A security guard checks the temperature of an employee in an office building in Shanghai. (AFP/Getty Images)
South San Francisco, CA February 11, 2020 from LA Times Newsletter
The coronavirus outbreak centered in China shows little sign of slowing while exacting an ever-rising cost.
Coronavirus’ Rising Toll
Chinese officials say the daily death toll from the new coronavirus there has topped 100 for first time, with more than 1,000 total deaths recorded and 42,000 people having been infected. The outbreak’s persistence is lowering optimism that the near-quarantine of about 60 million people and other disease-control measures might be working.
The outbreak is also taking an economic toll on the mainland and in places like Macao, the semiautonomous Chinese territory that is the world’s gambling mecca. Macao isn’t on lockdown, but it has ground to a virtual standstill ever since the government closed the territory’s 41 casinos for half a month. Still, with new gambling licenses slated to be handed out in less than two years, the casinos aren’t complaining.
Meanwhile, misinformation about the coronavirus abounds, and in California, workers at March Air Reserve Base and their families have been verbally attacked by people fearing their proximity to the 195 Americans under quarantine at the base after fleeing China. To date, no one at the base has tested positive for the coronavirus. In San Diego County, where 232 American citizens and their family members are under quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, a botched test result allowed an evacuee infected with the coronavirus to leave a San Diego hospital earlier in the day after initially saying the person was in the clear.
I’ve been saying for years that Mankind is driving itself to its own extinction….this must be how! I always thought it would be a hopelessly polluted atmosphere or oceans that would kill us, but a virus is quite clever! Congrats, Mankind, for proving yourself capable of mass-extinction by going that extra step! See you all in Hell!