Coronavirus: Time To Prepare Is Running Out

News & Current Events Public News & Current Events
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OK…despite more worldwide infections than ever, the WHO has decided to stop using the (technically very accurate) term “pandemic” to describe covid-19, presumably because they don’t want to scare folks.

The CDC is claiming that the US is not seeing “community level” spreading of the virus. But of course it isn’t, because it’s NOT testing at the community level. And only 3 US states currently have the capacity to run such tests, due to faulty kits being provided to the other states.

Then there’s State Department’s botched rescue of US citizens stuck on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, during which poor safety controls allowed 25 more folks to get infected on the flight back to the US.

And these are the authorities we're depending on??

China, meanwhile, is lowering response levels in several provinces, setting the stage for workers to head back to the factories. BUT...they've postponed the National People's Conference. So, it's still too serious for the the 'important' people to be in public, but the plebes have nothing to worry about??

China is facing a lose-lose decision: maintain their widespread quarantines to contain the virus, but kill their economy? Or send people back to work, and risk infecting millions more?

Today, the markets finally started to show concern for the hit global trade is taking from this growing crisis. If the euphoria pushing markets to new highs is dissipating, there is an awful lot of empty space below today’s asset prices compared to their fundamentals-based valuations. Translation = the markets can fall a LOT farther from here.

To reiterate our guidance: the time to prepare – physically and financially – is NOW. As China, Italy, South Korea, Iran and other countries are showing us, a government lockdown happens swiftly, slamming shut your window to act.

Use the time you still have as the precious gift it is, and strengthen your preparations.

Begin by making sure you’re up-to-date on developments with the coronavirus. All of our latest covid-19 video updates, podcasts and articles can be accessed here for free.

And here’s our material on Chris’ and my own preparation efforts that we’ve published for our premium subscribers (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/coronavirus-time-to-prepare-is-running-out/

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I wanted to post this high up in the thread. I believe the US is going to be much harder hit by this virus then the EU will. The reason for that is simple; the US has a much more selfish culture then the EU has. No sleight there; to each his own. But it will lead to a situation called Tragedy of the Commons. It’s the same reason why Chris urges you not to hoard.
While the video below comes from a youtube channel i’ve been following for years for Game Design, it gives a good analogy of how this ancient problem manifests itself in our modern times. And; in the end the mechanics of games are based on those in real life. Good information can be found anywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvXuAXSC82w
Now humans are humans so this situation will play out across the globe. But after watching the above video i think we can all see how that’ll play out in the US.
My point is to keep in mind what the point is the above video is trying to make. If you create equitable systems of trust, people can and will work together, yielding much better results. But you can’t just expect to happen on it’s own. And that’s where the US and EU differ. People in the US will expect others to do it for them so they can grab the most in such a situation (hoard the most private land AND benefit from the public land).
EDIT: Just so i’m clear on this; i’m talking about institutionalized behaviours. So, the US doesn’t have national healthcare while europe does (countries of comparable wealth). Europe has better social security, public transport, programs for the homeless, psychiatric care etc etc. Sure, the quality in the US can surpass that of inside the EU; which is the arguement for the US’s system. But that quality of care comes with equally high costs; which are non-existant in the EU. The upside then is (was) less taxation in the US; you keep more of your working income, but you also have to pay more in case something happens.
And it’s that last part that concerns me.

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/state-department-employee-in-japan-ignored-president-trumps-orders-and-allowed-americans-with-coronavirus-to-fly-back-to-the-us/

President Trump is reportedly furious after a State Department underling in Japan ignored the President’s orders and allowed Americans, sick with the coronavirus, to return to the US from Japan. Ian Brownlee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs, appears to feel he was right in overriding the President’s directives.

“The Resistance” in action. https://ianbrownlee.wordpress.com/ian-brownlee-professional-background/
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https://covid19info.live/
Confirmed case count has surpassed 80k. This thanks to the new numbers out of south korea, which added 60 overnight. A good thing though; that number breaks the exponential doubling trend. So that’s hopeful. Especially considering how agressively they’re testing. Does nothing for the global exponential trend though.
However… because of China’s fudged number and their desire to keep the case count low… the Death count is now quickly rising in percentages.
Currently the CFR’s 3.4%… and those are now official numbers.

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But people are still woefully under-informed as to what is actually happening as well as what they’ll end up going through when this thing actually hits them in the face. It sounds cruel, but the more hopes that are dispelled right now the more people are saved. As we keep saying - the virus isn’t the biggest problem, it is everybody moving at once when everybody realizes the truth at once. The more people that gradually realize the truth, the better.
So on that note: Update on production in China as measured by traffic congestion, coal consumption and other measures the Chinese government just can’t fabricate:
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/it-begins-chinese-business-conditions-crash-most-record
As much as the CCP says China’s back at work… they really aren’t.

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The members of one tribe think they are more worthy than members of a different tribe and deserve to exist. Hoarding is insurance. Divisions are by blood, class, religion, etc. Sociopaths think they are the only worthy ones. Many around, now days.
If Europe hadn’t developed its current system after being destroyed in WWII, it would have devolved into anarchy. Maybe that’s what it takes for people to come together, complete destruction. Then we just repeat it all again. Eternal human nature, round and round on the wheel.

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Master Trainer in NLP. How convenient. I think someplace back in the archives there was a discussion of how often NLP is used on the American public such as during nation political campaigns. I watched a small time (compared to national politicians) health professional who lectured on the national circuit rather skillfully use it at one of his seminars. The class was just mesmerized. A friend and I who took it together are looking at one another like, “Do these people know what’s going on here?” The answer: no, they didn’t. They thought this guy was the greatest thing since sliced bread while we knew his information was mundane and largely plagiarized to boot. But the truth is often buried by the hype.

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https://www.stripes.com/news/us/officials-hawaii-flu-outbreak-complicated-by-virus-fears-1.620044 Apparently Hawaii is having an unusually high number of people hospitalized for influenza this year. Does anyone know if anyone in Hawaii has been tested for coronavirus yet?

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Watching footage from China, South Korea and Italy, I noticed that many people are wearing surgical or N95 masks, but almost nobody has safety glasses / goggles.
If Covid-19 is really aerosolized, wouldn’t infections spread through eye contact ? Further, if I understand correctly, surgical masks will prevent droplets, but not necessarily aerosolized spreading.
Is there any data yet talking about this ?

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It’s true, surgical masks offer very little benefit. I read the manufacturer’s disclosures. What they do best in this case is help you to contain your own coughing and reduce the risk to those around you. But they are just modestly helpful at blocking aerosols that you might encounter in closed spaces. We really do need quality well fitted masks for our own protection.

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Drove to the opposite side of the county today to an out of the way hardware store in a very lightly populated area. We live in a sparsely populated, remote, geographically isolated area that tends to lag the nation in trends and discoveries. New things tend to come here last. If any place in the country would have masks, this place would. Got to talking to one fellow there who was halfway savvy. The store was dead at the time so I got to do about a 45 minute brain download on multiple aspects of American history and geopolitics to him and 3 of their staff. Their mouths were hanging open by the time I was done and you could see the wheels turning in their minds. They’d never view the world the same again. Getting back to the masks, even this out of the way store was cleaned out. In fact, the savvy guy said they even had a few calls looking for bulk orders.
Every other place I checked was out of masks. Finally, I thought of a paint store and found two packs of 3M masks there, the last two. Fellow at the counter told me he also had gotten a couple of calls from folks looking to make bulk purchases to ship to China. Whether these folks were Chinese Americans looking to send masks to relatives or American families of missionaries or business people looking to send their loved ones masks in China, I don’t know.
I do know that if people in our area are buying up masks, the concern about this issue has probably spread to every corner of the country. Most people I talked to though are fatalistic about it and will take their chances with contracting it. I don’t get any sense of panic … yet. Almost none of them, however, are considering the enormous potential supply chain problems and the implications of that situation. That doesn’t surprise me though since the economic and financial literacy of the average American is, sadly, shockingly low.

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Hey Chris, my Xray tech wife wanted to know if there is a link for the reddit x-ray post? FYI you highlighted the heart shadow not pneumonia.

 

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Early on my friend from Hong Kong had a friend from Texas ship him some masks. I heard from him today, his package has been stuck in the UK for 15 days now.
There’s no freight going into China. You might wanna mention that next time you go to a store looking for masks and ask to pre-order the next shipment or something because you can guarantee they will be used locally and not end up rotting in a warehouse somewhere.

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…were defective. Your tax dollars hard at work.
No word on when Hawai’i will get functional kits.
Bear in mind, of course, the local gov doesn’t want functional test kits. If they had them, they might find out there is COVID-19 among the population – popular knowledge of which would chill the lucrative tourist trade.
VIVA anyway – Sager

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Chris, maybe you should consult with folks with xray experience before making a diagnosis. I took diagnostic imaging almost 30 years ago and haven’t read an xray since and I knew you where pointing to the shadow of the heart, not consolidation from pneumonia or typical ground glass opacity from coronavirus infection.
 

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Hi Chris, I live in Europe and am an Italian speaker, watching Italian TV quite a lot of time every day.
I follow your site since the coronavirus outbreak and am very thankful for your useful tips and accurate information that helps me to prepare for the worst. Since the end of January when the first data were known out of China I put them into an exponential curve model and got results of several million of possible infected people at the end of February (I was just using the official numbers and didn’t have any factors available that could accelerate or slow down the process of infection). The guess was pretty accurate, knowing that China is hiding the real numbers because they are totalitarian system that doesn’t care about their own people. We are not March yet and the virus attacked other countries massively.
You said that Italy will probably contain the virus pretty well because of its advanced health care system. There are just things that shock me when I listen to the Italian official TV news when they talk about the coronavirus outbreak that is going on in their country.
First, and not unlike the official WHO information, they stress only the washing of the hands. Nobody has heard about the aerosol spread?? Or are they intentionally lying to us, to kill more people?
Then, especially young people seem to be bored with the overall system lock down, and underestimate the virus, saying that it’s just flu and kills only old people. On the TV there was a young couple sitting outside on a board of a fountain, relaxing and having their masks put up on the top of their heads (!!!). Obviously they never had the basic rules of virus contamination explained.
As nobody has been prepared for the outbreak, (“it’s just the Chinese who can get the virus”), food disappeared in a day or two from the supermarkets. One month ago Italians were sending masks to China and now they have found themselves in shortage.
That’s a further reason why so many Italians bought huge quantities of masks and are selling them ten times more expensive to their fellow citizens. Even not being ashamed of it, admitting it openly on TV. Some groups of criminals even present themselves in the houses of elderly people as the official public health controllers and under the excuse of controlling the virus spread they try to rob people, stealing money and jewelry from their homes.
These all things happening while hundreds if not thousands of migrants from Africa and Asia are being shipped to Italy daily and being given the refugee status, obviously never ever having been tested on any type of sickness. While a poor Italian student having been blocked in China and unable to return home for a long time because he had just simple fever.
As the president of Italy stated that he was “surprised” by the sudden outbreak of the virus, I want to see how “surprised” an average, unconscious Italian will be when he sees even younger people drop dead from the coronavirus caused sickness. I say unconscious because I don’t want to be offensive saying stupid, though I see it as stupidity, the lack of interest to read foreign information that is already known in the world.
At least we will have a test case how bad the pandemics can get (oh my, have I just said the forbidden P word?) and we will be able to compare it with responsible approach like seen in South Korea and Singapore these days.

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Heh, heh, Dessogames, you said " …when it hits them in the face…" Yes, well, I do not really like beards, many men around here are skraggly and unkempt. The day I go to town, and there’s suddenly not a whisker in sight, is the day I lock down at home.

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Yes Virginia there really are hoarders, sometimes called ‘parallel merchants’. They will be hawking their valuable masks at a nice premium in the near future.
I hope you all can get what you need without dealing with ripoff artists.

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A Chinese national that I know through work caught me up on what she knows about the pandemic (I refuse to use doublespeak). The state of China conforms a lot with Chris’ info. When I mentioned NV having zero cases, she matter of factly said, ‘Of course not, they all get shot.’
She also said that China is having a problem with South Koreans trying to get into China. Unlike surfing, it seems no one wants to stay up on this wave.

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The WHO comments seem to relate to the Northern Hemisphere pretty much. The southern portion of the planet will be entering “their” fall season. Will the Covid-19 act like any other virus in the wintry months in the southern regions? Will it accelerate in intensity?