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A NMom rant, not sure who'll read (TW: suicide)
I found this sub many years ago, but the thought never occurred to post my experience with my NMom, especially since I doubted her abuse for years ever since I was a kid. I'm not sure where to start with this, but the thought only occurred to me hours ago after what happened. For context, I'm only turning 21 this year, I live in Singapore with my parents and my eldest brother who's a down syndrome. My second brother moved out of the house two years ago. It's been around 7 months since my NMom last talked to me, even though we live under the same roof. It's a cycle that constantly repeats since I was a kid, but I used to give in and talk to her first from the overwhelming guilt that she's my mother and I shouldn't go NC with her. However, only till this last occurrence where I just gave up in trying to mend things with her, that's when we stopped talking. In the end, it'll always end up in gaslighting me and saying that she's never done any of the things that she did to me, and will never regard it as abuse. She thinks she's far superior as a mother, and that I should always give in because mother>child. Ever since I disregarded her presence, she's stopped acknowledging me the same as before. Like mentioned earlier, I always doubted her abuse ever since I was a kid. Being an Asian daughter, I thought getting beaten up for minor things were normal – getting caned as young as being 5 years old. Even till I enrolled in primary school (at 7 years old), getting constant screaming for doing things that weren't in her way such as folding the blanket wrongly (even at how small I was), folding my shirt wrongly or even doing absolutely nothing (eating, sleeping, watching TV) would trigger her in result to beating me, slapping me or pinching me till I bruise badly. I've always thought this was a common punishment, and always wondered why I did things wrongly and couldn't do things that were in her favour. I had to attend school in bruises, and my friends would question me. Accidents that happened at home were immediately blamed upon me, even if she found out that it was from my eldest brother's doing. It wasn't just abused from my NMom that I faced at home either. I had to go for counselling in primary school since my form teacher found out that my math textbook was thrown away by my dad. He was never patient when teaching me homework I struggled with when I was around 9 years old. He'd rip the books in front of me, force me to follow him to the kitchen to see him throw it down the chute and tell me to drop out of school. At 9 years old. I did go to see the school counsellor then, I just told her the way my parents would have treated me at home. Sadly, the sessions shortly stopped after my NMom found out that I had been going for counselling, and she strictly forbid me from ever seeing the counsellor again. She threatened and told me that no one else was supposed to know about our family matters, and it would stay that way. I was genuinely pondering of just ending it all by constantly going to my brother's room and sitting at the window's edge, although I knew I wouldn't really die from jumping 6 floors down. There were other instances as well, such as when my NMom would force a handful of chilli padi in my mouth till I was on the floor, begging my dad to help, he'd just kick me and proceed to sit onto the sofa to read newspapers. He'd also beat me with a hanger if I wasn't cooperating with her or doing minor things wrongly as well but at a much lesser frequency. About a year later, she attempted suicide by slicing her wrists with kitchen knives in the living room when my dad stopped her, which eventually caused a ruckus (a vase fell off a shelf and broke on her head) and woke everyone up in the house. I witnessed it alongside my second brother – with blood all over the sofa, my dad pinning her down with his knee, while she kept sobbing and screaming. The police came (the neighbours complained), relatives came and took her away – I was just confused and scared as a child and didn't understand what was happening. Only years later on did I realise that my dad had been cheating on her, so she wanted to take her own life. Years later still (about 2012), my life was still controlled by her. I wasn't allowed to go out, have my best friend over (I didn't have friends at the time), I couldn't get by anything without her permission. I could only be home – which I found comfort in drawing or being online on the home computer. It wasn't all the time either, as she would get on the computer herself and be on Facebook almost the whole day. Starting 2013 when I would be 13, she started the habit of not giving/providing me food if she was angry or if I did something wrong to her. She'd purposely get food for everyone else except me. (She rarely cooked, so it was more of ordering fast food for everyone except me). This was really fucked up, considering I wasn't allowed to even go out and get my own food and that I wasn't allowed to use her kitchen too, so I'd usually starve till the next day. Fast forward to 2016 when I was a little more let loose, I went on a date far from home that she was aware of, and she told me to be back by 10:00 pm. I only reached home about 5-10 minutes later with my phone in my bag, and I wasn't aware of her missed calls. I came home and she started screaming at me for so loud and long, about how I always came up with excuses that I didn't see my phone and that I would purposely ignore her. I got so fucking fed up and told her that it was only 10 minutes late and she was being unreasonable. She went out of sight for a while after going to the kitchen, got a hammer from the toolbox and started smashing my phone right in front of me. I was scared shitless because my dad and second brother wasn't home, and my eldest brother was sleeping (although he couldn't do anything if he was awake either). She started yelling at me to fold my clothes or some sort (? memory's kind of foggy), so I went into my room and opened the cupboard to fold my clothes. She was still yelling, and I heard her storm into my room and she swung the hammer at me. I dodged, ran to the living room and grabbed the home phone to call the police. I remember at that point in time, my friend told me to call them any time I felt danger from her and to not be scared. So I did, I called them while she watched and laughed at me at the idea of calling the police on my own mother. There was a neighbourhood station nearby, and they said they'll be reaching the house soon. I remember sobbing so hard from how scared I was and told them to come quick. The police then came, there were two officers (if I'm not wrong) and each of them questioned me and my NMom separately. I told the officer what happened, including the direction she swung the hammer at and that my phone got smashed by her (with the glass everywhere). I could hear the other officer that was questioning her bickering about how spoiled children were these days, and that my NMom were giving false answers to him as well. I yelled at the officer and told him the shit she said wasn't true, but they told me to focus on the officer that was questioning me instead. Could tell that the police could not give a single fuck about my welfare. Shortly after, my dad came back (from the casino I think) and yelled at how selfish I was for not thinking about my eldest brother's welfare if my NMom got jailed. I was in true shock, just being 16 and having your own mother swing a hammer at you and hearing that sentence from your father who has done nothing to protect you your whole life. It was around 1 am at this point, they were putting cuffs on her and she called me out to see the moment and remember it for the rest of my life. That I was putting cuffs on my own mother. They eventually brought her to the station, and I was home alone. I couldn't sleep and had no means of communication to my second brother or my friends, I could only use his computer to log into Twitter and let them know. My dad eventually bailed her out. Soooooo many fucked up instances has happened because of my NMom, but after that police case she did simmer down a little, only for a while though. She's gone back to how she was from square one. I had to even give away my bunny to my close friend that I got to keep and take care of for almost a year and a half, because of all her gaslighting and manipulation tactics by using the bunny against me. Till now, she's
Still not providing food, explicitly cleaning the whole house except for my room
Throwing my personal items away that I buy with my own money (including food)
Leaving anything that's mine untouched, even my washed dishes
Not allowed to use anything that's hers – including bedding, mats, her own toilet, food
Gets pissed when I get my own food or cook my own food
Gets mad when I don't wash the pots after cooking EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, even when I'm eating while she leaves the pots with food in it overnight (fucking disgusting)
Pissed that the only reason I'm home is to wash my clothes (that my dad helps, not even her that washes the load, isn't able to comprehend the logic of loads in washing machines)
Pissed that I'm nice to strangers? Because I thank food delivery rides at the doorstep?
Still screams in my disabled brother's face, beats him even sometimes
TLDR: NMom is just unhappy with the fact that I exist and that I'm trying my best to survive. My second brother faced almost everything that's listed the same as I did. As someone who's still attending classes in college, with a decent 3.6 GPA and so close to graduating, attending competitions and getting minor achievements, I'm still overlooked as the worst daughter alive to her no matter what I do. I just don't get how someone could be so fucking cruel to their own child, with no communication, no welfare or even a drip of affection and to label their child as the worst. Just wanna move out and regard her as dead lmao
The best laid PLANs of mice and men often go awry. Welcome back to another effortpost by me generally on the developing arms race in East Asia, this time covering the People's Liberation Army Navy, hereafter referred to as the "PLAN", and its massive growth... and... mostly, well, its massive growth. What that means is mostly covered in other posts about how other countries are responding to it. The why is a bit difficult because, well, China is not well known for open debate, or open anything, really, which will turn up repeatedly.
First And Last Stand Of The Tin Can Navies [ASEAN + Australia and the smaller adversaries China may contend with]
Boned: Problems in the US Air [and space!] Force
--Unnamed-- effortpost on Japanese military matters, mostly about how weird the JSDF status is
--Unnamed--effortpost on Indian military matters, and why they can't focus on China or buy anything that works
--Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the PLA, mostly the air force though
--Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the US Armed Forces, mostly talking about how the marines are changing and the Army's new love affair with INF-busting weapons
Conclusion?
Glossary: PLA = People's Liberation Army = the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, or China PLAN = People's Liberation Army Navy = the naval forces of the PLA PLANAF = People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force = the air force of the navy of the PLA Ashm = Anti-ship missile, cruise missile unless specifically described as otherwise--there's only one anti-ship ballistic missile in existence and its efficacy and whether or not it functions is questionable CIWS = close-in weapons system, like the Phalanx gun or Goalkeeper VLS = vertical launch system for missiles AEGIS = Aegis Combat System if described specifically in that context, a US naval warfare system, but we'll usually be talking about "Chinese AEGIS", which is a nomiker used by the Chinese media in particular comparing the Type 346 radar to the AN-SPY family, with which it shares numerous technical characteristics--but how comparable the "Chinese AEGIS" system is to what the US uses is a complete unknown. SAM = Surface-to-air missile, in this case usually a S-300 derivative First Island Chain = The islands, stretching from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, which keep China inside its littoral seas much as the GIUK [Greenland-Iceland-UK] gap has kept various continental powers out of the Atlantic. Some PLAN equipment you might see described--the nomenclature is confusing and a relic of the cultural revolution, and as a result China now has more Types than the British. Type 003 = China's new conventionally powered supercarriers, currently under construction Type 002 = China's first truly "operational" carrier Type 001 = China's first carrier, built on a Soviet hull purchased from Ukraine ostensibly to make a floating casino Type 055 = Guided-missile cruiser, though generally called a destroyer it's probably more descriptively labeled a cruiser Type 052D = Guided-missile destroyer using "Chinese AEGIS" Type 052/051B/052B/052C = the gradual progression of evolving Chinese naval tech, largely built as practice/demo ships like the Type 001. Some of the earlier ones are steam-powered but by the Type 052C you have something almost as advanced as the Type 052D, albeit with turbine problems Type 054A = the standard modern frigate of the PLAN Type 053[anything] = old PLAN frigates Type 096 = China's newest SSBN class, under construction Type 094 = China's first functional SSBN class, very noisy Type 092 = China's first "SSBN", believed to have never left port with an actual nuke on board Type 095 = China's newest SSN class, under construction Type 093 = China's current SSN class, noisy Type 091 = China's first SSN class, dumb dumb dumb and is at a 1950s tech level Type 039[A] = China's new SSK class Kilo = China's older SSK class, imported from Russia Sovremenny = China's first capable anti-air destroyers, imported from Russia
1. The Last Time A Rising Navy Challenged A Dominant Foe
The last time we've seen something like this was in the late 19th century. After the First World War shipbuilding was restricted by the landmark Washington Naval Treaty, one of the first great arms control treaties, and during the Cold War the Soviet Union never really had any hopes of surpassing American naval power. China, however, seems intent on replacing the US as the world's dominant naval power, or at least building a force that can stop the US Navy, even combined with the forces of Japan and other regional allies. The nations in question, of course, in the last naval arms race, were the United Kingdom and a newly-unified Germany. Germany never reached the level of the UK, but seriously threatened it. Previously the UK had maintained a policy of having more ships than the next two largest fleets combined, but this was no longer possible, and the UK legitimately was fearful for its naval supremacy. It didn't last too long in the end--under a decade--and a resumption was foiled by first a world war and then the Washington Naval Treaty. The impact of the arms race, though, was massive. It set Germany and the UK at odds with each other, it resulted in a general buildup of warships pretty much everywhere [South America was, believe it or not, one of the biggest offenders there], established Germany for a time as the world's second naval power, having eclipsed both France and Russia and turning a small coastal defense navy into something that was able to defeat the Royal Navy itself, though never comprehensively enough to change the course of the first world war. China dwells in a much different situation than Germany did at the turn of the last century, so we can only extend the analogy so far--substituting in Japan for the UK, India for Russia, and so on is possible but not, in my view, educational. However, we can see many of the same elements playing in here. China seems intent on replacing the US as a dominant power, or at least as regional hegemon--the ancient tributary system seems to lie fairly heavily on Chinese minds--and in order to do that, it must be able to have some degree of power projection and the capability to deny the US Navy access to areas within the first island chain. It remains to be seen, however, how successful that quest will be. Much as with the dreadnought battleships, I wouldn't be surprised if we never actually do find out if most of the shiny naval toys people have built actually work. But their mere existence shows the mutual hostility developing in the region and demonstrates the size of the Chinese threat. Another lesson learned here is that China, like Germany, may not develop a naval force capable of defeating the US comprehensively, but only partially, and that one of the powers--in this case, China--might be pressured to strike first before the US Navy can close the gap. That ~2030 gap I talked about in my last post is, I think, an especially vulnerable point, because China may look at a degraded, but rejuvenating US Navy, then at their own capable forces, and decide to strike then in Taiwan and the South China Sea, only to back down when the US Navy again eclipses them. Whether or not that will happen, we will see--but I find it a very dangerous and perhaps likely possibility.
2. What the PLAN looked like 20 years ago
The PLAN has undergone an absolutely stunning evolution in the past two decades. In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis the US could intimidate China with a pair of aircraft carrier strike groups and China could do pretty much nothing about it. Now the US is afraid of sending anything more than a destroyer through the strait. Twenty years ago, the PLAN was a bit of a joke. Even Taiwan figured it could hold the seas against the PLAN. It consisted of a few tens of outdated coastal-defense frigates, some Soviet-era diesel-electric subs, and a large number of unsophisticated missile craft. The pride of the Chinese fleet were a handful of destroyers assembled using cobbled-together Western technology--copied French missiles, American gas turbines, the lot. According to American accounts at the time, the instructions for the equipment hadn't even been translated. The most advanced ship in the fleet used steampower. There were nuclear submarines, but of 1950s quality. Of particular note was the fact that the Chinese fleet had no area air defense capabilities--their premier surface-to-air-missile was an unlicensed knockoff of the French Crotale, and couldn't shoot anything outside of visual range, at high altitudes, or really doing anything more sophisticated than trying to kill their ships with low-altitude dumb bombing runs. In the past twenty years, however, the PLAN has, much like the German Navy towards the end of the 19th century, gone from an afterthought to the world's second most powerful force. It began, as modern China's military capabilities almost all began, with the looting of the former Soviet Union for naval technology. While Soviet naval tech was generally lacking, it was much better than anything else China could get its hands on after the arms embargo placed on it in the 1990s by the US and Europe in response to Tienanmen and the end of the Cold War. China bought Soviet diesel submarines, Soviet air-defense destroyers, and Soviet aircraft carriers, which it promptly left lying around [and turned one of them into a theme park]. This was combined with copies of various pieces of Western, mostly European, technology for everything from sonars to surface-to-air missiles. China then began developing its first modern indigenous surface combatants, the Type 052C, but there were still problems. The engines were Ukrainian and had reliability trouble, the gun jammed, there was no VLS. It is really in the last ten years that things have begun to move extremely quickly, and even only in the latter portion of the decade. In 2012 the Type 001 Liaoning entered service, and although it remains more of a training ship than an operational vessel, and is held back by a poor carrier aircraft, the mere fact that China "built" a carrier was a surprise to many. In 2014 the first Type 052D destroyer came online. It had learned the lessons from the Type 052C, and in just the last six years at least ten have entered service, with a class size of about 23 expected. This rapid expansion is what has frightened competing navies the most--in a little over a decade, the PLAN is constructing more destroyers than the British, French, and Australian navies have in service combined. It is also building the Type 055, which has generally been called a "destroyer" despite being more aptly described as a cruiser in line with the Ticonderoga-class. China has also built 30 modern frigates in the past decade, which has also swelled its numbers, along with numerous smaller corvettes, submarines, and so on. This is why the PLAN has become such an object of concern. While it cannot challenge the US Navy yet, at least outside its littoral zones, the decline of the USN and rapid expansion of the PLAN means that it is a serious threat. And the speed at which it has developed has made many fearful. As recently as 2010, the idea of China operating an aircraft carrier or modern destroyers seemed distant, possibly preposterous. Now China speaks openly of having a six-carrier fleet in the 2030s, although, as with many of China's plans to operate full US-replicated tech and doctrine, these may have somewhat caved to realism. China is mighty, but it has already done the easy part--the last part is much harder, in economics and in military matters. Building the software, the institutional knowledge, the hardware to compete with the US Navy will prove difficult.
3. What the PLAN looks like now--submarines
Submarines are one of the PLAN's weak spots, particularly nuclear submarines. China is, however, making some fairly rapid advances in this area. Their nuclear submarine program has been considered a bit of a joke for some time. In the late 1950s when all the cool kids great powers were getting nuclear submarines, China decided [or at least Mao did] that China needed nuclear submarines too. About 16 years later, the product of this effort finally emerged as the Type 091 submarine. Based on 1950s technology, with poor radiation shielding and basically nothing done in the name of noise reduction, and not even a teardrop hull, the Type 091 was probably more of a threat to the sailors who were on it than anyone else, except maybe the two Tench-class submarines that Taiwan operates, which use 1940s technology and are the world's longest-serving submarines, though they're mostly used for training nowadays. Even then, my money would be on the Tench despite the upgrades the PLAN has made to the Type 091. There's only so much you can do to put lipstick on a pig. China also produced an SSBN, the Type 092, which was probably the only submarine more useless than the Type 091. About the only useful thing it did for the PLAN was that it served as a test platform for SLBM launches. Reports suggest that the Type 092 is the noisiest SSBN ever made, and is thought to have only ever undertaken a single patrol. It stayed at port for so long that it was thought to have sunk in an accident. And the experience turned the PLAN off from building SSBNs for over twenty years, until the Type 094 came online in 2007. More recent submarines are growing in capability, though. The Type 094 is not the noisiest SSBN ever made, and may not even be the noisiest in current service--that honor going to the Delta III operated by the Russian Navy, which uses 1970s technology, and, which, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence, is about as noisy as the Type 094. The Type 093 is also moderately capable--it actually functions and can fire anti-ship missiles. However, the Type 093 is still considered only comparable to the Soviet Victor III class, again using 1970s technology. Future submarines have not yet been seen, but expectations are that China will make another step forward to late 1980s or early 1990s tech levels, producing something on par with the Los Angeles or Akula for the first time. China also operates a fairly capable fleet of coastal diesel-electric submarines. While some are quite old--the Type 035--most are pretty average for the global submarine force, a mix of Kilos and domestic AIP designs. The large number of boats in operation and their anti-ship missile capability means that these should be considered a real threat, at least in the littoral waters near to China, but they aren't decisive by any means, especially since China is facing off against such threats as Japan's Soryu class, probably the most advanced diesel-electric sub in existence. In conclusion, the PLAN is still pretty weak on the submarine front--weaker here than on anything but its carrier force, but its capabilities are advancing rapidly and should not be underestimated.
4. What the PLAN looks like now--surface combatants
The surface fleet is definitely the most impressive and capable portion of the PLAN, no questions about it. China once had a fleet consisting mostly of coastal frigates and missile boats. As recently as 2000, its fleet had no real area-air-defense destroyers, and no SAMs that could operate outside visual range. Now, though, the PLAN operates tens of advanced guided-missile destroyers, advanced frigates, and still retains a large number of small, stealthy missile boats. The major focus of Chinese warships appears to be on anti-air, with anti-surface being a somewhat secondary concern for all but the smallest vessels. This makes sense when you realize that the primary focus is, at least for the moment, on using land-based aircraft to strike against hostile fleet formations using long-range anti-ship missiles, in a very Soviet sort of way--"Backfire raids" using long-range land-based aircraft with anti-ship missiles were one of the US Navy's major concerns during the Cold War, and the very reason for the F-14's existence along with the AIM-54 Phoenix it carried. However, China has been developing anti-surface capabilities as well using ashms and land-attack cruise missiles [generally the same thing, actually]. Since China has finally developed a VLS system that allows it to use the same launcher for multiple missiles, its most recent ships have become more versatile in that role. How effective these ships are at that task is, however, a relatively open question. Their radars at least seem to quite sophisticated, using flat-panel AESA, and have been dubbed "Chinese AEGIS" by the highly reliable Chinese domestic media. The basic platform their surface-to-air missiles are based on also seems to be fairly capable--the HQ-9 is an S-300 derivative, a respectable SAM system though, again, how capable it is against opponents in an active electronic warfare environment is questionable, and it has basically no capabilities against stealth aircraft like the F-35 as far as anyone knows. The efficacy of their CIWS, again, is open to question. Really this is true of everything about the modern PLAN, and PLA in general. The PLA is secretive, has not exported most of its hardware, and has developed largely independently of foreign militaries, though it is definitely influenced by them. Now that the PLAN has moved away from simply copying foreign hardware and patching it together, its capabilities are much harder to discern. However, they should be taken as a very real threat, and not written off. My guess would be that their warships are about as capable as most of their non-American counterparts, save those equipped with AEGIS, but that's all my guess is---a guess.
5. What the PLAN looks like now--carriers
The PLAN currently has two carriers in service, and two more known to be under construction, and most suspect that it will build several more. However, at the moment, the PLAN's carrier force is largely a paper tiger, designed around training. The first carrier, the Type 001, basically was a "how do you build a carrier" kit bought from Russia, possibly by accident--the "fully functional" Minsk ended up as a theme park, believe it or not. The hull was purchased from Ukraine and then completed in China years later. It is also believed that the PLAN may have learned some things about aircraft carriers from the HMAS Melbourne, which was sold to a Chinese firm for scrapping--rumor has it the PLAN had no clue this had happened and then had a field day looking at all the stuff that hadn't been taken out. This was back in the old days when nobody could imagine that China would have an aircraft carrier. The Type 002, however, is built from scratch, but isn't particularly capable especially as it's a ski-jump carrier, leaving the Type 003 the first carrier which will prove actually useful. The main thing holding China's carrier fleet back, though, is a lack of a suitable aircraft. Originally China was considering purchasing Su-33s from Russia, hardly a good carrier-based aircraft but functional, but after Russia discovered that China had been mucking about building a Su-27 derivative without asking the deal fell through [China tells a different story, saying that Russia demanded exorbitant amounts to reopen production which it was unwilling to pay for a nearly obsolete aircraft]. As a result China operates the J-15 as its naval fighter, with... less than stellar results. It's extremely heavy, and, if it takes off from the carrier, has minimal range if carrying anything at all--it can't take more than two short range air to air missiles into the sky to fight enemy aircraft. However, the J-15 isn't really intended for combat service--it's intended to teach China how to run carriers, and it seems to work well enough for that task, aside from the multiple fatal crashes. There is, however, thought to be a new carrier fighter in the pipeline--most say the J-31/FC-31, which has reduced RCS and a number of carrier-unique features, is being pitched as a carrier-based aircraft and will serve as China's carrier fighter in the future. China also lacks any fixed wing carrier-based airborne early warning, which could prove troublesome--a lack of AEW means that its view is limited by the horizon--and has no resupply aircraft like the C-2 Greyhound. As a result, for the moment at least, China lacks an effective carrier force, but it is likely to continue developing rapidly in the next decade and become a fairly substantial threat. Remember that as recently as 2010, a Chinese aircraft carrier seemed preposterous to many people, and now they have two.
6. Some attention to land-based aircraft
Land-based aircraft as a naval weapon are not generally used by the US, which has never had a reason to develop them as a doctrinal focus. Sure, you could potentially envision them as being used, and there even were situations where they were utilized, but it just wasn't generally a priority or how things were done. For China, though, taking influence from the Soviets, and lying on littoral seas with hostile powers in the First Island Chain, land-based aircraft and missiles are a key part of doctrine. Although this is often viewed as a new thing, called A2/AD [anti access/area denial], it's really the result of a long historical evolution of naval power, probably most refined by the Soviet Union. As a result, land-based naval aviation plays an important role, firing anti-ship missiles at standoff distances at enemy vessels, and shore-based launchers of anti-ship missiles are also an important weapon. The combination of these systems means that venturing within China's littoral seas is a dangerous proposition during war, and some waters, like those of the Taiwan Strait, are effectively considered closed at this point in the event of hostilities breaking out. For this reason air superiority is also important in this sort of naval warfare, as if either side gains air superiority it can pummel its opponents with air-launched anti-ship missiles. China's capabilities in this area are sophisticated and should not be underestimated, but they are unlikely to go through a rapid period of growth like the PLAN's fleet. And a brief note dedicated entirely to the DF-21D "Carrier killer" that the PLA likes to show off. It's a pretty impressive capability, on paper, using a ballistic missile to hit a carrier. The CEP [circular error probable] means that it could even happen, presuming that an aircraft carrier was good enough to sit in one place, not moving, long enough to be detected by China. Aircraft carriers look big, but the seas are huge, and they're surprisingly hard to find. They also move quite fast, in excess of of 35mph/55kph, and thus by the time the ballistic missile has launched it might well be out of range given the fact that ballistic missiles are not particularly known for their maneuverability in terminal stages, at least not in the realm of miles. The DF-21D is not a particular threat to the modern aircraft carrier. It could potentially be one if it evolves into a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, but that's a whole additional can of worms, that I might address a different day.
7. The PLAN's plans for the future--what will it look like in 2030?
Unfortunately the PLAN is not exactly the most open of navies, as I've repeatedly mentioned. There are no public debates over acquisitions programs, no big fleet shape plans, relatively little detail. However, a few things are fairly sure bets or publicly announced. China has repeatedly announced plans to build a six-carrier force, including the Type 001 and Type 002, but also a pair of Type 003 [already under construction] conventionally powered supercarriers and a pair of Type 004 nuclear powered supercarriers. However, it seems that the Type 004 is currently on hold. Why, exactly, is unclear, but it seems to be technical difficulties, which are not particularly surprising given that China's experience with nuclear maritime propulsion seem to be rather limited and have had poor results in their submarine fleet. The costs were also expected to be too high--China does not have an unlimited quantity of money, despite what it may flaunt, and nuclear carriers are expensive to develop especially given that China has not built a nuclear-powered surface ship before. A new carrier-based fighter is almost certainly in the cards because the J-15 is pretty much useless. The FC-31 seems by far the most likely candidate but it could be another aircraft we haven't seen yet. The addition of this aircraft will greatly improve the PLAN's capabilities. China also has two Type 075 amphibious assault ships/LHDs under construction, and I would expect this class to be much more prolific. These ships are much more affordable than the full carriers, and focus on areas in which China is particularly concerned--amphibious assaults, say, on islands in the South China Sea or on Taiwan, and anti-submarine warfare, which is of particular importance given that submarines cannot be easily halted with land-based anti-ship missiles and air-launched cruise missiles provided for in their area denial doctrine--submarines are one of the few things that can slip through that net. The surface combatant fleet is likely to continue growing, but I am not sure if it will swell much beyond the ~23 Type 052D ships planned and the 8 Type 055s. We're likely to see the retirement of the classes preceding the Type 052C destroyer and the Type 054 frigate, and they may be offloaded to Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Pakistan--there is substantial precedent here, and it seems that China is interested in expanding the naval capabilities of its partners around India. The submarine fleet is likely to see rapid expansion if the PLAN is satisfied with the Type 095 and Type 096 classes, and we're likely to see more diesel-electric subs built as well. Submarines are generally quite good at fighting submarines and conducting area-denial missions, and the large and capable subsurface forces of Japan, Korea, and the United States means that this has to be an area the PLAN invests more in--and the fact that several Southeast Asian nations are also looking at acquiring submarines makes the issue more pressing.
8. Conclusion
China has in the past decade gone from a third-rate navy to perhaps the greatest threat the US Navy has faced since the Second World War. This has significant geopolitical implications, and has resulted in neighbors scrambling to overhaul their naval forces. The growth of the PLAN means that the US can no longer easily defend Taiwan or the South China Sea, or any of China's littoral waters. This, more than anything else, is what has everyone scrambling in the US talking about "great-power competition" because denying access to the US Navy and working on power projection, an inherently naval thing, is essentially a clear sign that China is looking to directly compete with the United States. Underestimate the PLAN at your own peril. I hope to have more detail and citations in future posts, but unfortunately the PLAN is very secretive [yes, I've said that fifty times already] and this is a pretty big topic to discuss without going into details about all sorts of naval tidbits. Thanks for reading the fourth post in what I hope will be a fairly substantial series, probably around ~12 posts.
This rally is a mirage, we are only in the beginning stages of this recession
TL;DR at the bottom Hi guys, with the market rallying 20% from its "bottom", many people are expressing the sentiment that we should buy back into the market again because the "fed" or the "government" won't allow stocks to crash. We will for sure see unprecedented actions taken by the fed and the government because they have both the motive and the political capital to enact such policies. However, I think this is a misguided reason to believe the market is currently making its "real" rally. I am not not a permabear nor am I a permabull. I just try to objectively analyze the facts, apply a healthy dose of margin of safety, and then see if my conclusions are actionable. For example, I posted my thesis on why we will enter a serious global economic downturn on Feb 9th 10 days before it happened. At the time we were at the height of the biggest bull market in our history, and I had gotten a lot of attacks on my thesis leading up to me consolidating my thoughts: https://www.reddit.com/China_Flu/comments/f1fm6y/the_world_economy_will_enter_a_serious_downturn/ I continued adding more thoughts on things like the potential efficacy of Chloroquine 2 weeks before Trump announced it in a press conference and the media picked up on it, the potential collapse of American oil producers before the price war happened, casinos going under, helicopter money, bailouts, etc all before they were announced or the markets priced them in here: https://www.reddit.com/China_Flu/comments/fede69/continued_thoughts_on_the_global_economic_impact/ And finally I talked about an upcoming inflection point coincidentally moments before Trump first announced Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine and 2 trading days before the "bottom" of the market: https://www.reddit.com/stocks/comments/fleh7e/incoming_inflection_point_for_general_market/ So I'm perfectly happy to make bearish calls or bullish calls, they are dependent variables of independent and unbiased analysis. I hope I made a reasonable case for why I am not personally biased (although, for the sake of humanity, I do wish for progress and prosperity of course). I think the market rally is largely a mirage, and we are not getting correct pricings. The rally is probably driven by two main sources:
Capital displacement from monetary action
Incorrect earnings modeling based on improper historic precedent.
So the capital displacement is relatively simple: If you're seeking shelter in "risk free" investments that has some yields, you're now competing with a buyer (federal reserve) that prints hundreds of billions up to whatever it wants. They're literally squeezing out capital from the finite treasuries. If you want riskier high quality corporate bonds, the fed will be there. If you want even equities, you're going to face competition for them in the future. At least that's what former chairwoman Jenet Yellen recently said about the possibility of expanding their powers to buy equities. So money is getting squeezed into a smaller and smaller relative portion of the financial markets, and the artificial demand is driving yields down and prices up. I could write a whole thread about this, but let's stick with the explanation of price movement. The second main reason for the recent rally is from institutional investors who are incorrectly modeling earnings/yield of equities. So the logic here is: trillions are injected into the economy (fiscal injections), those trillions will become earnings for companies at some multiplier of the original stimulus over x amount of time, and if we add this number to the unstimulated estimated earnings, we can model future earnings. My issue with this model, is on two main assumptions: The first assumption is the length of disruption caused by the threat of this virus. This virus is not going to stop its serious disruption of behavior from economic actors. Especially not in a country like the US where the majority of people have a massive financial disincentive to seek out healthcare. Here's my logic: For months I've been praising the governments and response of South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. With Taiwan being the absolute best at handling the virus. However, I have also been using them as my leading indicators for how the virus will progress and affect economic actors. What I have seen developing lately is not good. Singapore is now calling for a shutdown, after they initially did a herculean job of containing their outbreak. I had hoped that they would develop procedures (that we can copy) needed to run an open economy while the threat of the virus looms in the background. But that is not what has happened. Instead, we are seeing growing numbers of new clusters forming, and quickly getting out of control. They are tightening and shutting down their economy rather than opening up more. This is our leading indicator. A government far more responsible and effective than us is resorting to shutting down. Taiwan is faring better, but only because of their prohibitive ban on almost all foreign travelers (this is obviously devastating to their tourism sector and broader economy). Their economy and society remains open, with many if not most people having hardly any interruptions to their lives (aside from mask wearing). They are one of only 3 countries where all children are still going to school. However, even their economy is faltering as they try to balance the prohibitive actions needed to contain the virus and the economic need to keep things open. They are proposing an unprecedented stimulus/rescue package to bolster their economy. And I think it's a safe assumption that if they ever do open up to foreign travelers again, especially with covid19 having proliferated as it already has, then they will have to deal with massive outbreak clusters all over their island. South Korea, which has probably the relatable and relevant model for us to copy, has recently extended its social distance campaign. South Korea is a far larger nation than Singapore or Taiwan. They have a climate similar to Seattle/New York. They had a major outbreak in Deagu but didn't shut their country down. They never even banned Chinese travelers, yes, they had Chinese tourists in their country while the outbreak was happening. They were among the first to widely use Hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine as a treatment for Covid19. They had among the lowest fatality rates. They contained their outbreak without shutting the whole country down. Even South Korea can't truly return to normal and open their economy up. So why, in our incredible American exceptionalism hubris, and far less competent leaders, do we believe we're going to come anywhere close to normalcy in the near future? Let's look at the next assumption, that fiscal stimulus would end up as earnings for companies. There's no doubt some will end up as earnings, but only a small fraction of what is being modeled by those on Wall Street. The average American don't even have $1000 in emergency funds, do we expect them to return to their normal consumption habits when they risk having hospital bills multiples of $1000 just from walking past the wrong person? Do you think Americans, as much as they love to spend, aren't going to put some of that stimulus check in their emergency funds rather than contribute it to the earning of some companies? Sure, there will be some "forced" spending of the money (food and necessities), but if anyone is modeling the multiplier effect from previous data, then they really don't appreciate how different this virus makes things. Even in the GFC, laid off people didn't really worry about the heightened threat of being hospitalized. Finally, some investors believe the Fed and the government literally will do anything to keep the numbers up. If this is true, you should be buying silver (or gold), not stocks. Monetary actions can be reversed relatively easily. They are far more dynamic tools. Fiscal actions are not. You put money in the hands of spenders, that money is gonna circulate. And you really don't have an easy way of reversing that. If we think the government is going to keep handing out stimulus checks, grants to businesses, and other fiscal stimulus, then the inflation predicted from the GFC will come true for this crisis. The fall out of inflation will be difficult to truly understand. But I do think inflation will be disruptive enough to the economy that inflation hedge assets will outperform other assets at least in the short term. For example, if inflation goes to 5%, who's going to lend to companies for less than inflation? With costlier debt, equity yield goes down, and again, what investor wants yields less than inflation? Inflation is going to cause all kinds of disruptions. I think the disruptions will come down to less liquidity (credit will vanish with uncertain inflation) and higher economic friction (less efficiency). So if the response to why the market has to go up is continuous fiscal (and some monetary) actions to prop up spending and earnings, then the question is how will fiscal actions be reversed? How do we get that money out after things go back to "normal"? I think if we see equities rise from here, it'll be reflective of inflation rather than inflation-adjusted earnings. Silver would be the play here. I have a lot more thoughts on this, especially on the time it takes to turn the gears of the financial system and why the inertia is moving us deeper into global recession, not out of it, but I'm running out of time and must end here. TL;DR this is a fake rally, and if anyone really expects prices to continue rallying, buy silver instead
Guide: How I finished Huuuge Casino Level 200 (Rev Uni, 6000 SB) in just 3 days
Proof: https://preview.redd.it/xb9iqs5zlob51.png?width=1416&format=png&auto=webp&s=c952b5e5d5a6e582de865619558eac4c29410008 3 days ago, Revenue Universe had their double campaign and Huuuge Casino worth jumped from 3000 to 6000. It may have been higher on other sites or wall, but this was the first time I saw it this high. I actually failed this offer a month back on IOS for 5200 because I ran out of chips at around level 49 and just decided to quit. I decided to bite the bullet on this one, despite my failure, and decided to retry it (this time on Android). To my surprise, 3 days later, I was able to reach level 200. I have also included tips at the bottom of page for anyone who just want to know stuff like how to not run out of chips, when to use your lottery tickets, how much to bet, etc. IMPORTANT EDIT: This is unconfirmed because I haven't checked on it but according to a few users, Huuuge Casino and other similar casino games have a small safeguard secret prize before level 50 that grants you chips during some level ups when you are under 20 million so it is almost impossible to lose all your chips. That way, you can max bet all the way to level 50 and if you are lucky, you may end up with a few hundred million of chips by then (again I haven't confirmed this yet, but I'm currently doing the Billionaire Casino offer (which is literally a carbon copy of Huuge Casino and vice versa in terms of slot machine, layout, etc) and this seems to be a thing. In terms of the hundred of millions of chips part, that is all dependent on Jackpot luck so take that part with a grain of salt).
Some stats
Time it took me
62 hours. If you did the simple math, that means of the 3 days I used to finish this offer. my android phone was on most of the time. The only time my phone wasn't on was during the last few hours when I was asleep because it turned off while I was spinning on Huuuge Diamond since I didn't want the offer to credit in the middle of the night. However, there is a catch. I used an auto clicker and bought the chips necessary to complete the offer. My phone didn't get all that hot during the 62 hours it was on, but just in case, if you are going to be like me and keep a phone on for 62 hours straight, be sure the phone is lying on something cool like a fan so the phone doesn't overheat.
Other apps used
Yes, I used an auto clicker. Otherwise, it would've taken a lot longer, more attention, and mind-numbingly frustrating. More info about that down below. For the autoclicker, I just downloaded the one that was the first result off of the play store. It was very simple too use.
Amount of chips used
Overall, I had about maybe 1.5-1.6 billion chips in total and used about 1-1.1 billion chips to get to level 200. I don't know if I was lucky or not, so this number can be lower or higher depending on luck but if you buy the 6.99 or 9.99 chip pack, there won't be much of a problem.
How much money spent
I spent on the 9.99 beginners pack that gave 1.3 billion chips, making for a 50 dollar profit. According to other posts I've seen, there seems to be a 6.99 pack you can get once you hit level 100 which should be enough chips to get to 200, but I never received the deal for some reason and I didn't seem to be the only one. Was it worth it? If you are impatient like me, using 10 dollars instead of spending days grinding out 1 billion chips sounds worth it in my book. However, for those who do not want to spend money, this offer can still be easily completed without spending money. Just be prepared to grind out a little over a billion chips.
My Level Breakdown
Here's a breakdown of what I did, but if you've read other posts regarding Huuuge Casino, this is mainly going to be repeat information. Level 1-50 (Or when you have 100-125 million chips): Huuuge Diamond slot. EDIT: This section maybe obsolete if the secret prize is a confirmed feature. If that is the case, just max bet to level 50, but the amount of chips you will receive will vary. If you want to stay safe, then just 10k bet. In exchange for time, you'll have a more stable end outcome. This is where I spent my time for the first 50 levels. As to the reason why, on Huuuge Diamond, you can auto spin indefinitely. Nothing will stop the autospin, not even the level up notifications or the charm packs they give you every stupid milestone level up. I realized this when I forgot to check my phone after 6 hours and it was still going at it, so I left it over night and in the morning, it was still spinning. I would say it took me 30 hours or so to get to level 50 (just my estimate since I wasn't really diligently timing everything) To the people who already finished this offer, they may be wondering "why 50 and not 65? 65 is when the Singapore Roulette opens up." The answer to that was because when I hit level 50, I had about 143 million chips (how I got this much will be explained in the tips, but it's honestly really simple. I never went over a 10k bid) and xp from slots is extremely slow. That's why once you hit maybe 125 million chips or so, it is good to switch to the Melbourne Roulette. By the way, SAVE YOUR TICKETS UNTIL YOU REACH LEVEL 100. According to another post I read, the rewards from the lottery is increased once you hit level 100 so it's best to save your lottery tickets until then. Level 50-65: Melbourne roulette. Go to the roulette menu and hold down on the Melbourne roulette to start a private room. Bet half on red and half on black. That way, you will only lose if it hits the only 2 greens on the roulette. The max bid here is 1 million, so with over 100 million chips, you shouldn't be hurting for chips. This part, unlike the slots, should go by like it's nothing (I don't remember how long, but probably 1-3 hours). This was also around the time I started using the auto clicker because it will become tedious to tap on re-bet and ready every 5 seconds. With the autoclicker, for these 15 or so levels, you don't have to pay ANY attention if you don't want to. But once you reach level 65, it's time to move onto the final step. Level 65-200: Singapore roulette. Around this time, I lost maybe 10 million chips from 50-65, so I was down to 133-134 million. Over here, max bet is 10 million, so put 5 million on red and 5 million on black. This was enough to get me to level 120 surprisingly, but at level 100, I started spinning in the lottery so I received more chips there and a 24 hour 2x experience bonus so that should also be taken into account (I also had a small unlucky streak where it green 2 times in a row a couple of times within 7 or spins so that was frustrating...). At level 120, I spent 9.99 to buy a pack that had 1.3 billion chips in. For those who do not want to spend money, this is where the grind begins for 1 billion chips. Earlier on in these levels, it will be easier to level up and it will take longer to level up as you go higher, but honestly, it isn't that bad until it level 190. I don't know if it was just me, but level 190 to 200 felt waaaaay longer than level 180-190. For those of you curious, from level 199 to level 200, it took around 22-25 minute. In terms of leftover chips, I had 680 million left.
Tips
Join a good club! For those of you who don't want to spend money and for those who do, this is one of the most important rules as you can get a lot of free chips easily from your club members jackpots. I was able to get maybe 60 million or more just from collecting off the club wall because my club was fairly active. While searching for a club, filter your search options to Club level 20, anyone can join, and club members between 90-100. Even if there is only 10-15 members active in the club out of 100, that is still a good club to be a part in. Do not use your tickets until you reach level 100. Your winnings from lottery will increase once you hit level 100. After using your tickets, you will most likely get a 2x exp bonus as one of your rewards. Use this time well (From level 100-200, I got 3 2x exp bonuses. With all the lottery tickets accumulated up till this point, you\re bound to get at least 1). Probably obvious, but do not bet more than 10k on Huuuge Diamond. I can not stress this enough. The reason why I lost all my chips the first time I did this offer was because I was cocky and kept winning big with 50-100k bids, but that soon went down the gutter the higher level I got. Bet low, win high. My slot machine of choice was Huuuge Diamond, but I think, honestly, any machine with a 10k bid can work, but I am not sure on this. I think this is also a good one to grind chips. I think the max jackpot, if you don't get the main jackpot on the top of the screen, is 1.6 million with a 10k bid, so it is still respectable. If anyone else knows of a better machine to grind on, please let us all know. This website https://gamehunters.club/huuuge-casino/share-links gives you free chips if redeemed on the device you are playing Huuuge Casino on. I honestly did not need to use this site as the chips I bought were enough and the site lags my already super slow phone so it was a hassle to click on the reward, open the app to claim, and switch back. I may have forgotten to add some things, so if anything comes up, I'll be sure to update. This was meant to give people a sort of guideline to an offer that I have seen given some people frustration (me included because this is the second time I did it, first time being unsuccessful). Once I hit 200, I was instantly credited with no pending. For those willing to spend for the $6.99 or $9.99 pack, this offer can be completed between 60-70 hours, give or take. For those who do not want to spend money, I would say to double the expected time, but finishing in 2 weeks is still doable. Good luck everyone and I hope this guide lightens a bit off your shoulders. P.S. Sorry for the long guide. I talk a lot lol
This rally is a mirage, we are only in the beginning stages of this recession
TL;DR at the bottom Hi guys, with the market rallying 20% from its "bottom", many people are expressing the sentiment that we should buy back into the market again because the "fed" or the "government" won't allow stocks to crash. We will for sure see unprecedented actions taken by the fed and the government because they have both the motive and the political capital to enact such policies. However, I think this is a misguided reason to believe the market is currently making its "real" rally. I am not not a permabear nor am I a permabull. I just try to objectively analyze the facts, apply a healthy dose of margin of safety, and then see if my conclusions are actionable. For example, I posted my thesis on why we will enter a serious global economic downturn on Feb 9th 10 days before it happened. At the time we were at the height of the biggest bull market in our history, and I had gotten a lot of attacks on my thesis leading up to me consolidating my thoughts: https://www.reddit.com/China_Flu/comments/f1fm6y/the_world_economy_will_enter_a_serious_downturn/ I continued adding more thoughts on things like the potential efficacy of Chloroquine 2 weeks before Trump announced it in a press conference and the media picked up on it, the potential collapse of American oil producers before the price war happened, casinos going under, helicopter money, bailouts, etc all before they were announced or the markets priced them in here: https://www.reddit.com/China_Flu/comments/fede69/continued_thoughts_on_the_global_economic_impact/ And finally I talked about an upcoming inflection point coincidentally moments before Trump first announced Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine and 2 trading days before the "bottom" of the market: https://www.reddit.com/stocks/comments/fleh7e/incoming_inflection_point_for_general_market/ So I'm perfectly happy to make bearish calls or bullish calls, they are dependent variables of independent and unbiased analysis. I hope I made a reasonable case for why I am not personally biased (although, for the sake of humanity, I do wish for progress and prosperity of course). I think the market rally is largely a mirage, and we are not getting correct pricings. The rally is probably driven by two main sources:
Capital displacement from monetary action
Incorrect earnings modeling based on improper historic precedent.
So the capital displacement is relatively simple: If you're seeking shelter in "risk free" investments that has some yields, you're now competing with a buyer (federal reserve) that prints hundreds of billions up to whatever it wants. They're literally squeezing out capital from the finite treasuries. If you want riskier high quality corporate bonds, the fed will be there. If you want even equities, you're going to face competition for them in the future. At least that's what former chairwoman Jenet Yellen recently said about the possibility of expanding their powers to buy equities. So money is getting squeezed into a smaller and smaller relative portion of the financial markets, and the artificial demand is driving yields down and prices up. I could write a whole thread about this, but let's stick with the explanation of price movement. The second main reason for the recent rally is from institutional investors who are incorrectly modeling earnings/yield of equities. So the logic here is: trillions are injected into the economy (fiscal injections), those trillions will become earnings for companies at some multiplier of the original stimulus over x amount of time, and if we add this number to the unstimulated estimated earnings, we can model future earnings. My issue with this model, is on two main assumptions: The first assumption is the length of disruption caused by the threat of this virus. This virus is not going to stop its serious disruption of behavior from economic actors. Especially not in a country like the US where the majority of people have a massive financial disincentive to seek out healthcare. Here's my logic: For months I've been praising the governments and response of South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. With Taiwan being the absolute best at handling the virus. However, I have also been using them as my leading indicators for how the virus will progress and affect economic actors. What I have seen developing lately is not good. Singapore is now calling for a shutdown, after they initially did a herculean job of containing their outbreak. I had hoped that they would develop procedures (that we can copy) needed to run an open economy while the threat of the virus looms in the background. But that is not what has happened. Instead, we are seeing growing numbers of new clusters forming, and quickly getting out of control. They are tightening and shutting down their economy rather than opening up more. This is our leading indicator. A government far more responsible and effective than us is resorting to shutting down. Taiwan is faring better, but only because of their prohibitive ban on almost all foreign travelers (this is obviously devastating to their tourism sector and broader economy). Their economy and society remains open, with many if not most people having hardly any interruptions to their lives (aside from mask wearing). They are one of only 3 countries where all children are still going to school. However, even their economy is faltering as they try to balance the prohibitive actions needed to contain the virus and the economic need to keep things open. They are proposing an unprecedented stimulus/rescue package to bolster their economy. And I think it's a safe assumption that if they ever do open up to foreign travelers again, especially with covid19 having proliferated as it already has, then they will have to deal with massive outbreak clusters all over their island. South Korea, which has probably the relatable and relevant model for us to copy, has recently extended its social distance campaign. South Korea is a far larger nation than Singapore or Taiwan. They have a climate similar to Seattle/New York. They had a major outbreak in Deagu but didn't shut their country down. They never even banned Chinese travelers, yes, they had Chinese tourists in their country while the outbreak was happening. They were among the first to widely use Hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine as a treatment for Covid19. They had among the lowest fatality rates. They contained their outbreak without shutting the whole country down. Even South Korea can't truly return to normal and open their economy up. So why, in our incredible American exceptionalism hubris, and far less competent leaders, do we believe we're going to come anywhere close to normalcy in the near future? Let's look at the next assumption, that fiscal stimulus would end up as earnings for companies. There's no doubt some will end up as earnings, but only a small fraction of what is being modeled by those on Wall Street. The average American don't even have $1000 in emergency funds, do we expect them to return to their normal consumption habits when they risk having hospital bills multiples of $1000 just from walking past the wrong person? Do you think Americans, as much as they love to spend, aren't going to put some of that stimulus check in their emergency funds rather than contribute it to the earning of some companies? Sure, there will be some "forced" spending of the money (food and necessities), but if anyone is modeling the multiplier effect from previous data, then they really don't appreciate how different this virus makes things. Even in the GFC, laid off people didn't really worry about the heightened threat of being hospitalized. Finally, some investors believe the Fed and the government literally will do anything to keep the numbers up. If this is true, you should be buying silver (or gold), not stocks. Monetary actions can be reversed relatively easily. They are far more dynamic tools. Fiscal actions are not. You put money in the hands of spenders, that money is gonna circulate. And you really don't have an easy way of reversing that. If we think the government is going to keep handing out stimulus checks, grants to businesses, and other fiscal stimulus, then the inflation predicted from the GFC will come true for this crisis. The fall out of inflation will be difficult to truly understand. But I do think inflation will be disruptive enough to the economy that inflation hedge assets will outperform other assets at least in the short term. For example, if inflation goes to 5%, who's going to lend to companies for less than inflation? With costlier debt, equity yield goes down, and again, what investor wants yields less than inflation? Inflation is going to cause all kinds of disruptions. I think the disruptions will come down to less liquidity (credit will vanish with uncertain inflation) and higher economic friction (less efficiency). So if the response to why the market has to go up is continuous fiscal (and some monetary) actions to prop up spending and earnings, then the question is how will fiscal actions be reversed? How do we get that money out after things go back to "normal"? I think if we see equities rise from here, it'll be reflective of inflation rather than inflation-adjusted earnings. Silver would be the play here. I have a lot more thoughts on this, especially on the time it takes to turn the gears of the financial system and why the inertia is moving us deeper into global recession, not out of it, but I'm running out of time and must end here. TL;DR this is a fake rally, and if anyone really expects prices to continue rallying, buy silver instead
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South Africa
Spain
USA and Outlying Territories
Taiwan
Turkey
Hungary
United Kingdom
Keep in mind that this list can change at any time. For that reason, we recommend you periodically check Spin Casino’s terms and conditions to see if your country has been added to the list of prohibited countries. >>Claim Free Spins Now<<
The Casino
In the following sections, we’re going to look at Spin Casino’s games. That way, you can get an idea of the games they offer so that you can decide if they’ll be a good fit for you. Unlike most casinos nowadays, Spin Casino uses only Microgaming software for its animated casino games. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s just that you won’t have the game or graphics variety that you will have at casinos that work with multiple software providers. Trust us, though; this casino is plenty good enough. Spin Casino offers a little bit of everything here including slots, video poker, and table games. They have a live dealer casino, too. Their live games come from Evolution and Ezugi, who are heavy hitters in the live gaming space. The result is a robust selection of live games. We’ll look at these later. The one confusing aspect of their casino is that there are three sections — a casino, live casino, and Vegas (casino). We’re going to list some of their games below, but we’re only going to make a distinction between their animated and live dealer games. We also noticed that their Vegas casino section doesn’t have any filters. You can’t select the type of games (slots, table games, video poker, etc.) that you want to see. This can make it tough to find the type of game you’re looking for unless you already know what it’s called. The good news is that most, if not all, of their Vegas games, are also available in their main casino. This means there’s a chance you won’t need to visit the Vegas section at all. Anyway, that covers the basics. Let’s now jump into each section and look at some specific examples of casino games you can play at Spin Casino.
Table Games
We’re going to start with Spin Casino’s table games. The following is a list of card and poker games that we found during our review.
Atlantic City Blackjack
Baccarat
Roulette
3 Card Poker
Card Climber
Classic Blackjack
Craps
Double Exposure Blackjack
European Blackjack
European Roulette
Flip Card
High-Speed Poker
Hold’em High
Vegas Downtown Blackjack
Multi Wheel Roulette
Red Dog
Super Fun 21
Vegas Strip Blackjack
Spanish Blackjack
Triple Pocket Hold’em Poker
Cyberstud
And more!
There are both pluses and minuses to Spin Casino’s table game section. We’ll start with the downsides. The most frustrating thing about their table games is that there’s no way to filter for specific games in the Vegas section. This can make it incredibly tough to find the games you want to play unless you already know what they’re called. Another thing we were sort of unimpressed with is the lack of non-blackjack and roulette games. There are not enough games to offset all the blackjack and roulette options. However, that brings us to one of the good things about their table game selection. They have lots of blackjack and roulette games. In fact, you’ll find more than 30 blackjack games and more than 10 roulette games. Some of these are merely high-stakes variants or duplicate titles with improved graphics. Even discounting those, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better selection elsewhere. Another thing we’re fans of is some of the unique games that you’ll find at Spin Casino that aren’t readily available elsewhere. For example, we can’t think of another casino that offers Triple Pocket Hold’em, Hold’em High, or Card Climber. That’s always a good thing. Table Game Testing, Graphics, and Stakes Once we were done browsing their games, we opened a few of them up to make sure they worked well and to see what their graphics and stakes are like. The graphics for the games we tested are pretty good. They’re not glossy, overly polished, or even realistic. They look more like animated games. There’s nothing wrong with that, though. They don’t make it clear the stakes you can play for. We had to manually decrease and increase our bets to figure out the limits. The stakes we found varied from $2/hand or round to as much as $1,000. But keep in mind that this may vary depending on the game you play. These aren’t bad limits — they’re higher than what many casinos offer. No t only that, but we also anticipated their live dealer casino offering even higher stakes. This means that we’re less concerned about how high the stakes are in this section of their casino. We’ll look at their live dealer section in a few minutes.
Video Poker
The next section we checked out was Spin Casino’s video poker games. Here are the games we found during our review.
Aces & Eights Poker
Aces and Faces
All Aces Poker
Deuces Wild Poker
Deuces Wild Bonus Poker
Double Double Bonus Poker
Jacks or Better Poker
All American
Bonus Poker
Deuces & Joker Poker
Joker Poker
Louisiana Double Poker
Tens or Better Poker
This is an okay selection. On top of this, you’ll find “power,” “multi-hand,” and “Gold Series” variants that you can also choose from. We counted nearly 25 poker games in their main casino. There are video poker machines in the Vegas section too, but we didn’t find anything different than what’s listed above. Testing Their Games, Graphics, and Stakes We tested a couple of their poker games during our review. The games we played had average graphics, but that’s to be expected with video poker machines. They’re not meant to be fancy. They worked great, though. We experienced no lagging or bugs. Some of them had neat features, too. For example, the machines we played offered the chance to double your winnings. When you make a winning hand, you can click the “double” button to play a mini-game to see if you can double up. Keep in mind that if you lose this game, you lose everything. The best feature, though, had to be the automatic hold. Many video poker machines will tell you when you made a winning hand so that you don’t forget to hold those cards. However, one of the machines we played automatically held the best cards according to the common video poker strategy. Now, we don’t know what strategy these machines are using or how optimal that strategy is. However, they did hold the cards we would have had this feature not existed. This is a neat option if you’re new to video poker and aren’t sure how to play optimally. As far as stakes go, we found machines that let us play for as little as $0.25 per coin to as much as $50 per round. We recommend you bet the max number of coins, though, which means your minimum bet will be $1.25. This will vary from machine to machine, though. Overall, we liked Spin Casino’s video poker section. We’d like to see more unique titles to choose from, but our opinion is that this lineup will work for most people reading this.
Slots
Next up is Spin Casino’s slot selection. They have far too many slot machines to list here, but here is a small sample to give you an idea of what you’ll be able to play.
5 Reel Drive
Snow & Sable
Amazing Aztecs
Book of Oz
Cashville
Cash of Kingdoms
Diamond Empire
Dolphin Coast
Fruit vs Candy
Halloween
Girls with Guns
Game of Thrones
Highlander
Jurassic World
Lady in Red
Kings of Cash
Hitman
Lost Vegas
Lucky Koi
Oink Country Love
Pretty Kitty
Moby Dick
Monster Wheels
Robin of Sherwood
Silver Fang
So Much Sushi
The Great Albini
The Phantom of the Opera
Tomb Raider
Win Sum Dim Sum
Fat Lady Sings
Jekyll & Hyde
Jurassic Park
The Legend of Olympus
Throne of Egypt
Steam Punk Heroes
Winning Wizards
Untamed Bengal Tiger
Old King Cole
And more!
You’ll find all these slots in the main casino. There are plenty more where this comes from too. You’ll also find more slots — including unique titles not found in the main casino — inside the Vegas section. That said, their selection of slots is much smaller than we expected considering that they work with Microgaming. We still can’t complain, though, especially after seeing some of the titles that you can play here. For example, the slots that stood out to us are the licensed/branded slots. Licensed slots are machines that revolve around IP that other companies own. This includes movies (Jurassic Park), video games (Hitman), TV shows (Game of Thrones), and more. These are fun to play because it’s highly likely that you’re going to be a fan of whatever the slot machine is about. For example, we like Jurassic Park. This means we get to kill two birds with one stone — play slots about a theme we really like. Not only that, but you can play many of these slot machines in brick-and-mortar casinos. We’ve played Game of Thrones countless times during our trips to Las Vegas. And this is just the licensed slots. You still have all the other slots that Spin Casino has to offer. This includes slots with bonus rounds, 3 and 5 reels, progressive jackpots, and features such as free spins, wilds, scatters, and more. As for stakes, they vary so much that it’s hard to give concrete numbers. That said, we found machines that allowed us to play for as little as $0.10/spin to as much as $200. Most of the machines we looked at maxed out at $30 or less, though. This means that you might have to do some digging to find the machines with higher limits. Overall, while Spin Casino’s slot section can definitely be bigger given that they’re powered by Microgaming, what they do have will be more than enough for most people. >>Claim Free Spins Now<<
Live Dealer Games
Last up is Spin Casino’s live dealer section. Here are the games we found during our review.
Dragon Tiger
Private Blackjack
Shangri La Roulette
Dream Catcher
Casino Hold’em
Baccarat
Football Studio
Roulette
Ultimate Texas Hold’em
Lightning Roulette
Infinite Blackjack
Baccarat Super 6
Evolution Party Table
This is a solid selection of live games, especially when compared to other online casinos. But that’s not a surprise since some of these games come from Evolution Gaming, who’s a heavy hitter in the live gaming space. Once you click on one of these games, you’ll be redirected to a section where you’ll find several tables to choose from (depending on the game). You’ll also find a navigation bar at the top with several filters to help you quickly find the game you want to play. The lowest stakes we found for these games is $5 for blackjack. This is sort of a bummer since some live blackjack games can be played for as little as $1. However, $5 is pretty standard for a live game, so it’s not something we can hold against them. You can play some of their other games, like baccarat or roulette, for $0.10-$1 per round. The highest stakes we found were $5,000 for blackjack, $2,000 for roulette, and as much as $5,000 for everything else. These aren’t th highest stakes online, but they should work for most people. One of the most impressive things about their games is the camera work. The different angles they use and the close-ups make it look like you’re watching a movie. Depending on the game, you can also change the camera option. For example, the roulette game lets you choose from 3D, immersive, or classic camera angles The streams were very good considering how good the camera work was. We noticed a few lags, but they didn’t take away from the game much. The resolution was pretty good regardless. Other features include the option to chat with your tablemates and the dealer, adjust the sound and camera angles, bet behind, and set up automatic actions. You can even multi-table several games at once. Overall, we’re impressed with the live dealer casino at Spin Casino. You’ll have plenty of games to choose from, stakes, features, and men and women dealers that speak different languages. We recommend you check it out. >>Claim Free Spins Now<<
The Sportsbook
Spin Casino is unique from some of the other casinos under The Palace Group brand in that they also have a sportsbook. It’s called Spin Sports. Here’s what you can expect to find if you choose to bet here.
Sports, Market, and Betting Options
Spin Sports has an excellent selection of sports that you can bet on. Here’s what we found during our review.
Soccer
Basketball
Tennis
Ice Hockey
American Football
Handball
Volleyball
Cricket
Rugby Union
Rugby League
Esports
Specials
Virtual Sports
Boxing
Gold
Badminton
Winter Sports
MMA
Darts
Snooker and Pool
Baseball
Cycling
Motor Racing
Speedway
Floorball
Table Tennis
Bandy
Aussie Rules
Surfing
Netball
Gaelic Football
Gaelic Hurling
Super Spin Specials
Many of these options have dropdown menus, too. For example, click on the soccer option, and a dropdown menu containing options such as England, Europe, Spain, Italy, and Germany will appear. This goes for many of the other options, too — you’ll find countries as subcategories. You’ll need to click on these to find the different leagues that play in those countries. Your betting options will obviously depend on the sport you bet on. We found plenty of choices, though. For example, you can bet outrights or money lines for Europa basketball. You’ll find spread betting, more money lines, oveunder, and outrights for NBA games. Click on a match, and you’ll find additional markets. For example, we checked out an NBA game and found options to bet on different quarters, total points, team points per quarter or half, overtime, and more. There are plenty of betting options here, which was a surprise, honestly, considering who’s running this sportsbook.
Live Betting
Spin Sports also offers live sports betting. When we were there, you could bet on soccer, basketball, tennis, ice hockey, and cricket. We wouldn’t be surprised if they covered more matches than this (when those games are available). In fact, we know that’s the case since we looked at their Event View and Live Schedule tabs. This is where you’ll see all the sports you can bet on, all the matches, and the number of betting opportunities available for each one. And that’s about it for their live sportsbook. The one thing we’d really like to see added in the future is the option to watch live streams. It’d make sense to add a racebook too. Here’s hoping that Spin Sports has both items on their to-do list. >>Claim Free Spins Now<<
Final Thoughts
Spin Sports is a much better sportsbook than we expected. It’s hard to expect something this impressive from a company that has been running only casinos for more than a decade. We’re fans, though. There are plenty of sports and markets to bet on. You also have your standard options for betting in American, fractional, or decimal odds, as well as using the sportsbook in different languages. That said, there is room for improvement. They could add a racebook, live streaming, and additional features and build out their esports section. But we think they’ve done a good job so far, and it’ll be more than enough for your typical casino player or recreational bettor.
Banking Options
Something we noticed during our review is that there’s the option to deposit inside both the casino and the sportsbook. As far as we can tell, it looks like you’ll want to deposit to the section you plan to spend your time in. In other words, if you want to bet sports, you’ll want to deposit to your sportsbook account. If you want to play blackjack or slots, you’ll want to make your deposit to the casino. The good news is that it looks like the same banking options are accepted in both sections. Find an option that works for you, and you can use it in both places. When we reviewed Spin Casino, we didn’t find any evidence that suggests they charge fees on their deposits. This is great news. However, it’s not clear whether they charge fees on withdrawals. As for limits, you can cash out as much as €4,000 per week if the amount you’re trying to cash out is more than 5x the amount that you’ve deposited over the life of your account. Otherwise, it looks like you can cash out as much as £10,000 in a 24-hour period. This will depend on the banking option you use, of course. Progressive jackpots are exempt from these rules, which is great to see. It’s no surprise, though, considering that they work with Microgaming. That wraps up their banking details. The following two sections will list the banking methods you can use to fund and cash out your account.
You can claim a few promotions as a customer of Spin Casino and Spin Sports. The following sections summarize the offers you can claim and the terms you need to fulfill if you do.
Spin Casino Promotions
The following are offers that you’ll find under the promotions tab on the casino side of things.
New Player Bonus
This is an offer available to first-time customers. Spin Casino is offering a 100% match bonus of up to $1,000. It’s spread out over your first three deposits like this.
First Deposit – 100% match up to $400
Second Deposit – 100% match up to $300
Third Deposit – 100% match up to $300
This is a nice offer because you have multiple opportunities to claim as much as you can. It’s especially helpful for players on a budget who can’t deposit $1,000 in one shot. You will need to roll over this bonus 50x, though the playthrough will depend on the casino game you play. We recommend reading their terms if you plan to play a game other than slots. The downside to this offer is that if you do happen to complete the playthrough with money to spare, and you want to withdraw it, cash-outs will be limited to 100 casino credits. You’ll forfeit the rest of the bonus. That being the case, it might make more sense to play the bonus (and lose money) until you only have 100 credits left. Then make a withdrawal if you want. That way, you can enjoy the bonus money/winnings for as long as possible. And that’s all they have for bonus offers. Spin Casino does say that they offer bonuses on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. We have no idea what those offers look like, though. While we were there, we did notice that they have a “bonus wheel.” You spin the wheel, and you can earn prizes, such as bonuses to claim. It looks like you can spin the wheel once every couple of hours. This is pretty neat.
Loyalty Club
Spin Casino also offers a loyalty club. This is a multi-tier program that awards more perks the higher your status. This program has six levels.
Blue
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond
Privé
As you ascend, you’ll receive additional perks such as bonus points, more entry points, exclusive tournaments, VIP support, phone support, and exclusive gifts and bonuses. You can receive monthly bonuses too. Climb the ladder to the very top of their VIP program, and you can receive more than $10,000 every month in bonuses. Getting to each tier is straightforward — you need to earn so many points to reach a specific status, and then so many points to maintain that status each month. You’ll earn 1 point for every $10 you spend in the casino. We recommend you read their promotions page to determine for sure if this program will be a good fit for you. But if we understand their points setup and minimum point requirements correctly, then this looks like a good program to use — even for low-stakes players!
Spin Sports Promotions
You’ll need to be in the sportsbook section in order to find their sports betting promotions. The following are the promotions we found during our review, including what you can get and the terms you need to fulfill. Free Bet – First-time sports bettors will be able to claim a free bet bonus. This is a 100% match up to $200. To claim the offer, deposit at least $10. This offer has a 5x rollover ($1,000 if you claim the entire $200) before you can withdraw any winnings. We recommend you read their terms and conditions for their other rules, as you’ll need to abide by odd minimums/maximums when you make your bets. And that’s the only offer we found for sports bettors during our review. This isn’t a bad offer by any means. That said, it would be great if they had a few other promotions running. It’d be nice to see some kind of cashback or rebate offer or additional bonuses. But as the saying goes, something is better than nothing.
Mobile Friendliness
Both Spin Casino and Spin Sports are mobile-friendly. You don’t need to download any apps. All you need to do is go to the casino or sportsbook from your phone or tablet and log in. You’ll be able to play all games and make bets from your browser. It looks like you’ll have the full sportsbook at your disposal. And considering that they work with Microgaming and Evolution Gaming, we wouldn’t be surprised if most or even all of their casino games are available. >>Claim Free Spins Now<<
Customer Support
You can use the following options to contact Spin Casino.
The email address above is addressed to the parent company of Spin Casino. The issue with that is they manage several other casinos. For that reason, we recommend that you make it clear that you’re a Spin Casino customer when you contact them. That way, you eliminate any confusion and reduce the chances of any unnecessary back and forth. We were disappointed to see that they don’t offer phone support despite saying they do in multiple places throughout their website. That said, phone support still isn’t a standard communication method offered by online gambling sites. It wouldn’t be fair if we held the lack of phone support against Spin Casino. Besides, you can contact them 24/7 using the methods above. We sent Spin Casino an email, and we were surprised to receive a response less than two hours later. They answered our questions, too. That’s better than the average casino for sure. For that reason, we give Spin Casino’s support two virtual thumbs up.
If you’re new to Coronavirus research, start here…
Feb 19, 2020, updated periodically...Unfortunately there’s not just one link you can use to get an estimate of the real numbers of infected, or of the seriousness of this outbreak, and you will have to do some digging of your own. But here are a few points to consider and research for yourself:
The basics
Name. The names 2019-nCoV, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and novel coronavirus all basically refer to the same thing, either the new virus or the disease it causes. (The WHO calls the virus SARS-COV-2, and the illness COVID-19.)
Family. It is a type of SARS but is much worse than SARs; experts have also called it "worse than Ebola" in terms of how fast it is spreading.
Re-infection. Getting sick with it more than once is a possibility; "recovered" patients may even be contagious or test positive for the virus after so-called "recovery." Link
Spreading without symptoms. People are able to be asymptomatic or presymptomatic, but still contagious, for weeks. Studies have shown that an infected person may be shedding virus for weeks after "recovery."
Ineffective quarantines. Quarantines are being done for 14 days in many countries, even though it has been documented that 38 days would be more effective. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quarantina giorni, a space of 40 days. We need to get smarter about how long people are quarantined.
When Did It Start? By Nov 2019, officials had briefed the US White House on a virus that was sweeping through Wuhan, China. Link
Fast-spreading. Between 2/19/20 and 5/1/20, cases grew from 1000 to over 3 million. Many countries do not have the capability to adequately test people. For instance it could become very widespread in parts of Africa without ever making the news.
Symptoms and Treatment. There is no cure; treatment focuses on the symptoms like the cough and fever. The symptom list is long and varies from patient to patient but the majority of them have cough and fever and the serious cases develop pneumonia, which is what kills them. Secondary infections are also common, and those patients get antibiotics, but, antibiotics don't do anything against a virus; they are used solely to treat additional complications. The symptom list seems to be ever-changing: a March 7 report showed that 22% of patients had diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal discomfort before respiratory symptoms (another report said it was about 50%). One first-person account said that a rash was her only symptom. CNN aired an interview with US nurses on the frontline who said that in some cases the only symptom prior to death was that the tissue around the eyes turned red (not the eyes, but the face area around the eyes).
No vaccine. Labs around the world are racing to develop a vaccine but that is, at best, months away; some say a vaccine may be impossible due to how the virus tricks the body into making more virus. And keep in mind there was a SARS outbreak nearly 20 years ago and we still don't have a vaccine for that.
Lives on surfaces. Many redditors have asked about whether it is safe to accept packages from China. Studies have shown that the virus can survive on surfaces for at least 9 days under certain conditions, and up to 27 days in other conditions.
"Do I have it?" Many redditors have posted questions saying they feel ill and want to know if they have it. If you think you have it, call a doctor or hospital; reddit is not the place for a diagnosis. The hospital will want you to wear a mask when you come in, and will want you to call ahead so they can isolate you from other patients.
"How do I avoid it?" Many redditors have asked what they can do to avoid catching or spreading the virus. Standard virus protocol applies: avoid close contact with people who are sick; stay home when you are sick; cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue then throw the tissue in the trash; frequently wash your hands (especially after going to the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing) using soap and water as hot as you can stand it for at least 30 seconds (the scrubbing under running water is important; a 5-second fingertip wash is inadequate); carry hand sanitizer gel with you for times when you can't wash your hands; avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth especially in public; disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a household cleaning spray; etc. The US has recommended against all travel to China [update: against all international travel]. Some redditors started avoiding air travel, public transportation, and large crowds and gatherings at the end of January 2020.
Other reasons why we don't believe the official numbers
Information Warfare. In the earliest days of the revelations about the virus, a deliberate disinformation campaign was started, to get people to believe two major falsehoods: 1) “It’s not as bad as the flu,” and 2) “Everything is under control and will be back to normal soon.” You will see this repeated thousands of times around reddit, other social media, and in mainstream media in the US and elsewhere. Even US doctors are repeating this propaganda, almost verbatim, to any news reporter who asks. Read more about China's 10 million influence agents at Link
Naysayers. Historically unprecedented efforts have been made to downplay the virus - often by focusing on the supposedly low fatality rate, or the supposed recovery rate. It's far too early to know what "recovery" actually means. For instance, scientists from Nanjing Medical University and Suzhou Hospital have said males who "recover" may be infertile. There is also well-founded concern about permanent lung damage, and possible chronic joint/muscle pain which could be debilitating and lifelong.
Pre-determined case rate. In early Feb 2020, someone demonstrated that the rise in cases was very predictable from day to day; the data curve was "beautiful" in that it was flawless and perfect, unlike the real world. He was able to predict, a day in advance, with astonishing accuracy, how many new cases would be announced by China the following day. The implication was that the data only moved like that because it was pre-determined before it happened; in other words the real numbers were released in a slow trickle in order to manage the public's reaction.
Under-reporting. There are indications, including first-hand reports from doctors, that the "official" numbers of confirmed dead are grossly under-reported. Link
Estimates. In Jan. 2020, some people were thinking the infected number was over 150,000 (back when China was saying it was under 10,000). It's hard to get a reliable number, but there are clues pointing to a worrisome amount of cases. Researcher models have shown estimates of a multiplier for a realistic number that range from x4 to x35. In other words if China is announcing 75,000 cases today, some people are concerned that the real number (including those who are undiagnosed) is 528,000 up to an almost inconceivable 4.6 million. [Update: Less than 2 months later, the "official" number worldwide exceeds 3 million; if x35 holds true...I don't like that answer...]
Suspected vs. Confirmed. China also has a data set for "suspected cases," which may include people who have presented to the hospital (or to several hospitals, seeking care) with the symptoms but who were unable to get diagnosed because the hospitals were overwhelmed. Some observers consider "suspected" cases should be considered "confirmed" until there has been a negative diagnosis.
Crematorium Info. Investigative journalism in China has led to recordings of phone conversations with crematorium workers, who are desperately asking for help because they are going 24/7 and are still backed up in Hubei from the amount of dead to incinerate (imagine California and half of Texas not being able to keep up with the bodies). The employee states the number of bodies has been 4 to 5 times the usual, starting ever since Dec. 29.
Portable Crematoriums? Lu Media reported that 40 units officially described as "cabins for the disposal of garbage and animal carcasses" have aided Wuhan in the epidemic area; their capacity is 5 tons per day. Professor Ming Ju of National Taiwan University believes that these cabins are "mobile incinerators" used to process human corpses. (To expand on that: 5 tons is 10,000 pounds or 4,536 kilos. Using a rough average weight of 62 kg per adult, that's 73 adults per day, per machine, so 40 machines are capable of handling 2,920 adults per day. That's in addition to the numerous regular crematoriums which can process a dozen or more people simultaneously.) That is all speculation; it is also likely that a city on lockdown would have an enormous problem getting rid of household refuse and medical waste, in which case those mobile incinerators would come in handy for that, too.
Cell phone Subscriber Decreases. Jennifer Zeng reported a combined net loss of 15 million subscribers to three of the large cell phone companies in China, in Jan and Feb 2020 alone. Link
"Not as bad as the flu" nonsense. From Jan to March 2020, mainstream media (MSM) and social media were chock full of people conducting information warfare; their goal was to perpetuate the “official” myth that coronavirus is not as serious as the flu, and that everything will be back to normal soon. There are several other virus-related subs on reddit which are moderated by people who do not allow any dissenting views, and who only permit people to post things that have already been announced by a government. In March 2020, the US CDC Tweeted that the fatality rate of this virus is at least three times that of the flu.
CNY. Chinese New Year is a major travel holiday when people go home to spend time with their families; it is often the only time of year when migrant workers get to see their loved ones. Millions and millions of Chinese people were on the move when this outbreak began.
Ineffective City Quarantines. China announced each city lockdown up to a day or two in advance, which gave infected people plenty of time to try to flee. After Wuhan was locked down, it was announced that some 5 million people had left before it started. Many of the people trapped in Wuhan were just caught there during their New Year's travels.
Constant number manipulation. China has changed how they count cases, and has advised that if a person has tested positive for the virus but is asymptomatic (has no symptoms) then they should not be added to the list of confirmed cases.
Practically no testing in the US. In the US, the vast majority of citizens (99.99999+%) can't get tested. The CDC policy has changed several times but even now, unless you have symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization or have had close contact with a CDC-confirmed case, testing is not available for most Americans. [Update: As of 5/1/20, the US has tested approximately 2% of its population, and has over 1 million cases.]
"Self-quarantines." The US relies on self-quarantines. On 2/19/20, WSJ reported "Public health officials in the U.S. are striving to keep tabs on thousands of Americans who have quarantined themselves at home after returning from mainland China..."
States hiding data. Some states, notably Florida, were initially claiming that they couldn't legally disclose how many people have been tested. "According to the Tampa Bay Times, “state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees said the Florida Department of Health is not authorized to publish the number of people in the state being tested for the virus out of privacy concerns.” US health privacy laws contain an obvious and necessary exemption for cases that involve public health crises.
Hacked Accounts Spread Reassuring Deception. Redditors are posting that they have been getting bizarre texts from close friends and family members in China saying "situation is under control" and "we're all fine" etc. Others posted screenshots of messages from several business contacts in China who all repeated an official message practically verbatim: "Impact limited to Wuhan...Everything is under control...will be back to normal soon...thank you for your concern."
Body bags. Rumors are circulating that China has ordered 1 million body bags, and shifted factories to body bag production; someone also posted an online industrial buyer order in which someone was looking to purchase 45 million virus masks.
Monitoring. China announced a few days ago that they are "monitoring" close to half a million people who have had "close contact" with infected people. Monitoring efforts involve self-reporting plus tracking of movements based on cell phone geolocation, A.I., facial recognition technology, and mandatory checkpoints.
What leaked videos and social media posts have shown us has happened in China
Dropping Dead. There are a handful of videos that show people seeming to suddenly collapse, notably a police officer walking down the street, in social media posts circulating on Feb 19, 2020. Videos show people dead and dying in hospital waiting rooms. Other videos show dead bodies laying on the sidewalk; a young woman collapsed in a vegetable market, etc. These spread in China in Jan.; in Feb. we saw similar vids from Iran. On 2/20/20, Harry Chen PhD posted a man laying face-down in a Hong Kong mall, the implication being that he collapsed from the virus or virus-related complications.
Unprecedented Censorship Efforts. Videos get deleted almost as fast as they get posted. One leaked video shows uniformed internet police pounding on someone's door, demanding that they delete their social media post, and also that they immediately must post a retraction to apologize for spreading "rumors" or otherwise they will face legal consequences for harming social order.
Voices from Inside Hospitals. Voicemails and texts from Chinese nurses and medical workers urging their loved ones, "Do not go outside" and saying that they are totally overwhelmed with infected patients. Numerous nurses collapsing into hysterics, unable to cope with the requirement to work 22 hours a day, and the inability to leave the hospital; some have been threatened with having their medical license revoked if they walk away.
Dirty masks. Used surgical masks being resold: an old man on the sidewalk selling used surgical masks of various colors from an open box. Another video recorded surreptitiously shows a team of people inside a shop with a big pile of used surgical masks, which are being sorted, flattened, and folded. The video ended with a view of a big stack of boxes; the implication was that used masks were being repackaged for sale as new. The brand name was not legible but it featured a woman's face on the cover, and Chinese writing on the box.
Quarantine Evasions. City quarantines don't work. Videos show people climbing over head-height barricades and fences built across roads and bridges, family members handing their children across the fence, and arguments in the street when someone is discovered to have Hubei province license plates or to be speaking with a Wuhan accent.
Doors welded shut. People are being welded into their apartments in Wuhan. Some apartment buildings have had their entrances sealed, once multiple people inside are believed to have the disease. Videos showed a middle-aged, non-athletic woman attempting to scale the outside of the building by going from balcony to balcony, and she fell to her death. A small town road labeled as the "Road to Lihua" which shows a street full of residential buildings, and every single building is barricaded from the outside, thus trapping the uninfected inside with the infected and the dead.
Mobs. So-called "recovered" patients being attacked and beat up for returning to their village after being released from quarantine.
Sprayers. Numerous videos show fleets of trucks rolling through streets in China, spraying what we suppose to be some sort of disinfectant, as though there was a need to clean the sidewalks or even the air itself. China has used water sprayers for at least five years to combat pollution, but speculation is that these trucks contain some sort of chemical rather than water.
Birds. A highway shot shows hundreds of crows perched on a concrete barrier; the subtitles claim that thousands of crows have been attracted to Wuhan by the stench of death.
Checkpoints. Villages and small towns enforcing quarantines with weapons, punches, slaps, etc. A car stops at a checkpoint, hesitates, then seems to intentionally plow into a medical tent.
Arrests. Patrols of white hazmat suit workers looking for people who went outside without a mask; they get arrested and carried away.
Packed hospitals. Hospital hallways jam-packed with people standing around waiting to get tested; shoulder-to-shoulder crowding conditions, which surely served to spread the virus faster.
Pets Killed. Village patrols beating dogs to death with a stick supposedly in order to "prevent the spread of the virus," and household pets thrown down from tall apartment buildings for the same reason.
Bodies. Multiple body bags in hospital ambulances, on the floors of hospitals, and in the hallway. (Similar videos surfaced from Iran and Brazil in March 2020.)
Transportation issues. That there were enough dead at a given time that no one could respond promptly to carry away the bodies.
Paid by the body. A citizen journalist secretly records an impromptu job interview at a local crematorium, where he is told he will not be paid unless he brings in bodies to cremate. They offer 500 RMB for one body, and 200 RMB for each additional body, up to 1100 RMB a load if he can bring in 4 bodies at a time.
Failures at life-saving efforts. A man's voicemail (identified by name as a doctor, if the accompanying image is to be believed) stating that for patients who are intubated (receiving oxygen via a tube shoved down their throats), extubation (removing the tube) is rarely successful - the patients die when taken off oxygen.
Panic buying. Fights over groceries, and rice flying off the cart before the grocery store can even put it on the shelves.
Refugees. Social media video posted Feb 19, 2020 claims to show hundreds of people with suitcases and baggage fleeing over the Chinese border from Guangxi province into Vietnam. Like most other videos claiming to be about this situation, there are many responses claiming this one is fake.
Fights. A child stabbing an elderly person and another child, during a fight over a small bottle of antiseptic.
Intentional Spreading. There are videos showing various suspects who are going around intentionally spitting on things, in an apparent effort to spread the virus. Tissue boxes are provided on elevators so that a person can use the tissue to press the button, and keep their fingers clean. Videos show a family riding the elevator, and a male takes a tissue and spits on it repeatedly, then smears all of the buttons with his spit. Another video shows an older woman alone in a different elevator; she repeatedly hacks and spits intentionally all over the buttons and the inner doors of the elevator, and then after a younger woman gets on and presses an elevator button, the older woman cackles to herself. Another video shows a young woman going down the street spitting on the door handles of cars. Another video shows a young woman sneaking around an apartment complex at night, spitting on doorknobs. Many Western viewers are unable to make sense of these videos, or conceive of a thought process that would make a person want to do this.
Attacks on medical workers. Patients in hospitals pulling down their virus masks and intentionally spitting into the faces of medical workers and receptionists - multiple incidents in multiple locations.
Arson? I have yet to actually see one of the alleged "arson" videos because they get deleted (for "inappropriate content") shortly after they are shared, but there are rumors of one or more videos showing buildings being intentionally set on fire in China, with people still alive inside the buildings. People are working hard to call these fakes, saying it emerged in early January and there is no proof that it is linked to the virus; however, since the videos immediately get flagged and deleted, discussion and debunking it for yourself is nearly impossible. On that note, if you see a video and believe it will be deleted, there are ways you can archive it (to a different website) so that others can see it later.
Failed donation efforts. Food trucks sent to Wuhan are not allowed past the city's barricades, and the food goes to waste.
Resistance. In Xiaogan, Hubei, the villagers did not want to be sealed up inside their homes, and they fought back. The police fired shots.
What else is happening in China
Pop-up Hospitals. In response to the outbreak, a pop-up hospital was built in China in about 10 days. It leaks.
Non-Hospitals. China has also opened “quarantine shelters” which do not provide medical care; observers are calling these deathatoriums, where people are supposed to just go and wait to die. However, if someone lives with a big family and has nowhere else to go, this may be a humane way to help the person have shelter without risking infecting their loved ones. Once a person goes in, they are not allowed to leave.
H2H and A2H. Human-to-animal-to-human transmission appears possible: It was reported by a UK tabloid on Feb 21, 2020 that hundreds of pets have dropped dead in China; although that source is questionable, the 2002 SARs outbreak led to research that household pets such as cats and ferrets could be infected by SARS-CoV which they caught from a human, and then could spread the disease to other humans (back in 2002).
Historic Firsts. Wartime policies are in place. China has locked down three entire provinces (Hubei, Liaoning, Jiangxi), all four centrally-administered municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing) and more than 80 other major cities. Some estimate that nearly 800 million Chinese (9.8% of the population of the entire planet) are under some type of quarantine, lockdown, and/or movement restrictions. A bit of logic often repeated on reddit is "You don't do that for the flu."
Cages. People are being dragged kicking and screaming off the street into truck cages, because a spot-check of their forehead temperature revealed they had a fever.
Press Censorship. Reporters are going silent and China revoked the press credentials of 3 WSJ reporters.
Robots. In Wuhan robots (think "gonk droid" not "C3PO") and drones are being used to enforce the quarantine, ordering people not to leave their homes, even for food.
Information Control. Chinese whistleblowers are reportedly disappearing or suddenly being diagnosed as infected, hours after posting revealing information.
Claims of People Being Burned Alive. Taiwan News - and no other sources as far as I can find - is reporting alleged first-hand accounts of people who claim they saw people being burned alive in Wuhan, the alive bound up with corpses and dragged off together.
Doctors Sickened. Chinese medical professionals (around 1800) are getting infected despite safety procedures, and some are dying from the infection (notably the director of a hospital in Wuhan). Usually doctors and nurses aren’t too worried about getting ill from their patients due to their safety measures, which indicates that covid-19 is much more infectious than the usual flu strains.
Irony. A high-level government health official emphatically stressed to reporters that the virus is preventable and controllable, a few days before he himself was diagnosed with the virus.
24/7 Lockdowns. People in Wuhan no longer being let out of their homes once every 7 days, and are on 24/7 lockdown.
Propaganda Videos. In the early days there were quite a few propaganda videos showing happy, smiling shoppers in grocery stores that were fully stocked. There were very light crowds - lighter than usual even - and no shortages of food in these videos, despite the leaked videos showing empty vegetable bins, huge meat bins with only one pack of meat left, and violent fights between shoppers trying to get their hands on a sack of rice.
Positivity Efforts. There have also been propaganda vids showing infected patients dancing and doing exercise; this is all part of the order from on high to keep the message "positive" and ensure that nothing but pure "positivity" covers all virus news.
"Moving Deeds" Efforts. Propaganda efforts have been directed toward promoting the effects of control measures and the “moving deeds” of volunteers, community workers, and the police. They have also posted some 400,000 comments online to counter negative public opinions.
Barring Investigators. China wouldn't let any WHO Americans into the country until recently, but they are still being prevented from going to Hubei and Beijing.
Movement Restrictions. Drones carry QR codes at the entrances to cities; drivers must use their cell phone to scan the QR code, and then the system will analyze the phone's recent movements, then decide whether to allow the person into the city.
Medical situation propaganda. While leaked videos show overwhelmed, crying medical staff in packed hospitals, there are also some propaganda videos showing empty hospital corridors and calm, smiling, laughing, relaxed doctors; one claim being circulated is that some of those were filmed with actors hired to portray doctors.
New medical crime laws. On Feb 8, 2020 China’s National Health Commission announced seven types of "medical-related" crimes, stating that prosecution will be swift and they will not rule out the death penalty for these crimes, which, in plain English, are basically: 1) Don't injure medical workers, 2) Let medical workers go wherever they say they need to go, 3) Don't pull down your mask and spit in the face of medical workers, 4) Cooperate with mandatory health checks and quarantines and don't disrupt anyone trying to burn bodies, 5) Don't stay in a hospital if you've been told to leave, and funerals are banned, 6) Don't carry weapons into a hospital, and 7) Anything else they decide is illegal is also illegal.
Swift cremations. Funerals in Hubei are banned; the deceased are immediately cremated and the family is notified afterwards. If the deceased did not have a coronavirus diagnosis before death, the body will never be tested and the case will never be added to the official numbers.
The Unknowns
Longterm Health Implications. The US government has just announced that "recovered" COVID-19 survivors are permanently disqualified from military service. This speaks volumes about what the government knows about what this virus is and what it does. Link
Death Rate. The fatality rate is still an unknown; many people blindly repeat “2%” although we have not had enough cases outside of China, for long enough, to know the real number. Professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College of London has published a paper estimating Hubei province will see an 18% fatality rate. That’s one of five people out of 11 million; which means this professor is projecting roughly 2 million deaths in Hubei province alone. The same professor says that it is not absurd to anticipate we’ll have 400,000 infected in the UK. Early numbers from Italy are over 30% but of course it's still way early to know.
False Negatives. We don't know how many people have it and were tested negative, because there have been experiments where current test kits have failed to detect the virus until the 5th or 6th time tested.
Airborne? Reports from inside China have repeatedly referred to the virus as "airborne." This gets shouted down on social media as soon as it is repeated, with anonymous "experts" trying to convince you and everyone else reading that you simply don't know what "airborne" means, and trying to switch the focus to droplet contamination by sneezes and coughs. People in China, and certain parts of South Korea, Vietnam, and Italy have been warned specifically not to go outside.
Source of virus. The "official" source, which somehow was known and announced since the very early days, was a so-called "wet market" or "seafood market." In reality these markets are infamous for butchering and selling the meat of snakes, bats, rats, cats, dogs, badgers, civets, raccoon dogs, and other exotic mammals for human consumption. CNN reports from years ago documented dogs and cats in cages, waiting for butchering. The propaganda description is that the markets just sell seafood and birds. Sanitary practices in such markets consist of rinsing off surfaces with plain water periodically, and using the same knife to cut multiple species of animals, and the same knife to cut meat and then intestines and then meat again. The possibilities for illness and infection from such meat sources is obvious, and the official story is that this virus somehow jumped from bats (or some say from pangolins) to humans.
Virus Lab. The original source of the virus has been the subject of great debate. It has been reported as starting in Wuhan, which happens to have Asia's only Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory. Some Chinese researchers were indicted for taking virus samples from Canada to China, and, the head of a Canadian virus lab was also indicted for being on the payroll of China and accepting $50,000 a month payment from them. Draw your own conclusions.
HIV Proteins. Some research indicates that the virus shares four proteins with HIV, and bears certain genetic markers only found on genetically modified organisms. Those scientists were quickly silenced with criticism; most seem to believe the criticism. Regardless, numerous articles have claimed it somehow acts like HIV.
What's happening outside of China
Lockdowns. The entire countries of Italy, Spain, and India's entire 1.3 billion people are locked down. The US and UK are on some sort of half-ass "voluntary" thing, told to "stay home if you can" while many people ignore it.
Cruise Ship. The Diamond Princess cruise ship (quarantined near Japan) which some observers on reddit said would be a good test case for a real world model outside of China, has shown an alarming increase in the numbers of infected.
Suppression of Info. Google is believed to be suppressing virus news. Try the search engine that doesn't track you, https://duckduckgo.com
Macau. Macau closed its casinos. This would be like Las Vegas deciding to hang up a "Sorry, we're closed" sign for a few weeks.
Ukraine. Ukraine - civil unrest, riots, road blockades to protest quarantining and transportation of patients into the area.
South Korea. South Korea reported a surge of new cases on Feb 19, 2020, linked to an infected person attending a church service; 31 new cases were diagnosed. The growth in South Korea, in a matter of days, has been mind-blowing (In 13 days, the case count in South Korea has grown from 82 to over 5,300 cases). South Korea may have been a good predictor for what growth in the US will look like, except so far, South Korea is testing 2,000 out of every million of its citizens, while the US is only testing 1 out of a million.
Self-isolation. South Korea, Vietnam, and Iran are asking millions of people to stay at home, to contain the spread. In one city in South Korea the mayor has asked people to wear their viral masks even indoors at home.
Iran. While Iran is officially reporting 3 deaths as of Feb 21, 2020, a social media post says it's 20; that the virus can live on surfaces for 2 weeks, can transfer from animals, can reinfect after initial infection, and testing is 30%-50% accurate, with many false negatives and asymptomatic transmission, plus mutations of the virus. Other "leak" sources say there are 300 positive diagnoses in Iran. Just like we saw happen in China, a government official who urged the public not to overact about coronavirus has now tested positive for the illness himself. Within a couple of weeks of Iran's first case, multiple senior politicians had died (Mar 3, 2020). On Mar 12, satellite imagery revealed mass burial pits in Iran.
Dirty masks. Leaked video shows several women in head coverings who are sitting on the floor sorting through what appears to be thousands of used surgical masks - the implication being that these will be resold; the narration does not sound Chinese; the videographer holds up an example mask very close to the phone, to show that it is definitely used and soiled.
Travel to/from China. The US had up to 200,000 citizens in China at the time of the outbreak. As of mid-March, the US unbelievably still has daily flights from China. Canada still has unrestricted air transportation with China. Meanwhile, other countries have closed their borders to Chinese citizens and to anyone who has been to China recently.
Evacuations. The US has arranged multiple evacuation flights to bring Americans home from China. Some on reddit are concerned that this will only spread the infection faster, and would have preferred that anyone in China be left there. The US has spread these evacuees around at least three states, and enforces a “voluntary” quarantine of 14 days.
Quarantine Stations. For years the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has had 19 quarantine stations on military bases ready for just such an outbreak. American evacuees are currently being held at some of those.
Emergency Declarations. The US city of San Diego, California declared a "public health emergency" on Feb 14, 2020. As of March 7 these states have also declared a state of emergency: NY, FL, KY, PN, MD, UT, IN, CA, & WA. On Mar 14, Pres. Trump declared a national emergency and public schools in 12 states announced closures ranging from a few days up to 30 days.
Weak control measures in the US. In the US, hundreds of people are being "monitored" (sent home and told to call if they get a fever or cough) but are not being tested. These people may be contagious. Link
National Guard Mobilization in Tallahassee, Florida, US? A social media post claims to show a small fleet of what appears to be military vehicles, police officers, and ordinary trucks hauling large white trailers; the captions claim the vehicles are Chemical, Biological, and Radiological response units. Two large earth-moving/digging vehicles are in the fleet.
Spitting. US social media indicates Seattle patients are spitting on the clinic walls and floor.
People dropping dead. Social media posts from Iran (Feb 25, 2020) are showing us the same things we saw on social media in Hong Kong and on the leaked videos from China: various, random people just suddenly collapsed / dropped dead in the street. One theory being circulated is that the virus may cause heart failure, particularly during the patient's re-infection (or second time with the virus).
Supply Chain and Economic Impacts
Mask shortages. Chinese buyers are scouring the world to locate companies that can sell them viral masks in bulk. Many redditors have posted that they ordered masks online, but then got notified that their order was canceled or on back-order. In the US, as of mid-February most cities still have masks on the shelves at local stores; though many stores have imposed quantity restrictions such as 10 per customer. In states where the CDC has announced confirmed cases, people are having trouble finding masks anywhere.
Panic buying. Singapore has imposed limits on how much groceries and supplies a person can buy. Hong Kong has had panic-buying of household goods and groceries, with many rumors that ordinary things (such as toilet paper, which Hong Kong gets from mainland China) could go out of stock and stay out of stock for an unknown period of time. In the US we get our toilet paper from US companies; there is no reason to hoard toilet paper in the US! As of Feb 29 and Mar 1, panic buying appears to be happening in Hawaii, Oregon, California, and multiple locations in the US. As of Mar 13, panic buying has spread to many areas of the US. At this point if you failed to prepare, you should consider looking carefully at your own pantry and fridge, rather than going out and risking being in a panic buying crowd.
Global Crash. Economic damage in China and around the world is difficult to contemplate. Billions have already been lost. China produces about 17% of global GDP.
Cars and car parts. Some car makers have shut down plants temporarily and some may have to find alternative sources for components (such as plastics and wires etc.) before they can resume operations, unless this virus magically disappears by the end of February.
International Shipping. Some cargo ships are leaving Asia at 5% capacity (95% empty) and will not be able to continue to operate like that.
"Made in China." Experts are projecting shortages and disruptions in the global supply chain in general, affecting countless products either "made in China" or made with ingredients or parts sourced in China, including but certainly not limited to computers, electronics, auto parts, chemicals, medical equipment, machinery, telecom hardware, apparel and footwear, home goods, batteries, smartphones, and notably, pharmaceuticals (over-the-counter and prescription drugs), just to name a few examples. Even if a product is advertised as being made in your country, there's a good chance it contains Chinese components or ingredients or is at the very least being sold in a plastic container that was made in China. Industries are looking at options for finding other countries to become suppliers, so we can diversify the supply chain and avoid keeping all our eggs in one basket, though such measures could prove to be too little, much too late at this point.
There’s much more that can be posted here, but that's enough topics to get you started on your own research. I really doubt this is going to be disappearing in a month or two. If any readers have a source or video link etc., or additional points they you'd like me to add, just reply to this message, or send me a private message if you prefer. Thanks for reading!
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