SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
What if they refuse? I wouldn't work for cents on the dollar.
Agreed. I just hope our government are focusing on this and not just economic stimulus packages.
Solitary confinement I would assume. They'd throw the disciplinary book at you.
I remember watching a John Oliver episode about that topic.
I'll leave a post from Reddit, which they do daily, on r/medicine (it's far different than r/coronavirus). Find it a good opinionated (but well sourced) summary, integrated with Economic and political news, decent for someone who wants to get up to date with developments of today and how they shape into the grander scheme of things in the opinions of some of the medical community.
Good night everyone. Stay healthy, calm and attentive.
Monday, March 9th
All the vampires, walkin' through the valley
It's been 70 days since the WHO were first notified about this novel coronavirus, and things are only moving quicker and quicker.
All the vampires, walkin' through the valley
It's been 70 days since the WHO were first notified about this novel coronavirus, and things are only moving quicker and quicker.
- Let's start with Italy, where overwhelmed hospital systems have led to the first major regional quarantine in Europe. Italy, taking a leaf out of eventually (partially) successful measures enacted in China, has ordered the lockdown of the country's weathy, propserous northern region of Lombardy and some surrounding provinces. An estimated 16 million people are affected by this, though much like in China, enforcement of the quarantine was preceded by an exodus as people fled the 'red zone', which seriously hampered the effectiveness of containment:
- The necessity of such a large quarantine in Italy, a wealthy, democratic European country, has focused attention on the likelihood of similar measures becoming necessary in other Western/European countries. Public sentiment could largely compartmentalise the unprecedented, huge Chinese lockdown as something thought only possible or probable in an autocratic Asian country. Suddenly, this fragile expectation has been abruptly shattered and the general public is starting to appreciate that this might be necessary for them, too, in their own countries before too long. In Italy, we're seeing a number of unfortunate incidents sparked by fear of coronavirus - particularly in prisons, where feelings of cramped helplessness may be amplified:
- Consistent messaging from leadership in some countries is lacking, and in the absence of strong guidance, some members of the public are resorting to panic buying to feel more secure in this time of societal instability:
It's an easy rebuttal to point to experts and studies that conclude that travel restrictions make little to no difference to the spread of this or other similar outbreaks, but recent political events and now this crisis all show that trust in 'experts' is no match for the sentiment of the man down the pub.
- Russia and Saudi Arabia are engaging in a price war; Russia had balked at the Saudi plan for OPEC to reduce production to support crude prices during this outbreak as demand has plummeted, and Riyadh responded with a 180 degree turn - sharply increasing production and driving down prices.
At the time of writing, Brent crude had fallen as low as $31/barrel, having fallen over the last two months from a recent peak of $68 at the end of last year.
- Markets are reacting to the extreme volatility with their own panic; a trader friend of mine had predicted that "today is gonna be a disaster" and he's right. The FTSE has tanked over 8% and trading on the S&P 500 was briefly halted for 15 minutes through automatic circuit breakers after it fell 7% in the first few minutes of trading. The VIX, a surrogate measure of market uncertainty/volatility, has hit its highest point since the peak of the 2008 financial crisis. A recession is looming and this may be the Minsky Moment.
- I've been talking about cruise ships for a little while, and now governments and passengers are coming around to the idea that they're a terrible idea. I understand the cutthroat pricing is hard to resist right now, but they're just such a bad industry generally and particularly in a pandemic.
- Good read about the 1918 pandemic in the context of the upcoming Boston St Patrick's Day Parade. Indeed, Ireland has just canceled its own St Patrick's Day Parade and other large gatherings are being scratched too worldwide.
- The possibility of school closures is generating ripples beyond the obvious, underscoring the societal difficulties that containment interventions may cause.
Good night everyone. Stay healthy, calm and attentive.
Among other measures, the company I work for has cancelled all business travel by plane today.
I note both Ireland's Chief Medical Officer and Taoiseach echoing remarks made by UK officials in regards to the risks attached to implementing measures too early. Namely that population fatigue will inevitably result in reduced compliance, so measures have to be timed correctly for maximum benefit. Presumably with a particular eye on when the virus is likely to peak elsewhere.
Reading through other bits and pieces of different studies, my main take away is that modelling for the most effective way of tackling the virus is complicated as shit. So much seems to depend on timing (early but not too early), the relative ability to detect cases promptly and weighing up the various negative consequences of each measure amongst a host of other factors.
With all that in mind, it's probably right to be sceptical of anyone who offers glib opinions on what governments should be doing unless they can also offer a thorough and realistic assessment of the costs (in terms of economy, resources and inherent flaws) of each measure.
Reading through other bits and pieces of different studies, my main take away is that modelling for the most effective way of tackling the virus is complicated as shit. So much seems to depend on timing (early but not too early), the relative ability to detect cases promptly and weighing up the various negative consequences of each measure amongst a host of other factors.
With all that in mind, it's probably right to be sceptical of anyone who offers glib opinions on what governments should be doing unless they can also offer a thorough and realistic assessment of the costs (in terms of economy, resources and inherent flaws) of each measure.
A client of the company I worked for (I left two weeks ago) already started doing that four weeks ago. We (UK based) were due to fly out to Boston to meet them but it was cancelled, super proactive.
Is that the real reason though or they don't want to cause too much damage to the economy until it's too late?
We're in Canada with a grand total of 72 cases. It speaks more to how much this is blowing up elsewhere.
Grim as feck. No wonder mass incarceration is a thing in the US. It's a business.
The first death in my city recorded. Women in her sixties.
It is getting near :S
It is getting near :S
The man is a clear an present danger.
Not a nice guy, but it is important that he made this piece, considering that a lot of people in this country get all their news from Fox.
Its so frustrating in a way that Tucker Carlson has those rare moments like this where he actually appears to be a good journalist - only to then turn around and be a complete paid for douche of a mouth piece again for the other 99% of the time.
He's clearly a very intelligent man (he totally destroys many of his left-wing visitors in his show), and when he wants, he totally nails it. The problem though is that he is also an agenda-driven twat, which makes most of his shows crap.
King Donald is the exact man for this moment of economic maintenance at the expense of all our health.
I've stayed home today after 3 days of mild symptoms (no fever - a sore throat and wheezing). But I'm asthmatic, and this could just be my allergies/asthma acting up.
I have an annual meeting in April and am worried about staying home too much, I won't make progress towards that.
I have an annual meeting in April and am worried about staying home too much, I won't make progress towards that.
Holy shit those comments are cancer.That comment section though...
I love all the people calling for Trump to build antibiotics factories etc. Or to stop buying Chinese good and only buy American. As if either would accomplish anything. We truly are in stupid times.
@berbatrick sorry to hear you've been feeling bad. I know it may seem like resting too much is a thing but a day "too much" is better than a day too little. Take care of yourself.
That Hospital is literally 2 miles from me. He is in good care though as it’s a great facility. They just shut down my daughters University in NYC (20,000 kids)until the end of march. It’s starting to get real in the nyc area.
When the health secretary says "the scientific advise is clear: acting too early creates its own risks," what's he talking about?
Only partial data from the US, but still worrying...
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-covid-19-tests-per-capita-chart-us-behind-2020-3
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-covid-19-tests-per-capita-chart-us-behind-2020-3
Wohoooo, freedom over tests.
Getting rumors that US will ban all cruise travel from mainland US. I work for carnival cruise lines 
He's simply extrapolating the numbers to check whether everything is statistically sound (shock, horror it isn't). He's saying if Iran has as many cases as they've let on in the entire country, what are the chances that so many from the parliament has the virus (minuscule). There's nothing wrong with this as such, however, there are a bunch of assumptions that go into a calculation like that. Most importantly he has to assume that the concentration of the virus is uniform across the country (which it isn't, there's bound to be an epicentre where you have the highest concentration to start with and it then tails off radially from there (that's my rough, first order approximation)). You also have to assume that everyone is equally likely to get the virus. Again, that's not true as someone who is very outgoing and interact with a lot of different groups of people are more likely to get it.
Then you have the fact that the low official numbers might be due to a low testing capacity/poor testing quality as opposed to the government withholding information. That said, it does look unlikely that they would have that many cases in parliament compared to the cases outside of it, going by official numbers.
Please dont take medical advice from the internet , if you have the symptoms get checked . The virus goes for the lungs really fast .
Since this video came out, 48hrs ago; Italy went from 3 cases just two weeks ago to 3,000 when the guy was interviewed, and as of yesterday, its over 10,000 cases.
Nothing impossible.
The more the delay in executing the required measures, the more draconian the subsequent solutions need to be.
I think they are just worried about an economy already weakened by Brexit.
Does anyone have a good reason for 'why Italy'? Does it involve them having a big number of cruise ship operators? Italians being touchy feely? Would be interesting to know.
I think the consensus is that they have a large Chinese population which accelerated the import of the virus from Wuhan, they also got it earlier so are further ahead and the death rate is down to their aged population.
I don't have symptoms although had a mild funky headache for 5 days now.
Just occurred to me that the Cheltenham races are on this week?! I would’ve thought that would be a prime candidate for being cancelled.
Don't bother burning any money, just send it to me via PayPal it's better for the environment
I think it is partially because if you for example implement a mass quarantine before the peak of the virus, by the time the peak comes people would be less reluctant to continue to be quarantined. So the timing of any quarantine is critical to its chances of success.
Thats what I thought too.
They had one of the organisers on the news yesterday morning who said “we’ve spoken to the government and they have decided that it’s in the best interest of the health of the country that the event goes ahead”.
I assume he meant “it’s not going to have an impact” but it made me chuckle that he claimed there was any sort of benefit to public health that they are allowed to ride horses around a track while people get drunk, fight and gamble