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(NPR)   NPR reports on how NPR reported on the coronavirus back when it was just a cute little emergency, not a full-grown pandemic   (npr.org) divider line
102
    More: Interesting, Disease, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pandemic, United States, Severe acute respiratory syndrome, Public health, Science  
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1915 clicks; posted to Main » on 30 Jan 2023 at 6:20 PM (7 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



102 Comments     (+0 »)
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little big man [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 6:27:28 PM  
"....predicted that based on the data available at the time, the novel coronavirus would be "a tiny little blip on the horizon" compared with annual flu cases."

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lysdexic [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 6:29:47 PM  
Yeah, found this while cleaning up my crafts area.  God what a mess.

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foo monkey
2023-01-30 6:29:53 PM  
Early COVID felt exactly like the Virginia Sniper, except it was the entire world instead of a single metro area.  It was all-consuming and awful.  I'm sorry the rest of you had to learn what that was like.
 
born_yesterday [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 6:29:59 PM  
15 and then done.
 
6nome
2023-01-30 6:32:15 PM  
"Let's hear what the pro-virus community has to say about this..."
 
Troy McClure
2023-01-30 6:34:03 PM  
We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.
 
JammerJim [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 6:38:16 PM  
I was hearing about this a little earlier than the average bear, but it sure morphed from "this bears watching" to "the only sound you hear is ambulances" in a hurry.

At some point in between, I decided this might A Thing, and bought cough medicine, decongestants, mucinex, and tylenol, none of which we needed, thankfully. I also bought some extra toilet paper, because people *always*, *always* go out an stock up on TP. That purchase turned out to be very wise. We ran low, but never ran out.
 
genner
2023-01-30 6:39:59 PM  
What a cute little emergency might look like.

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RichMeatyTaste
2023-01-30 6:44:30 PM  
The Borat 2 scene shot at CPAC in early 2020 when everything was "under control" was one for the ages. I think they included a blurb from Pence.
 
Grumpy Cat
2023-01-30 6:52:22 PM  

JammerJim: I was hearing about this a little earlier than the average bear, but it sure morphed from "this bears watching" to "the only sound you hear is ambulances" in a hurry.

At some point in between, I decided this might A Thing, and bought cough medicine, decongestants, mucinex, and tylenol, none of which we needed, thankfully. I also bought some extra toilet paper, because people *always*, *always* go out an stock up on TP. That purchase turned out to be very wise. We ran low, but never ran out.


I want to hear the stories about those that did run out of toilet paper. Ugh. They are the true sufferers.
 
leeksfromchichis [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 6:53:55 PM  

genner: What a cute little emergency might look like.

[Fark user image image 299x300]


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UltimaCS
2023-01-30 6:57:30 PM  
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Thingster
2023-01-30 6:58:39 PM  

Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.


We tried to do plenty, like shaking hands with people in Chinatown to show how big of a deal it wasn't.
 
Subtonic
2023-01-30 6:58:50 PM  
I think the whole thing was a hoax. I never got it. I haven't even been sick in years except for that weird bug I caught in early 2020, whatever that was.
 
whidbey
2023-01-30 6:59:31 PM  
Gotta say this is a big reason Republicans or their cultist choices should not be in power.

Ever.
 
SplittingAces
2023-01-30 7:00:36 PM  

little big man: "....predicted that based on the data available at the time, the novel coronavirus would be "a tiny little blip on the horizon" compared with annual flu cases."

[Fark user image image 425x315]


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leeksfromchichis [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 7:01:00 PM  

Thingster: Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.

We tried to do plenty, like shaking hands with people in Chinatown to show how big of a deal it wasn't.


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Biscuit Tin [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 7:05:00 PM  
I remember reading an article in the Atlantic that said it would not be worse than the flu, and I shared that misinformation freely with my Facebook friends. But I corrected course when more info was revealed.
 
VoiceOfReason499
2023-01-30 7:09:34 PM  
I had some friends come from out of town for a beer festival at the end of January 2020. I told them it was looking like we might not see each other in person again for a while.

When shiat hit the fan in March, it prompted a whole lot of people to do surprise-Pikachu-face. I was not one of them.
 
aungen [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:09:39 PM  

Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.


I saw the WHO on Feb 28th at a conference say they had no proof of human to human transition 4 days after the WHO posted proof of human to human transmission.

And I think I even have that thread favorited for the stupidity.
 
BitwiseShift
2023-01-30 7:12:30 PM  
Geez.  We got all the medical stuff, like outpatient surgery done as close to the beginning of January 2020 as possible.  One nurse was going on an expensive around the world trip.  Everyone she talked to had the same warning -- "Don't Go." Things were going to become very different.  Normal life would stop very soon.  Stock up in case medical care was disrupted.

Most people who watched the news knew around October that it was time to circle the wagons, buy and replace stuff that was going to become rare soon when global trade stopped after Trump had tried to sabotage it anyway.
 
NathanAllen
2023-01-30 7:13:19 PM  
Those of us who had that garbage flu in January 2020 knew better.
 
My Sober Alt
2023-01-30 7:13:53 PM  
I sort of wish I had kept a diary of when I went from thinking it was no big deal to when I realized it was a real threat.  I saw a person early on with a mask and gloves in the grocery store and an employee at Sam's club masked and gloved and thought they were crazy.  It wasn't long after that that I started thinking the people not wearing masks were the crazy ones.

It was probably when it hit Italy that I started realizing it was more serious.
 
Thingster
2023-01-30 7:15:01 PM  

aungen: Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.

I saw the WHO on Feb 28th at a conference say they had no proof of human to human transition 4 days after the WHO posted proof of human to human transmission.

And I think I even have that thread favorited for the stupidity.


Every time someone said "hey, this might be a problem" they pointed at China and WHO saying it wasn't a big deal - even when it was pointed out that CCP owns WHO.

If we had listened to our domestic experts, we would've shut down international travel in late January.

Instead certain people in power kept focusing on WHO and China, despite all the other evidence that was coming out and despite the contradictions and outright confirmable lies.

WHO was one of the biggest problems getting this thing recognized as a pandemic early on, because they were scared of their funding that's tied to China and high ups that are beholden to CCP.
 
uberalice
2023-01-30 7:16:09 PM  
Christmas gifts 2020. Most awkward ever.
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gunther_bumpass
2023-01-30 7:19:26 PM  
I wish I had kept a list of all the Fark epidemiologists who told me I was crazy for saying that there was never a lockdown. Farking assholes and their holidays. "But it's tradition!". 

And the "whattaya wanna kill muh economy" cretins.   
 
Thanks, guys.

I reckon some of them are dead now.
 
SmithHiller
2023-01-30 7:19:34 PM  
FLASHBACK: December 31 2019:
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whidbey
2023-01-30 7:21:24 PM  
Still my favorite:

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UltimaCS
2023-01-30 7:22:28 PM  

Thingster: Instead certain people in power kept focusing on WHO and China, despite all the other evidence that was coming out and despite the contradictions and outright confirmable lies.


President Trump specifically homed in on Mexico and his stupid wall throughout the pandemic, going as far as to promise that his wall would stop the pandemic from entering the US entirely. He was just as financially owned by China as anything else.
 
DON.MAC [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:27:07 PM  
There are some very smart good people in the WHO.

It also has way too many people that have been promoted to their own level of incompetence. The WHO is mostly a bureaucratic political organization filled with people so annoying they got sent out of the country by their bureaucratic political peers.

Promoting someone to Brussels or Geneva has long been a way to rid an organization of someone since once they are promoted, they won't ever come back even if they don't like their new role.

If you ever get an invite to a WHO party, go since they do throw nice parties with top booze, just find the real medical staff and avoid the bureaucrats.
 
Fark_Guy_Rob
2023-01-30 7:30:01 PM  

UltimaCS: [Fark user image image 425x356]


I don't like Trump, but this feels like crap.

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-nonimmigrants-persons-pose-risk-transmitting-2019-novel-coronavirus/

OnJanuary 31 2020 Trump acknowledged the seriousness of Covid publicly.

The United States has confirmed cases of individuals who have a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a novel (new) coronavirus ("2019-nCoV") ("the virus") first detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China ("China").  The virus was discovered in China in December 2019.  As of January 31, 2020, Chinese health officials have reported approximately 10,000 confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in China...

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America...

You can certainly claim his response sucked, but the timeline is public record and trivially confirmed.
 
UltimaCS
2023-01-30 7:32:03 PM  

gunther_bumpass: I wish I had kept a list of all the Fark epidemiologists who told me I was crazy for saying that there was never a lockdown. Farking assholes and their holidays. "But it's tradition!". 

And the "whattaya wanna kill muh economy" cretins.   
 
Thanks, guys.

I reckon some of them are dead now.


I kept a list! 121 pro-death clowns. And not a single one here. Funny, that.
 
mongbiohazard
2023-01-30 7:32:14 PM  

Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.


A little before then I'd told my boss I expected we were about to lose somewhere between 1 and 2 million people in the next year or two. She didn't think it would get that bad, but was at least concerned enough by then to entertain the possibility I could be right. A huge improvement!

Because some time around late Jan I had made an offhand suggestion during our weekly team meeting that folks might want to stock up on a little extra groceries. Like I make sure I have before a hurricane - some extra pasta, extra TP, etc. Just a small buffer for some basics. The sort of thing for if you can't or don't want to venture out for a while. My wife and I always keep a little buffer anyway, we've had extended power outages before in our area just after thunderstorms, so it's a wise precaution. We were going to grab another two weeks worth of buffer with our weekly groceries, I suggested everyone else just stock up a touch extra too just not to be caught unaware in case COVID ended up being a big deal for everyone in the near future.

The boss lady literally laughed and mocked my suggestion with the team. Compared me to a "crazy prepper" she knew, burying MRE's in the backyard. Hahahaha, everybody have a big hearty laugh at Mr. "do yourself a favor and grab a little extra groceries" Guy. Cool. Super cool.

Like a month and a half later her and the rest of my team are suddenly freaking out about how they're going to get paper to wipe their asses (among other things). I'm like: "Man, we don't really have to get any groceries in my house until... I dunno, some time in May maybe? June? We've got about a month and a half extra buffer of sundries in general, and can stretch out if needed. Good luck installing those bidets though, ladies. That sounds like fun. Shame nobody warned you."

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deadsanta
2023-01-30 7:34:39 PM  

UltimaCS: Thingster: Instead certain people in power kept focusing on WHO and China, despite all the other evidence that was coming out and despite the contradictions and outright confirmable lies.

President Trump specifically homed in on Mexico and his stupid wall throughout the pandemic, going as far as to promise that his wall would stop the pandemic from entering the US entirely. He was just as financially owned by China as anything else.


And yet Trump repeatedly called it the "China flu," and the "China virus."  There's even a picture of him crossing out the word "corona" in a speech he's holding and replacing it with "Chinese."  Trump was owned by Russia, that's the only country he didn't burn--in fact actively praised--during his tenure as grifter-in-chief.
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hoodiowithtudio
2023-01-30 7:35:24 PM  

mongbiohazard: Troy McClure: We saw China locking down millions of people and building quarantine camps.  We saw covid reaching our shores.  We saw the WHO declare this to be a big deal.

And we did nothing for six weeks, ignoring the reality of it, until an NBA player tested positive on March 11th.

A little before then I'd told my boss I expected we were about to lose somewhere between 1 and 2 million people in the next year or two. She didn't think it would get that bad, but was at least concerned enough by then to entertain the possibility I could be right. A huge improvement!

Because some time around late Jan I had made an offhand suggestion during our weekly team meeting that folks might want to stock up on a little extra groceries. Like I make sure I have before a hurricane - some extra pasta, extra TP, etc. Just a small buffer for some basics. The sort of thing for if you can't or don't want to venture out for a while. My wife and I always keep a little buffer anyway, we've had extended power outages before in our area just after thunderstorms, so it's a wise precaution. We were going to grab another two weeks worth of buffer with our weekly groceries, I suggested everyone else just stock up a touch extra too just not to be caught unaware in case COVID ended up being a big deal for everyone in the near future.

The boss lady literally laughed and mocked my suggestion with the team. Compared me to a "crazy prepper" she knew, burying MRE's in the backyard. Hahahaha, everybody have a big hearty laugh at Mr. "do yourself a favor and grab a little extra groceries" Guy. Cool. Super cool.

Like a month and a half later her and the rest of my team are suddenly freaking out about how they're going to get paper to wipe their asses (among other things). I'm like: "Man, we don't really have to get any groceries in my house until... I dunno, some time in May maybe? June? We've got about a month and a half extra buffer of sundries in general, and can stretch out if needed. Good luck installing those bidets though, ladies. That sounds like fun. Shame nobody warned you."

[Fark user image image 278x498]


One of my absolute favorite moments was when I saw the grocery store manager in scarborough a cost someone with a cart full of TP

"Unless you are hosting a girls soccer team, please return most of that toilet paper."

I didn't hang around to see if something happened, just had a sensible chuckle and left.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:37:03 PM  
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Was this photo take in Japan? They seem to have a Yen only aisle.

No? China you say. We I wouldn't put it past them

It certainly isn't in Amurika. Those carts are tiny and would not whole a full-size Buick.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:39:56 PM  
Another reason I think this market my be Chinese is because everybody in it is Chinese. Also, a young guy is buying a giant bag of rice, unless he is with the young woman, in which case he is not shopping for one, but he just as the giant bag of rice and she has the giant pile of fresh produce. China, go figure. No wonder you seldom see fat Americans there.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:41:00 PM  
The Chinese are a law-abiding people, as can be seen in photographs where they are all wearing masks and not holiding up the cashier with automatic weapons and use-less chit chat.
 
UltimaCS
2023-01-30 7:41:15 PM  

Fark_Guy_Rob: I don't like Trump, but


Uh huh, I bet. His ban was only for non-U.S. citizens who had been in China within the last 14 days and were not the immediate family member of U.S. citizens or/and permanent residents. His earlier Muslim ban was more restrictive, and had the benefit of accomplishing nothing.
 
leeksfromchichis [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 7:41:38 PM  

brantgoose: [Fark user image image 850x565]Was this photo take in Japan? They seem to have a Yen only aisle.

No? China you say. We I wouldn't put it past them

It certainly isn't in Amurika. Those carts are tiny and would not whole a full-size Buick.


Aeon is a chain of grocery stores and department stores in Japan.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:41:50 PM  
That's a chiasma. I love that Greek word. Chiasma.

Used in a sentence:  Trump is the chiasma goblin.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:42:41 PM  
You thought you could get away without a Trump joke.

Nope.

It's the Real World.
 
JAGUART
2023-01-30 7:43:13 PM  
Halloween 2020 had some novel costumes
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brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:43:38 PM  
Regulars on Fark.com are used to me.

They still whinge and wine though. It's only natural. You've got to let them vent sometimes.
 
brantgoose [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 7:44:34 PM  

JAGUART: Halloween 2020 had some novel costumes
[Fark user image 354x600]


Now those are some good and sexy Halloween constumes.  (Looney Toons wolf whistling)
 
Neondistraction
2023-01-30 7:44:42 PM  

My Sober Alt: I sort of wish I had kept a diary of when I went from thinking it was no big deal to when I realized it was a real threat.  I saw a person early on with a mask and gloves in the grocery store and an employee at Sam's club masked and gloved and thought they were crazy.  It wasn't long after that that I started thinking the people not wearing masks were the crazy ones.

It was probably when it hit Italy that I started realizing it was more serious.


I remember when I started to realize this was more than just another SARS scare.  It was when me and my GF started getting emails from every single restaurant we'd ever ordered from, talking about what they were doing to prevent the spread of the virus, all of them coming on the same day.  Then like 3 days later a kid in one of the schools tested positive and they pretty much shut them all down.  Then a week or two later they shut down non-essential businesses and issued a general stay-at-home order.  Which of course caused a lot of people to lose their shiat and act like it was a China-style lock down where they were literally not allowed to leave their homes.
 
robodog
2023-01-30 7:44:48 PM  
We have offices is China, we were watching it starting in mid January, by mid February we were making plans for all offices globally to be working remotely, a week before the lockdowns started in the US I bought about 30 extra pounds of meat because protein was the one thing that would be most limiting on my supplies on hand (plenty of frozen veggies, canned stuff, and staples like rice). It turned out to be a good idea since it took the local grocery stores 2 months to get things mostly ironed out for contactless curbside pickup.
 
Thingster
2023-01-30 7:46:18 PM  

UltimaCS: Thingster: Instead certain people in power kept focusing on WHO and China, despite all the other evidence that was coming out and despite the contradictions and outright confirmable lies.

President Trump specifically homed in on Mexico and his stupid wall throughout the pandemic, going as far as to promise that his wall would stop the pandemic from entering the US entirely. He was just as financially owned by China as anything else.


"We should've listened to our experts, instead of those beholden to foreign governments"

"BuT TrUmP!"

Jesus people.
 
gunther_bumpass
2023-01-30 7:46:33 PM  

UltimaCS: gunther_bumpass: I wish I had kept a list of all the Fark epidemiologists who told me I was crazy for saying that there was never a lockdown. Farking assholes and their holidays. "But it's tradition!". 

And the "whattaya wanna kill muh economy" cretins.   

Thanks, guys.

I reckon some of them are dead now.

I kept a list! 121 pro-death clowns. And not a single one here. Funny, that.


Friend of mine is a world-health prof. Worked with DWB, did stints overseas, etc. 
I asked him, a month or so in, what was going on. He said it was looking to become endemic. 

The guy is most always right, but I wish he'd have been wrong.
 
semiotix
2023-01-30 7:47:59 PM  
It's true. They did a Tiny Virus Concert back in January 2020.

And then you REALLY knew it was a serious thing a month later when Fresh Air ran a rerun of Terry's 2002 interview with SARS.
 
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