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Barbara Starr: New "social distancing" for press seating in Pentagon briefing room.
Link to tweet
Barbara Starr ✔@barbarastarrcnn
New “social distancing” for press seating in Pentagon briefing room. #coronavirus
9:45 AM - Mar 10, 2020
Next pic shows Trump running in to push all the chairs back together...
14 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
There was Trump at the lectern, surrounded by people who *should've* known he was hanging (and shaking hands) with several people that had been exposed to the virus. What was going thru *their* minds?? 
I was thinking this would be like the 1968 Pandemic (which killed my paternal Grandma who had been suffering from Alzheimers for several years) but this is looking more like 1918 due to the numbers infected (and the increased death rate). 
About the 1968 Pandemic:
The 1968 flu pandemic was a category 2 flu pandemic whose outbreak in 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people worldwide. It was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, descended from H2N2 through antigenic shift, a genetic process in which genes from multiple subtypes reassorted to form a new virus. Because it originated in Hong Kong, the pandemic is also referred to as Hong Kong flu.
The 1968–1969 pandemic
The first record of the outbreak in Hong Kong appeared on 13 July 1968. By the end of July 1968, extensive outbreaks were reported in Vietnam and Singapore. Despite the lethality of the 1957 Asian Flu in China, little improvement had been made regarding the handling of such epidemics. The Times newspaper was actually the first source to sound alarm regarding this new possible pandemic.
By September 1968, the flu reached India, the Philippines, northern Australia and Europe. That same month, the virus entered California from returning Vietnam War troops but did not become widespread in the United States until December 1968. It would reach Japan, Africa and South America by 1969. The outbreak in Hong Kong, where population density is greater than 6000 people per square kilometer, reached maximum intensity in two weeks, lasting six months in total from July to December 1968, however worldwide deaths from this virus peaked much later, in December 1968 and January 1969. By that time, public health warnings and virus descriptions were issued in the scientific and medical journals.
In comparison to other pandemics, the Hong Kong flu yielded a low death rate, with a case-fatality ratio below 0.5% making it a category 2 disease on the Pandemic Severity Index. The pandemic infected an estimated 500,000 Hong Kong residents, 15% of the population. In the United States, approximately 33,800 people died.
The same virus returned the following years: a year later, in late 1969 and early 1970, and in 1972.
Clinical data
Flu symptoms lasted four to five days (some symptoms lasted up to two weeks).
Virology
The influenza viruses that caused the Hong Kong flu. (magnified approximately 100,000 times)
The Hong Kong flu was the first known outbreak of the H3N2 strain, though there is serologic evidence of H3N1 infections in the late 19th century. The virus was isolated in Queen Mary Hospital.
In the 1968 pandemic vaccine became available one month after the outbreaks peaked in the US.
Both the H2N2 and H3N2 pandemic flu strains contained genes from avian influenza viruses. The new subtypes arose in pigs coinfected with avian and human viruses and were soon transferred to humans. Swine were considered the original "intermediate host" for influenza, because they supported reassortment of divergent subtypes. However, other hosts appear capable of similar coinfection (e.g., many poultry species), and direct transmission of avian viruses to humans is possible. H1N1 may have been transmitted directly from birds to humans (Belshe 2005).
The Hong Kong flu strain shared internal genes and the neuraminidase with the 1957 Asian Flu (H2N2). Accumulated antibodies to the neuraminidase or internal proteins may have resulted in much fewer casualties than most pandemics. However, cross-immunity within and between subtypes of influenza is poorly understood.
</snip>
The 1968–1969 pandemic
The first record of the outbreak in Hong Kong appeared on 13 July 1968. By the end of July 1968, extensive outbreaks were reported in Vietnam and Singapore. Despite the lethality of the 1957 Asian Flu in China, little improvement had been made regarding the handling of such epidemics. The Times newspaper was actually the first source to sound alarm regarding this new possible pandemic.
By September 1968, the flu reached India, the Philippines, northern Australia and Europe. That same month, the virus entered California from returning Vietnam War troops but did not become widespread in the United States until December 1968. It would reach Japan, Africa and South America by 1969. The outbreak in Hong Kong, where population density is greater than 6000 people per square kilometer, reached maximum intensity in two weeks, lasting six months in total from July to December 1968, however worldwide deaths from this virus peaked much later, in December 1968 and January 1969. By that time, public health warnings and virus descriptions were issued in the scientific and medical journals.
In comparison to other pandemics, the Hong Kong flu yielded a low death rate, with a case-fatality ratio below 0.5% making it a category 2 disease on the Pandemic Severity Index. The pandemic infected an estimated 500,000 Hong Kong residents, 15% of the population. In the United States, approximately 33,800 people died.
The same virus returned the following years: a year later, in late 1969 and early 1970, and in 1972.
Fewer people died during this pandemic than the two previous pandemics for various reasons:
some immunity against the N2 flu virus may have been retained in populations struck by the Asian Flu strains which had been circulating since 1957;
the pandemic did not gain momentum until near the winter school holidays, thus limiting the infection spreading;
improved medical care gave vital support to the very ill;
the availability of antibiotics that were more effective against secondary bacterial infections.
Clinical data
Flu symptoms lasted four to five days (some symptoms lasted up to two weeks).
Virology
The influenza viruses that caused the Hong Kong flu. (magnified approximately 100,000 times)
The Hong Kong flu was the first known outbreak of the H3N2 strain, though there is serologic evidence of H3N1 infections in the late 19th century. The virus was isolated in Queen Mary Hospital.
In the 1968 pandemic vaccine became available one month after the outbreaks peaked in the US.
Both the H2N2 and H3N2 pandemic flu strains contained genes from avian influenza viruses. The new subtypes arose in pigs coinfected with avian and human viruses and were soon transferred to humans. Swine were considered the original "intermediate host" for influenza, because they supported reassortment of divergent subtypes. However, other hosts appear capable of similar coinfection (e.g., many poultry species), and direct transmission of avian viruses to humans is possible. H1N1 may have been transmitted directly from birds to humans (Belshe 2005).
The Hong Kong flu strain shared internal genes and the neuraminidase with the 1957 Asian Flu (H2N2). Accumulated antibodies to the neuraminidase or internal proteins may have resulted in much fewer casualties than most pandemics. However, cross-immunity within and between subtypes of influenza is poorly understood.
</snip>
Mom always said that "Hong Kong Flu" killed her despite the fact she was in a nursing home with Alzheimers.
The said thing about my grandmother's last months was that my Dad drowned in a boating accident June 1968, the same day he was forced to put her into the nursing home due to Alzheimers. In moments of lucidity, she would ask my Mother where her son was, why wasn't he visiting her in the nursing home. My Mom didn't have the heart to tell her he'd died, so she made excuses from June until November, when Grandma died. 
