Coronavirus (NO POLITICAL OR SOCIAL COMMENTARY PLEASE)

[HotRats]

Donald McNeil on China's approach https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/...ne-80595013902 If you think America's bad, Britain's indolent Prime Minister has decided to basically do nothing in order to encourage "herd immunity", however many die in the process. Britain's real Prime Minister Dominic Cummings, is a "career psychopath" (David Cameron) and eugenics enthusiast.

[MifuneFan]

UK is screwed. My 70+ year old aunt, and a bunch of my extended family (who are also old) lives there, ugh

[Tony208]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

I fault the airline industry. When there's a health crisis brewing, even if it's very early, people shouldn't be allowed to travel freely. Restricting travel to civilians doesn't necessarily translate to financial disaster for local economies - you're not restricting cargo or goods, just people. Grandma doesn't NEED that vacation now, the Smiths don't need to visit Disneyland next week - all of these things can be postponed. Hell, Mr. Corporate Salesman doesn't need to attend that meeting across the country in 2 days - these aren't matter of life and death situations. CLOSE THE AIRSPACE!

Of course they could've done this weeks ago. They didn't want to lose money.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by Tony208

Of course they could've done this weeks ago. They didn't want to lose money.

trump stopped air travel to china rather early and received a fair amount of political backlash. It did buy us like a month perhaps but that time seems to have mostly been wasted.

I think all the harsh air restrictions are part of the reason china got this thing under control though. the economic restrictions made a burn out unpalatable.

[Himmel]

Reporter Banned From White House Briefing After Registering High Body Temperature.

http://deadline.com/2020/03/reporter...mpression=true


UK, Ireland Added To US Travel Restriction List, Effective Midnight On Monday.

http://deadline.com/2020/03/uk-irela...mpression=true

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

NY had its first death. An 82 year old woman in Manhattan, that had emphysema.

She never had a chance. I watched a piece on yt on how the virus affects the lungs and it wasn't good - for people with underlying conditions, that is. Apparently everyone else should be fine but if you're elderly with serious underlying conditions the prognosis isn't good at all. Even if they put you on a ventilator, unless you get "quality health care" (as the doctor on the piece put it), your chances of survival are very low. Take care of your elderly loved ones, folks. If they're OK keep them home at all costs.

[meremortal]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

She never had a chance. I watched a piece on yt on how the virus affects the lungs and it wasn't good - for people with underlying conditions, that is. Apparently everyone else should be fine but if you're elderly with serious underlying conditions the prognosis isn't good at all. Even if they put you on a ventilator, unless you get "quality health care" (as the doctor on the piece put it), your chances of survival are very low. Take care of your elderly loved ones, folks. If they're OK keep them home at all costs.

In the mortality sense that mostly seems true. But I'd imagine folks are concerned if there are any possible permanent, long term respiratory type issues. Hopefully that will not be the case, but this is still a very new strand with minimal research.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Hayabusa85

So he set up a podium in front of his house all by himself, set up all the cameras all by himself and was throwing his voice asking the questions to himself not the gathered media? It was no Skype update from home

why would it matter? A few weeks ago we were all sick in my house (not Covid-19) when I was talking to my sis on the phone I asked her if she could pick up some juice for us. That afternoon she brought a bunch of stuff, left it on the floor in front of the door. and rang the door bell. I told her to go to the end of the walkway, opened the door, said hi and talked to her for a couple of minutes while she was far away and brought the things in.


how do you know it was not the same here. If he was inside while an army of people were seting things up outside who cares viruses can’t pass through closed doors, windows and walls. and if the press were there, but far enough from the podium then there was no risk to any of them as well. Just like my sister was in no risk of what we had when I opened the door.

Who cares if it changes nothing for him when the spread is what is the issue. It is known that some people will not get symptoms at all so as a leader of a country that has had a lot of contact with people in the days prior it should be known if those in contact with him should be taking necessary steps too (If they had any common sense they would anyway).

1) If someone is asymptomatic (as in got the virus but has yet to show even the mildest of symptoms) then there is a great chance for a false negative and little chance of a positive. which is why the medical community tells people at that time to self quarantine themselves

2) let's assume we have a supper accurate test , that even if one virus got into the person it will come back positive. yes it would mean the person is not sick with it, but how meaningful is it if his wife is a known carrier? between the time the sample is taken and the result comes back he could have caught it.....


3) testing people that most likely don't have Covid-19 takes away resources that can be applied to people that most likely have it and really need testing fast. That is a lot more dangerous for the population then meaningless paranoia about someone that is already put himself in self quarantine.

The Canadian Government has been by far one of the worst at handling this and so far have lucked into Canada not being hit hard.

I completely disagree with you on that. Can't talk about the rest of the country (not paying enough attention). But here in Quebec most people that came back with the virus got quarantined extremely fast. The one person that took a bit longer and had a chance of spreading it the province made sure the media and people knew where they were to be more more susceptible of getting it

Originally Posted by newspaper

On Feb. 24, the infected person travelled by métro from the Longueuil station to Champs-de-Mars, transferring at Berri-UQAM, between 2 and 2:30 p.m., and returned by the same route between 3:15 and 3:45. Between 3:50 and 5 p.m. the same day, they rode the No. 88 bus from Longueuil station toward Mountainview Blvd. Anyone who may have used those routes during those times should call 811 if they had symptoms between Feb. 24 and March 9.
On March 6, the infected person travelled from the Longueuil station to Champs-de-Mars, again transferring at Berri-UQAM, between 9:30 and 10 a.m. They then travelled from Champs-de-Mars to Longueuil between 10:50 and 11:20 a.m. They then took the No. 88 bus from Longueuil station toward Mountainview Blvd. between 11:30 a.m. and 12:20 p.m. Anyone who may have used those routes should call 811 if they develop symptoms by March 20.

Especially with the US Europe ban meaning everybody will just fly into Canada and cross the border.

Italy (17 660), Spain (4 231), France (3 661) and Germany (3 062) have higher numbers than the US (2 174) but all the other European countries have a lot less then some of the US states.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geogra...019-ncov-cases

Medically speaking it would make a lot more sense to close the US border (especially since Seattle and NY are two of the worst US states)
than an outright ban on European travel.

But let's be honest and serious. This time of year we can't survive with closed borders. We would be well more likely to starve than be killed by Covid-19

Then on top of it all the Alberta government has decided this is the time for budget cuts to the healthcare system so a PC federal government probably would be handling this poorly too.

every province is in charge of their own medical system, and I feel bad for all you guys are going through.

[Underworld54]

My Dad passed away 20 months ago and I've been thinking about how if he was still alive how I'd protect him. Crazy thoughts, keep your elderly parents safe everyone, please.

After experiencing mobs of people cleaning out grocery stores yesterday, I figured I'd try my luck again today and they were fully stocked on meat. Picked myself us a couple things of ground turkey for chili, I can get quite a few meals out of an instanpot full of chili.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by Crimson King

Churches should not have services tomorrow, and until further notice.
A good chunk of their congregation are elderly.

At this time, God is our only solution to this crisis.

Just kidding. Churches in my area still have services, but our diocese sent a note from the bishop that attending Sunday mass is not obliged until further notice. This is the first time they ever did this during my lifetime, which just goes to show how bad this is.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

UK is screwed. My 70+ year old aunt, and a bunch of my extended family (who are also old) lives there, ugh

Everywhere is equally screwed once the outbreak spreads. Please remember that this virus isn’t an automatic death sentence, even for old people. Most of them will recover too, they just are at a higher risk of complications.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by veritas

trump stopped air travel to china rather early and received a fair amount of political backlash. It did buy us like a month perhaps but that time seems to have mostly been wasted.

I think all the harsh air restrictions are part of the reason china got this thing under control though. the economic restrictions made a burn out unpalatable.

He didn't stop air travel to/from China, just put some restrictions on it for non-citizens. Citizens, and families of citizens could still come here after the supposed "travel ban". And it was already too late by the time he did impose it. Had it been done two weeks earlier, and stricter guidelines instituted, a lot more lives would have been saved. We probably wouldn't have a huge cluster in Washington for instance.

At a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus on Feb. 5, Ron Klain, White House Ebola response coordinator under the Obama administration, took issue with the characterization of the travel restrictions as a travel “ban.”

“We don’t have a travel ban,” Klain said. “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So, the horse is out of the barn.”

“There’s no restriction on Americans going back and forth,” Klain said. “There are warnings. People should abide by those warnings. But today, 30 planes will land in Los Angeles that either originated in Beijing or came here on one-stops, 30 in San Francisco, 25 in New York City. Okay? So, unless we think that the color of the passport someone carries is a meaningful public health restriction, we have not placed a meaningful public health restriction.”

Indeed, on Jan. 24, a week before the travel restrictions, the CDC confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. from people who had returned from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/th...-restrictions/

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

Everywhere is equally screwed once the outbreak spreads. Please remember that this virus isn’t an automatic death sentence, even for old people. Most of them will recover too, they just are at a higher risk of complications.

Not really. Any country doing strict social distancing protocols stand a much greater chance of greatly reducing transmissions. Enacting herd immunity is the complete opposite of that. It is reckless, and will almost certainly cripple the UK's hospital system. The objective here shouldn't be to eliminate the virus by making your population immune, but by reducing the amount of patients getting infected simultaneously, as hospitals simply don't have the capacity to handle that load, even if only ~10% of those infected needed hospitalization.

[Crimson King]

Originally Posted by Crimson King

Churches should not have services tomorrow, and until further notice.
A good chunk of their congregation are elderly.

Garbage bags were in low supply at my Target this morning.
They had a few pallets of TP and paper towels in center isles.
People were over filling their carts with it, gotta love greed.
Like I said, there needs to be strict limits on essentials.

Just got an update, our church is having no worship or Sunday School services for the next two Sundays.

No public school until April 10th.

I hope mankind one day won't have to live like the people in the film Wall-E...

[veritas]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Not really. Any country doing strict social distancing protocols stand a much greater chance of greatly reducing transmissions. Enacting herd immunity is the complete opposite of that. It is reckless, and will almost certainly cripple the UK's hospital system. The objective here shouldn't be to eliminate the virus by making your population immune, but by reducing the amount of patients getting infected simultaneously, as hospitals simply don't have the capacity to handle that load, even if only ~10% of those infected needed hospitalization.

It’s a trade off really social distancing will kill many people in the long run do to economic damage and may put the world in somewhere between a recession and a great depression. The burn it out herd immunity will lead to a higher mortality rate but it could limit your economic damage.

[Hayabusa85]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

why would it matter? A few weeks ago we were all sick in my house (not Covid-19) when I was talking to my sis on the phone I asked her if she could pick up some juice for us. That afternoon she brought a bunch of stuff, left it on the floor in front of the door. and rang the door bell. I told her to go to the end of the walkway, opened the door, said hi and talked to her for a couple of minutes while she was far away and brought the things in.

It is the principle of it and in his position he should be setting the example for the public to follow. Self isolation doesn't mean gather the press in your front lawn to do something that could have been setup over Skype with media outlets (Even then with his spread of false information he shouldn't have a platform at all to speak on) which would have more impact on the picture it paints. Yes they were likely far enough back to not catch it if he does have it but I bet they were huddled together if one of them have it. Contrary to initial reports it can live up surfaces for multiple days so the person touching the mic he just used is also a way it can spread from one person to another. If he is willing to gather the press then I have no reason to believe he isn't willing to gather members of parliament at his house too with their no symptoms no spread rhetoric.

1) If someone is asymptomatic (as in got the virus but has yet to show even the mildest of symptoms) then there is a great chance for a false negative and little chance of a positive. which is why the medical community tells people at that time to self quarantine themselves

2) let's assume we have a supper accurate test , that even if one virus got into the person it will come back positive. yes it would mean the person is not sick with it, but how meaningful is it if his wife is a known carrier? between the time the sample is taken and the result comes back he could have caught it.....


3) testing people that most likely don't have Covid-19 takes away resources that can be applied to people that most likely have it and really need testing fast. That is a lot more dangerous for the population then meaningless paranoia about someone that is already put himself in self quarantine.

Most cases of this have few symptoms or mild symptoms. By your logic only the severe cases would be getting tested or returning positive results and the morality rate would really be causing panic then. Asymptomatic people will still provide positive results if the virus is present and unlike what he claimed can very much pass it on.

The world is trying to prevent the spread of this (Other than the UK herd immunity stuff I guess) so again somebody that would have had contact with a lot of people should be getting tested so a path of possible infection can be monitored and handled appropriately. And again a world leader should be setting the example to follow. Also you have a funny idea of who likely doesn't have it. If one spouse has it then the other likely has it. He is far more likely to have it than 90% of the people around the world that are getting tested who just have the flu or nothing at all. But anybody with even the slightest chance even if it is just flu paranoia should be getting tested. Countries that have done that have had better results controlling the spread. Canada and US only want to test people that have traveled and show symptoms. The lack of testing is what is being blamed for the spread in North America. You act like there are shortages in test kits which China are pumping out in the millions by week and that the test is a complex process that doctors would have to be attending to him to conduct. It is a cotton swab sent to labs. If Trump can do it then surely Trudeau can.

Medically speaking it would make a lot more sense to close the US border (especially since Seattle and NY are two of the worst US states)
than an outright ban on European travel.

But let's be honest and serious. This time of year we can't survive with closed borders. We would be well more likely to starve than be killed by Covid-19

We would be perfectly fine with a border closure. Border closures can still allow essentials through in a monitored manner. And yes with a lot of the Canadian cases having links to US travel we should be shutting down the US border for sure. Eventually Trump will realize his travel bans mean nothing if people can connect through Canada and shut it down anyway. Canada have been awful with travel bans including from the hot spots. One of the few countries that couldn't even be bothered with a China travel ban.

One unnecessary death from mishandling this is still one unnecessary death too many but yes that isn't the major issue. The faster the spread can be slowed the faster the economy can start to recover so every step to stop the spread should be taken. If countries from the start were not more concerned about the bottom line (And in the cases of countries like Canada and the US still more concerned about that) and took actions that countries like Signapore took from the start then this would be a lot more contained than it is. And that would have had less economic impact than the mess that has been allowed to happen now. A brief market shock would have been better than the long term damage we are in for now. Sadly this would have taken a coordinated response and too many countries are too bust puffing out their chests at each other.

[Crimson King]

WMATA (public transportation where I live, Washington DC area) is going to running on a Saturday schedule starting Monday.
But at least they are still running.

My area has quite a few homeless folks, many most likely have zero idea what's going on, a lot of them will probably pass away from this.

Our winter here has been an extremely mild one.
Colder temps might have help kill off some of this virus, but I am no scientist.

Could you imagine if it had peaked in hurricane season!

There's just not the health and economic things to be worried about, but mental issues that could arise from this such as suicides, etc...

[Member-222782]

Just came from my neighborhood supermarket and there was no chaos. Plenty of bottled water, canned goods and, yes, even toilet paper. No bare shelves or brawls - just folks casually shopping. The toilet paper madness must be at big chain stores. Another reason to support your local little guys (and your best chance at shopping without worrying about stray bullets or fights). I was actually a little disappointed. I wanted to be able to answer the "Where were you when people killed for toilet paper" questions when they mark the first anniversary of the big 2020 coronavirus scare.

[dublinbluray108]

Some more updates again from Ireland today.

An elderly man with an underlying health condition has died from Covid-19 in the east of the country. That means there are now a total of 2 deaths of Covid-19 in The Republic of Ireland. The official number of cases has increased by 39 by health authorities in the Republic of Ireland which makes it stand at 129 cases. This number also marks the first time that the Republic of Ireland has hit 3 figures for Covid-19. Northern Ireland has also hit 34 cases today.

The Irish Prime Minister along with some of his ministers met with the NI Executive today to discuss more measures about reducing the spread of Covid-19 in NI. The measures they had talked about was mirroring the Republic's response to the virus like closing schools, colleges & childcare facilities with immediate effect in NI. The difficulty is that NI's government has to comply with UK instructions for the moment to reduce the spread of the virus in their jurisdiction.

I also heard some brief news that Trump was tested for Covid-19 last night. He will be given the results in a few days time. This is now a crucial moment in where people living in the U.S. will now get a official chance to hear with the greatest amount of interest in whether their own president now the has the virus or not. If it turns out that he either does or does not have it by being told from the official health authorities. What will the people actually say about that outcome? If Trump does have the virus inside him. He is pretty much screwed with his questionable levels of health & political reputation in ruins if he gets a positive result being reported on in the media over the past year or so. If it turns out to be completely negative; well then it would be business as usual for his strategy to continue in getting rid of the virus across the U.S.

[MrHT]

I have plans to take a three night vacation to Washington DC in June. Any chance this virus will subside by then, or should I cancel my booking?