OvermodNow I find a story (which I reached from the Holland iLINT coverage) that ongoing 'coronavirus problems' will be an excuse to hold up PTC adoption past the December 2020 deadline. Wanna bet how much objective 'science' factors into that when the time comes?
Yet not enough to suspend these completely rediculous and draconian attendance policies* that were shoved down our throats.
*policies that were not agreed to in any contract, I might add.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Every non-stop service offered by NRPC between NYP and WUS has always come to an end for one given reason or another although the real reason was ridership or lack thereof. Then again, Amtrak's reasoning is scurrilous at best. For example, how many years after Hurricane Katrina did they still give that as an excuse for not resuming the east end of the Sunset Limited?
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
What about stopping the Greyhound/Megabus/Chinatown bus service..At last check Intercity Bius stations are among the dirtiest places on planet earth
Its just prepare for the worse but believe it will be much less. Don't prepare in any way that will not be recoverable when it becomes much less of a problem.
charlie hebdoCertain political figures appear to want to minimize the expert opinions for their own personal benefit. SAFETY FIRST!
That is very true, and I add the emphasis for agreement.
My problem is that there are many more figures, political and otherwise, who appear to want to maximize, or indeed overexaggerate or outright fake, actual 'expert opinions' for their own benefit ... be that personal, corporate, or otherwise.
(I would also mention that I have had considerable, firsthand experience with 'politically' related academic research in the biomedical sciences, and the variety of issues and problems produced thereby even by people with spotless technical credentials. I consequently remain firmly in the 'trust, but verify' group when it comes to science as reported in media or without hard documentation -- without requiring that anyone else share my opinions or even be persuaded by them.)
Some more evidence of those superior credentials:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/
Of course some people will claim this is all Trump meddling, or something like that.
Your post goes far beyond rail service cancellations and delays and PTC. Certain political figures appear to want to minimize the expert opinions for their own personal benefit.
SAFETY FIRST!
charlie hebdoSorry, but I think it is far more sensible to trust the actual scientists at the CDC, NIH, WHO and affiliated medical and epidemiological researchers. Credentials do matter.
We ARE trusting them. It's all these other buffoons that are causing the problems.
Now I find a story (which I reached from the Holland iLINT coverage) that ongoing 'coronavirus problems' will be an excuse to hold up PTC adoption past the December 2020 deadline. Wanna bet how much objective 'science' factors into that when the time comes?
Sorry, but I think it is far more sensible to trust the actual scientists at the CDC, NIH, WHO and affiliated medical and epidemiological researchers. Credentials do matter.
Flintlock76While I believe coronavirus is a cause for concern, I don't believe it's a cause for panic, and a lot of this strikes me as bordering on panic. What do you think?
It strikes me that this is like a common thing for a great many groups to pile onto, to cause the same kind of crisis in the general economy that breaking the Reading Combine did in the United States after 1892.
Remember all those discussions we had about the 'recession' that never quite seemed to arrive on schedule after the tariffs? Now we have a worldwide 'reduction of trade' that in various ways is chalked up to the "coronavirus" in some ultimately vague way, presumably tied to its terrible potential for 'lethality' if it were ever to establish itself a la Captain Trips... or whatever.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that almost everywhere there has been an outbreak, the 'result' has been a short cluster of relatively high lethality, followed by a relative explosion of cases but few additional deaths. While I won't claim cause-and-effect, the kinetics are exactly those mirroring a prompt response to infection with proper 3CLpro inhibitors -- as with FIP.
Presumably some of those high-paid people at CDC got hold of the original Chinese sequencing results of the original ultra-infectious clone, and have been tracking the point differences in clones of all the reported outbreaks since then. If they have, they will be getting an increasingly good idea of whether the regions that govern protease-inhibition treatment are more or less labile, or more or less conserved, than those that likely have provided the higher 'infectiousness' (cf the PNAS paper that Jones1945 provided the reference for, on the hemagglutinin gene, now several months old).
I repeat that the 3CLpro inhibitor production, in China, for the demonstrably similar coronavirus clone that produces symptoms of FIP in cats, has been in volume production for over a year, and that identification of the 'susceptible' regions in the viral genome has really been 'settled science' for quite some time, verifiable even in 'free access' papers. Note how little the 'official' press coverage has addressed this (aside from the usual National Inquirer-type stories about "the Chinese engineered the coronavirus to ruin the American economy in response to Trump's tariff nightmare" or whatever).
I notice that the 'origin story' about bats can't apparently even keep the difference with Ebola straight. Perhaps there are studies by now about how a fundamentally feline virus could get into rodents (rather than the 'other way round' through predation). But note how the 'exotic meat market' in Wuhan seems to have disappeared entirely from news reports as the 'ground zero' source of the initial crossover. This too is a remarkably 'uranium-235-shaped hole' in the coverage to me.
None of this is meant to cheapen the probably very real enhanced transmissibility and short induction period reported for current 'dangerous' clones of this virus, nor the danger it may pose to certain cohorts of people. Be careful to distinguish the death rate from 'bacterial coinfection' (and prompt treatment of it, and prophylaxis therefor) from that of the far more dangerous induced immune-system effects that were the true horror in the 1918 influenza 'waves', as well as taking care to make a 'usual' correction for issues in the elderly and very young, and in immunocompromised people of various kinds.
In many historic epidemics, there are sensible measures that could be taken, and there is hysterical or 'feel-good' response. Presumably the idea of suspending the Acela trains is based on the idea that the people who can afford the agio are also the people most likely to have the affluence to visit China recently. Combined with the relative inability to determine whether specific passengers have traveled to likely infection areas before they board a train. One suspects this is the product of some cogitation on the part of Amtrak and other governmental personnel, not just a knee-jerk me-too pile-on effort to make the virus more effective as the biological equivalent of one of those hysterical winter-weather advisories. But I'm not a Christian Scientist, so the appendicitis just hurts.
Gesundheit!
An overreaction? Who can say at this (early) point?
I have two trips on the Lake Shore Limited scheduled for the end of April and a trip on the California Zephyr for June. I'd like to go, but I don't need to go. By mid April I'll have to make a call and right now it's a toss-up.
Both United and Amtrak sent me emails this morning detailing the steps they're taking to keep passengers safe. Is that overreacting or prudent?
The Acela train above was pretty empty it seems, so why operate it and lose money when there's other service that's comparable?
I think it is, but I'll refrain from making any snarky comment about it.
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/nonstop-acela-trains-between-washington-and-new-york-suspended-due-to-coronavirus.html
While I believe coronavirus is a cause for concern, I don't believe it's a cause for panic, and a lot of this strikes me as bordering on panic. What do you think?
PS: I've got a "bug" right now, but as is typical in my case it's just enough to make me miserable, not knock me on my ass. It pays to come from good, hearty peasant stock, I suppose.
Lady Firestorm gave it to me, she probably picked it up from those old ladies she hangs around with in her knitting society.
She doesn't want it back either.
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