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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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An update on the new virus outbreak originating from China

Link here. The numbers of people so far infected is hardly gigantic, less than 450 worldwide, with almost all confined to one province in China.

You can also find out some general information about this particular virus as well as other related viruses, such as SARS and MERS, in this separate article. All are far less threatening that press reports make them appear. For example, SARS only infected 8,000 people total, killing a little less than 10% of those infected.

This new virus appears so far to be even less deadly, with nine deaths total, about 5%.

While under no condition should this outbreak be ignored or poo-pooed, it is very important to recognize that, at least so far, it is hardly an epidemic that will wipe out civilization. This could change with time, but I doubt it.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Gary

    The early detection and actions to contain it are quite impressive. Good work by those charged with the task.

  • jay

    Gordon Chang saying that the reporting is inaccurate. Cremation before diagnosis and misreporting of diagnosis. Hardly surprising the communists would do so.

  • F16 Guy

    Worth watching: (I was in Wuhan last year !)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLp8CHeKQkI&feature=em-uploademail

    The coronavirus in China is spreading, and largely could have been prevented. A town 7 km from where the virus was discovered in Wuhan had a state run banquet with 100,000 people eating off of the same dishes. This was 2 days after 49 cases were confirmed in Wuhan, China. The Chinese government is trying to save face, and now it is backfiring.

  • Ian C.

    It’s way too early to make statements about its reach and impact. It still can mutate (multiple times). Which can change everything. Different incubation times, indicators (symptoms), lethality. Makes it harder to create new antidotes and mass produce them. Might require different containment and treatment policies and infrastructures. Most outbreaks produce less fatalities than the seasonal influenza, but we shouldn’t underestimate them. We need to be right every time, the outbreak needs to be right only once.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Bigger issue than originally thought. There are reports of mutation, and late containment efforts.

    Perhaps a lower mortality rate, but a faster rate of transmission, or greater level of contagion (if that is the right word for this).

    The result can be a higher actual death toll, even if the disease itself is less dangerous individually , due to a wider outbreak.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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