Coronavirus

[Earlian]

Just an impression:

Saturday in Germany: Massiv overrun at grocery and drug stores.

This is insane.

Heard talks about people not reaching local authorities yesterday, while - they perform homeoffice. Since schools are closed, shops will be next.

Staff at grocery says some products they can’t even order anymore to refill. So shortages are coming.

This is hopefully only a short impression and I can laugh about my post here. But for the case it is not: Preparing when they still laugh at you is key.

 

[samppa]

https://perjantaikokki.fi/2020/03/14/greetings-from-a-corona-positive-patient-from-quarantine/

A bit long, but worth reading midst of all this panic..

 

[NicoV]

Just an impression:

Saturday in Germany: Massiv overrun at grocery and drug stores.

This is insane.

Heard talks about people not reaching local authorities yesterday, while - they perform homeoffice. Since schools are closed, shops will be next.

Staff at grocery says some products they can’t even order anymore to refill. So shortages are coming.

This is hopefully only a short impression and I can laugh about my post here. But for the case it is not: Preparing when they still laugh at you is key.

Same situation in Belgium: Not a run on the banks, but a run on the grocery shops.

 

[Stormy24]

Just had a text from a friend that sells electronics and they have sold out of freezer’s. So get them while you can.

 

[marvinat0rz]

Excellent commentary on UK's COVID-19 strategy. It's brilliant, but knife-edge dangerous. Professor Ian Donald on Twitter

Basically: Plan for ensuring that all young and healthy catch COVID-19 as fast as it's safe to do so. Meaning just slow enough that hospitals are able to keep up with the serious cases. At the same time, protect all at-risk groups so that they don't catch the disease during this phase. If they succeed, they will now have herd immunity due to all the young and healthy people who will be unlikely to catch the virus. The effect will be the same as vaccination.

But it's a knife-edge balancing act, which requires very accurate, timely information of disease spread and the ability to accurately control it in either direction.

 

[Fobble]

I think sooner or later most of us will catch Covid19. Life goes on.

Just like seasonal flu, we all catch it once every few years or so. Once vaccination is available, the virus won't effectively spread on every single contact anymore.

 

[traxila]

Excellent commentary on UK's COVID-19 strategy. It's brilliant, but knife-edge dangerous. Professor Ian Donald on Twitter

Basically: Plan for ensuring that all young and healthy catch COVID-19 as fast as it's safe to do so. Meaning just slow enough that hospitals are able to keep up with the serious cases. At the same time, protect all at-risk groups so that they don't catch the disease during this phase. If they succeed, they will now have herd immunity due to all the young and healthy people who will be unlikely to catch the virus. The effect will be the same as vaccination.

But it's a knife-edge balancing act, which requires very accurate, timely information of disease spread and the ability to accurately control it in either direction.

Sounds terrific in theory. So does unlimited earth based fusion energy and warp drives.

How exactly do you make sure the infection goes wildfire in young people only while limiting exposure and illness in vulnerable groups? It sounds so ridiculous.

What about ten years down the line when we suddenly discover long term effects of COVID? Oh, right. There are none. Because we know all about it and are certain.

Obviously I wish the UK and everyone the best, but this plan sounds like a rationalization to me where when the SHTF, the pols can claim they actually had a plan that didn’t translate as ‘let it run its course’.

 

[Fobble]

Match, 14 2020

 

[KarenRei]

I'm shocked that everyone here seem to miss the most incredible news of the day...
Yes, Trump doing what Trump does, Johnson saying "meh" to the death of thousands of British...
But KarenRei has an office job! How the hell can she work and be here all the time writing incredibly detailed blogposts about literally anything!?!
Mindblown.

And people act weird when I'm not very responsive at certain times Believe it or not, I do have responsibilities

(I also work a rather irregular schedule, as we do shifts... which are now being further staggered to try to minimize the risk of one shift infecting another)

 

[cusetownusa]

https://perjantaikokki.fi/2020/03/14/greetings-from-a-corona-positive-patient-from-quarantine/

A bit long, but worth reading midst of all this panic..

makes you wonder how many people have had this and didn’t bother getting tested due to mild symptoms.

 

[eisa01]

It's not that you don't bother testing, it's that there's not enough capacity to test people with mild symptoms. Two friends of mine had flu like symptoms one week ago, and they could just forget about testing since they had no known contacts and didn't work in healthcare.

Norway has tested a record amount of people per capita (top 3-5 in the world), but even here its been very low (8000 tests in total or something), now we have the capacity to do around 3000 tests per day with two new machines from Roche. Half of our cases are imported from Austria... We have approx the same amount of infected from Austria, as Austria themselves has

They have actually said they will test anyone coming home to Norway from abroad that has symptoms, but I don't think that applies to me as I'm already home quarantined

 

[traxila]

makes you wonder how many people have had this and didn’t bother getting tested due to mild symptoms.

This. I think the answer is tens of thousands. Conservatively. I think I may have had it. Maybe.

Coworker was out for an entire ten day stretch. She had the malaise / fatigue prior to not coming in on a Monday. She then got a fever and a dry cough. At the age of 32 she described feeling like she was dieing, having a hard time breathing, being so exhausted that she was unable to get out of bed to go to the bathroom and urinating right where she was! Urgent care on Tuesday told her she had the flu. She asked about the Coronavirus and was told no, she had not been to China so ruled out.

A few days after she was full blown sick she described her five year old son as suddenly wanting only to sleep for an entire day. Normally energetic and jumping out of bed 6am in the morning. He was back to normal the next day.

I experienced some feelings of severe fatigue and wanting to sleep more. Kind of had a temperature, I thought, but although higher than my baseline, never hit above 99 when thermometer broken out. Then felt fine.

Nah, probably the flu right? Could have been the flu. You know, this officially bad flu season we had been having which seemed to have more than one strain going....

Have we officially determined that there is a severe strain and a mild strain of Coronavirus? Can anyone speak with confidence on that?

 

[jbcarioca]

People who protest hysteria do have a point. People who decry attempts to obscure and/or otherwise misrepresent risks also have a point.

I am personally considering the distinction between US and Brazilian responses. Everyone knows the US side. In Brazil there is, thus far, minimal political commentary. What has happened is regular updates online, TV, internet and newspapers. Amazingly no matter the political ideals of the outlet the information is the same. The President does not represent status, health officials do. It is easy to find how to get tested. People are given a number to call to find out what to do. Nobody is told to visit their doctor, but encouraged to call. Specific advice was offered by our private health insurance company, by email and SMS.

in the meantime cinema, football!!, and other public gatherings are halted. The events take place without audience and are broadcast. Supermarkets are indeed running short of sanitizers.

The outcomes may show similar progressions, times series seems to suggest this bug is a clever foe. I, for one, prefer the apolitical approach. Tensions do seem less acute this way.

That said I have several close relatives who are old, have multiple complications already, with impaired immune functions. Luckily, due to private health insurance they (four of them) all have live-in specialized support now. In-house protection and testing has already been established for them although it is not yet 100% in place. That makes us all less tense about contingencies.

OTOH, we all are quite aware that if this, or anything else, suddenly hits one of these people the result is quite likely to be terminal. As we all should know, any other infection could have similar results. This one is not similar as everyone knows, because there is no human herd resistance.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Have we officially determined that there is a severe strain and a mild strain of Coronavirus? Can anyone speak with confidence on that?

I believe the less aggressive strain never left China.

What seems to be the case is that it takes a while before light symptoms become life-threatening. That's why it's so infectious. You can be mostly okay for a week or two, infecting many others, and then, bam, it hits you like a ton of bricks, and you need hospitalization.

 

[Cosmacelf]

China only had 50 cases per million inhabitants (don’t know how high this was in Wuhan), but Italy is already at 300 per million. The situation in Lombardy is probably the current worst case situation we should compare to. The large cities in the USA will probably be worse 14 days from now.

They will, but will it be bad? While everyone is focusing on federal govt action or inaction, I think at the individual level, pretty much everyone has the message. All sports events are cancelled, as well as concerts, church services, any mass gathering. Business has quickly adapted, allowing those who can, work from home. Business meetings have been cancelled, with videoconferencing being used instead. Schools are closing - our schools for my kids are doing online learning. People are practicing social distancing. I guarantee if anyone goes out into public with as much of a cough or sniffle they will get the shunning treatment if not several people telling them to get a clue. You don't get 300 people lineups at grocery stores without a mass realization that the situation has changed.

So I'm left wondering if the worst part of the virus effects will be blunted in the US.

 

[traxila]

Know this won’t happen anytime soon but would love to have five thousand random people who claim to have never been infected in a breakout area be tested for presence of antibodies to COVID. Might tell us nothing or might tell us a lot more than we already know.

 

[samppa]

makes you wonder how many people have had this and didn’t bother getting tested due to mild symptoms.

Here they will only test if you're either coming from infected areas, or you can name a person that has been found positive and you've been in contact with them.
Perhaps this will change now covid spreads more.

 

[Matias]

Ok we went to Walmart and Fred Meyers for a few things this afternoon. Only saw a few people with face masks. Good sign!

First shock was the number of pallets filled with pick up orders. I mean you had to walk around them just to get down some of the isles! I asked if this was normal and they said they had never seen it at this level before. They were stacked chest high with plastic boxes filled with bags of groceries. Employees said that it seems like folks just don’t want to go in the store. Makes sense and much quicker checkout for us. Oh yea on the way in I did suggest the greeter at Walmart just wipe the wife down. Took her a few seconds but she did smiled. Wife did not.

I had noticed something about toilet paper on the internet but really didn’t pay attention. Both store tp isles were decimated. I mean nothing! I can’t think of why. I mean out of all of the things I think I’d need in an apocalyptic collapse of the world... tp is not at the top of my list. There was even an armed robbery! Cheese sections were hard hit also but at least you can eat it. Masks and hand sanitizers make sense but tp? Quick search on the internet shows that this is not new. We had a similar run on tp in 1973 based on rumors and a joke.

Times of emergency drive folks to do strange things.

Not one to miss an opportunity, I do have a few extra rolls for those of you that ignored this obvious necessity. I’m interested in .223 or 9mm ammo, gold, and silver. Of course shares of Tesla will always be accepted.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Huh. Trump just tweeted: "SOCIAL DISTANCING!"

That was one of the things that I thought was missing from yesterday's press conference, any mention of social distancing.

 

[VQTRVA]

Huh. Trump just tweeted: "SOCIAL DISTANCING!"

That was one of the things that I thought was missing from yesterday's press conference, any mention of social distancing.

He keeps contradicting himself tho: Coronavirus US: Trump shakes hands repeatedly at conference | Daily Mail Online