Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

Apparently he thinks that the ones responsible for food production and its logistics are all old people suffering from diabetes and asthma.

 

The shortage of toilet paper has surprised me. It's interesting that, if a species destroying pandemic does hit us, the last thought on our collective mind will be "do I have a dirty arse?"

I'm doing my bit to help with national toilet paper consumption: I've cut down on wanking.

*plays God Save The Queen*

 

No need to cut down on wanking. Just shoot your load in the toilet and wash your package in the sink. Happy wanking.

Regards,
SB

 

Denmark just closed its borders for all foreign nationals until mid April. Only Danes are allowed to return and enter. The army is going to be present with the police as the authoritative force.

 

Uh, really? I mean, guys... Just ew!

 

A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do, you feel me? Well not literally.

Regards,
SB

 

It's very stupid, certainly in the UK where our paper is made locally. It's not going to run out, but people see empty shelves and get programmed to acquire as soon as the opportunity arises. And then buy extra 'just in case', forcing the problem onto others who have to respond in kind.

Still, in a month's time, toilet-paper will probably be very cheap as the manufacturers won't be able to shift it.

 

Coronavirus may be deadlier than a common flu, but IMO the worldwide overreaction is more worrying than the disease itself.
IIRC, there was a study published a few years ago showing that, with just $150,000 and three technicians, it was possible to recreate infecting smallpox virii.
I bet there are many crazy fanatics with enough money also thinking about that study, as they watch the world's overreaction to coronavirus.

 

Poland is following Denmarks example and closing down its borders as well.

 

Yes, but the US did get off to a terrible start on testing and only now are getting up to speed.

On Feb 27, B.C. (province in Canada population 5million) had tested over 1000 people. On March 1st the US (Population 330million) had not yet tested 500.

Early testing is important for controlling the spread.

 

Madrid, 5 days ago

 

Catalonia's president has just asked the central government for help to quarantine the whole region. Best of luck.

 

Well, it is an optional way to deal with the issue. However, lacking the relocation of the weak, the ”herd immunity” approach is going to wreak havoc.
It’s going to get ugly in Europe. Italy has gone as far as they can, and the situation is still worsening. (South Korea seems to be doing pretty well though all things considered, but their example hasn’t been followed anywhere in Europe.

The USA? Well....

 

Sure, but the point I was making is that it was and will be just a drop in the bucket. No country can test "anybody". The number of cases actually out there is far more than the tested cases, known cases, or suspected cases. It isn't going to be possible in the near future to test "anybody" that wants to get tested.

At the point that testimony was made, they should have known that due to the testing that was done on the quarantined cruise ship.

Testing up to that point had been done on people that were showing symptoms. The cruise ship illustrated quite well that roughly half of people that get infected won't show symptoms and hence won't get tested.

Regards,
SB

 

It takes two weeks of incubation for any measure to show any kind of effect ...

 

Added UK for reference.

There is no other option though once containment was breached. I don't know about the rest of Europe, but in the UK the plan wasn't 'let it run its course' from the outset. If not for invisible carriers, it would have been stomped out in the early phase. AFAICS in continental Europe, they didn't want to disrupt too much and so stepped back to see what happened, although there was a large transcontinental infection from a super-carrier.

The thing with the 'close everything down' approach is you can only realistically use it once, so you need to time it for best effect. The UK leadership doesn't think that's now. The press conference was actually well reasoned.

For countries that manage to lock Covid19 down this time, there's the very real possibility they'll be facing reinfections for years to come. The moment any asymptomatic carrier enters the country, with no-one there having immunity, infections will be commonplace and spread once again, same as is happening this time. That'll warrant another extreme lockdown, because of the existence of invisible carriers - you can't just track the symptomatic and everyone they've been in contact with. Once you have herd immunity, the virus can't affect many, with only unexposed children at risk of infection but they are supposedly pretty immune to the effects.

 

No. There will be a vaccine in a year, like there is for h1n1.

 

Typically, yes. However, the cruise ship that was quarantined in Japan showed that potentially 50% or more of people won't show symptoms.

The ship was quarantined for over 2 weeks and people on the ship had been infected 1-2 weeks before the quarantine even started. It was days after the first passenger showed signs and was tested before the ship was put into quarantine.

Basically at the start of the pandemic, for every person that showed symptoms and thus might have gotten tested there was at least 1 (likely more) other person who was spreading the infection that would likely never show symptoms and thus would never get tested.

Basically for Covid-19, testing isn't useful for stopping or even slowing the spread of the disease. It's main usefulness is to verify that someone showing symptoms has Covid-19 so they can receive the appropriate treatment.

In other words, due to limited resources only people that are in the "at risk" group showing symptoms or people showing serious potentially life threatening symptoms should get tested if the number of people that can be tested is limited.

Regards,
SB

 

Um no. Testing will show if you have the virus even if asymptomatic. This means testing is actually more important not less.

 

And how do you propose that we test say all 330 million people in the US? Not to mention the rest of the world's population?

Especially when you consider that resources for testing are so limited? Not to mention testing that many people in a short amount of time?

Your own example of BC, Canada testing 1000 people out of 5 million as of Feb. 27th is pretty meaningless in determining the spread of the virus, much less determining who has the virus.

Regards,
SB