The important thing to remember is that the man is an idiot.
The virus comes from foreign meat markets, whereas Americans only get bacterial infections from chlorinated chicken.
Foreign virus is an old tradition. Spanish flu, French pox -- known in France as the Italian disease -- but it is extraordinary to reflect that two or three generations have been brought up to believe that Western civilization had outgrown its past. The apocalypse of language and of thought precedes the physical collapse and sometimes send much harder to repair.
I'm still trying to process the fact that the man who made that speech is actually president, with huge powers of obstruction if not of action.
Ah, well. Remember and recite: It's a GOOD life.
Tell me truly, was I ever Pollyanna? I'm feeling the future is binary, virus and recession might just tip Trump out of power (maybe Xi! maybe Putin! maybe a vast swathe superannuated fuckers die!) or just blow everything up Smoot-Hawley and meltdown for all.
I should never have called it "Kansas City flu" in the Nixoniad. Not only because it was a lazy lift from William Gibson, but because _obviously_ a nationalist US government would have made sure to call it after a foreign city.
Shit just got *extra* real here: one of Iberian Fury's PhD students just found out her mom, who was visiting her until March 2, just tested positive for COVID19 back home in Brazil. In between the mom visited Nice, so hopefully that's where she got it ... but the student's husband was just sick with a fever (now recovered). Bonus: he also babysat for us last week!
Amusingly enough, I'm taking a human geography seminar this semester on global public health, with a focus on pandemics. Alas, the first (and likely only in-person) session was cancelled last week, because the professor was sick.
Oh Jesus trapnel, how awful. Hope you're all stocked up and that you and IF don't get sick.
Trapnel, that's awful. Sympathies. At least it does seem to spare young people. Good luck with the self-isolation and all that.
The info line told the student that it sounds like they're probably not infected -- not sure if they're in a queue now for testing or what. Still not too late to set up a "first confirmed Mineshaft infection" betting pool, bet the field (everyone except me) on the dip!
10 is good news: it's still the case that most people with a fever and cough don't have COVID19, and that even fever plus cough plus contact with a carrier doesn't automatically mean it.
I just realized Trump might use this to justify his long-desired policy of invading blue cities and rounding up homeless people.
Also I swear I just caught a Coronavirus Pokemon. (Castform)
Put your phone in a bowl of bleach.
6: Stay safe. At least the evidence seems like babies are safe from the virus.
Anyway, they just closed a local elementary school.
My conference on Ottoman cartography in Istanbul has been postponed which makes me glad as I had a paper accepted for it and was looking forward to going at least until recent events
My conference on Ottoman cartography in Istanbul has been postponed which makes me glad as I had a paper accepted for it and was looking forward to going at least until recent events
Yell us a fun fact about Ottoman cartography.
If you can't find your Ottoman, your house is too big.
Mike Pence on CNN: "No">https://twitter.com/i/status/1238079051862102023">No confusion; you're the confusion."
Loosely transalated.
Fixed link, not that it is worth watching.
24: I saw that this morning, but at least I had the sense not to turn on the sound.
25: Sorry! That was in reference to the Sarah Palin absurdity in the other thread. I've lost my mind.
No, you're fine. It's everyone else.
Last night we thought our airline had cancelled our vacation in a month. Turns out they cancelled all flights to some airports in Japan, but not the one we're flying in or out of. So far.
Also last night Atossa had a screaming tantrum when I put my foot down and took her home from the park. She had been playing with me in the park for 20 minutes, she just didn't want to do the same thing at home, maybe after dinner. I wonder if I need to revisit my parenting style, and in the meantime I really wouldn't look forward to trying to observe any kind of quarantine.
Oh hey, maybe if the Olympics are postponed long enough they'll roll over and then no-one will want to host them and they'll end up dying for ever. Totes worth it.
29: But that would be the end of my luge dreams! What would I live for?
Is it bad of me to wish ill on Tom Hanks? I just feel that without him the end of a certain era of dreadful oscar-bait would irrecoverably end.
29: They started the Olympic torch relay in Greece today, with almost nobody at the ceremony, and the committee chair and the governor of Tokyo are both adamant that the games won't be stopped. It's going to be pretty embarrassing if the flame has to be put out partway through. Though I guess they could run it in circles round the Imperial Palace for a year or something.
31: Yes. He's already ill. And that's a silly thing to think. In fact, if he dies of the virus, within a few years there will a dreadful Oscar-bait movie about him.
Also Weinstein got 23 years in jail. It's a sign.
Wait. You wanted Hanks to play you in your luge biopic didn't you.
It concerns me that the Presidential address focused on international containment when it's pretty clear we have community spread.
I've had two April conferences canceled in the last 24 hours. I feel as though some people are finally starting to take this seriously.
Got my first-ever grocery delivery because my partner wanted us to be on the list in case we needed deliveries in the future and they restrict deliveries to existing customers. I thought he was overreacting but went along with it. So far the major finding is that it's unbelievably wasteful in terms of packaging. Also they pick the most pristine produce, which I understand, but at the store I'm often happy to take slightly imperfect produce so as not to have it wasted.
I don't know how to break this to you, but the president is an idiot and a nationalist and a racist.
I wonder if I need to revisit my parenting style,
She's three-ish? There is no winning parenting style. I'm convinced that all you're doing when you parent small children is:
- training their superego to echo your ghosty words in 20 years
- training yourself to hold a boundary
- biding time while they outgrow the behavior at the same speed they were always going to outgrow it at.
38: It makes more sense if you know the speech was co-written by S+ephen M!ller. That measure has nothing to do with slowing the spread of the pandemic (except insofar as it plays into his boss's well-known biases about who is considered "dirty" and a source of disease). It has everything to do with imposing travel and entry restrictions that he has fantasized about for years.
My mom says something roughly like, "Of course zen monks are all zen and chill in their monastery. Let's see how well they do with a few days worth of small children."
Our local state college is suspending classes. If all those kids leave town, there goes a huge chunk of our economy.
Here, too. Actually not suspended yet.
Here is my thought:
There should be no fucking way any college in the nation lets students come back after Spring Break. Send out thousands of vectors into thousands of communities and then bring them back into a dorm? No way.
And once you start online learning, there's no way you're switching back to campus this semester. So basically, we should act as though all colleges are online for the rest of the semester.
the president is an idiot and a nationalist and a racist.
I keep expecting this to be the banner headline on the NYT. At some point, the media are bound to notice.
The price of Bitcoin is crashing. All those poor libertarians..... now how are they supposed to feed all their guns?
I feel like I have seen little sign in London that anything unusual is going on. I don't ride the tube at rush hour anyway, so I don't know about that, but I've seen no sign of shortages in the stores and just as many clueless people getting in my way on the pavement as usual. My university is issuing daily notices reassuring us they've heard about this virus thing and they're taking it very seriously, but no action has yet been announced. Are any other UKians seeing anything?
I spent the morning meeting with my lab discussing what's going to happen if the university closes and maddeningly I am pretty much the only one with nothing productive that I can do from home. Time to read a bunch of papers, I guess.
45: Harvard said that too. Although some students were planning on staying on campus anyway. Undergrads have homes. For many grad students with kids and spouses, their on-campus housing is their home - whether an apartment or whatever.
Even professional students are in the same situation. At Harvard they were not closing down residences completely, just severely restricting things. You could petition to stay if you needed to.
Tufts was completely closing down and getting everyone to clean out their rooms.
I would like to see Bernie debate Biden. I know Biden has this wrapped up, but I think that a debate on medicare for all is totally legit right now, since it would allow us to better manage the epidemic and testing.
7,8: No. Don't hope you don't get sick. Hope you get it, it is manageable, you recover and know that you have some immunity after. I mean, if you are hoping for something. The best case for young people isn't 'don't get it'. The best case for young people is 'get it early, it goes pretty easily, you don't give it to anyone, you know you're done after'.
Old and sick people need to hope they don't get it, but that's not X. Trapnel's family, so far as I know. (if it is, hope you don't get it.)
Apparently yesterday Trump pushed for cuts to CDC funding.
He's going to wink at calls for vigilante attacks on visually-identifiable minorities if it becomes clear that will help him with the election.
They don't know whether people can get re-infected. Also there appears to be a sweet spot with immunity. If your immune response is too strong, it appears that that is how you get really sick - through a cascading cytokine response.
51: the thing that gets me is that there's no test yet for antibodies. So if you don't get tested during a mild case, you're stuck not being sure until such a test is developed.
55 and 51: They are working on that. The only tests they have now show whether you are actively shedding the virus - not whether you have been infected, recovered and have antibodies.
There are some in vitro studies with samples from recovered COVID 19 patients as well as old SARS samples which might make those promising for treatment.
Collecting samples for Biobanks is hugely important right now.
I feel like I have seen little sign in London that anything unusual is going on.
There's some. The Selkie's company has just sent all its employees to work from home for the foreseeable future - at least six weeks. And my local shops are intermittently out of pasta and, oddly, bread flour.
I know such tests have been rolled out elsewhere, but I assume the CDC will be slow and plodding and territorial about rolling them out here...
56: Local hospitals here are developing them as well. Not everything will go through the CDC. Also there is emergency philanthropy.
41: I appreciate the reassurance, but does it change anything if she's four and a half? It was a bit touching when she asked for a hug and for me to read her a book after the tantrum had gone on for a while, so she's aware of what helps calm her down. It's too bad it got to that point, though, and I hope she can figure out how to calm down when I'm not around.
Apparently yesterday Trump pushed for cuts to CDC funding.
This is about proposed cuts in the budget, which is aspirational from the White House and never implemented by Congress. So effectively it's a vision for CDC funding cuts, not something that might happen soon. Small comfort, I know.
There should be no fucking way any college in the nation lets students come back after Spring Break. Send out thousands of vectors into thousands of communities and then bring them back into a dorm? No way.
Some students need the dorm as they aren't safe going back home, but otherwise yes.
I'm the infectious disease expert both at work and on Facebook and I'm trying to reassure people but I just can't do it. The lack of testing or coordination is criminal. What I want to do is go back in time and reassure people for all the other outbreaks that I just ignored (although nobody was really getting worried about them in the first place, except Ebola) to make it clearer that my response this time is exceptional.
A lot of community stuff I'm involved in is being canceled (club meetings, D&D) and I'm even anxious about spending some time with my aunt. Like, should you really just keep to public-issued guidelines (nothing over 250 people, maybe 50+ if they contain older people or are in more confined spaces), or should you assume the public guidelines are behind the curve and you should avoid physical interaction as much as possible?
I think you should definitely restrict yourself to a D&D group with fewer than 250 people.
I'm even anxious about spending some time with my aunt.
"You mean to tell me, Jeeves, that we are stuck here at Brinkley Court until the travel ban is over?"
"Indeed, sir."
"With my aunt? And Cousin Thomas? And that frightful excrescence Tuppy?"
"I am afraid so, sir."
I clutched at the reviving tumbler and inhaled a healthy snort.
"These are dark days, Jeeves. We must maintain our sang-froid."
"Quite so, sir."
It is possible that the university here will close, but I'm annoyed at the lack of transparency. They announced on *Twitter* that they'd make an announcement today. Students panic--- do they come to class? Are classes canceled? Fifty mile commutes are a thing around here so this is good to know. Faculty are pissed, because why the hell are we getting announcements about pandemic policy over social media, and not, say our university-provided e-mails.
We're non-residential so I'm not sure it's as pressing for us as some other places, but we already have community spread soooooo. The holding pattern is weird. Most of our students in this deep red state think "oh, it's just the flu." Most of the faculty are planning for a big disruption to classes and it's like we're three weeks ahead of them.
I'm puzzled, but not sure why I'm puzzled, at the projections that 1/4 to 1/2 of the US population will eventually get COVID-19. Is that normal for pandemics that take hold and it's just the first time it has?
FWIW my epidemiologist gf is still betting that
Oops, not sure how that got cut off
...that less than 1% of the US population will get coronavirus in 2020.
Oh, I know how it got cut off, I used a less-than open-mouthed Pacman symbol and didn't use a corresponding greater-than so it thought I was trying to do HTML
Epidemiologists with gambling problems are the worst. They say they can quit any time they want, but knowing statistics isn't the same as the wisdom to know when to stop gambling.
32 What would you like to know?
My talk will be on an amazing manuscript strip map in our collection showing eastern Anatolia all the way to the Gulf of Oman with every city and town and shrine indicated, it even shows Noah's ark. It's mid-17th century, kind of like an Ottoman Peutinger Table.
We have an amazing collection here that I largely built including some very rare pieces like the Hajji Ahmed map and a very large wall map from the Nizam-i-Jadid period that were either made in Europe for the Ottoman market or were commissioned in Europe by the Ottomans, among other things.
38 My concern exactly. He's still all about travel bans and the fucking stock market.
69_70: This seems to be different from what various experts are saying - why does she think differently?
(The first person being quoted in the linked is in pharma, but others echo him, and he's been a public pandemic response official in the past.)
68: They think we will need 50% in order to end the epidemic - either through infection or a vaccine.
I think Trump will do much better in the election with 5,000 dead Americans and blaming the foreigners than he would with 500 dead Americans and an effective response. I don't know how many dead Americans it takes to shift that calculation, but I'm pretty sure it's many more.
Ogged, this is totally still the Before.
Before: The expectation phase. What will happen? Will it happen to me? Will I really have to change my life? Can this be real? Can I make a plan? Is it reasonable to do something? Make a plan.
During: The happening phase. Actually sick. Restricting movements. It is totally not reasonable to do the thing. Businesses closed. Fuck. My plan was nowhere near good enough. The deaths (celebrity, political, acquaintances) come fast.
After: Assessment phase. Done being sick. Done being home. Tentatively doing regular things. Deaths slow. Totting up the damage. Backfilling the losses.
71: we did literally make a bet, I have a reminder on my phone, but no money on the line, just pride.
73: the article that you linked is about "being exposed" to the virus != getting it. Still, she's more sanguine than most people, and it's mostly a strong prior on "most things aren't that bad", plus she thinks that for all CDC's dysfunction the local response at least in our area has been pretty solid.
Or...
Before: anxious and interested, lots of seeking and assessing, little bit titillated
During: super annoying, bored alternating with frantic
After: grief and interesting again
Backfilling the losses.
You need to leave my shop right now.
77: Thank you. Bad habit of mine, skimming.
When- sadly not if at this point- US hospitals get to the current state of Italian hospitals and have to start deciding to leave people to die, who's going to be the first conservatarian to argue that the proper way to prioritize saving people is by net wealth? Bret Stephens?
Also Tom fucking Cotton, the dumbest man on the planet who shares a birth year with me, has sworn that we will get revenge on the people who inflicted this on the world.
Bats? Chinese people who eat bats? China in general?
78: Sometimes I read these threads backward and I couldn't help but think you need to find someone else to have sex with.
Barry@72:
I hope you realize that you're 1 fortuitously discovered treasure map away from becoming a character in pulp novel.
Differently interesting is that apparently the conspiracy theory current in China is that it's an American plot. Symmetry is a beautiful thing.
The news that Tom Hanks has the virus, brought back memories of Rock Hudson and Magic Johnson. It's odd how a disease doesn't seem like that big of a deal until a celebrity catches it.
77 sounds like some mix of gamblers fallacy and a strong conviction that it is not, in fact, a pandemic. If it is a pandemic sort of by definition you can't do anything much about the numbers except time shift them, at least until a vaccine is created. Absent truly unlikely timeline on that last bit, 1% and pandemic just don't add up.
@88 Wuhan has a population of 11 million and probably had about 70K cases. That is less than 1%.
We know how to stop this from spreading - but nobody in charge wants to be the person to ruin the economy to do so. So the deciders delay.
But eventually they will be panicked into action. It will probably not be as bad as Wuhan. But there will be an initial flair up that probably kills several thousand people in the US, followed by a period of months if not years of periodic outbreaks that are rapidly tamped down. Quarantines and travel restrictions. Economic retrenchment. Things will get better once they have a vaccine.
2005 prediction of bats as a source of the next outbreak.
Filing away for later reading, here's an overview of the little guys' immune systems.
My office just sent an email saying, "If an employee chooses to travel to a country defined by the CDC as Level 2 or 3, or takes a cruise, they will be subject to quarantine for a time period as defined by the CDC..." There are four Level 3 countries: China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea. As far as I can tell by Googling, there are no Level 2 countries. There is a Level 2 worldwide alert. I feel like my office should have phrased this more clearly.
Gambler's fallacy is when you think that something hasn't happened for a while so it's due to happen. Believing that a new infectious disease will behave like most old infectious diseases is the opposite of that.
65: I dunno, enough cannon fodder and they might make it through the Tomb of Horrors.
The news that Tom Hanks has the virus, brought back memories of Rock Hudson and Magic Johnson. It's odd how a disease doesn't seem like that big of a deal until a celebrity catches it.
I think it's a consequence of our parasocial relationship with celebrities. Suddenly, now we all feel as if we know somebody who has it, even though we actually don't.
64: Assume that they're behind the curve. We had a choir gig last Sunday that I was slightly hesitant about taking part in, but decided that it should still be fine. It turns out that a singer's family member who was in the audience has since got very sick and is waiting for a test result, and the singer herself and several other choir members are reporting coughs and high temperatures and feeling like death. I'm hoping to goodness it is just flu, as I know at least two people who were there are severely immunocompromised. In hindsight it would have been better to have stayed away.
82 IHMHB when I was a law student intern for a federal judge, we had a lawsuit against, inter alia, China, Ted Kennedy, Anthony Kennedy, and Africa.
It seems like right now there's a weird mix of people taking serious social distancing measures and people acting like it's no big deal, and I don't know enough about epidemiology to know what that means. Obviously isolation/social distancing is most effective if everyone does it, but is it at least partially effective if a lot of people do it?
68: I think the estimate for the 1918 flu is that it infected about a quarter of the world population. Planet 2020 is perhaps more susceptible than Planet 1918 in terms of population density and travel, less susceptible in terms of WWI not happening and, I don't know, the new stigma on face-touching?
I am listening to Biden talk now. Obviously he is better than Trump, but it's not reassuring to me. Listening to Pelosi was reassuring. Biden less so. Fauci was talking about free testing on demand without a doctor's order.
My organization has a central hotline for questions. The worried well are overwhelming doctors' offices. Calls to your doctor are probably not a good idea unless you are sick enough to need hospital level care.
We've just announced that extending spring break by one week to give faculty time to move courses online.
Also it's dawning on me how much work will be involved in holding classes online.
A certain hospital wants to start its own testing program. But they can't get reagents. Because the reagents are all made in China. So they emailed their research labs requesting donations of reagents.
Some university hospital have reagents and some have trustees. Seem about the same.
104: Depending what specific reagents we're talking about, it might be possible to grind up the trustees and purify them from the homogenate.
I'm pretty sure we could whip up a passable test in our labs with existing materials and some easy to make custom synthesized DNA. There's a kit everyone uses that is in short supply but I think there are other ways to do the same thing, the kit is just more convenient and is what's certified for use with the approved assay. Where are all these garage biohackers I keep hearing about?
Millennials can't afford garages and Gen X is too old to bother now.
It's really driving home the point how much power in this country is concentrated in the hands of the over-70 set.
Has it always been the case that power never gets handed down readily to young'uns? Or is this moment in time unusually unbalanced?
Just to make the pathetic testing situation even more annoying: I just read an interview with a WHO official who had just returned from China. He says that the spread wasn't brought under control by draconian measures and mass lockdowns except in Wuhan and a few other places. In the majority of the country it was apparently an aggressive testing/tracking/quarantining program that brought things under control.
Maybe unusually unbalanced because of the baby boomers and health advances simultaneously. But boy howdy am I ready for that to be over.
My place of business is expecting to announce tomorrow that working from home will become mandatory on Monday. Folks here had been allowed, at their discretion, to work from home. I have a decent office setup at home, but I'd much prefer to be in the office.
108: Age of the past 10 presidents at inauguration, from current to further back: 70, 47, 54, 46, 64, 69, 52, 61, 56, 55. Ages of Clinton in 2016 and Biden, Sanders, and Warren today: 68, 77, 78, 70. I'm not bothering to check how their birthdays line up with inauguration day or today's date, and the presidency is just one powerful position, but to answer the question, yes, this moment in time is unbalanced by that metric.
108, 110: And yet the overwhelming majority of voters (young, middle-aged, and old) in the Democratic primary voted for old white men.
Nope - I'd love to hear from you. Very curious about where you work. I was hearing we might have tests available next week, but if there are no reagents....
This is very long, and I just skimmed parts. But there's a good chart where they retroactively asked people in Hubei about the onset of their symptoms, in order to infer the portion of cases that are identified with or without social distancing.
Ohio's schools to close Monday for three weeks.
OK, I'm canceling my New York flight and have convinced M to stay home too.
No cases here yet, but the wife is insisting I work at home. I basically can do that, so I guess I should. Just need to come in every few days to check the mail.
Republicans don't care that the President is spewing all manner of bullshit, but they are mad about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-XMfNSP78g& Are waaambulances also in short supply?
@114 I don't work for that hospital - a little bird told me. Take it for what it is worth...
@114 I don't work for that hospital - a little bird told me. Take it for what it is worth...
Day Job declared a pivot from our usual policy of "WFH whenever" to "default to WFH" yesterday morning, and by yesterday evening had hardened that to "WFH unless you absolutely must come in"
Area College where I teach a class let me know at 11:30 today that my 2:00 lecture was cancelled. Could take it online if I wanted or just end the quarter entirely.
Our state also closed schools, two weeks and then our district starts spring break. My parents and girlfriend have offered to help so I can keep working, but I haven't figured out what to do yet. Daycare is still open tomorrow as planned (teacher training day) and I suspect they'll stay open at last a few more days, so I may take advantage of that while I figure out what my options are if I quit my minimum-wage job while trying to redo my mortgage and other fun stuff like that. Lee is going to be home since she's a substitute PE teacher at the moment, but I can't imagine inflicting her on the girls three days a week.
This thread broke me
https://twitter.com/rebecca_mehra/status/1237891575897718791?s=21
The office manager was going around asking about whether people have the facilities to work from home. I wonder if that's in my future.
Leaving work there was a single protestor standing in front of Nationwide Arena in a Blue Jackets uniform. I think his sign said, "Mike DeWine is a Commie"
I've had some mild cold symptoms and a tight chest all week, so I've chosen to work from home the past 4 days. I have no fever, though, so I am assuming it's just a cold/seasonal allergies (I am prone to allergic sinus things). But, you never know. Mrs ttaM has a shitty cough, and is quite ill, but no temperature. Again, probably a cold, but .. who knows.
Any other time, I'd have been at work all week, as I don't feel that ill. But right now, it feels like I probably shouldn't go in.
I'm still bitter that it wasn't the Mad Cows. I signed a petition and everything.
126: Earlier today I saw that initial set-up used for a shaggy dog story that ended with running away with the money.
Shortages in the stores Swope? Muswell Hill Sainsbury's is out of organic olive oil.
re: 131
Bog roll, hand wash, UHT milk, and some frozen produce is completely gone where I am (Ealing/Southall-ish). Local small Sainsbury's freezer section is literally empty. Nothing in it. Plenty of fresh food and tins, though.
That reminds me, I'm going to go buy some raisins. I don't want to be trapped at home and constipated.
Haven't really noticed much, but then I'm working from home and have barely left the flat all week (work is making everyone do it from Monday). On my one trip to the supermarket on Tuesday it didn't seem particularly panicky.
The raisin section was looking pretty sparse, but there was a sale.
They just shut down the schools here.
There was a kid stocking the shelves talking to an older stocker about how worried he was about his parents because the elderly were vulnerable. His parents were fifty. I was going to yell at him, but I realized that holding two large containers of raisins and a bag of Twizzlers didn't help my authority.
I kind of suck at social distancing because this morning I shook hands with a couple of guys even though I'm working from home because of the virus.
The panic shopping is ridiculous. Palllets of bottled water? Why? Does the virus clog pipes and dry up rivers? No? Then STOP IT
I don't want to poop instantly. Just eventually.
There was a sign on limits to how much water you are allowed to buy.
My office has closed for the next two weeks and ended all staff travel through April. Canceling our public events through May.
I'm glad I stocked up on groceries 10 days ago. Some empty shelves around here per friends and social media. I haven't been out except for a very brief run to the auto parts store to get a headlight.
Texting my senior neighbor to see if she needs me to bring her anything. Trying to talk my 76-year-old father into taking this seriously. Sending e-mails to check in on the people I know who are isolated at the best of times.
Ideas for how else we should be looking out for each other? I'm all ears.
I bought a bunch of ant poison at Home Depot today on the thought that I might not want to make a trip to Home Depot around the time that ant season comes around.
Phila's health commissioner seems pretty on top of things. We have 1,000 people in self-quarantine in the city and 45 who have been tested. Or actually, per this afternoon's press conference, 45 people have been swabbed. The city is hasn't gotten any test RESULTS back for something like 36 hours (!!) due to the CDC-driven lab backups.
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (wife of our PM Justin) has tested positive for the coronavirus. Shit just got real in Canada...
Real? I've heard the "girlfriend in Canada" before.
Schools here closed.
I'm going to be so annoyed if Trump doesn't catch it.
Not transmissible by urine. He's safe.
I can't believe it is so close to Trump so early in the story. Normally we'd have to wait weeks or months for comeuppance, but maybe this time the sweet sweet Scything Through the Republican Leadership plotline will come early.
I hate to say it, but if Pelosi feels at all wobbly, she needs to step down and put some vigorous 40 year old as Speaker. I used to hate that kind of talk about RBG, but now I see the point.
Speaking of disease transmission, Pittsburgh's paid sick leave act goes into effect on the Ides of March. Not that I'm faulting the law, but they couldn't have passed the law to start it a bit earlier?
I guess it was supposed to start in 2015, but business owners sued.
Schools closed here, starting Monday. Leaving aside the whole end of civilization thing, this is pretty great. I had some use-it-or-lose-it vacation that a few months ago I decided to take next week before losing it at the end of the month. Now I get to spend the time with my kids.
I've heard the "girlfriend in Canada" before.
Some of those imaginary "girlfriends in Canada" were actually real people, though.
Welp. Sac schools closed and my kid has a mild fever. Huh. I wanted to go early and get it over with, but this feels a little real.
That reminds me to stop my habit if drinking out of any glass on the counter that doesn't have lip prints on it.
I have been wondering if we already had it. My son had a dry cough that did not go away. This was in January. And, I'm just now remembering this, a couple of weeks later when I tried to make him go jogging with me, he complained about not being able to breathe without pain.
He never had but the slightest of fevers. The doctor said it was probably a sinus infection and gave us some antibiotics.
My friend and I were just complaining about a cough that didn't go away for four weeks (and then mine segued smoothly into annual allergies). But that seemed just like a regular cough, not an especially dry or painful one. But yeah. It isn't impossible that you already had your mild cases. Congratulations!
...complaining that we each had a monthlong lingering cough...
I've also had a mildly annoying cough and sore throat since early February that just won't go away. But I don't think it can be coronavirus, because if it was already prevalent in the population we'd have been seeing an uptick in pneumonia clusters much earlier.
Oh lord, Andy Slavitt says experts predict a million US dead. I hope he's using a high end to galvanize action.
My office went WFH today, just in time for my vacation which is forcibly a staycation. So next week I'll switch what I do at home.
What's the long-term plan for vulnerable people? Live in fear until there's a vaccine, I guess.
So not only did I not go on the desert trip but I'm not going to the weekly Friday morning breakfast I look forward to. I'm a bit surprised at my self-discipline here and these things are necessary for my mental well-being here being on my own and all. There's a gathering at a beer hall later today for a friend who is leaving, I'll see how I do with that.
Kuwait just went into total lockdown. Everything other than hospitals shut. They may well do that here.
164 must be right. If they have their savings in the stock market, they get an extra dose of fear to live in.
Barry, it is horrible doing this stuff on your own. Sympathies.
Oh lord, Andy Slavitt says experts predict a million US dead. I hope he's using a high end to galvanize action.
It's disturbingly plausible. If containment fails, as it looks like it has, and 40% of the US population gets it, then 1% mortality is over a million people. This is similar to what Slavitt says, from what may be a different set of experts.
I'm having the maid over to help me clean up my apartment, I really can't see staying shut in with a messy apartment, and more than that I'm worried she'll not have enough money for food with her baby sitting gigs cancelling since the schools are shut so I'm just going to give her a bunch of cash.
170 that's a low end estimate too. Mortality could be higher than 1%. I can't believe the US can't get its shit together with the testing.
63/cryptic ned: AJ's mom keeps calling him in increasingly panicked tones to ask what I think of this. (NB, I am probably the only scientist she knows with even tangential infectious disease experience but very much not the right person to ask for serious information.) I think he put the fear of god into her last time ("You are in the high risk group. Go home and stay home. Avoid the grandkids. Avoid gatherings.") Years ago, she mentioned Reagan was her favorite president, and I'm biting my tongue to avoid mentioning that having a functional CDC would be fantastic right about now and also that I hope every fucker who failed at the AIDS epidemic gets coronavirus.
I can't imagine being at home with family for more than a few days. My wife is already grumbling at me. I don't think she really gets "working from home". Because I do it quite a lot, I _actually_ work, when I am working from home. I'm also able to _actually_ concentrate for long periods at a time. From her point of view, I think that's an intolerable imposition, since I should be sitting about all day endlessly talking about how unwell we feel and doing nothing useful.
174: Is it possible that I am in fact your wife?
Or at least that she has established complete telepathic control over me so that I sit around endlessly talking to myself and doing nothing useful?
I would be feeling sanguine about my social distancing prospects but with a kid in middle school and a kid in high school I don't think I can prevent my getting it, only my passing it on.
I was expecting more than 1 million dead, but it seems like people are taking it seriously now. Plus now I'm questioning if 40% of the population really would get it.
One thing I saw on twitter alarmed me. If overweight, diabetes, high blood pressure are risk factors we may see a higher death rate here than elsewhere.
Well I just checked and we have about 11.8 ICU beds per 100,000 pop here. I couldn't find out how many are equipped with ventilators. o
Plus now I'm questioning if 40% of the population really would get it.
Having just talked to my old mate the viral epidemiologist:
When an epidemic has run its course, the proportion of the population still susceptible (ie who have not either got it and recovered, or died) is one over R0. So if R0 is 2.5, which is a pretty good estimate at present, one over 2.5 - 40% - of the population will _not_ have contracted COVID-19. If you had a measles epidemic, well, measles R0 is 12 to 18, so only 3-8% of the population will not have contracted measles. Mathematics like this answers questions like "I'm sure we had some Native Americans round here last year, does anyone know where they went?"
So one strategy with COVID is to make sure that the 60% who are going to get it are in the age brackets least likely to die. Segregate the grannies but keep the schools open, let all the kids and their parents get mild COVID, and then they'll all be immune and the epidemic will be on its way out. If you choke it off early with extreme social distancing etc, then you still have a very high percentage of susceptibles and, guess what, you get the second wave of the epidemic this winter, which will be worse. And there won't be a vaccine by then either.
I just learned that South Carolina's governor has taken the wingnut party line of "nothing to see here. no need even to put up signs recommending handwashing, let alone stop large gatherings." T.F.P.
re: 179.last
That seems to be the current UK government policy, more or less.
181: yes. And my viral ep friend, who is a supporter of the government in the same sense that Khan Nunien Singh was a supporter of James T. Kirk, thinks that it is a workable plan.
To be fair, Kirk's policy of fucking his way through the portion of space that had sentient life that looked like a human female certainly caused more epidemics than the one noted on the screen.
Khan didn't mention epidemiological concerns, but I think it's pretty clear he was educated enough to understand the issues.
Kirk was a stayhome nerd. We've discussed this, twice.
One thing I saw on twitter alarmed me. If overweight, diabetes, high blood pressure are risk factors we may see a higher death rate here than elsewhere.
But if smoking and exposure to air pollution are risk factors we may see a lower death rate here than elsewhere.
University is moving online, but the preschool remains open! Our public schools are open for now. This doesn't seem optimal but Title I schools have to weigh the downsides of kids without breakfasts and lunches and parents who can't take time from work to watch them, and I also suspect they're trying to run out the clock so school doesn't have to be extended.
185: He just never fucked a human because he doesn't even see species.
OK, I'm going out to my friend's farewell party, probably for the last time in weeks.
Cross-species genetic incompatibility = easy birth control. Can't expect the guy to have to worry about child support payments on 18 different worlds.
154: Are you in DC? the same thing was announced here, but just this morning as far as I can tell. April vacation moved up to this coming week, distance learning the week after, no details yet about how distance learning will work. Cassandane's office sent her home with her laptop to work from home for the next two weeks. Still no official word about mine.
While we try to figure out child care for the next two weeks, I'm not sure if we actually should. Is it actually social distancing if we just replace school with a day care? Is a day care even worse, considering that it would mostly be strangers? Complete seclusion isn't realistic, but I assume getting the kid together with two or three friends on a rotation would be a lot better than sending her to any class-sized gathering. But maybe getting her together with friends enough to preserve our own sanity isn't realistic either. I may not be totally level-headed about this.
I think it's pretty clear he was educated enough to understand the issues.
I think he had that reputation because of the famous Khan Academy, but remember, there was a Trump University, too.
||
a "mildly centripetal agglutination of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements,"|>
181. You credit them with more coherent thinking than I do...
191: If public school isn't available, I'd avoid daycares. But I think small gatherings with a couple of friends should be fine. I know it's wishful thinking but it would be awesome if employers just accepted that productivity isn't going to be optimal for a couple of weeks. My two are pretty good at entertaining each other and we both work from home a lot so I'm optimistic that maybe I can still get things done.
Pokemon Go has cancelled community day and made it easier to get stuff to play the game without traveling far. I feel too understood.
182: Though presumably you still need to flatten the curve and measures for both that and granny segregation seem to be missing.
Maybe it was the state-wide school closing, or maybe it was the suspension of the NHL season, but it seemed like everybody decided to go to the supermarket last night. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of a decision to cancel events where people gather together, if the result is general panic that leads to everyone rushing to the stores at once? I went in the store, saw that all the toilet paper was gone, and left.
My wife asked me not to ride the bus, so I drove to work.
She's probably also worried about gems on the door handles at your office. Minimizer contact by peeing in old Gatorade bottles at your desk.
Specifically, she's worried that you haven't pried them off and sold them.
Bolsonaro has gone down with it. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Now will Trump and Pence self-isolate? (Num, question expecting the answer, no.)
The more of their colleagues those two spread it to, the stronger the argument becomes for a benevolent providence.
Why are we worried especially about Rhode Island?
Though presumably you still need to flatten the curve and measures for both that and granny segregation seem to be missing.
Social distancing and handwashing flatten the curve, and granny segregation is already happening; care homes are being advised to ban or severely limit visitors, and some already have. (Keeping the schools open will also limit the risk to free-range grannies because they won't be looking after the grandkids quite so much.)
Why are we worried especially about Rhode Island?
The Rhode Island Red Scare.
I'm not sure what that is, but will distance myself from living chickens just in case.
A tactful way of saying "kill every chicken in line of sight".
care homes are being advised to ban or severely limit visitors, and some already have. (Keeping the schools open will also limit the risk to free-range grannies because they won't be looking after the grandkids quite so much.)
I'm concerned about the large number of grannies and grandpas with jobs, ie people who haven't been able to retire because they don't have much in the way of savings.
My coworker's husband is working security in a nursing home. There's a limit of one visitor per day for each resident, and they are checking temperatures for all visitors.
There's only one way to get an accurate reading.
Fortunately, all contagious patients are also febrile.
The strategy in 179 would particularly suck for my sister, the thirtysomething, severely immunocompromised single mother of two (ages 8 and 5). But your friend's benevolent regime would make sure she gets a ventilator and dedicated babysitters under 60, I trust?
Maybe our high levels of existing granny segregation compared to European countries will also help. Every municipality racing to build neighborhoods where only people over 55 are allowed to live wasn't because it means they don't have to build new schools or change the school district maps, it was a public health measure.
211: Yes, but I guess it's better than nothing.
Social distancing and handwashing flatten the curve
But the policy on social distancing hasn't shifted that much at all - people were already being advised to stay at home if they felt ill.
Unless you mean that they are accounting for what people are doing off their own backs - which seems to put a lot of weight on behavioral science.
I believe they are planning for greater social distancing but delaying it until the incidence reaches a certain point. There is an explicit description of a phased approach.
I don't trust the Tories, but that was my take away from watching the medical officer and scientific advisor.
I have been wondering if we already had it. My son had a dry cough that did not go away. This was in January. And, I'm just now remembering this, a couple of weeks later when I tried to make him go jogging with me, he complained about not being able to breathe without pain.
I mean, Hawaii also had a lingering cough for the past few weeks. Doctor said it was allergies. Then last night she had a straight up migraine. But no fever. Ace had a light fever over the weekend.
It seems like if Hawaii had it, we all would have had at least some symptoms. Unless I'm underestimating how mild "mild" can be. But I have wondered.
My kid had a fever and today he has a slight cough and I have a cough that might be more than I've had for weeks. If this is it, it is very reassuring to actually have it. (Hoping it doesn't turn into the terrible cough.)
I'm feeling a lot more anxious than I normally do about any kind of news; I don't know if I'm in a feedback loop of sitting around at home and freaking myself out. But look at these notes from a UCSF expert panel held Tuesday:
40-70% of the US population will be infected over the next 12-18 months. After that level you can start to get herd immunity. Unlike flu this is entirely novel to humans, so there is no latent immunity in the global population.
[We used their numbers to work out a guesstimate of deaths-- indicating about 1.5 million Americans may die. The panelists did not disagree with our estimate. This compares to seasonal flu's average of 50K Americans per year.] This assumes no drug is found effective and made available.
If someone gets sick, have them stay home and socially isolate. There is very little you can do at a hospital that you couldn't do at home. Most cases are mild. ... If someone gets quite sick who is old (70+) or with lung or cardio-vascular problems, take them to the ER.
1.5 million is almost 1 in 200. Put another way, if this is true, everyone statistically knows someone who will die of COVID this year. This is... emergent, unpredictable since unprecedented in living memory (since Spanish flu). A generational trauma, perhaps.
I'm pretty sure that UCSF thing is a worst case scenario also assuming no successful control efforts.
I was pretty sick for much of February with something that at first seemed like it might be the flu, but the nasal test swab for the flu came back negative. I did have a bad cough for some of the time I was sick. But I don't think it could have been COVID-19, because I never had a fever.
219: Does "flatten the curve" actually reduce deaths from the virus if successful, or just spread them out? (I agree it assumes no vaccine or better treatment is found.)
212: immunocompromised people are also at high risk and ideally would be isolated - but I don't know what the plan would be for immunocompromised people with small children. Given she's survived this far with two tiny germ factories in the house... keep doing what she's doing?
219: I would be very cautious about going for a fatality prediction since lethality depends so much on the availability of healthcare (flatten the peak!) and therefore on timing of illness.
212: immunocompromised people are also at high risk and ideally would be isolated - but I don't know what the plan would be for immunocompromised people with small children. Given she's survived this far with two tiny germ factories in the house... keep doing what she's doing?
219: I would be very cautious about going for a fatality prediction since lethality depends so much on the availability of healthcare (flatten the peak!) and therefore on timing of illness.
I had a dry cough a few weeks ago, but no other symptoms. I'm assuming it was just a dry cough, and if/when I get COVID-19 I'll have another one, among the rest of it.
Does "flatten the curve" actually reduce deaths from the virus if successful, or just spread them out?
It only reduces deaths if it can keep hospitals from being over capacity (to the point where care is failing).
221: There's been at least one symptomatic case without fever (Chinese person in Germany, week or two ago).
I'm finally seeing the level of alarm on my Facebook feed that has been going on in my head for a couple weeks now. I guess that's comforting?
A bigtime HKU epidemic/viruses person said early on 60-80% of all humans would be infected. At 1-2% fatality that gives 42-112m dead. Which I didn't post 2 weeks ago because I would have sounded like a crazy person. But now Germany says 70% of all Germans. So.
I don't know how much over the base rate that is. Is 40,000 men and women everyday still the death rate?
@226 Well to the extent that it does any amelioration of over-capacity.
@179 Thinking aloud, at what point does a perception of government inaction push people to take the kinds of steps that mitigates against the effect they are trying to achieve?
So, worse than the Plague of Justinian, not as bad as the Black Death.
Apparently newer scholarship indicates the Plague of Justinian was really fucking bad. Maybe as bad as the Black Death.
Anyway, in terms of the percentage of the population likely to be killed, this is pretty trivial compared to anything historically called a plague.
Romans had better testing procedures.
224: yeah, it's an "edge case," as they say. But the kids' other caregivers are our parents, 69 and 70, and if they're at higher risk too, it does get trickier to manage. I really, really hope she doesn't get sick. (As for how she's survived the immunological hazing for eight years... it's complicated and I don't completely understand the situation, but in part I think she was in generally better health five years ago, or even two years ago.)
237. Same species, different strain. Which is why the Black Death could do it all over again.
217: It seems like a big range. Some would be what we'd all call mild, I've even seen the word "asymptomatic", some wouldn't. To slightly violate the sanctity of off-blog communications, someone was talking on the other place about symptoms that sound absolutely miserable, but they're technically mild because they haven't required hospitalization so far. Pretty sure we haven't had it yet. A dry cough sounds noticeably different from the colds and allergies we have almost all the time.
Which is why the Black Death could do it all over again.
It had to wait a long time.
Now I'm wishing for testing because I would absolutely love to be confirmed this is it. If it is this mild (crossing fingers against getting worse) and we had confidence we had it, we'd be in a great position.
243: There was in fact an outbreak of pneumonic plague in China last year! Also botched and hushed up, but fizzled.
There's an established plague reservoir in America now. If you go to Arizona, don't eat the rodents.
Also hasn't it been endemic since like 1850.
They've identified an antibiotic resistant strain of Y. pestis in Madagascar, where it is endemic. Hang onto your hats.
I think if hats were preventative, the Black Death couldn't have happened. They all wore hats all the time.
It isn't the hats but the hanging on. Stops you touching your face.
Yet the CDC won't follow my suggestion and encourage men to scratch their balls.
That 1% fatality rate is overall, I think. If we isolate the grannies as per plan, the fatality rate of those who catch it will be much lower. Plus health care system will be better at treating it, and will be ready for it.
Society isn't going to break down. Nowhere close.
Lots of other things could break down society.
I don't think society is going to break down. I just think it's going to be fucking awful on a scale not seen in my lifetime, possibly my parents' too.
I did get my parents to move from social-distancing-but-still-working to only going out for critical needs.
If it is slowing down in China, they currently have 80K cases out of 1.3 b people. Hubei has 67K cases and 58 million people.
Granted the quarantines have been incredibly strict, but those numbers are nowhere close to 40-60% that are cited once you blow past containment and into mitigation.
Yeah I heard numbers between 40%-80% also. And sure eventually. But China got transmittion down below 1. The last figure I saw claimed they had less than 1 million cases. I'm sure there are things I'm not understanding, but they don't seem on course to 40%, not in a year anyway.
So I guess my question is: what are the differences in models between our loose social distancing model, and the strict quarantine of China?
254: That 1% figure assumes that everybody gets the medical care they need. I find that optimistic.
There are two apartment buildings in my neighborhood that have active COVID-19 cases, apparently they tested all the other residents and evacuated them. There are police stationed outside the buildings and I could see healthcare workers inside the lobby of one of them.
One of those buildings I'd checked out last year when I was thinking of moving. Glad my current apartment building is much smaller.
Agreed that 40% is an extreme worst case.
But Hubei did not test very many people who were symptomatic, let alone try to test those who were not. The number of Hubei infected is IMO very much higher than what's reported. I see reports that the mobile hospitals there are closing.
IMO watching Italy, which did not take isolation steps early, is the best predictor, they're about two weeks ahead of the US, 1/5 of US population.
We finally have one confirmed case locally. A crew member from an international cargo plane that stopped to refuel. Went straight into quarantine. So that case is unlikely to be linked to any local community transmission either upstream or downstream, but the authorities are still acting like they strongly believe it is already being transmitted here even though they haven't found it.
So I guess my question is: what are the differences in models between our loose social distancing model, and the strict quarantine of China?
In China they separated sick people from their families by getting them out of the house and into special pop-up hospitals, which they had on hand because I guess their country plans ahead for stuff. Here I think everybody is going to be passing it on to family members. Unless we can get a hold of preventing that, its going to be very difficult to keep a lid on this until such time as a vaccine comes around. Especially in as much as "keeping a lid on this" means "sabotaging the economy."
This week happened to be spring break for most of the schools here, so several of the districts have just decided to extend it another week or maybe more.
Eeep. Well, Iberian Fury's student--the one whose husband babysat for us last week--just tested positive. So now shit gets extra special real for us, her lab, and the whole bioinformatics class that the student was TAing last week. Oh boy.
I mean, who knows, maybe I.F. and I and the Infanta were actually the vectors here, since we and the Infanta were sick for weeks, but I would have thought the timing was too early. But maybe that's just the kind of thinking that's gotten us into this pandemic!
Speaking of which, new measures here in Austria starting Monday: non-critical retail closed; restaurants/cafes only open until 3pm; no more flights to/from Spain/France/Switzerland. Vienna's setting up an emergency hospital in the convention center.
Whaddya mean society isn't going to break down?
269: Eeek.
I think Megan was correct upthead that it's better to be exposed early -- if and only if you think that efforts for containment will fail and that most people will eventually be exposed.
I'm still hoping that containment will have an impact, and believe that there's a public health interest in everyone to making an effort to minimize the risk of contact and exposure.
So, I hope that nobody in your family contracted the virus, but whatever the case is, I hope you all make it through okay, and that you will mostly be reporting on how boring it is to self-quarantine. . . .
Jesus Trapnel, hope you and yours are ok.
I'm planning on not getting sick, or at least to avoid getting sick if at all possible. That's my strategy.
X, I hope you and yours are all okay!
We've now gone from 18 to 262 to 320 confirmed cases in two days.
Fuck, it occurs to me that I'm low on gin.
222: You got part of an answer, but I'll pontificate more. South Korea did an excellent job at responding rapidly to the crisis and is seeing 0.6% lethality. Countries where healthcare systems are being strained are seeing 3-4%. Ignore the text in this, it seems kind of over the top, but look at the graphs, which are pretty visualizations of published data. Start at chart 12 for comparison across countries.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
A key parameter to measure healthcare capacity is ICU beds per 100,000 people. Good news:
https://www.statista.com/chart/21105/number-of-critical-care-beds-per-100000-inhabitants/
Or perhaps not, given what these patients will need:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/upshot/coronavirus-biggest-worry-hospital-capacity.html
276: That kind of jump is going to happen at first, along with really frightening mortality stats. As testing becomes widespread, the numbers will look terrifying and then slow to merely very concerning. The rate at which is spreads seems fairly well-understood, but you don't see what you don't test for.
Trapnel, hope all is well with you and yours.
The rate at which is spreads seems fairly well-understood, but you don't see what you don't test for.
That may be related to Trump's proposal to change the national bird to the ostrich.
I'm watching the president's press conference right now where he brought out a bunch of corporate people to talk about how the private sector is helping to fight the coronavirus, and all these CEO's are coming out to give a quick speech, and after the speech the president is trying to shake hands with them. The CEO of Target just managed to dodge the president's handshake.
* Avoid getting sick if at all possible
* As a society, spread out the people who get sick as much as possible to mitigate the impact on hospitals and emergency care
* Personally, if you're going to get sick, hope you get sick ASAP so you get your share of that emergency care sooner, unless you think you can delay getting sick until after the worst is over in which case you might as well do so
Hilarious, if Trump gets it and dies of it I'll never stop laughing.
The CEO of Roach just ran as as the president tried to move in for a handshake.
The CEO of CVS just showed Trump how to do the elbow bump. Way to go, CEO of CVS!
I'm listening to it on World Service, he sounds sick. Does he look sick? I mean more than usual.
Now Mike Pence is on and he's just kissing the president's ass, thanking him for his leadership.
Now Pence is going on about how we are going to be saved by public-private parnerships.
He always sounds sick, doesn't look any worse than usual.
Pence did manage to dodge the handshake, but they did a little bit of a dance there.
All primary and secondary schools in Pennsylvania are closed by two weeks.
Kissing ass seems like it would spread the virus.
Elbow-taint-tap instead?
Kissing ass seems like it would spread the virus.
Elbow-taint-tap instead?
Society isn't going to break down.
Society didn't break down during the fucking Black Death (40% mortality). It broke down afterwards when the bosses thought they could just carry on as if it hadn't happened.
295 too much contact increases the risk. One probably suffices.
Elbow-taint-tap instead?
They've probably cancelled UFC events too.
I've been staying pretty calm, but last night I flashed on the way this could make "society fall apart:" if a critical mass of America's political leaders gets incapacitated (I don't know how many that would be, but it's really not that farfetched a possibility given exposures at the top levels), I think that rather than go calmly through the statutory line of succession, there's a good chance of an non-constitutional struggle for power, where different players jockey for control based on who can grab it. To be honest I find that more likely than folks currently in power just handing it over.
To put it a more specific way (although this isn't the only scenario I have in mind), if Trump and Pence go down, can you imagine McConnell allowing Pelosi to take office without a fight? I can't. And I don't know who wins the fight. And once they go for it partway then they'll suspend all the rules and go for it all the way.
I doan't think this is likely. It only happens if a number of things line up a certain way. But I do think it's more possible right now than it has been before.
I was asking that very question in the Fantasy thread, about presidential succession.
I think we'd need another couple big hits while the pandemic is going. The Cascadian fault, plus drought. That type of thing.
Rebecca Solnit says that there generally isn't much conflict during emergencies. She says that conflicts come when governments try to reassert their control of situations that locals thought they were handling well by altruism.
Everett, a very working class town closed schools until April 27, but I think they are trying to do online learning. Most of the well off towns are closed for 2 weeks.
Boston is open. I wish they would just come up with a way to get nutrition to kids who need it.
Any recommendations for things to stream on Netflix?
So.... anyone heard about the possibility of Italy style lockdowns anywhere?
298: This weekend's event is still a go, but with an empty stadium.
I wasn't aware there was an Italian-style MMA.
It's like the American-style MMA, but with more hand gestures.
306: If there's not an audience why not just have them fight in somebody's living room?
I think we'd need another couple big hits while the pandemic is going. The Cascadian fault, plus drought. That type of thing.
War with Iran is back on the table.
312: Are you sure they wont' just approach that by restricting Iran's access to medical supplies?
Iran is already digging mass graves. I guess the moral of the story is that if you're going to be governed by religious absolutists, you're moderately better of if those absolutists are constrained by monopoly capitalists.
Trump is a big fan of the old "lets hit them while they are down" school of international relations.
@212 is illustrative of how the shape of society works against the strategy in 179. More prosaically 18-65 yos with long term chronic illness are treated in a fairly shitty way - at the same time as working age people are being asked to take one for the team and risk their damage to their lungs. Collectively it may make sense for 60% of people to get CV, but plenty of individuals are likely to try and opt out of being part of the 60%.
The other issue is that cold hard science will rub up against an even slightly elevated child mortality rate - and at that point good luck to any politician who tries to invoke the less desirable path that has been avoided.
I dunno about everyone else, but the immunocompromised people I know are all broke, given how hard it can be to keep a job in this country if you are even slightly unhealthy. I am pretty sure that some of those folx are just not going to make it, given their low social standing and all the barriers to care. But it still won't get people out in the streets, due to the continuing availability of beef.
It's Friday in Lent. Only cheese pizza.
If only a small fraction of China has the virus and they begin to lift quarantine because cases have leveled out, does it come roaring back? Or is it contained at that point?
Can things be TOO quarantined?
Last year, Pokey was obsessive about being five minutes early to school, on the nose. Any more and they had to go to the cafeteria for breakfast, any less and he wouldn't be the first one to the classroom. So in the car, he would fret, "We're going to be EARLY! we're going to be LATE! we're going to be EARLY! we're going to be LATE!" etc.
I feel that way here: what if we do TOO much quarantine? What if we do not enough? what if we do too much AND not enough???
319: Yes, it comes roaring back. And people in China may be quarantined perfectly (and South Korea, possibly), so you might be able to burn it out assuming no travel/closed borders/continued limitations, but imperfect quarantine is just going to slow it. You can see the same in poorly vaccinated areas - it's a cluster of cases, luckily stalled by reasonable vax rates/herd immunity. A vaccine will take 12-18 months assuming no surprises. The risk of "too much quarantine" isn't health per se, it's money and human nature. I mean, how long can you ask people to restrict voluntary travel? How long can workplaces have everyone remote/liberal leave/skeleton crews? Most places don't have that kind of slack.
So, the governor closed schools in Pennsylvania for two weeks. And then the local superintendent calls everybody's house and says the kids can still get lunch at school. I'm guessing too strict of a quarantine isn't going to be a problem.
I want to make meatballs tomorrow. I wonder if ground meat and canned tomatoes are things people buy in a crisis or if I can still get them.
Either Trump can't aim or he's decided it's safer to fight a war with Iraq than Iran.
317: My boss had a kidney transplant, and she recently developed antibodies after years with no immunosuppressants - so she recently got chemo essentially. We are all working remotely now. I don't think she is even leaving the house at all.
An ICU doc in Washington State said that there were some healthy people in their 20's with no comorbidities who got really sick.
I'm working from home for 30 days.
323: Apparently, there was a run on meat at our grocery store. And frozen food. And flour. And rice. And orange juice. And toilet paper. Disinfectant spray was still available.
I better go now. If I have to, I could make sauce without meatballs, I guess.
If you aren't in Arizona, you can make meatballs from rodents.
They had meat. No white onions or organic milk.
322 is political but also practical. In a lot of the US, there are a significant number of kids who will have nutritional deficits without school lunches, some of them severe.
Yes, that's the reason. But the disease won't care.
332 true. but unlike some of the political bs floating around, this is a genuine damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. And with the right protocols, might be the best overall solution.
My district is offering food on a "grab and go" basis - students won't be congregating in cafeterias. They're also letting families pick up multiple days of food at a time.
Maybe that's what they are doing here. I'm not a big detail person.
Rumor has it there is no toilet paper left in the state of New Hampshire. I'm glad we did our panic buying weeks ago.
I came across a list of plants with leaves that are the best to wipe with, but I can't find it now because I don't want google to think I'm wiping my ass with leaves.
I believe #1 on that list is Not Poison Ivy.
It's not a good time of year for leaves anyway.
So, suddenly we have 4 cases, in 4 different cities (not including mine, yet).
331: A third of the students in Utah depend on school breakfast and lunch. Our schools went to "dismissal", which means they're open, but classes won't be taught, and the presumption is that everyone who can will stay home, and they'll hand out grab n' go lunches.
You still got oak leaves on the ground. Trouble is, they are already brown.
Assuming America's toilet paper supply chain got wiped out, how long do you think we could last on existing TP stocks? This may be an important question.
ME: So, what what do you guys want to talk about?
STUDENT: They cancelled all the NBA games.
ME: And what do you think about that?
STUDENTS: China suck!
Sure enough, the choir member and her husband from Sunday's gig have tested positive, and several other singers are now ill. I've got no symptoms so far and will probably be OK if and when I do get sick, but am really concerned for my fellow alto who's on Humira and another friend's husband in the audience who's had a lung transplant.
Posted by the friend who's tested positive:
Symptoms seem varied. I had a very low level nasal drip for about three weeks before X became ill. He developed a very rapid onset raging sore throat, high temp and mild cough. No shortness of breath. I've had severe muscle aches, very mild cough, headaches and fatigue. This virus certainly seems to affect people in different ways.
Frustrating: having to spell out 5 names using the phonetic alphabet, 4 of which are Portuguese and hence consist of like 6 names each, only to get hung up on when the public health service tries to transfer you to the next level of COVID-triage, requiring you to do it all over again. Why can't they just have an online form for you to fill in?!?
On the plus side, I'm now much better at the Austrian phonetic alphabet than I was an hour ago!
I'm worried about places like India and Bangladesh and people living in very high densities, plus poverty.
Two-thirds of Democrats are worried, 1/3 of Republicans are worried.
I'm trying to figure out what the Austrian phonetic alphabet is compared to the regular one.
Its Town Meeting season in New England. Mass assemblies of mostly old people. What could go wrong?
What's wrong with the English/ (speaking of the language and the people) way of just fucking up the pronunciation of words from others places?
It's not like Texas where you can shoot at meeting regardless of the time of year.
358: EIther the whole town (in the case of small towns in NH) or a group of elected people who are super part time get together to vote on appropriations and bylaws. My town has town meeting members as well as a Board of Selectmen which hires the manager. I think the Board of Selectmen are paid. Town Meeting Members just show up and vote.
Because most of the year the men are off importing slaves and hunting whales.
They can have warrants for special meetings on things like zoning or (in my town) a leaf blower ban, but they vote on the annual budget in the spring.
Wikipedia actually has a decent entry on Town Meeting.
The coronavirus has closed schools and knocked pro sports out of commission.
But not the California Republican Assembly.
The conservative group plans to soldier on with a conference of more than 200 next weekend in Tulare County that includes former White House adviser Steve Bannon and indicted former Trump aide George Papadopoulos on topics that include "the Deep State."
Steve Bannon looks so healthy I can see why he's not worried.
Coronavirus related question.
It looks like I'll be working from home for a while, which is fine except that my home computer is my surface pro. Looking at a screen for most of the day is OK in my office, but doing that with the surface pro screen is going to ruin my eyes. What's a good external monitor that's not too expensive?
Any of several models which used to be made in China.
Dell usually has good monitors at a reasonable price. Although I wouldn't be expecting anything to be particularly inexpensive right now because supply lines for consumer electronics are in questionable shape.
353 Yes, and all the migrant workers here who live in dormitory style compounds. I think that's where we have the bulk of the community spread. Perhaps this will convince the authorities in control here to better their living conditions in the near future if only out of a sense of self-preservation.
'Let all the young people and parents get it' doesn't seem to take account of the hospitalisation rate (15-20% for the whole population). Even if, through careful cocooning of seniors, the hospitalisation rate turns out to be something like 1% of 60% of the UK population, you still need to find space for 400,000 people in hospital, over the course of six months, before the winterpocalypse that everyone seems to assume is a given.
If this really is the British plan, it's going to have to be sold a whole lot better than at present. Those who are expected to go out and get sick are going to want a lot more reassurance; medical support, financial support, compensation in the event of permanent lung injury, and the rest. You can expect non-cooperation otherwise.
369: The Wirecutter has a monitor guide which seems reasonable. I'd probably go with their 27-inch, non-4K recommendation ($360). The problem with 4K is that if you're using it in 2x high-res mode (like with the Surface's own high-res screen) you're down to 1920x1080 of effective screen size, which is kind of sad for a huge 27-inch screen. But actually driving the native resolution would mean crazy-tiny fonts, icons, etc. So going with the 2560x1440-res 27" seems a better compromise between sharpness and effective screen real estate.
OTOH I've never had bigger than 24" monitors, so what do I know? Nothing!
I'm trying to figure out what the Austrian phonetic alphabet is
Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora, Emil, usw.
374, 375 that this plan is being executed by the crew that was behind Brexit does not exactly inspire confidence.
370,371,376: Thanks.
As for the UK's coronavirus response, the theories I've heard are (a) fancy 4-dimensional chess scheme to build up herd immunity while isolating the most vulnerable, or (b) kicking the can down the road because that's just what British governments do these days. I'm inclined to go with b.
Does building up herd immunity work? I've heard that people have gotten it twice already, but I'm not sure those reports are confirmed.
Those kids in that play always annoyed me anyway.
380: The expert consensus is that those cases are due to faulty testing, not because people are genuinely recovering and then getting it again
So, they've cancelled out St Pats parade, but only because windchills in town are below 0F. (Gusts higher than 80 mph recorded last night on a nearby mountain.) Butte canceled theirs already -- people come from all over the region for that one, though.
Are there viruses that you can get twice in close succession? ie where your immunity isn't protective for at least a year or so?
Common cold? (also a coronavirus).
The family that tested positive has two kids. One has symptoms, the other none yet. They have been told they can continue sending the asymptomatic child to school. They aren't going to, of course, but as official advice it's jaw-dropping.
386: I thought you didn't get the same one twice.
With the cold (and also the flu), people get it twice in one season only because there are so many strains of the virus circulating. Once you've had it, your antibodies will last for a while, depending on how strong your immune response is.
I'm no expert, and am sure others can answer this better, but apparently it depends how robust your immune system is.
In one landmark study from the late '50s, over 1,000 stalwarts were inoculated with the infectious nasal secretions from a patient with an active cold. After becoming infected and being allowed to recover, the subjects were challenged again with the same virus to study their response. In a later, particularly rigorous study from 1963, 50 subjects were confined to a dormitory for an entire month to assess their ability to withstand reinfection with the same cold virus.
The results of these studies showed that for many people, infection with a cold virus can indeed provide effective immunity against subsequent exposure to that particular virus. More than half of the study participants made sufficient amounts of antibodies and were protected. Those who had a less robust antibody response, however, were not protected and came down with a cold after being reinfected.
So are there any viruses where you can actually get the same one again? without it being dormant like shingles, or a few years to lose your immunity?
Hmm, the link in 389 is worrisome! So nearly half the of the study participants did not have a strong enough immune response to protect against the same cold just a few weeks later?
That makes sense because I can't remember if it's "Feed a fever, starve a cold" or the other way around. I bet half of everybody is doing it wrong.
Here's the abstract of the actual study, paywalled:
RECENTLY an increasing number of viruses possessing common biological properties have been recovered from patients with minor respiratory illness. These agents have been variously named entero-like and enteroviruses,1 Salisbury viruses,2 coryzaviruses,3,4 and muriviruses.5 The Virus Subcommittee of the International Committee on the Nomenclature of Bacteria and Viruses designated the name "rhinoviruses" for these agents, and classified them as a subgroup of the picornaviruses.6 Unlike the enteroviruses, rhinoviruses are unstable in an acid solution (pH 3 to 5), and on this basis ECHO-28 has been reclassified among the rhinoviruses. At present the rhinovirus group appears to be composed of at least 30 antigenically distinct serotypes. Tyrrell has suggested that rhinoviruses which multiply in embryonic-human kidney cells, fetal-human diploid fibroblast cells, and primary monkey kidney cells be designated "M" strains, and those strains that propagate only in human cells be designated "H" strains.7
link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/667729 ">Effect of Neutralizing Antibody on Experimental Rhinovirus Infection
Virus Subcommittee of the International Committee on the Nomenclature of Bacteria and Viruses works for the Tyrrell Corporation?
Either the abstract is cut off, or I don't understand science, or that study didn't do what I would have thought it did.
As we discussed in a previous thread it does seem we will COVID-19 circulating in jails and prisons https://mobile.twitter.com/emilybazelon/status/1238866676839518213
Huh. That abstract is definitely off. I'm killing time waiting for a bus at Heathrow so will see if I can find the actual study.
381:
Heh. You can use my prediction from before, only every month is actually one day.
I also noticed that the same day I scoffed at Ogged that we are totally in the Before is the day my family got it and we clicked over into the During.
I can't believe that prediction scenario was only four">http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_17160.html#2066093">four days ago. The world is upside down.
No. I'm just assuming 'cause we're in Sac and have a fever and a dry cough. I wish we could validate it, so we know that afterward we're cleared.
It's not easy to get tested even now, is it?
Maybe also wishful thinking because I want to rush through this thing.
And having a mild case early is the only ethical way to be done with all this.
390. According to something I saw but can't find, in the case of cold viruses, even if you develop an immunity to it it lasts about two years. Make of that what you will. Doesn't sound like much of an immunity to me.
We're so hosed. Scientists please save us.
Welp, US residents are flying back to the PRC because they can get tested and treated there.
It's been raining here for days, so I haven't been able to play tennis or run at all. I've barely left my house in days. Rain is forecast for the next week at least. I'm losing my goddamned mind.
ugh.
We are halfway through the first day of spring break. Time already feels suspended.
412: At least we won't be contending with unseasonal wildfires during all this. (That was apparently a possibility after dry February.)
Thanks.
Megan, you notice the extended discussion indicating infection may not provide any immunity?
Meanwhile: Trump does not need a test for COVID-19 or to undergo quarantine, despite having been in contact with two Brazilian officials last weekend who have since tested positive for the virus. The White House released an official statement
The Republican leadership is actually jujitsuing itself into mass exposure. If they can jujitsu themselves into mass non-testing and non-treatment...A boy can dream, right?
Wife is ICU nurse in Colorado. One of the first patients in her ICU was a young person who was very ill. Not sure if it was covid because the tests are taking ~5 days at this point. No comorbidities, but person was from out-of-state so altitude sickness may be exacerbating things.
Just finished season 4 of The Magicians and liked it a lot. Interesting narrative structures and a good mix of characters. I'm also going to be working on portfolio projects because I get the feeling job openings are going to get rare soon.
Ooof. I hope she stays well. (Or stays mild? what exactly is the right well-wish?)
Considering accepting a job instead of consulting. It's been interesting to figure out if I feel economic grey clouds should or should not factor in.
Yeah I said yes to two interviews that sounded like positions i'm overqualified for, since i'd rather have something that nothing (nothing= my current part-time 1099 remote position). Memories of 2009.
ATM question: Schools are closed in neighboring states and neighboring counties, but my son's district is still open. No known cases in our county so far, several in the metro region. He is healthy, and if he gets sick it is likely to be mild. My wife thinks we should keep him home, since if he catches it I probably will too and I'm in the high risk "immunocompromised" category as a kidney transplant recipient. I'm not sure that's the best thing. He is a high school junior capable of washing his hands, and generally maintains maximum practical social distance from his parents within our largish house, so he is less risky to me than a toddler. He will be miserable i cooped up in the house all the time while his friends are at school, and he's already struggling academically and lacks the self-motivation to keep up from home. I also hate to let my fragile health impact my son's life more than is absolutely necessary. He would rather go to school, mainly to have a social life, but will accept his family's decision.
Send him to school or keep him home? Need to decide by Monday morning.
422: keep him home. They will close by Wednesday or Thursday.
keep him home. Err on the side of caution, please.
Out of an abundance of caution, we need to start a class war.
What would hundreds of people up in the Flathead do? Go to a MAGA Lecture!
Were there Native Americans there passing out blankets?
Oh, hello, a couple of cases in our county. 30s woman, 50s man.
427 -- Indigenous folks in my social media have been making jokes of that type for a month.
Further to 428 -- it looks like we have 6 positives from 107 tests given. Since they're only testing people who seem pretty sick, I think, I'm not sure what inferences can be drawn.
426: there are like 200 cars at the local VFW right now.
Keep him home. Your dying will affect him more than missing his friends.
The UK response sounds positively Malthusian. 'We're not even going to try to contain this threat. Prepare to lose some of your loved ones: we're about to cull the herd.'
Unless they starve, it's not quite Malthusian.
And speaking of starvation...the last time the UK tried this approach, a lot of Irish people died.
Ume, I'm glad you're back home. I'd wondered if you were still in Japan. Glad you got your papers sorted quickly.
OTOH I've never had bigger than 24" monitors, so what do I know? Nothing!
You certainly know the Austrian phonetic alphabet! I'd have been so at sea that I would have hoped (and tried) the international radiotelephony alphabet.
422-32: Never mind. School is cancelled, with on line learning starting later this coming week in theory.
We had a similar family disagreement about whether my elderly mother should go to a Broadway show this week (tickets purchased months ago), but that's been cancelled also.
436: Thanks. The admin stuff mostly went very smoothly, though Japanese banks are a bitch when it comes to sending foreign remittances.
Apart from work deadlines, my first self-isolation task is to cook something that uses up the vegetables left in the bottom of the fridge before I went. A quarter of a savoy cabbage, a quarter of a head of celery, and half a zucchini need to be eaten urgently; enoki mushrooms, carrots, and onions will last a few days more. Any recipe suggestions, Mineshaft?
I can understand why these are the last surviving vegetables. Do you eat dairy?
That seems a very straightforward stir-fry. My only remaining decision would be soy-based sauce or coconut-curry sauce.
439: Yes, and meat. (And tofu, of course, but I don't have any.)
My only remaining decision would be soy-based sauce or coconut-curry sauce
I should definitely make a coconut curry some time soon. I have a great recipe for Keralan chicken curry that starts off with ten garlic cloves and six green chillies, but with the quantities tamed for British tastes. Don't think there are any chillies lurking in the fridge drawer, though.
356, 376: I just got exactly that monitor for my WFH setup and it's very nice. Make sure you're going to have the right cables, as always with monitors, though it seems to take everything modern (HDMI, DisplayPort, DisplayPort-over-USB-C).