I can't decide if a virtual meetup with everyone drinking on camera would be entertaining or depressing.
I watched Drunk History this weekend. The first episode was funny, the second distributing, the third pathetic.
Going outside it a good idea. I kick my son out at least once a day so he doesn't read and game all the time.
Bay Area about to issue a shelter in place order. I've heard South Bay hospitals are already swamped, but that's just rumor (?).
Re: shelter-in-place
Not before time. Not before time. But also, good on Mayor Breed! I have a friend who went to Whole Paycheck today -- actually, went to, like, four of them -- and reported (via IM) that lines there were all snaking thru the store and out the door. *Multiples* of the typical crowd at one of these stores. Yeah, boyeez, good hygiene. Maybe this'll reduce that.
The crowds of people shopping is .... disturbing. Esp. at Whole Paycheck. You'd think that people with that much $$ would know at least enough to know to stay TF away from other people for the next week, even if it means eating rice&beans. You'd think.
Every piece of infrastructure in the Bay Area (housing, transport, emergency services, etc.) has been tested to its utmost limits and been failing for years now. I am glad there is a consensus that we need to be more draconian than most other places in the country. We do.
I went down to the corner store to stock up on Diet Coke and I made the mistake of paying with a $20 bill and now I got a bunch of small bills in my wallet that I don't trust. How does one disinfect bank notes?
I think if you're in an area with a strict quarantine and someone tries to talk to you on the street, if they get within six feet of you, you can have them charged with criminal conversation.
Got windex? Or 2% bleach-and-water? Or isopropyl alcohol?
Yeah, I'd disinfect those suckers, my friend. My sister & BF have been spraying down packages they receive for weeks with bleach-and-water, letting 'em sit to dry. When/if I get any, yeah, I'm doin' that shit, booyah. If I tip, I'm gonna be wearing gloves and spraying the bills with windex as I hand 'em over, just so the delivery person sees it and knows it's safe.
I was wearing one of four masks and one of two sets of gloves among shoppers at the Berkeley Bowl West yesterday. I had been planning to swing by another store before heading home, but after that I was too unsettled and couldn't handle it.
Early on, from what we were hearing from the media, many of us were sort of thinking this is a disease really for older people. Last week, even one of my own colleagues was in the anti-panic mode, you know, trying to calm everyone down, posting that, "It's not surprising when grandma gets a cold that she might die."
But what I'm hearing from these groups now is that people are seeing folks in their thirties and forties getting severely ill. In the last 24 hours, just in these groups, I have heard of one paramedic and three ICU nurses that have been intubated. Clearly the denominator is huge, but even if it's just a handful of critical cases of younger people, this is concerning and different from what we first thought.
There's lots more. Some of it pretty troubling. As they say, read the whole thing.
I talked to a homeless guy today. He had read something on Yahoo News about how all this coronavirus stuff was overblown and political. But he also mentioned that none of the homeless want to go anywhere near the shelter right now.
This would probably be a really good time to rob a bank.
10: Attempted conspiracy to commit geronticide.
Tim's brother and the SIL were planning on going to MIL's place for spring break - now extended to 3 weeks with their young kids. They are figuring that it will be easier to work in a large house. MIL is 71. I don't think this counts as proper social distancing unless they stay 6 feet away from her for 14 days. Ugh. They are scientists too.
Bars and restaurants closed in Maryland. I was expecting it, but it's still jarring.
Any advice for handling produce? I've got a bunch of vegetable purchased on Saturday and was going to make aloo gobi. Soap and water?
Bostoniangirl: unless their MIL has two kitchens and two bathrooms, it's not social distancing at all. covid-19 sticks to surfaces (esp. steel/plastic) really well. For days. My scientist friends in France told me how they told both sets of parents "we can't visit with the grandkids like we usually do in April, b/c we want you to live, sorry."
Bostoniangirl: Also, in China, until they implemented their (rather) draconian temp/testing protocols, family transmission was 80% of cases. 80%. They broke that by the following: when you are discovered to have an elevated temp (or other symptoms, but temp is most common b/c sensors everywhere) they take you to a special fever hospital where they go thru a protocol (diff diagnosis, CT scan, covid test); if you test positive, you do NOT go home, but to special quarantine. So you do not get a chance to infect your family.
Unless Tim is certain he and his family are not infected and will not be infected when they visit his MIL, they're exposing her.
Before they shut the office today, there were record numbers of concealed carry penis permits issued, in case anyone is wondering how the right-wing media is covering this.
9: Microwave? They said that cardboard was safer than plastic and metal so maybe paper is ok. Alcohol wipe your credit cards.
Put them in a ziplock bag for a 20 days under a UV lamp?
19: I know. I just think they weren't taking it seriously enough when they decided to follow through on the trip.
There are 4.5 bathrooms in her house, but only one kitchen.
11: can you tip online?
I told her I was worried about it and got a curt "Thank you for your concern." Can't do more than that.
11: can you tip online?
I told her I was worried about it and got a curt "Thank you for your concern." Can't do more than that.
There are reports from China and South Korea of people microwaving banknotes to burnt crisps in the attempt to disinfect them, so be careful!
Once you cook the dollar bills in the aloo gobi I would think the viruses wouldn't survive the high temp but idk, adding soap to the recipe might work, anyone here better at cooking ... ?
I just agreed to buy 20 boxes of leftover Girl Scout Cookies that I plan to provide to people working at the emergency operations center.
Apologies if I misunderstood anything there, divided attention
Very few states will issue open carry penis permits.
My recently widowed grandmother lives on her own. Local family has been keeping her company, and bringing the great-grandchildren to see her. I feel like this is not optimal, but.. the alternative is an 89 year old woman on her own in the suburbs in a house that reminds her of everything.
Maybe pick the family that is best and keeping its fingers out of its noses and going there for the duration?
32: Aren't the rules different if it's someone else's penis?
Penises should also be kept out of noses. Doesn't matter if its yours or someone else's.
I read something encouraging people to buy the dip. It makes me wish I bought French Onion dip yesterday.
I saw someone on twitter suggesting that we buy the crater
Cala: [I'm not saying this is doable for most people, just reporting]
My sis and her BF are in isolation -with- my 75yo mom. Like: no other humans allowed near. I've done a grocery run for them (just did a pharma run, early days). Yeah, people need company. But gotta say: I want my mom to survive this, and that means I can't be near her. I'm thankful that my sister and (esp.) her BF are willing to basically put their lives on full stop for this.
I remember when we had French onion dip in the Before Time.
7: I mean, people have to grocery shop at some point, we don't have the infrastructure for everyone to get delivery. Hopefully the crowding will stop once people realize they can still go during SIP, but some contact / proximity in that context seems part of the unavoidable minimum for now.
Maryland:
Bars and restaurants closed but restaurants can still do take out and delivery. Utilities forbidden to cut off power/water/internet to homes until further notice. No evictions allowed until further notice. Some sort of emergency medical core whose nature I'm unclear on called up. Massive efforts to increase hospital beds, including reopening closed hospitals.
I was vaguely amused by how grumpy the governor was during this announcement. The general tone was pretty alarming but probably necessary. Judging by the number of people out doing the usual St, Patrick's day pub crawling I saw on my way back from the market on Saturday, too many people are still treating this like no big deal. The pub crawlers especially seemed to annoy the governor. He said something like "If you were out at the bars on Saturday stay the fuck home, fool!". He also made a frustrated reference to the "shifting" guidelines they've been receiving from the federal level.
Everything definitely still sucks, but at least the aloo gobi turned out well. I had it along with an IPA and it was the first time I've felt remotely relaxed all day.
I guess we have to take whatever small victories we can get these days.
I was all set to Zoom (the current valuation of which must be about $80 bazillion btw), but my webcam suddenly isn't working. (I last used it a couple of weeks ago.) Can anyone suggest possible solutions? I've tried the obvious things (permissions, device manager, rebooting). Even in the camera app itself, the light comes on but there's nothing on the screen.
It's a 2-y.o. Lenovo Yoga.
Don't use the camera. Just use it to share screens.
Sir Kraab:
Moby has it right: you have a great excuse for not sharing video, which will allow you to do your telecons in your undies. Revel in your time!
1: One of my regular social outlets is a group that is training up to be certified beer judges. We get together weekly and taste one particular style of beer, check for interesting flavors and adherence to (weird, arbitrary, but useful) style guidelines, and so on. Our plans for tele-tasting... well, we're not sure how it will work, but it seems like better than nothing.
Nobody ever turns the camera on for meetings I have been involved with. Mostly, people have them covered.
18 - Can't find the link, but there was a Washington Post column quoting some food safety experts that basically said "just wash it in water like you normally do with produce".
Probably "just wash it in water like you were supposed to have been doing this whole time" is a better way to put it.
AcademicLurker:
A little more info to support what Tom Scudder wrote. Here's a tweet in the middle of a moderately-long (but valuable) thread:
20/25 In contrast steel, porcelain or teflon do not form a lot of hydrogen bond with the virus. So the virus is not strongly bound to these surfaces. The virus is quite stable on these surface whereas it doesn't stay active for as long on say fabric or wood.
— Palli Thordarson (@PalliThordarson) March 8, 2020
I wouldn't be worrying about the camera except that my dad wants to use it with us (Android, so no Facetiming) and my therapy group is going to start meeting online.
I went up to cut some turns this afternoon. Only 3 feet from the liftie, but with my back to her when we were that close. Didn't touch the part of the chair she touches. With her gloved hand. Temps high 20s, if that matters.
What say you all?
Seems like veggies should be like wood
You're buying your lettuce at the wrong place.
Please enjoy this good buddy penguin who is getting to go for walksies since the zoo is closed.
53: I don't actually know how to set things up, I'm just here to defend my ability to take meetings with my finger in my nose.
54: I think you'll be fine.
I've had one on-nomi session so far, someone else is organizing a bigger one.
@18 Could always use a mild hydrogen peroxide solution.
This is a cute bit from Max Brooks, son of Mel.
They're basically shutting down everything here. Today the mayor closed all the bars and restaurants for two weeks (takeout allowed, like other places that have done this). Still just the one confirmed case in the state, but the authorities are acting like they strongly believe there's community spread that they just haven't picked up on in the testing. Even my office had us fill out telecommuting paperwork today, though they still haven't figured out exactly when we're going to start or how long we can expect to do it.
Don't use the camera. Just use it to share screens.
It's important to see people, both for communication and sanity! You should have it on as a default for meetings!
I taught people at work about Zoom virtual backgrounds. My default was the flaming room from the "this is fine" dog but apparently it upset some people.
Guy I was in a Zoom with this morning was also using that.
Possibly the most genuinely surreal moment so far: I got a solicitation from Partners in Health (as always) that contains the line
"To begin tracing and breaking chains of infection, just to start, we need to ship at least 100,000 rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests to our teams around the world."
Why HELLO, friends, I am exceedingly curious about these 100,000 rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests you describe. Do you ever coordinate with any charities that distribute medical supplies within major U.S. cities?
New COVID-19 rapid tests have been developed by Chinese and South Korean companies to control huge epidemics in those countries. Similar to rapid tests already used for HIV and malaria, these tests detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antigen or antibodies (IgG/IgM) within 15 minutes. They are simple enough to be used by community health workers or even patients for home use, after basic training/demonstration by lab teams. These tests are complementary to the more complicated RT-PCR tests available in specialized laboratories, but will allow for rapid decentralization of testing capacity at orders of magnitude higher than what currently exists. PIH will seek to use rapid tests for detection of antibodies and antigen as a screening method to identify infected patients.
I mean, I assume we already have them or are getting them soon in decent quantities, but given the past few weeks... there was this very sharp moment of cognitive dissonance.
I cancelled my scheduled session with a trainer at the gym, and was trying to get the gym to keep paying him for the sessions anyway for the duration.... but the gym closed and laid everybody off.
65: No rapid tests in the US. We now have two vendors about to sell a few million tests that take 3-4 h. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that a positive rapid test means you have to take the confirmatory test for a solid diagnosis. PIH is likely sourcing from China and deploying in non-US locations, so they don't need to use US-approved tests.
We're using Microsoft Teams, and have always, as a default, had cameras on for meetings and calls. I'm on vacation, but will be attending work meetings the next two days. I customarily wear a tie, but since I'm on vacation, I think I'll skip it tomorrow.
Why would I want someone to see my facial expression while I'm meeting with them? I feel this is just an attack on Gen X.
69 me.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/researchers-rush-to-start-moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-without-usual-animal-testing/
I saw they dosed their first health volunteers today and wondered how on earth they could move that fast. I guess this explains it.
Ack - 70 got auto-filled in a way that constitutes a minor discretion error on my part. If someone would be so kind as to substitute my normal politicalfootball pseud, it would be appreciated.
69 me
This place really isn't what it once was.
73: On it. But is that your real name??? It looks like a charming pseud.
That can't be your real name, upon reflection.
You held the computer screen up to a mirror?
75: You are very kind. I know it's a nuisance cleaning this stuff up.
It is a charming pseud, isn't it? The problem is, I've used it enough -- and indiscriminately enough -- that it came close to developing its own identity on the internet, and that identity could be linked back to me. Frankly, there's a particular individual who made that pseud slightly unsafe for me. (No big deal; just an abundance of caution.) So I mostly use it nowadays for web forms and whatnot that I don't want traced back to me. (And my junk e-mail address, which appears to be where the autofill came from.)
But it's a real name, even if it's not mine. When I was young, I wrote obituaries for the local newspaper. My colleagues and I collected exotic names of the deceased and their survivors, and that was my favorite.
I am having a really hard time deciding whether it's terrible to have any out-of-house interactions but I took Nia for her eye appointment this morning. We're in the midst of an IEP evaluation with a meeting scheduled if/when school reopens and they were going to argue that part of her problems were the untreated astigmatism, which is certainly not helping but also not going to account for a ton I suspect. We were the first patient of the day, only got within 6 feet of the doctor twiddling lenses, and she ended up with frames she likes from the Medicaid-covered shelves. I think worth it? Wednesday Mara is supposed to go to children's hospital for her first PT session for her broken ankle and I'm leaning toward doing that, making them give us the whole series of bands she'll need, and then getting her set up for telehealth for however long that's needed. She's walking on her bare foot in the house and I guess we could say that's good enough, but it's her second break of that ankle and I really want it to heal as well as possible. I think they'll do another set of x-rays too, which requires physical presence. So I guess I'll do it if the rules haven't changed and just feel like a bad person?
New case in town: 20 year old male.
I was recounting to my siblings today the story of our grandfather. Got the Spanish Flu, along with more than 100 of his boarding schoolmates. Only one died, right away anyway. My grandfather emerged with a chronic kidney condition, was not expected to live long, and didn't see 40. Left my dad a 6 year old orphan.
US currency is cotton rag paper (long-time contract to Crane & Company). You can probably hand wash it and let it air dry. I dunno, sing a verse from Money (Cabaret) or from Money, Money, Money (ABBA) for each bill washed.
Thorn:
"social distancing" is about reducing R0, yes? And that's a statistical measure. So some people work harder at it, others less so. Some -can- do more (b/c it's easier for them), some cannot. But some don't -want- to do more, b/c they're selfish bastards. You have to judge for yourself, how much your violation of quarantine is necessary, and really, nobody else can judge it for you.
I must say, the health of your children though .... seems like reasonable grounds for violating it. Don't beat yourself up: there'll be enough oppties for that down the road for all of us. For. All. Of. Us.
I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that a positive rapid test means you have to take the confirmatory test for a solid diagnosis.
Yeah, I think that's what their site implied, that they were "complementary to" the PCR-based tests, but still helpful for triage/better than nothing. Which is interesting: high ratio of false positives to false negatives?
Talking of Covid mental health, I skimmed the Washington Post first thing this morning, and was simply terrified by the inanity of Trump's babbling. I knew, of course, in an abstract way, that he is an evil greedy and incompetent monster. But there is something about the direct quotes with their pattern of rhythmical nonsense that chills me to the bone. It the speech of a six year old.
Bleg: I belong to a group that meets once a month to play board games in the pub. Obviously we're not going to be doing that for a while. But to any game playing people know an online substitute we could play? I know there are numerous versions of fake scrabble around. But what about more interesting, possibly card-based games that could be played in real time?
With the right group of people - happy with improvising, etc - I can't think of a better game to play by phone than Fiasco, to be honest. You need 3-5 people and you basically improvise a Coen Brothers plot. We're scheduling some in now.
I'm thinking a Coen Brothers plot wouldn't feel very escapist these days.
86: But what about more interesting, possibly card-based games that could be played in real time?
About 10 years ago I spent some time on Brettspielwelt playing Settlers of Catan and such ... it looks like it's still going, might be worth checking out.
You can't run a ventilator manufacturing drive on a socmed strategy.
I have the best name.
I stopped playing Settles of Catan out of concern for the Catanstinians. And because my son reads the rules in a highly self-serving way.
83: The physical therapist just called to confirm that my preferred version of events is what they think should happen too, so no guilt there.
Thank you to Moby, or whoever recommended that digital picture frame for grandparents. I set one up for my grandmother and sent it to her for Valentine's Day, and it's been a big hit. None of my cousins with android phones can get the app to work, so they're sending pics to me that I am then uploading to the frame, but at least it's kind of working.
Glad it works for you. Everyone expects me to do the uploading also even though it's not hard.
Thanks, X. I do not know how the players of the fens will to a site which so much in German is react, but I have hopes. They already some of those games such as 6 nimmt do play.
I do not know what a Coen brothers plot would involve. I watched a bit of Fargo once and disliked it greatly. I watched all of Inside Llewyn Davis and thought it utterly heartless. Moving, but steeped in contempt for the characters.
With the right group of people - happy with improvising, etc - I can't think of a better game to play by phone than Fiasco, to be honest. You need 3-5 people and you basically improvise a Coen Brothers plot. We're scheduling some in now.
I've never played it, but the Tabletop episode on Fiasco is excellent and worth watching (if the idea of watching Wil Wheaton & Friends (Alison Haislip, Bonnie Burton, and John Rogers) play a cooperative RPG for an hour sounds like fun it's quite good).
Kevin Drum summarizes a scary report today.
If there's any good news in the report it's this: if we did immediately adopt a maximum suppression strategy, using the most intense versions of each social intervention and keeping them in place for about 18 months, we could reduce deaths by 95-99 percent--though even that depends on having an effective vaccine in place by then. Personally, I consider this so unlikely that it's not really worth pretending we can do it.
Beyond that, I'm no expert and can't pretend to have an informed opinion about all this. However, I can say this much: if the Imperial College team is right and the choice is between (a) immense social changes starting instantly and being kept in place for 18 months, and (b) building a huge number of critical care beds fast, I'd say the construction project is actually more feasible--though only if it starts now and is given about the same urgency as the World War II Manhattan Project.
Most likely, the best we can do is to combine a strong but reasonably practical mitigation strategy--in which people are informed that this is the new reality for at least several months--with the immediate, emergency construction of something like 200,000 temporary critical care beds--or the closest we can come to that. And we need to be prepared for a large number of deaths even if we succeed.
Alternatively, we can hope the Imperial College team is wrong.
Talking of Covid mental health, I skimmed the Washington Post first thing this morning, and was simply terrified by the inanity of Trump's babbling. I knew, of course, in an abstract way, that he is an evil greedy and incompetent monster. But there is something about the direct quotes with their pattern of rhythmical nonsense that chills me to the bone. It the speech of a six year old.
That's actually the best performance we're going to get from him. It was the first day he seemed to be taking it seriously instead of thinking 100% about the stock market. However taking a problem seriously, for the authoritarian mind, means finding who caused it and punishing them, so now he's thinking 100% about demonizing China.
The IC team also looks at intermittent restrictions, which get put back on as soon as case count starts to rise again, so you get a sawtooth curve. page 11 here https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf which is a good read generally. That sounds like a much more practicable option if you get it right.
99; Don't forget the "failing governor of Michigan."
Yes, and Cryin' Chuck Schumer, who has so many more cases than the impeccably run state of West Virginia.
Apropos of the KD link, there's a post by Robin Hanson (I know, I know...) that spreadsheets various scenarios which read like variations on the Dominic Cummings "herd immunity" strategy. Spoiler: lots of people die, regardless.
I don't want to go all Donald Rumsfeld here but these brilliant models that keep coming out assume everything technologically will stay the same. Maybe actual drug treatments will be found - I know they are being studied. SARS petered out too quick to develop any established therapies so this may be more of a low-hanging fruit than we think. Maybe we can scale up using convalescent serum to protect healthcare workers. Maybe (probably) the warm weather will help. Maybe we will be able to do hundreds of thousands of tests a day and track which places need to be on lockdown and which places don't, even starting from a place of incompetence that let it spread everywhere. I don't want to be Donald Rumsfeld (this time in his incarnation as corporate CEO) and put my faith in the genius of free enterprise but that's because usually free enterprise is acting to make a profit, have a monopoly and ignore everything else. Efforts are now being redirected towards this one problem from all angles.
These models are sending one message - everything we're doing is hopeless because even in the rosy scenario the system gets completely overwhelmed - and I don't see the point of it.
The point is presumably to concentrate the minds of those working on possible technological solutions.
But for the rest of us, we're going to be going crazy after two weeks of quarantine, and being told we have to maintain extreme isolation to save lives and also it's going to last through August at the earliest doesn't help. We can't handle it. Let's not spend time developing expectations about the long run because the situation is developing quickly.
But for the rest of us, we're going to be going crazy after two weeks of quarantine, and being told we have to maintain extreme isolation to save lives and also it's going to last through August at the earliest doesn't help. We can't handle it. Let's not spend time developing expectations about the long run because the situation is developing quickly.
I'd take that in a different direction. Personally I'm not psychologically prepared to think about months of isolation, but I think it's worth spending some time and energy preparing myself. I don't want to make myself too anxious about it, but I think it is good to at least hold the idea in my head and get used to the discomfort for a while.
Honestly, I've been assuming I was going to start half-assing quarantine after a week or two.
Even more honestly, my wife is still going into the office.
104: Widespread testing would be great.
109: My wife's workplace (library tech center for The University) just shut down today. I'm still going to work. Actually, I'm there (here?) now.
Right, but in Ohio life is cheap.
Maybe (probably) the warm weather will help.
Don't count on it. It's been in the 70s and 80s in the Gulf region and we've gone from 24 to 262 to now 439 cases in about a week.
Shit like this and this (thanks, Aaron Bady) is severely testing my ability to be calmly skeptical and circumspect. Oh no, surely the situation is more complicated. Oh no, surely the situation is more complicated. Oh no, surely the situation is more complicated. Oh no, sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyytttt
112: Yes, it's barely distinguishable from death.
All the trending topics on Twitter are related to Tom Brady and the NFL. Is that really what people are tweeting the most about, or is Twitter trying to distract us?
I'm kind of curious if he can win without the cheating.
We don't have enough toilet paper to do an actual quarantine.
It's been in the 70s and 80s in the Gulf region and we've gone from 24 to 262 to now 439 cases in about a week.
But how many of those were caught in the actual Gulf region, ie the hot bit outside with the sand and so forth, and how many in frigid air-conditioned rooms?
I really like the sound of the adaptive response - if we end up doing a month of isolation then a month of normality then a bit more isolation and so on, that sounds very manageable. And I'm with 104 - we will get technically better at this over time. We don't need to be all Stanley Baldwin about this and simply declaim "the coronavirus will always get through". We have before us two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable postvirus scenarios; one where we have ten thousand people dead, and one where we have a million people dead.
119 This is guesswork but the first 12 were locals/residents repatriated from Iran (because they said so), most of the rest local community transmission (because they said nothing). I think the majority of the local transmission cases were among migrant workers, living in dormitory style accommodations. Take what you will from that. (Also saw a story that seemed more rumor than anything that about a thousand Nepali migrant workers are in quarantine). And then there are the cases in Australia and other parts of the global south.
The global south starts at the Liberty Tubes.
I do love Frank Conniff (best known from MSTK):
Things are crazy now, so when this crisis is over, I think it would be refreshing if we all spent a lot of time alone in our homes to contemplate and reflect on what happened.
It's not the same without the robot shadows.
Here's a nice graphic on growth rate of cases across many countries, and who is flattening their curve.
123- One I saw was along the lines of, "It's terrible to be trapped in the same building every single day. Now, going to the same two or three buildings in the same order every single day, that's living!"
Another nice visual - scale of different pandemics over time.
Why is Japan's response so effective? I know they've done school closings. What else?
I really do feel that people need to be a lot more cynical about the numbers coming out of China instead of being "oh, I'm confident that there's no chance that they would cover up the extent of their COVID-19 epidemic for reasons of economic gain and nationalistic pride AGAIN".
Why is Japan's response so effective? I know they've done school closings. What else?
Lots of people are asking that, with no consensus on the answer. On the positive side, in addition to the school closures: little/no social touching, very strong norms about handwashing/hygiene generally, high adherence to social distancing, hand sanitizer in shops/businesses as a matter of course in winter (since H1N1 flu), almost universal wearing of masks. Negative side: testing rates are very low, and it's just conceivable cases are being misdiagnosed as simple pneumonia, though medics say that's not plausible given the specificity of the coronavirus signs on CT scans. The hospitals aren't overwhelmed yet - only 46 critical cases listed. But they do have more than six times the number of beds per capita as the UK, so it will take longer for the system to break down.
The incidence of regular flu in Japan is waaay down compared with previous years, which also suggests the effectiveness of thorough handwashing/social distancing.
131: also rotavirus and norovirus - outbreaks are way down from the same period last year in the UK.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/871753/Norovirus_update_2020_weeks_08_to_09.pdf