The Free-Market Will Prove The Cure To Coronavirus

The Free-Market Will Prove The Cure To Coronavirus

 

What Is the Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that can cause illnesses as minor as a cold, or as serious as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The viruses can be transmitted from animals to humans; the virus that causes SARS, for example, was originally transmitted to humans from a cat-like animal called a civet. But in some instances, as with this outbreak, they can also be transmitted from one infected person to another.

What are the Symptoms?

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new virus can cause symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath. Some patients only show mild symptoms and recover, but others have developed life-threatening complications like pneumonia.

The CDC says symptoms of the “2019-nCoV” virus can appear in as few as two days or as long as 14 days after initial exposure.

How is it Transmitted?

Similar to the flu, it’s believed the coronavirus can be spread quickly through droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

It also appears to be possible for the virus to be transmitted by infected individuals who are not showing any symptoms at all.

U.S. health officials recommend washing your hands thoroughly and frequently to reduce the risk of illness.  They say the risk for Americans remains low and there is no need to wear face masks for protection.

Who has been Infected?

• • • 70 countries have reported incidences of the virus.

• • • The World Health Organization said that CoVid-19 kills an average of 3.4% of those diagnosed with the illness globally.
    • China is at the center of the crisis, with 125 new infections and 31 deaths in the last 24 hours. Bringing its totals to 80,151 infections and 2,943 deaths.
    • South Korea has second-highest number of confirmed cases with over 5,000 reported illnesses.
    • Iran, has reported 2,336 confirmed cases and 77 deaths.
    • The United States reporting 100 cases across 15 states.
    • Washington State health authorities have confirmed 27 coronavirus cases, including 9 total deaths.
    • California has 58 confirmed infections, and 1 confirmed death.
    • New York State reported its second coronavirus case, a 50-year-old man in Westchester County. Andrew Cuomo said he is pushing to provide paid sick leave and job protection for coronavirus patients.

• • • Chile and Argentina have reported their first infections, as cases begin to rise in Latin America.

Worried of Dying?

Despite the phylogenetic homogeneity between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, there are some clinical characteristics that differentiate Covid-19 from SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and seasonal influenza infections.  For example, seasonal influenza has been more common in respiratory outpatient clinics and wards.

We found a lower-case fatality rate (1.4%) than the rate that was recently reportedly, probably because of the difference in sample sizes and case inclusion criteria.  Our findings were more similar to the national official statistics, which showed a rate of death of 3.2% among 51,857 cases of Covid-19 as of February 16, 2020.

Since patients who were mildly ill and who did not seek medical attention were not included in our study, the case fatality rate in a real-world scenario might be even lower.

The definition of ‘Crisis’ is:

1. 1. 1. The turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever
      2. A paroxysmal attack of pain, distress, or disordered function
      3. An emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life
      4. The decisive moment (as in a literary plot)
      5. An unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which the possibility of a highly undesirable decisive outcome is impending.
      6. A situation that has reached a critical phase

Attributes of Successful Crisis Response:

Successful crisis response is dependent on three fundamental attributes—Speed, Flexibility, and Operational Effectiveness.  Of these three attributes, Speed will be the most challenging and therefore an area of primary concern.

The more quickly forces can deploy to stabilize a situation, the greater will be the likelihood of eventual success and the less may be the eventual cost. What matters, however, is not just how quickly the first forces can deploy; it is the speed at which capable, sustainable forces can deploy.

–US Marine Corps Operating Concepts—Crisis Response

Epidemic vs. Pandemic

While epidemic is typically used to describe matters of health (e.g. The opioid crisis in America has grown to epidemic proportions.), it is sometimes used colloquially to describe behavior (There’s an epidemic of tantrums among preschoolers!) or behavioral phenomena (such as “epidemic hysteria”).

While the usages are not inappropriate in the modern context, they can cause confusion.

The Sky Is (Not) Falling!

What has been unusual has been the push-back from many medical expert sources in defense of the President and the American response of the coronavirus emergency.

While Johns Hopkins admits:

“No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address.”

The United States is ranked as the most-prepared country in the 2019 Global Health Security Index study of 195 countries.

In addition, World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus assured:

Global markets … should calm down and try to see the reality.  We need to continue to be rational.  Irrationality doesn’t help.  We need to deal with the facts.

“We need to go into the numbers, we need to go into the facts, and do the right thing instead of panicking. Panic and fear is the worst.

“Based on the facts on the ground, containment is possible,” Ghebreyesus said. “But the window of opportunity for containing it is narrowing. So we need to preparing side by side for a pandemic.

Likewise, Dr. Bob Arnot gave a very detailed interview with Judge Jeanne Pirro on the coronavirus risk and its potential risk daily on life in America:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cllyA8T7J8I

Still Nervous?

If that did not put you at ease, then perhaps Dr. Drew Pinsky’s retort to the media hysteria will:

We have in the United States 24 million cases of flu-like illness, 180,000 hospitalizations, 16,000 dead from influenza. And we have zero deaths from coronavirus.  In fact, we have almost no cases.  There are people walking around out there with the virus that don’t even know they have it, it’s so mild.

So it’s going to be much more widespread than we knew.  It’s going to be much milder than we knew.  The 1.7% fatality rate is going to fall.  Where was the press during the Mediterranean Corona outbreak, where the fatality rate was 41%?  Why didn’t they get crazed about MERS or SARS?

This is an overblown press-created hysteria.  This thing is well in hand.  President Trump is absolutely correct.

Just remember:  “DON’T PANIC!”

Listening to portions of the American media over the last week, it would be easy to assume that modern civilization was on throughs of an outbreak akin to ‘Captain Trips’.  Yet in a 21^st century societal mad rush where being first with the headline matters more than accuracy, it is no excuse for some grown adults to behave like their Golgafrinchans ancestors.

Clearly, there were some in the media out to cause a panic, some are out for the publicity, some are out chasing ratings, some out to score low cheap shots, and some were just playing modern day politics.  All should be ashamed of themselves.

Just don’t wait around expecting a ‘Joseph Welch’ moment from this bunch anytime soon.

“Big Pharma” to the rescue!

What is receiving minimal mainstream nightly Cable and TV news coverage is the race to vaccine.  Numerous ‘evil’ private corporate entities are already making miraculous breakthroughs in an incredibly short period of time.

• • • The Massachusetts-based biotech firm Moderna has created its first batch of mRNA-1273, and released it to officials at the National Institutes of Health.
    • Greffex Inc. out of Houston announced on February 19 that they have their own vaccine, and is waiting for approval to begin testing.
    • Inovio Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, that created a vaccine in the fight to stop MERS, are also on the hunt.
    • Johnson & Johnson is using a vaccine technology that transmits the genetic code of the virus in a noninfectious carrier virus. The goal is to have a vaccine ready for human trial testing before the end of the year.
    • Further Israel’s Galilee Research Institute says they have made a “breakthrough”, and are now “weeks” away from a vaccine to use against the disease.

This is the Free-Market in action!

These are the Best and Brightest competing for the same goal unrestrained by government regulations, red-tape, and bureaucracy.

If such actions could have been possible in a ‘Socialist-utopia’, then where are the Chinese pharmaceutical companies?  Why have they yet to present any of their findings?  It will be interesting to see what the doctors in those “amazing Cuban hospitals” were able to discover about this virus.  Ironic how none of the research to combat the coronavirus is taking place anywhere in the former-Soviet Union or modern-day Scandinavia.

‘Take THAT’, Bernie Sanders! Of course, Bernie’s recent heart attack tells us what he really thinks of socialized medicine.