Coronavirus 2020-22

[Guardian Enzo]

My buddy is a publicist who’s worked with Hanks - and isn’t shy about how obnoxious many of his clients are - and he says Tom is every bit as nice as his reputation. In a funny sort of way I think his testing positive made this feel more immediate for a lot of people.

[Yu Ominae]

While I'd like to go back, I can't since I don't have a job there and I'm living with my folks in the Philippines.

[Nachtwandler]

In my country thigs are relatively calm as of know.

Still, government decided to close universities, metro and some establishements for 2-3 weeks.

I am working in a branch of US IT company. Our bosses decided to put most of the staff forremote work for now.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...onavirus-fight

Serbia's next to get Chinese assistance.

Aside from this, this'll give far-right groups ammo regarding the EU.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Oh no....

YouTube

https://youtu.be/-OdWMu_6jMg

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

First it got Tom Hanks, and now it got Elba too?! Damn, I like them. I pray that we are all okay, including those who already got infected.

This 2020 decade has one hell of a rough start. It's like I'm reliving the Contagion movie I saw a long time ago.

[Psyco Diver]

I'm getting to work in record time, that's a plus lol. It feels like I'm going to work on the weekend.

Panic buying seems to be slowing down now also.

Yesterday the governor announced restaurants can only be take out only

Many airlines are cutting flights by 50% or more, looks like they maybe the first to really feel there pain, I suspect several airline companies will fold in the next couple months

[Yu Ominae]

Interesting talk with Sanjay Gupta.

[Yu Ominae]

https://twitter.com/RushDoshi/status...45067066978311

A fellow at Brookings tweeted the Serbian announcement. He has comments on where he analyze China taking the lead in anti-COVID 19 responses instead of the West.

----

https://www.srbija.gov.rs/vest/en/15...c-of-china.php

More details on the Chinese donations.

[Key Board]

The West is losing the PR game

Which means that a lot of people will double down on being racists.
I do hope they weaponize it to improve their own system, but I suspect it will just lead to people yelling at their Asian neighbor living across the street.

//

[Sugetsu]

An excellent break down and explanation by journalist Kim Iversen on my why Italy is being hit so hard by the virus.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/NILlrLhGJrI

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Short story: The culture and the excellent health care system are to blame.

She also takes a jab at neo-liberal and conservative talking points that argue against universal health care.

[Infinite Zenith]

My home town declared a state of emergency, with all schools and public services like libraries and recreation centres, shut down. The borders were also closed yesterday, and the PM is imploring folks abroad to return home.

[Renegade334]

Goddamn it all to the deepest boiler room of Hell.

It's official now: Brussels will enter a state of total confinement tomorrow, starting at noon. Until the 5th of April. FFS.

https://www.dhnet.be/actu/belgique/c...ad582f319a4ce8

EDIT: At least the banks, supermarkets and gas stations will still be operational.
Went to a Delhaize supermarket today and there was a guard outside limiting the number of people inside. Word has it that shops are required to only have 1 client for per ten square meters or thereabouts. Works nice on paper until you realize you'll be queuing outside, possibly in the cold rain (though for a change it was sunny today)...among people whose health you're not too sure about.

[Toukairin]

Today, UEFA has officially postponed Euro 2020 until next year.

UEFA postpones EURO 2020 by 12 months

If you ask me, the last ditch against postponing the Tokyo Olympics until next year has fallen. With people still under recommendations of social distancing, you can forget huge gatherings even in the summer. And with the large number of qualifying competitions that are not done, there is no way we can expect the Games to take place. Recouping any financial losses would be best done next year.

Up yours, Abe. So shut up and abide.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Word has it that shops are required to only have 1 client for per ten square meters or thereabouts.

Similar thing happened to me today at the bank, only 10 people allowed inside (the building is tiny) and we are expected to be 1-2 meters apart, but people on the queu outside were closer and some old ladies outside were already saying "when it is your time, there is nothing to do" to justify their lack of distancing.

Originally Posted by Toukairin

If you ask me, the last ditch against postponing the Tokyo Olympics until next year has fallen.

I remember there was an episode of the Buck Rogers TV series where they had the olympics in a giant room with no spectators, only cameras, you can bet this is abe's plan, send in your athletes to compete, people will sheer from home.

[SeijiSensei]

A good summary for lay readers of the nature of the threat posed by the coronavirus by Dr. Eric Chiang at the Cleveland Clinic.

So much confusion, misinformation and denial is bouncing around on social media about the coronavirus that I thought I would try to explain, in plain language, why the experts see this as such an emergency.

You will see the claim online that this virus is a lot like the viruses that cause colds, and that if you get it, it will probably just seem like a bad cold and you are very unlikely to die. Depending on who you are, these statements are probably true. But they are incomplete, and the missing information is the key to understanding the problem.

This is a coronavirus that is new to the human population, jumping into people late last year from some kind of animal, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. It is related to the viruses that cause colds, and acts a lot like them in many ways. It is very easy to transmit through the respiratory droplets that all of us give off. But nobody has ever been exposed to this before, which means nobody has any immunity to it.

The virus is now moving explosively through the human population. While most people will recover, about 20 percent of the people who catch it will wind up with a serious disease. They will get pneumonia that causes shortness of breath, and they may need hospitalization.

Some of those people will get so sick that they cannot be saved and will die of pneumonia. The overall death rate for people who develop symptoms seems to be 2 or 3 percent. Once we have enough testing to find out how many people caught the virus but did not develop symptoms, that might come down to about 1 percent, optimistically.

This is a large number. It is at least 10 times higher than the mortality rate for the seasonal flu, for instance, which in some years kills 60,000 or 70,000 Americans. So just on that math, we could be looking at 600,000 or 700,000 dead in the United States. But it gets worse.

Older people with existing health problems are much more vulnerable, on average. The mortality rate of coronavirus among people over age 80 may be 15 or 20 percent. It appears to have 7 or 8 percent mortality for people aged 70 to 79. Here is the terrible part: If you are a healthy younger person, you can catch the virus and, without developing serious symptoms yourself, you can pass it along to older people. In other words, as the virus spreads, it is going to be very easy to go out and catch it, give it to your grandmother and kill her, even though you will not die yourself. You can catch it by touching a door knob or an elevator button.

Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or “R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who develops the illness, how many other people do they give it to before they are cured (or dead) and no longer infectious? The R0 for coronavirus, in the absence of a control strategy, appears to be a number close to 3 – maybe a bit higher or lower, but in that ballpark. This is an extremely frightening number for such a deadly disease.

Suppose you catch the virus. You will give it to 3 other people, and they will each give it to three others, and so forth. Here is how the math works, where you, the “index case,” are the first line:

1
3
9
27
81
243
729
2,187
6,561
19,683
59,046
177,147
531,441
1,594,323
4,782,969
14,348,907

So, in just 15 steps of transmission, the virus has gone from just one index case to 14.3 million other people. Those 15 steps might take only a few weeks. The index person may be young and healthy, but many of those 14 million people will be old and sick, and they will likely die because they got a virus that started in one person's throat.

The United States is not at this point yet, with millions infected, as best we can tell. We don’t really know, because our government has failed us. We are many, many weeks behind other countries in rolling out widespread testing, so we don’t really have a clue how far the thing has spread. We do know that cases are starting to pop up all over the place, with many of the people having no known exposure to travelers from China, so that means this virus has escaped into our communities.

We do not have approved treatments, yet. We do not have a vaccine. The only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of transmission.

This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is exploding so fast that we will not have the labor available to trace contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough.

It is now likely that the majority of Americans will get this virus. But slowing it down is still crucial. Why? Because the healthcare system has limited resources. We only have about a million hospital beds in America. We have well under a million ventilators. If millions of Americans get sick enough to need treatment, we will have a calamity on our hands. What will happen is a form of battlefield triage, where the doctors focus on trying to treat the young and allow the older people to die.

This is not theoretical. It is already happening in Italy, where people over 65 are being left alone on hospital gurneys to suffocate to death from pneumonia. They basically drown in their own sputum. There is simply not enough medical capacity to take care of them. The United States appears to be about two weeks behind Italy on the epidemic growth curve.

What do we need to do now? We need to cancel all large gatherings – all of them. You have probably seen that the N.B.A. has postponed the rest of its season. Other sporting events, concerts, plays and everything else involving large audiences in a small space – all of it needs to be canceled. Even if these events take place, do not go to them. No lectures, no plays, no movies, no cruises – nothing.

Stay at home as much as possible. Stay out of restaurants. I would cancel any travel that is not absolutely essential. Work from home if you possibly can. You may have to go buy groceries and medicine, of course, but make the trips quick and purposeful. Wash your hands assiduously after you have been in public places, for a full 20 seconds, soaping up thoroughly and being sure to get between the fingers. Sunlight and alcohol will kill the virus.

And please stop passing around statements on social media claiming that the situation is not serious or is being exaggerated. This is a national crisis, and conveying misinformation to your friends and family may put their lives in danger.

[Heep]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

In the 20th century the USA government used to have credibility, at home or abroad.

Forgot Dominicans, Greece, Korea, mccarthyism, Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, cold war, Cuba, Chile, Panama, Irak..... segregation, death penalty, israel support, guns, religion on money and in justice, nascar, Guantanamo, healthcare, foxnews and country music.... and g.w. bush and trump elected in 21st ? And all other "credible things" ?
This country is totally an outrage to humanity.

[Key Board]

There’s talk about emergency UBI right now (thanks Yang) but last time I checked, HR6201 went back to the House.

Results when

update: https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...ave-provisions

::slaps face::

America's a sham.

//

[Ithekro]

Well I, and many other Californians, will be engaging in unscheduled, government suggested, three week vacations, starting today.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

this cake is from China, and now the entire world is suffering for it. sorry, can't help but feel a lot of anger..

While it is true China is to blame for not outlawing markets with under cooked wild animal meat (which BTW, is the same cause of the ebola outbreaks in africa), I am more angry at the so called western economies for not blocking all air travel from china as soon as the whistle blower made public the outbreak. Had they taken such a simple but drastic measure, we would be talking about how china feels betrayed for treating them like lepers and how life was going on as normal, just like after ebola outbreaks of the past.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well I, and many other Californians, will be engaging in unscheduled, government suggested, three week vacations, starting today.

I would say "at least three weeks", if efforts fail to contain this pandemic, well, past pandemics were 18 to 24 months long ...

p.s.

Free Corona for everyone!!!

[Magin]

One big thing I realized, in regards to the symptoms of coronavirus: although it's being called like a strong cold or the flu... we've been dealing with both of those for many, many years now. But before we got to modern medicine, both of them were killer diseases. I've stated it before and I'll state it again: the true reason why we're all freaking out is because this is a brand-new virus. Meaning that we haven't developed anything to combat it, either through our own bodies or via vaccine. And of course, just how easily it's spread. Then again, technically speaking the common cold is spread just as easily (I know that back home, people often joke about giving their cold to someone else); we've just been dealing it for a long, long time and have developed some amount of immunity to it.

Oh, and of course no one wants to talk about how there are actually people recovering from it.