no idea if there's an official statement,
but here's one explanation https://summit.news/2020/03/05/coronavirus-patient-zero-in-italy-was-pakistani-migrant-who-refused-to-self-isolate/
again, sad

So the WH downplays corona after banning travel early on while the WHO clearly stated not to restrict travel or trade?

And Trump is going to be hurt by corona by candidates that are for open borders and free health care for illegals instead of Americans?

I mean, I get that the overwhelming majority of people on this planet is mentally impaired, but come on.

White House coronavirus threat downplayed as US infections surge
Jacob Greber
Mar 8, 2020 — 2.56pm


Washington | White House officials downplayed chances President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence came in contact with a coronavirus-infected person at a top annual conservative conference they attended in Maryland late last month.

As the number of deaths in the US rose to 19 and reported cases jumped above 440 on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) from just under 300 on Friday, organisers of the Conservative Political Action Conference said one of their attendees had tested positive.

Mr Trump, who has been widely criticised for downplaying the crisis, said when asked at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida about the coronavirus getting closer to the White House: “I’m not concerned at all.”
But in a sign of the outbreak’s accelerating spread, New York state governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency that takes in the world’s most important financial centre. Countless conferences and festivals were cancelled across the nation, while the list of states impacted added Kansas and Virginia.
The District of Columbia, which hosts the White House, reported its first “presumptive positive case” late on Saturday.
Markets are likely to continue their wild ride this week after another Wall Street fall on Friday despite a robust 273,000 payroll number for February.
The jitters are being driven by concern over America’s official response to the health crisis which centres on a lack of available testing kits that have left policymakers blind to the true scale of the problem.
Mr Trump was widely derided for saying on Friday that he preferred passengers on a cruise ship with potentially hundreds of infected passengers off San Francisco didn’t come onshore because that would drive up the official US count.
“I would rather because I like the numbers being where they are,” he said. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
So far American labs have done 5861 tests, a number that officials expect to rise sharply in coming days and weeks as more kits are made available.


Pence admits US doesn't have enough testing kits

The last week has been a reminder of the benefits of international collaboration and trust in fixing health emergencies with global financial implications, said Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council.
“What we’re learning – in real-time, Darwinian fashion – is that proactive countries, societies and individuals are performing far better than reactive ones,” he said on Saturday.
“Governments that engage in truth-telling are heading off dangers faster than those that obfuscate or delay.”
The US and Europe should take the crisis as a wake-up call to their “excessive dependence” on China for supply chains that range from drugs to rare-earth metals.
“Perhaps the most important lesson of the past weeks of coronavirus is that the recent rise of authoritarianism globally and the rise of populism and nationalism among Western-style democracies provide a poor recipe for sound, trusted, experienced management of an unfolding global health emergency,” Mr Kempe said.
As US businesses, governments and households try to manage their obligations, the list of big events affected continued to grow.

Sadly he seems to be like Teflon... nothing sticks

A sick Californian nurse made a desperate appeal for help.

She says the federal Centres for Disease Control had been unwilling, or unable, to test her for COVID-19. Her patients may have infected her. She may have infected others.

She had volunteered to help.

“I did this because I had all the recommended protective gear and training from my employer,” she wrote in an open letter. “I did this assuming that if something happened to me, of course, I too would be cared for.”

She was wrong.

The protective gear did not work. She is sick. But she’s not getting any treatment.

“I’m awaiting ‘permission’ from the federal government to allow for my testing, even after my physician and county health professional ordered it. I am a registered nurse, and I need to know if I am positive before going back to caring for patients.”

As of yesterday, the US had only identified some 300 cases. Only eight have so far recovered, and 17 have died.

The resulting death rate of 5.9 per cent is the world’s highest. But that is a statistical aberration: the numbers are simply incomplete.

Epidemiologists know the actual number of sufferers is likely to already be in the tens of thousands. They just can’t prove it.

That’s because the test kits tailored to identify this specific virus are unavailable. And the government-run CDC has been imposing strange conditions upon its distribution and use.

The National CDC would not initiate testing,” the Californian nurse wrote. “They said they would not test me because if I were wearing the recommended protective equipment, then I wouldn’t have the coronavirus … What a ridiculous and uneducated response from the department that is in charge of our health in this country.”

The CDC is facing intense scrutiny.

The production of US COVID-19 testing kits was botched. The production facility was contaminated. A large batch of the vital kits was found not to be properly functional.

So they had to be recalled.

Instead, local doctors have had to ship samples to the one CDC laboratory capable of testing for the disease. The Atlanta facility was soon swamped.

Exactly how many US citizens have been tested is unknown. The CDC has strangely ceased reporting such vital statistics after Vice President Pence took over as the health agency’s public face.

Earlier this week he promised “roughly 1.5 million tests” would be available by the end of this week. On Friday, he rolled that promise back: “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,” he said.

"This is the most frightening disease I've ever encountered in my career."

Richard Hatchett, the doctor leading efforts to find a vaccine for coronavirus, says it is much more lethal than normal flu. But a survey of regional health officials by The Atlantic reveals a total of only 1900 suspected cases tested.

This is against the tens of thousands that need such testing - every day.

Meanwhile, the virus had already jumped ship.

kitchen paper will block your pipes

You're an idiot

-Cool retro poster.

prosecute cartels, monopolies, collusion, price setting, and other anti-competitive practices.

making economic/business decisions.

The government should not be responsible for anything of substance.

A truly competitive free market would work itself out as long as the government sets clear boundaries and is there to prosecute cartels, monopolies, collusion, price setting, and other anti-competitive practices.

No, really, I am serious now... Why do people think toilet paper will be their biggest concern in case of a shortage of supplies?

What about water and food?

How the fuck does this work?  Like "I am fully prepped for the apocalypse because now I have a room completely filled with toilet paper." ?

Maybe it's the cheapest way to completely fill a supermarket cart so that they fool themselves that they are doing good?

Don't they know that when you don't eat you barely shit either?

Nonsense.

Nutrien, the dominant player in Australian farm supply and services, said the active ingredients in a range of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides were available only from China.

It predicted worldwide shortages of important farm chemicals within six to nine months if there was an extended breakdown in Chinese manufacturing.

"ROME - The situation surrounding coronavirus has become so extreme in Italy that an Italian association of anesthesia, analgesia, resuscitation and intensive care proposes to set an age limit for people to be admitted to intensive care. Moreover, people who are more likely to survive must be given priority."
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/1214394339/artsen-stellen-leeftijdsgrens-nieuwe-patienten-voor
https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/ff25hg/desperate_times_call_for_desperate_measures/

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https://merionwest.com/2020/03/06/the-coronavirus-on-risk-and-idiots/
-some beautiful writing here, as well as good content

So the alternative being fully socialising it would probably work better IN COMPARISON... Unless they manage to keep corrupting the system somehow... which probably they would.

Is there any country where a pure capitalist health system exist? If there is, I would like to know and compare costs.