a huge number of societal reason that caused this but way beyond this discussion). From the genetic sequencing of the DNA of the viral outbreak, don by amazing scientists at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, who are the global experts on this issue, they have shown that Europe was the key global distribution hub, so to speak, for COVID-19. The Bat in Wuhan may have been the Manufacturer and did some one off sales in East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, North Korea) and North America (Seattle, LA, SF and Denver), but that bat through it sales agents, the Pangolins and select humans, sold shipped it to its distributors in Europe, which acted like a global Amazon Prime Distribution Center and effectively using 1 hour, 2 hour, next day and 2 day delivery mechanisms over a 21 to 28 day period distributed the virus to the entire globe. An Epicenter is the central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation. 8 of the top 10 most infected places in the globe are in Europe, which is an indicator of its first to be saturated, only the US which is only #7 and Israel is #10. Europe is also the first across the board to achieve containment and down-slope on the first curve, which gives another data point of its leading status, and the truth is that pretty much everywhere in the world, except the North American West Coast and a few places in East Asia were seeded by virus strain from Europe. While Wuhan may be the beginning, it was clearly not the center of of distribution that was Europe. Europe was the Typhoid Mary in this case not China.

3) Summary Commentary on the various curves ~ for the most part all of the trends of the last few days, across the board, continued on their previous trend lines, with some unknowns for a number of jurisdictions who did not report. Those who did not report, probably did not, due to a combination of it being Sunday and Easter Holiday. Sunday is always kind of a wonky numbers day and many places don't report on Sundays. That being said there were a couple of very noticeable upticks that need to be watched in the United States: Massachusetts & Boston and the City of Chicago, all had significant upticks reversals in relation to trend, is it a one day noisy blip which happens or a signal of something else?

[SDHornet]

I'll just leave this here:

Good evening, I took a few hours away from everything this evening to just chillax, so I was late in posting this up but here are today's numbers.


First the UK, the Power of Social Distancing is kicking in hard core. The US IMHE Model is still predicting some pretty cataclysmic stuff for the UK but it is trending down fast for the situation to be closer to a Lite version of a New York style cataclysm, versus one that was headed for 5X worse than New York. Here are some comparative numbers to show just how powerful and how fast & effective social distancing and stay at home orders are once they are at full power. In the UK the Peak Hospital usage date has moved up to 2 days to 4/15/20, the Hospital Bed Shortage has been cut from 85,000 beds to 46,000 beds, the ICU Bed Shortage has been cut from 24,000 to 7,400 and the ventilator shortage has been cut from 21,000 to 12,600. Additionally the projected cumulative death count through July 2020 has been cut from 66,000 to 37,500. This is a HUGE Improvement and show the power of the mitigation measures being used. My expectation is that we will see additional massive improvements over the next few days. The trends are suggesting the UK can potentially handle this in a very ugly and painful manner while still maintaining its NHS, just barely. Hopefully it will be even better. This just shows a stoic truth about the British, when they resolve to do so something with a war time effort and mobilization they do it forcefully and completely, they, of all of the western countries, have not forgot the painful lessons of world war and what it takes to win and appear to be fully engaged in winning this war now.

Now for Sweden. Things have not gotten better, they have gotten worse, far worse. The projected Peak has pushed out seven days to 5/3/2020 and its not because the curve is flattening. The projected Deficit in Hospital Beds has increased massively to 12,700 from 2,900, the projected deficit in ICU beds has shot up from 1,090 to 3,300 (Remember Sweden only has 80 ICU Beds) and the ventilator deficit has increased from 994 to just under 3,000. Additionally the projected deaths through July 2020 has skyrocketed from 4,000 to 13,250. The only good news in this is they still have a little time for social distancing to potentially blunt this, but this is looking bad, very bad. Unlike the Brits, I'm not sure what the Sweeds are doing at this point. This is the first time in over a month where Ive see the UW IMHE Projection Model accelerate after a location is in the mature portion of the infection wave of the the disease curve. About a month ago, this would happen early on in the United States when a location would refuse to social distance, but once they did, the projection started to decisively go the other way at an accelerating rate as time took hold. Again, what is happening in Sweden is decidedly NOT good. This should also be a cautionary tale for everyone in the US who wants to relax stay at home orders right now.

2) What is the Epicenter of this Pandemic? In the United States both the Media and the National Political Leadership both keep pushing the narrative that the Epicenter of the pandemic is someplace other that where it is. Fortunately in the last 48 hours the media is starting to see the error in its reporting, for whatever reason, and are starting to get closer to reporting the true Epicenter of this Pandemic - EUROPE. While the Scientist are fairly sure the evidence supports the theory that COVID-19 Started in Bats, transited to Pangolins and then transited to Human in Wuhan, China. From there there two primary expansive shots of infection from China to the rest of the world, the first a shot to Europe and the second a shot to North America. The North American Shot landed in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver. It infected all of those areas and there surrounding areas but while the virus did travel outward from there, relatively speaking that travel was not very much. Now in Europe, when the disease landed there cooked off quickly, seeding the entire continent and then seeded pretty much rest of the entire world (there are a huge number of societal reason that caused this but way beyond this discussion). From the genetic sequencing of the DNA of the viral outbreak, don by amazing scientists at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, who are the global experts on this issue, they have shown that Europe was the key global distribution hub, so to speak, for COVID-19. The Bat in Wuhan may have been the Manufacturer and did some one off sales in East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, North Korea) and North America (Seattle, LA, SF and Denver), but that bat through it sales agents, the Pangolins and select humans, sold shipped it to its distributors in Europe, which acted like a global Amazon Prime Distribution Center and effectively using 1 hour, 2 hour, next day and 2 day delivery mechanisms over a 21 to 28 day period distributed the virus to the entire globe. An Epicenter is the central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation. 8 of the top 10 most infected places in the globe are in Europe, which is an indicator of its first to be saturated, only the US which is only #7 and Israel is #10. Europe is also the first across the board to achieve containment and down-slope on the first curve, which gives another data point of its leading status, and the truth is that pretty much everywhere in the world, except the North American West Coast and a few places in East Asia were seeded by virus strain from Europe. While Wuhan may be the beginning, it was clearly not the center of of distribution that was Europe. Europe was the Typhoid Mary in this case not China.

3) Summary Commentary on the various curves ~ for the most part all of the trends of the last few days, across the board, continued on their previous trend lines, with some unknowns for a number of jurisdictions who did not report. Those who did not report, probably did not, due to a combination of it being Sunday and Easter Holiday. Sunday is always kind of a wonky numbers day and many places don't report on Sundays. That being said there were a couple of very noticeable upticks that need to be watched in the United States: Massachusetts & Boston and the City of Chicago, all had significant upticks reversals in relation to trend, is it a one day noisy blip which happens or a signal of something else?

I stopped reading there. Anyone using that broken model as a basis for predictions is doing it wrong.

[GannonFan]

2) What is the Epicenter of this Pandemic? In the United States both the Media and the National Political Leadership both keep pushing the narrative that the Epicenter of the pandemic is someplace other that where it is. Fortunately in the last 48 hours the media is starting to see the error in its reporting, for whatever reason, and are starting to get closer to reporting the true Epicenter of this Pandemic - EUROPE. While the Scientist are fairly sure the evidence supports the theory that COVID-19 Started in Bats, transited to Pangolins and then transited to Human in Wuhan, China. From there there two primary expansive shots of infection from China to the rest of the world, the first a shot to Europe and the second a shot to North America. The North American Shot landed in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver. It infected all of those areas and there surrounding areas but while the virus did travel outward from there, relatively speaking that travel was not very much. Now in Europe, when the disease landed there cooked off quickly, seeding the entire continent and then seeded pretty much rest of the entire world (there are a huge number of societal reason that caused this but way beyond this discussion). From the genetic sequencing of the DNA of the viral outbreak, don by amazing scientists at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, who are the global experts on this issue, they have shown that Europe was the key global distribution hub, so to speak, for COVID-19. The Bat in Wuhan may have been the Manufacturer and did some one off sales in East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, North Korea) and North America (Seattle, LA, SF and Denver), but that bat through it sales agents, the Pangolins and select humans, sold shipped it to its distributors in Europe, which acted like a global Amazon Prime Distribution Center and effectively using 1 hour, 2 hour, next day and 2 day delivery mechanisms over a 21 to 28 day period distributed the virus to the entire globe. An Epicenter is the central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation. 8 of the top 10 most infected places in the globe are in Europe, which is an indicator of its first to be saturated, only the US which is only #7 and Israel is #10. Europe is also the first across the board to achieve containment and down-slope on the first curve, which gives another data point of its leading status, and the truth is that pretty much everywhere in the world, except the North American West Coast and a few places in East Asia were seeded by virus strain from Europe. While Wuhan may be the beginning, it was clearly not the center of of distribution that was Europe. Europe was the Typhoid Mary in this case not China.

I don't understand the point of this whole paragraph. From a casual read, it would seem that you are downplaying the impact of the virus originating in China, and being exported from China. It didn't spontaneously occur in Europe, it got to Europe from China. If it never left China, it wouldn't have mattered what happened in Europe. Luckily for us, places like Seattle, San Fran, LA, Denver, etc, are not like Europe. We think of them as big cities, and they are, but we don't have the packed in density like they do in Europe, and we have a much more spread out culture, even in those big city areas. Maybe more of a case where we are thankful our public transit systems aren't particularly good and are less likely to be vectors in these cases.

[kalm]

2) What is the Epicenter of this Pandemic? In the United States both the Media and the National Political Leadership both keep pushing the narrative that the Epicenter of the pandemic is someplace other that where it is. Fortunately in the last 48 hours the media is starting to see the error in its reporting, for whatever reason, and are starting to get closer to reporting the true Epicenter of this Pandemic - EUROPE. While the Scientist are fairly sure the evidence supports the theory that COVID-19 Started in Bats, transited to Pangolins and then transited to Human in Wuhan, China. From there there two primary expansive shots of infection from China to the rest of the world, the first a shot to Europe and the second a shot to North America. The North American Shot landed in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver. It infected all of those areas and there surrounding areas but while the virus did travel outward from there, relatively speaking that travel was not very much. Now in Europe, when the disease landed there cooked off quickly, seeding the entire continent and then seeded pretty much rest of the entire world (there are a huge number of societal reason that caused this but way beyond this discussion). From the genetic sequencing of the DNA of the viral outbreak, don by amazing scientists at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, who are the global experts on this issue, they have shown that Europe was the key global distribution hub, so to speak, for COVID-19. The Bat in Wuhan may have been the Manufacturer and did some one off sales in East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, North Korea) and North America (Seattle, LA, SF and Denver), but that bat through it sales agents, the Pangolins and select humans, sold shipped it to its distributors in Europe, which acted like a global Amazon Prime Distribution Center and effectively using 1 hour, 2 hour, next day and 2 day delivery mechanisms over a 21 to 28 day period distributed the virus to the entire globe. An Epicenter is the central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation. 8 of the top 10 most infected places in the globe are in Europe, which is an indicator of its first to be saturated, only the US which is only #7 and Israel is #10. Europe is also the first across the board to achieve containment and down-slope on the first curve, which gives another data point of its leading status, and the truth is that pretty much everywhere in the world, except the North American West Coast and a few places in East Asia were seeded by virus strain from Europe. While Wuhan may be the beginning, it was clearly not the center of of distribution that was Europe. Europe was the Typhoid Mary in this case not China.

I don't understand the point of this whole paragraph. From a casual read, it would seem that you are downplaying the impact of the virus originating in China, and being exported from China. It didn't spontaneously occur in Europe, it got to Europe from China. If it never left China, it wouldn't have mattered what happened in Europe. Luckily for us, places like Seattle, San Fran, LA, Denver, etc, are not like Europe. We think of them as big cities, and they are, but we don't have the packed in density like they do in Europe, and we have a much more spread out culture, even in those big city areas. Maybe more of a case where we are thankful our public transit systems aren't particularly good and are less likely to be vectors in these cases.

That last part is Freakonomics level point. Brutally honest.