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THE PANDEMIC CHAT ROOM


Erwin

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52435463

BBC article on India and trying to understand the apparently low death rate. Might be of interest to those with work colleagues in India.

Gives some insight that it is far harder to track deaths due to local and family cremation practices and I guess less bureaucracy on the process. In the UK it has to follow a strict process, you can't just do it on a field near your home.

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Trying to get a count from funerals at crematoria and burial grounds would be equally tricky. Many of India's dead are cremated in the open in large swathes of the countryside. Funeral services cater only to a small sliver of the population.

Feeds into the discussion of how does each country get accurate numbers.

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Counting deaths has always been an inexact science in India.

 

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On 4/26/2020 at 7:16 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I just heard the Governor of Nebraska give the "boy who cried wolf" excuse for why the Federal government did nothing until everything had gotten out of control.  Sorry, not buying it.  What should have happened?  In January a task force should have been formed to monitor the situation in China.  I mean, who in the current US Admin trusts the Chinese?  Nobody.  So they should have understood that things were WORSE than was being reported.  And since the WHO's info was only as good as the Chinese allowed, the WHO should not have been used as a gold standard either. 

CM analogy... you see some of your units getting hammered by something unidentified.  Do you a) do nothing or b) do something?  If you chose A, then I think I've got a new PBEM opponent in mind :D

By very early mid to late January it was abundantly clear, even to folks like me, that this thing was pretty bad (relative to previous flu type viruses) and was going to spread.  How soon and how bad?  Not my department.  The aforementioned task force would have been assessing it and start taking appropriate measures behind the scenes.  Like checking on if the masks in storage were worth a damned and replacing them if they weren't. 

CM analogy... you now see that the threat to your flank is a bunch of tanks with some unknown amount of infantry.  Do you a) do nothing or b) do something?  Again, if your style of play is "do nothing" then you're my kind of opponent!

By very early February it was clear that the virus was going to spread outside of Asia, by mid February it had done exactly that.  At this point the non-existent task force should have been doing things like working with State CDC organizations to make sure they were ready for what might come, demanding that they do their own risk assessments, inventorying their PPE, etc.  Still largely behind the scenes stuff.

CM Analogy... the flank has been compromised and you're starting to receive fire from an unexpected location, quite a ways away from the previous fighting.  Do you a) do nothing or b) do something?  At this point I don't want to play anybody that is still opting for A, because obviously my time is being wasted.

By late February all alarms should have been going off all around the globe.  The non-existent task force would be leaping into action to take measured PROACTIVE actions to contain and limit the spread.  This would involve a calm and measured discussion with citizens about what might come.  Behind the scenes polices would be implemented for quarantining, tracking, etc.  Travel restrictions from affected areas (not JUST China) would have been put into place, prepositioning some supplies in the obvious epicenter states, etc.

CM Analogy... the objectives you're defending are now coming under direct threat by forces that have already overwhelmed or severely compromised your front line positions.  Do you a) do nothing or b) do something?  Only a total and utter moron would still be selecting A as the prime go-to choice.

By March things should have been going full tilt to get ready for the influx of hundreds of thousands of cases.  Now the months of planning would have gone into action in a coordinated, phased, context sensitive way.  The public would have been informed about these measures and why they were necessary.

CM Analogy... the enemy is now moving in towards what you are trying to defend.  You have a pretty good idea what is at stake, you also know most of what you need to know about the enemy's capabilities.  Do you a) do nothing or b) do something?  Unless the person was suddenly medically incapacitated, I doubt anybody would still select A at this point

.

Now, think about how the response to COVID-19 played out in most countries (not just the US) and you'll see that playing PBEM against most of them would be like shooting fish in a barrel.  For 3 months option A was the prime go-to choice Especially the leaders and supporters who somehow came up with option C which was to actively deny anything was happening (which is worse than doing nothing).

To be clear... this was a fudgeup of epic proportions by many governments.  It is their job to figure stuff like this out before it happens and to cry "wolf" as soon as they lay eyes upon it (not after it's biting).  This was no earthquake or tsunami, it was a relatively slow rolling crisis driven almost exclusively by Human activities.

In the words of the youngsters out there... EPIC FAIL.

So now what?  The complete and utter dereliction of duty and gross incompetence left us with a mess that made the world economy shutting down inevitable.  If it wasn't done proactively, it would have been done reactively when the health care system collapsed.  Proactive shutdown was definitely the right choice, but now we need leadership on how to get things open again.  After that, we need a much better plan for what to do when the next one comes up.  Option A for four months should not be repeated.

Steve

too bad the POTUS cant rage quit and stop answering emails and make a new battlefront.com acct 😃

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Here are recent stats on worst hit countries.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105264/coronavirus-covid-19-cases-most-affected-countries-worldwide/

  Total number of infections Average number of new cases in last 7 days Total number of deaths Average number of new deaths in last 7 days
United States 965,933 30,000 54,877 390
Spain 226,629 4,000 23,190 430
Italy 197,675 2,700 26,644 430
France 162,220 1,900 22,890 450
Germany 157,770 1,800 5,976 200
United Kingdom 154,037 4,700 20,795 670
Turkey 110,130 3,400 2,805 110
Iran 90,481 1,200 5,710 85
Russia 87,147 5,400 794 55
China 83,912 15 4,637 0

Nobody believes that China could be so unaffected considering its poor healthcare system.  It's also interesting that countries in the regions that China has been aggressively moving into re trade and development are also not listed:  Especially Africa and  Central & South America etc.  Given the amount of Chinese trade and personnel in these developing nations plus their poor healthcare systems (compared to western developed nations) one would have expected that they would have easily been at the forefront of the Pandemic infection cycle and easily topped the charts in infections and deaths.  However, current data suggests that only the advanced western nations have been hit hard.

Of course, as more data comes in that may change.  But, the current data does raise the interesting and speculative question whether this Covid-19 outbreak is another "Pearl Harbor" attempt conducted via a biological attack on western developed nations.  We have long feared something like this from ISIS or other terror groups. 

As many are starting to appreciate, we (in the west and esp the US) have been in an economic war for dominance with China for decades.  The current crisis has made oil prices fall.  Who is hurt?  Oil producers.  Who benefits the most?  Who can't produce it's own?  China.  To that strategic end, we've witnessed China's aggressive expansion into the S. China Sea right up to the coastal boundaries of Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia etc., building fake islands and then deploying AAA and anti-ship weapons - in order to make a grab for the oilfields under the sea and also control the sea lanes and much of the world's trade routes.  

Obviously, it's too early to tell for sure that this "Pearl Harbor" redux is occurring, and next month maybe we'll see data that would be more what would be expected from  China and these 2nd and 3rd world nations.  But, one certainly hopes that we have senior people looking at this possibility and coming up with contingency plans to counter it if it turns out to be the worst case scenario.

https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/how-china-is-planning-use-coronavirus-crisis-its-advantage/

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/made-china-2025-threat-global-trade

 

Edited by Erwin
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41 minutes ago, Erwin said:

But, the current data does raise the interesting and speculative question whether this Covid-19 outbreak is another "Pearl Harbor" attempt conducted via a biological attack on western developed nations. 

Does it really? Hmmm China makes money from supplying the world with goods used by humans.  Hmm let's shut down the whole world economy and put our own population out of work, get them really mad at the leadership and ferment political change....

That sounds like a cunning plan Baldric would come up with! 

 

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The most important thing for China's survival is keeping its manufacturing sector humming along.  Strategically, if the US and Europe stopped all trade with China (and I mean ALL trade) overnight their economy would collapse. And do you think the Communist Party would survive several hundred million unemployed men?  No, it wouldn't.  They know it and they know it very well.  The Communist Party has been concerned enough about dropping to single digit growth, not to mention negative.  The reason the Chinese system of Communism has survived while (nearly all) have died out is because they are extremely pragmatic.  They are not suicidal.  Therefore, I doubt there is any scenario where they would see a deliberate release of something like COVID-19 into the environment.  So there's a million things more likely to be true than the Chinese deliberately releasing COVID-19.

The closest the Chinese may have gotten to such a theory is a laboratory screw up of epic proportions.  This is far more plausible and there's quite a few factual circumstances to support such a theory.  Certainly the right wingers in the West have been running with this one for a while now.  However, at this point there's been enough counter evidence to suggest that isn't what happened.  Therefore, for now it is only a conspiracy theory based on some factual information.

Nope, we're likely going to discover that this was just Mother Nature doing her thing to try and thin our herd.  She's been trying hard and we keep thwarting her, but eventually she'll win.  Things like COVID-19 are just products of a long term R&D cycle.  We'll be rightly fooked once she works out an optimal formula.  Personally, I'm wondering when she'll figure out a way to have a virus be absorbed through any skin surface.  That's not going to be a happy time.

Steve

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I think Mother Nature stopped worrying about that once she saw the climate change deniers and realized we were gonna royally fook ourselves all on our own.  Now she just sits back and sips margaritas and plays candy crush

Edited by sburke
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5 hours ago, Holien said:

ONS has updated chart with latest statistics. 

Not getting any better and still some way to go...

 

This is, sadly, as the modeling has long predicted.  A certain percentage die fairly soon after they are diagnosed, either because they were extremely vulnerable to start with or they had already gotten seriously ill before getting tested.  But others hold on for weeks before dying.  The better the medical care, the longer people can go before dying.  This means that there will be a period of time where the new infections are slowing down at the same time deaths are increasing.  Which, in a sense, is a GOOD indication that things are getting better. 

This might be counter intuitive, but we wargamers know the drill well.  Picture an assault on an established enemy position.  You are expecting to take more casualties than the other side because, well, that's just the way attacks often work.  For the first phase things might look grim.  As the fighting gets more intense both sides' casualties go up.  Then something happens where the dynamic changes and your casualties slow down and the enemy's increases.  Perhaps dramatically and in the end you wind up with lower casualties than the enemy.  Well, if things went your way that is ;)  Think of the casualty statistics in Normandy before and after Falise.  Look at the casualty stats for Wacht Am Rhein in the first few weeks and after, same thing.

Point is that looking too hard at numbers during the battle doesn't really tell the story about how it is going to end.  At best it gives some knowledgeable people info which they have the skills to interpret as likely outcomes.  I'm no epidemiologist, nor do I play one on YouTube, so I defer to their expertise.

Steve

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17 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The two extremes leave room for a lot of people inbetween.  But like so many things, people boil pretty much belong to one group more than the other.

More specifically then: "Fire!" and "Shut up" you called the two groups. So lets say imagine my ideas fit with a group called Fire2. Which does suggest there is definitely a fire in politics, media and big business. Then also a fire in health, indirectly through measures. Then possibly also a fire in health through a strong virus season and a unpleasant winter and general weak health for other reasons.  --- Though with the premise all of that would be better served by having none of the measures, or totally different measures. Also with the premise that top officials stating "We did not see it coming, we really try to make the world a better place, but somehow we always fail, because you know: we're always under attack by someone or something" is not a valid excuse at all.

Something like that.

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Huh?  The COVID-19 death rate is available everywhere.  Here is one of the primary trackers of COVID-19 only related deaths:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

A better graphical representation, with more chart based explanations, can be found here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_hp-banner-low_resourcebox-v3%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Since I last posted the count has increased to around 56,000.

Okay. But why is it double from that CDC "All covid-19" deaths / Total 2020"? The name of which is pretty clear.

 

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You are going down a rabbit hole.  There's also the under reporting that happened before testing became even as wobbly as it is now.  There was a morgue that had three identical deaths on the same day and only one was COVID-19 tagged.  Why?  Because at the time they were told to make no assumptions and only rely upon tests.  But as tests were in such short supply, they didn't waste them on the dead.  Not to mention how many people died of COVID-19 before there was a test at all.   It is going to take some time for those to show up in a recount.


Of course it is a rabbit hole. I expect nothing else.

Your argument was mainly your flu season deaths calculation and comparision. You know that in in gentlemens conversation I have to focus on that then, instead of dragging in all kinds of things from the sides.

What I want to add because I failed to mention it before: this part  "or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death" means that a person with terminal cancer that may happen to also show flu like systems before death can then technically be recorded as covid death. Because of the "contributed".

 

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So this is the problem and it is similar to why the CDC takes a few years to solidify a count for influenza deaths.  It simply isn't possible to produce numbers from so many point sources in real time.  Which is why I said from the start of my posting, absolute numbers is a very poor basis to make a case.  Relative numbers is far better.

And be very careful to make sure if you reexamine Fruit A and conclude it is an orange, not an apple, that the same scrutiny is applied to Fruit B.  For example...

So what you're saying here is that the normal influenza numbers are also massively inflated.  So if you want to knock down the COVID-19 count you must also knock down the standard influenza count.  Since you lack the qualifications necessary to make meaningful adjustments to such numbers, I suggest you don't go down that rabbit hole after all.

 

CDC did not correct the previous seasons for pneumonia non-flu related. Here they make it 80.000 afterwards: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/26/health/flu-deaths-2017--2018-cdc-bn/index.html 

But anyways. In a ironic way I agree with you that the numbers and such will indeed eventually be corrected for 2020, and it will cause a huge backlash. But by then much harm will have been done, mainly in a protection racket fashion. With that view it pains me to see people advising other people to embrase the protection racket currently on offer. 

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I suggest you don't go down that rabbit hole after all.

Let's say, not here I won't.  Appreciate the opportunity to speak out.

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Where there is room for reasonable debate is to determine what we should do about the poop sandwich we find ourselves in now.  There is no one-size-fits-all approach and also very little historical precedent to lean on for guidance.  It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Definitely.

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This world leader is taking his safety seriously, no shaking hands and wandering around un protected in the covid wards....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52461431

A pity his medical teams don't get the same level of PPE, mind you our UK staff don't either...

 

_111419324_mediaitem111419323.jpg

 

Ohhh and then I  just saw this....

Joy.. (Sarcastic joy...)

_112015950_pence_mask_off_thumb.nbcnews-fp-1200-630-1.jpg

Edited by Holien
Saw another picture!
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Remember, the vast majority of masks don't protect you the wearer, they protect the people around you from you spreading infection.  You have to have what Vlad is wearing to get proper personal protection.  So, Mike is just spreading it around...

Edited by Erwin
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Sounds like Japan is taking steps to move some manufacturing out of China due to the virus.  Probably a good idea not to have all / most of the eggs in one basket.  

Japan has earmarked $2.2 billion of its record economic stimulus package to help its manufacturers shift production out of China as the coronavirus disrupts supply chains between the major trading partners.

“There will be something of a shift,” said Shinichi Seki, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, adding that some Japanese companies manufacturing goods in China for export were already considering moving out. “Having this in the budget will definitely provide an impetus.” 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/japan-to-fund-firms-to-shift-production-out-of-china 

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On 4/27/2020 at 12:48 AM, Battlefront.com said:

That's one way to look at it.  The other way is that the naysayers are always right:

The naysayers are always right, until they're not. If millions had died, then the naysayers would have to eat some humble pie wouldn't they?

The only thing I'm foggy about is where the toilet paper comes in, and why everyone bought all of it so quickly.

WHAT ARE WE MISSING?!

 

On 4/27/2020 at 6:34 AM, 37mm said:

Millions will definitely die, that's no longer a fact in doubt.

Call me a doubter then.

The models published that showed millions of deaths were modeling the effects of the virus if no preventative actions were taken.
These were used to induce the government to call for social distancing and to shut down the economy.
They claimed there would come a point of no return in which our hospital system would be so overwhelmed that we'd be unable to treat, prevent, or limit the rate at which the virus spreads.

All of these models were wrong, not just because we actually did things to slow the virus, but because several erroneous assumptions were made to yield model data as early as possible.
Data as to the result of travel restrictions and the shutdown of commerce and trade were not added until after it took effect. Data for population density was mostly ignored, which is why rates of infection and hospitalization for rural areas was entirely wrong. Most importantly, the models did not take into account the increase in hospital capacity by postponing elective procedures for the duration, and the creation of significant temporary capacity by both the government and private enterprise. It simply assumed hospitals would be an additional infection vector which is why several states and cities issued 'shelter in place' orders which effectively lock people in their homes.

They just didn't think of these things, because the pressure was on to force the government to take action, any action, even a draconian reduction in citizen's civil rights.

As I've explained, the doomsayers are never wrong. Maybe by December the overall worldwide death toll may top a couple million, but by then we will have long forgotten the hysteria that accompanied the dire predictions of the doomsayers that stated our hospitals would be overwhelmed and our society would come crashing down amid a viral zombie apocalypse.

You can simply comfort yourself with the knowledge that you were right all along, while you shop for your Christmas presents in stores that re-opened without incident months ago.

 

a7RamTa.jpg

 

The curves seem to be flattening worldwide quite nicely as hospitalizations are down, effective treatment and testing becomes more available, and the application of industry to the production of medical supplies continues to ramp up worldwide. Not to mention medical staff become more experienced in treating the disease, thus rendering medical efforts to be more efficient.

In the U.S. temporary emergency medical facilities are already being scheduled to close as they have no patients to treat. The Javits Center facility is scheduled to close after they transfer the few patients they had to another facility, and the navy hospital ship in New York currently only has about 50 patients onboard a ship with room for a thousand.

 

I think what's needed to stave off the ravening hordes of coronavirus zombies is a little perspective.

So far, around 19,000,000 people have died this year.
430,000 from traffic accidents.
340,000 from suicide.
800,000 from alcohol.
1,600,000 from smoking.
300,000 from malaria.
500,000 from AIDS.
100,000 from childbirth complications.
13,800,000 abortions.
and 150,000 from the seasonal flu.

That's just a small sample. Let's be honest, cigarettes are still king of the hill, unless you're like me and consider abortion to be the act of taking an unborn human life.

 

What can I say? Eating dinner at the Denny's in Stony Creek, Virginia and then being able to light a cigarette because they still had a designated smoking section back in 2007 is one of the most memorable things I have ever done in my life. I don't expect I will ever see another smoking section in any public place so long as I live. I don't even smoke anymore, but I still think it's kinda sad. Then again, maybe I'm an inhuman monster who looks at the millions of people who die from smoking every year and think to myself, "Eh, it's just a drop in the bucket really."

 

 

Edited by General Jack Ripper
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Here's an example of what could be an ambiguous death. My oldest daughter is a RN at a major hospital. She was just telling me tonight she has a patient, older, who has COPD. He's had a tough time but has technically recovered from Covid-19, however, it so damaged his lungs that while he no longer has Covid, his COPD will probably now kill him. She says there is little hope for him. He'll technically die of COPD.

So far 7 floors of her hospital are converted to Covid care, new ICUs created. First she was rotated to Covid floors sometimes, then her floor was converted, and she is now being detailed to assist in the ICU. 

However, the point of this post is the good news from the trenches is that the last 3 days they have for the first time, discharged more recovered patients than admitted new ones. It's been a long haul for her and she's pretty strung out. She works 3 days of 12 hour shifts, and then 2 days off. Rinse, repeat. And I wake up at 2am worrying every night. 

But it looks like the worst for her might be..  not over yet, but tapering down... some.

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11 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Here's an example of what could be an ambiguous death. My oldest daughter is a RN at a major hospital. She was just telling me tonight she has a patient, older, who has COPD. He's had a tough time but has technically recovered from Covid-19, however, it so damaged his lungs that while he no longer has Covid, his COPD will probably now kill him. She says there is little hope for him. He'll technically die of COPD.

So far 7 floors of her hospital are converted to Covid care, new ICUs created. First she was rotated to Covid floors sometimes, then her floor was converted, and she is now being detailed to assist in the ICU. 

However, the point of this post is the good news from the trenches is that the last 3 days they have for the first time, discharged more recovered patients than admitted new ones. It's been a long haul for her and she's pretty strung out. She works 3 days of 12 hour shifts, and then 2 days off. Rinse, repeat. And I wake up at 2am worrying every night. 

But it looks like the worst for her might be..  not over yet, but tapering down... some.

Jeez man, hope she stays well.  You must be pretty damn proud of her.

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On 4/23/2020 at 1:56 AM, sburke said:

Go tune in to Alex jones or Limbaugh or whoever it is that you get your oddly colored view of reality from.

I ignored all the political stuff in this thread because I knew commenting on it wouldn't do any good, the two sides are far too entrenched to listen to each other.

However, @sburke YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!

I won't have my two favorite media personalities slandered by the likes of you.

Now apologize to Alex Jones.

Those frogs really DID turn gay!

IT'S NOT FUNNY!

No, really it's not. I'm serious.

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1 minute ago, General Jack Ripper said:

I ignored all the political stuff in this thread because I knew commenting on it wouldn't do any good, the two sides are far too entrenched to listen to each other.

However, @sburke YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!

I won't have my two favorite media personalities slandered by the likes of you.

Now apologize to Alex Jones.

Those frogs really DID turn gay!

IT'S NOT FUNNY!

No, really it's not. I'm serious.

You need to lay off the frogs.  They have every right to decide their sexual orientation.  After all half of them in France are amputees anyway.

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11 minutes ago, sburke said:

You need to lay off the frogs.  They have every right to decide their sexual orientation.  After all half of them in France are amputees anyway.

It's not the frogs,

IT'S THE CHEMICALS IN THE WATER

Like I said, it's really not funny, it's serious. They put chemicals in the water that turn frogs gay. It's real. It's actually happening. It's not fake.

Now apologize to Alex Jones. He was right the whole time.
 

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Some 80 million pounds of the herbicide atrazine are applied annually in the United States on corn and sorghum to control weeds and increase crop yield, but such widespread use also makes atrazine the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water, according to various studies.

More and more research, however, is showing that atrazine interferes with endocrine hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone – in fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles, laboratory rodents and even human cell lines at levels of parts per billion. Recent studies also found a possible link between human birth defects and low birth weight and atrazine exposure in the womb.

 

Edited by General Jack Ripper
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41 minutes ago, General Jack Ripper said:

The only thing I'm foggy about is where the toilet paper comes in, and why everyone bought all of it so quickly.

Believe it or not there is no actual shortage of any item in the US (but maybe common sense). The availability retail vs wholesale involves - get this - packaging. The regulations on how to package large and small amounts of things like lettuce and other things like paper products differs based on which market the product is being sold into. A 12 pack of toilet paper in Costco is fundamentally packaged, barcoded  and labeled differently than the same product sent to a wholesaler that services many establishments. It takes a lot of time to change over packaging lines that have been dedicated to the wholesale market into lines that can crank out small family sized packs meant to supply the retail market. So there are many products just waiting to be packaged and barcoded into family sized packs but the line capacity for them does not exist. To put it another way. A Shop Rite can't just unpack 1000 rolls of unlabeled toilet paper and try to sell them without a barcode or any labelling that traces the product to the manufacturing site. Sure a tiny corner store can do that - and they do. But big boxes will not assume the risk.  

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