Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Tom Hanks and his wife test positive, March Madness being played with no fans (though still possible it'll be canned altogether), Italy (8th largest economy) effectively shutting down, universities across the country taking hiatus or moving everything online, continued volatility in the markets, plus aforementioned news above.

 

A lot happening in one day. I'm curious if this will freak folks out more or they'll finally chill and stay home. Where I live the TP panic has spread to every store. Even Natural Grocers, a health store with expensive Eco-friendly TP, apparently had someone come in and buy everything (likely because it was the only TP for sale for several miles).

 

Interesting times...

Edited by Skywalkre
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 13.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

Unprecedented in recent times. The world appears to be going into isolation. Think 1970s and 1980s Cuba on a massive scale.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

.

One point of frustration for me is the attitude I'm seeing locally that "keep calm and wash your hands" equates to "we can stop this by washing our hands". In other words, people are thinking that as long as susan over in so-and-so county doesn't screw this up, it won't even reach my hometown and will peter out.

That's not how this works.

Once it spreads beyond a certain point, the best case scenario isn't "it likely won't even reach me", it's instead "this is going to get significantly worse before it gets better, and the majority of the population is likely to be exposed at some point or another, and the knob we can control is getting the fatalities down near the bottom of the estimated rates if we all do our part" which is a very different takeaway when they say keep calm and wash your hands.

The cavalier attitude and bemused mood on social media is a bit disconcerting, considering an authoritarian regime with little to no individual rights to worry about was unable to prevent the pandemic despite clamping down relatively decisively (after the usual denial stage) with near draconian measures. Maybe they should have just washed their hands?

Pay close attention to what's happening in Italy. New York is going to be a canary, and will set the pace for what's to come. Now of course we know that in almost every age bracket (except apparently the very young) there is a small percentage that someone will be killed by this, as with most viruses (including the Flu, to a lesser degree of lethality), particularly if they have comorbid conditions or other risk factors like high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and so on. The problem is exacerbated, however, when the healthcare infrastructure is inundated with many new cases simultaneously, along with the staff becoming diminished as they get sick as well -- the end result being a certain percentage of people who ordinarily have no business dying from this under ordinary circumstances where they would receive more focused care may end up succumbing because we simply don't have the resources to help them all. That's partially in our control (through the aforementioned best practices) but realistically there's only so much we can do to ameliorate this and stem the tide of new patients when combined with lack of testing resources and the apparent ability for this virus to spread prior to showing signs and symptoms. The point being, by the time one case is actually detected in the AO (assuming we're not talking about a controlled point of entry), there are almost certainly orders of magnitude more who have been exposed over the past several days. You're late to the party if you wait till then to start wearing your respiratory protection, practice self quarantine and run to the store for last minute supplies.

People certainly shouldn't panic, but it's almost always a better approach to take it seriously and err towards the side of it being a little bit worse than the Government would have you believe.


Edited by Burncycle360
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i wonder why the difference between continental Europe and the UK....

One word, or rather one place:

 

SCHENGEN

 

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/coronavirus-why-the-uk-is-exempt-form-the-us-europe-travel-ban/news-story/e448ccd201d936ba96c6e61ca7dabaee

 

The actual given reason can be summed up in one word: Schengen.

 

Schengen, as few people know, is a small town of 5000 people in Luxembourg surrounded by vineyards.

 

But it’s far better known for giving its name to the Schengen Agreement.

 

Enacted in 1985, the agreement effectively turned the EU’s internal borders from physical checkpoints into almost forgotten lines on a map marked merely by a sign on the side of the road.

 

After Schengen was signed, driving from Paris to Madrid was as hassle free as driving from Sydney to Brisbane. (or in US parlance, from anywhere in the USA to anywhere else in the USA).

 

Borders can only be reinstated under exceptional circumstances – such as right now when Italy closed itself off from the world.

But Britain refused to sign up to the Schengen Agreement.

 

To this day, anyone travelling from, say, Paris to London has to go through traditional passport control and a security checks whether they come by train, plane or on a ferry across the English Channel.

 

Being outside Schengen means the UK can track almost every person that enters the country.

 

The hope could be that being outside of Schengen gives the UK an extra layer of officialdom that may root out any European coronavirus carriers before they arrive in America.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The hope could be that being outside of Schengen gives the UK an extra layer of officialdom that may root out any European coronavirus carriers before they arrive in America.

 

 

Well now. It is definitely and obviously true that by being outside Schengen (and by being an island), it is far easier for the UK to strengthen already existing and implemented border controls than it is for Schengen countries on the continent, who have abolished theirs.

 

But any hope that this extra layer of officialdom can "root out any European coronavirus carriers before they arrive in America" must frankly be re-classified from "hope" to "fantasy".

 

I expect the UK to be added to the list in short order.

 

--

Soren

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mortality rate from Diamond Princess is 0.85%.

 

The mortality rate in South Korea is at 0.77%.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rates-by-age-south-korea

 

There's a lot to be learned by watching how South Korea is dealing with this.

I think South Korea is offering the best look at the true effects of COVID-19 beyond the immediate crisis. As of yesterday they had tested 140,000 people and established 7,755 cases. The growth of case numbers has been leveling off over the last days - it was 7,382 on Monday and 7,513 on Tuesday - so they seem to be getting a handle on the spread. At the same time the CFR is increasing slightly, now just below 0.8 percent; but that's to be expected as death runs its course among existing cases while fewer new ones emerge. We may shortly see a somewhat hard total fatality rate in a population that didn't allow its healthcare system to be overwhelmed by an uncontrolled spike of cases like it initially seems to have happened in China, and now in Italy.

 

Ssnake's point on the effect of airconditioning in warm countries still seeing a spread against the conventional wisdom of impact on respiratory infections is actually a good one, as I learned first-hand during the Virginia I&I.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things at work are getting increasingly weird. Departments are still planning all kinds of meetings and events for April while back in their mind everyone knows none of that will actually take place.

 

When I passed through the clinic entrance today, just in a few minutes I saw two elderly couples arrive separately with Taxis, with one each wearing a mask, most probably on their way to being tested.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess if comparing it to the flu makes you feel better then that's fine but I don't think those comparisons are very useful over all. Cases here doubled yesterday, granted it's only 15 to 33, but only some of them can be traced back to a known source. One of the more prolific sources seems to be a 19 year old Australian woman who spend a few days up in the mountains skiing. The state has also barred spectators from the high school basketball championship tournaments and opened up the first drive through testing facility. You need a doctor's note to be tested but the test is free of charge.

Edited by Harold Jones
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cyprus has 7 cases so far in 4 days. 4 of them were caught at the airport coming from the UK, one was not caught and infected the others. Brilliant move by the US to exclude the UK from the ban.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cyprus has 7 cases so far in 4 days. 4 of them were caught at the airport coming from the UK, one was not caught and infected the others. Brilliant move by the US to exclude the UK from the ban.

Yeah, that is a head scratcher. I understand that the UK was not part of Schengen but it is still a country that is facing community spread of the virus just like a large part of the EU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The mortality rate from Diamond Princess is 0.85%.

 

The mortality rate in South Korea is at 0.77%.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rates-by-age-south-korea

 

There's a lot to be learned by watching how South Korea is dealing with this.

I think South Korea is offering the best look at the true effects of COVID-19 beyond the immediate crisis. As of yesterday they had tested 140,000 people and established 7,755 cases. The growth of case numbers has been leveling off over the last days - it was 7,382 on Monday and 7,513 on Tuesday - so they seem to be getting a handle on the spread. At the same time the CFR is increasing slightly, now just below 0.8 percent; but that's to be expected as death runs its course among existing cases while fewer new ones emerge. We may shortly see a somewhat hard total fatality rate in a population that didn't allow its healthcare system to be overwhelmed by an uncontrolled spike of cases like it initially seems to have happened in China, and now in Italy.

 

Ssnake's point on the effect of airconditioning in warm countries still seeing a spread against the conventional wisdom of impact on respiratory infections is actually a good one, as I learned first-hand during the Virginia I&I.

 

 

If you extrapolate from closed environments (ie the cruise ships where you know the total population likely to be infected), I would say Italy probably has 82.700 cases of which only 12.000 or so have been reported as confirmed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If you extrapolate from closed environments (ie the cruise ships where you know the total population likely to be infected), I would say Italy probably has 82.700 cases of which only 12.000 or so have been reported as confirmed.

 

 

Yes, they seem to be missing a ton of the mild infection cases that aren't even tested. This also explains the huge number of hospitalisations among their reported cases because they obviously only test severe cases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Cyprus has 7 cases so far in 4 days. 4 of them were caught at the airport coming from the UK, one was not caught and infected the others. Brilliant move by the US to exclude the UK from the ban.

Yeah, that is a head scratcher. I understand that the UK was not part of Schengen but it is still a country that is facing community spread of the virus just like a large part of the EU.

 

Its even harder to understand when the British Government isnt banning flights. There was a conference with the Chief medical officer and the PM, and the CMO said that yes, they could have banned Chinese flights. But that best case it would ONLY have held the virus up for 2 days, because it was inevitable, unless you ban all flights I guess, that it would get through somewhere.

 

Now if you scale that up to a country the size of the united states, with the amount of airports, the amount of flights and foreign passengers, banning European flights at all is pointless. Its past that point already. Its already present in the US.

Course he has to be seen to be doing something I suppose.

 

At the moment, we are about 2 or 3 weeks behind Italy from what the CMO suggest. He also repeated the point about closed environments, and that banning sporting events is relatively pointless. It seems to spread among people in prolonged close proximity. Such as on cruise ships.

 

The press conference is here if anyone is interested.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Top college teams are canceling all spring athletics including basketball, it is unlikely that the NCAA basketball tournament will go forward with those teams pulling out. NASCAR has announced that they will hold their next two races without spectators. I'm expecting that Major League Baseball will be canceling April games and most likely May games as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Now if you scale that up to a country the size of the united states, with the amount of airports, the amount of flights and foreign passengers, banning European flights at all is pointless. Its past that point already. Its already present in the US.

 

The US administration still hasn't really shifted from perception management to actual crisis management. The virus doesn't care if you blame Europeans and try to score political points on the domestic scene when it's already walking all over your country for weeks without anyone noticing because you couldn't get the testing capacity sorted in time.

 

Like I said before, for most countries, looking outwards and trying to keep up a containment strategy that has already failed is just a waste of time and resources. The energy you're putting into sorting out flights and passengers would be better placed in trying to improve contact tracing domestically.

Edited by Der Zeitgeist
Link to comment
Share on other sites

BBC reportedly has plans to move to a WW2 bunker in deepest Warwickshire if things get really bad.

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/coronavirus-bbc-plans-broadcast-remote-21677947.amp?__twitter_impression=trues

 

I feel reassured we will still be able to watch Day of the Triffids and Threads repeats as we slowly succumb aka 28 Days later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...