America just held a nationwide IQ test. Did you notice it?

Everyone who has said about coronavirus that, “It’s just the flu,” failed the IQ test. As did those who claim discussing coronavirus is “spreading panic.”
 
They are engaging in what Scott Adams calls Loserthink.[…]
 
You will almost certainly not die from the coronavirus.
 
If the coronavirus contagion and death rates are accurate, between one and three million Americans could die.
 
When you have a low risk of a pandemic with a death count exceeding the total number of Americans who died in World War II, you take precautions.
 
Reasonable minds can differ as to what those precautions are.
 
But if you’re not thinking about coronavirus in terms of fat tail risk, you’re not even allowed to be part of the conversation.

Related: Italy moves to Wuhan inspired quarantine status.

True story.#coronavirus #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/rr9BSszwZn

— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) March 6, 2020

It’s not all bad news.

Former Iranian ambassador to Syria and a hostage-taker of U.S. diplomats, Hossein Sheikholeslam, died Thursday from a Covid19 infection, local news outlets report.
 
An advisor to the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, 68-year-old Sheikholeslam was one of the leaders of the so-called “Muslim Student Followers of Imam’s Line,” who took 52 U.S. diplomats hostage, on November 4, 1979, and released them after 444 days.

18/ Lombardy's welfare minister: "every day we get 200 new people to the ER in critical conditions, which means every day we need to find 200 more hospital beds. […] the virus is spreading at an exceptional speed, faster than our predictions and than the data we got from China." pic.twitter.com/yge69JU2cK

— Luca Dellanna (@DellAnnaLuca) March 6, 2020

I have a friend in Italy undergoing cancer treatment that’s unavailable here. From a Facebook post earlier today;

“Yeah, I’m not trying to spread hysteria here but I’m in Italy so I’m seeing this first hand. I was booked to have an operation yesterday for my cancer, it was booked months in advance. I went in, saw the tents outside of the hospital for coronavirus patients, went to meet one of my doctors and she took me to the oncology department which was also the very last ward not being used for coronavirus patients. I wait for 7 hours, then am told that they will not be preforming the surgery this week and they are unsure when they will have any time or space for me.
 
Too long didnt read? They shut down the fourth building of the hospital of oncology to make beds for coronavirus patients while a doctor in tears told me I would not be getting the life extending operation I booked.
 
Not trying to be melodramatic but honestly a little sick of people posting memes and telling themselves its nothing to be afraid of. It is effectively capable of shutting down the healthcare systems. Be prepared, especially my American friends.”

And therein lies the biggest risk — it’s not “just the flu”. Health care workers can be vaccinated for the flu. When a high percentage of the people taking care of patients become infected just as the demand on the system surges? See above.

Meanwhile in DiverstyStrongistan… Over weeks of daily crossings, this is the first time 🇨🇦 agents asked health questions.

Most of our data has been supplied by unreliable China and Iran. What is the case fatality rate elsewhere?

The word is “admitted”. Chinese controlled WHO says…coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought.

Diversity is our strength! Travellers from Iran report NO SCREENING at Toronto’s Pearson Airport

It’s challenging to verify information coming out of authoritarian regimes like Iran.

But Ali’s account dates to 2009, he seems like a real engineer, and he links to a number of sources.

His account is sobering and worth investigating. If even partially true, it’s concerning. https://t.co/T2UGlfFgAs

— Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) February 29, 2020

Related: #China’s factories activity plunges, worse than global financial crisis in 2008/9.

Australia has banned travel from Iran.

Here be dragons.

Just like they do for the flu: Chinese medical staff request international medical assistance

The conditions and environment here in Wuhan are more difficult and extreme than we could ever have imagined. There is a severe shortage of protective equipment, such as N95 respirators, face shields, goggles, gowns, and gloves. The goggles are made of plastic that must be repeatedly cleaned and sterilised in the ward, making them difficult to see through. Due to the need for frequent hand washing, several of our colleagues’ hands are covered in painful rashes. As a result of wearing an N95 respirator for extended periods of time and layers of protective equipment, some nurses now have pressure ulcers on their ears and forehead. When wearing a mask to speak with patients, our voices are muted, so we have to speak very loudly. Wearing four layers of gloves is abnormally clumsy and does not work—we can’t even open the packaging bags for medical devices, so giving patients injections is a huge challenge. In order to save energy and the time it takes to put on and take off protective clothing, we avoid eating and drinking for 2 hours before entering the isolation ward. Often, nurses’ mouths are covered in blisters. Some nurses have fainted due to hypoglycaemia and hypoxia.

It’s not alarmist to keep a solid supply of non-perishables on hand.

Instapundit has a daily roundup of Coronavirus news.

h/t James

How the Coronavirus Revealed Authoritarianism’s Fatal Flaw

How did Xi Jinping—the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, who has been consolidating his power since taking over the post in 2012—let things get to this point?
 
It might be that he didn’t fully know what was happening in his own country until it was too late.
 
Xi would be far from the first authoritarian to have been blindsided. Ironically, for all the talk of the technological side of Chinese authoritarianism, China’s use of technology to ratchet up surveillance and censorship may have made things worse, by making it less likely that Xi would even know what was going on in his own country.

Let’s hope.

Michael Yon will be on with Steve Bannon shortly, live.

Zerohedge:

China’s notoriously militant censorship has been turned up to eleven during the coronavirus outbreak. They have made it illegal for healthcare workers, crematoriums, and anyone else involved in the response to discuss the situation – disrupting attempts to provide an accurate picture of what’s going on amid the largest quarantine in human history.

Today, Twitter suspended a great Chinese dissident, our friend Harry Chan @IsChinar. He reported the truth on what’s happening in China during #coronavirus outbreak. A man who fights totalitarianism and CCP oppression. @Twitter @TwitterSupport This is truly shameful! #FreeHarry pic.twitter.com/wcdwGQTuWE

— Max Howroute▫️ (@howroute) February 24, 2020

The situation in Iran is far, far worse than they’ve admitted to: Deputy Minister of Health has coronavirus.

Harirchi coughed occasionally and appeared to be sweating during a press conference in Tehran on Monday with government spokesman Ali Rabiei.
 

At the time he denied a lawmaker’s claim that 50 people had died from the virus in the Shiite shrine city of Qom, saying he would resign if the number proved to be true.

As has been predicted for weeks, world markets are finally taking a hit.

Shares on Wall Street have plummeted at the opening bell and European markets are also a sea of red, with the Italian market the worst hit, amid reports of rising deaths from the coronavirus in the country.

The high price of conspiring with China: Iran becomes the new epicenter of infection.

Given the number of exported #coronavirus cases from Iran to other countries, coupled with unofficial reports of a far greater number of deaths inside Iran from #covid19, it would strongly suggest that Iran must have a very large outbreak underway. https://t.co/Jqtmkugbmi

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) February 24, 2020

Now 600 cases in South Korea, who the hell knows what’s going on in the North.

More: Trump’s fury over coronavirus patients being repatriated may be justified

Never mind the national headlines, it’s the flu you should concern yourself with.

Related.

And then there is this little-known fact: Some Chinese researchers are in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.

You heard me right.

Updates

Untraceable clusters alarm US officials.

Infections surge in South Korea.

Italy – Tens of thousands of Italians prepared for a weeks-long quarantine…

8 dead in Iran, which seems to have a abnormally high death rate or an abnormally low detection rate.

2 more young doctors die from coronavirus in China