Corona Virus 2019-nCoV

[Quantum Quack]

If I am maintaining separation then that implies that I'm making sure that others do the same (or I simply move further away).

A mask isn't a bad idea, in most cases, it's just not a panacea and it may encourage more aggressive behavior. In a crowded place I would use a mask but I would try to avoid a crowded place.

That's hard to do in some countries/cities. It's not hard for me to do where I live however.

The problem is the need to regulate only is present because people generally need to blame the system for failure and not them selves.
If you regulate just for the jerks then they will scream discrimination so they have to impose a regulation across the board.
And it only take one jerk to ruin the planned suppression of the contagion.
I only use my mask when at the supermarket in a confined space and stock on the shelves that could be contaminated by my expectorant. I am not entering any other buildings normally and if I do I wear the mask for the same reasons. However to enforce mask wearing it has to be simple so that the jerk can understand it. If you leave your home wear a mask... simple to understand even for the jerk and easy to enforce.

 

[Bells]

Mod Note

Then, please tell me what this thread is all about if not about the Coronavirus and its properties and behaviors and how viruses manage to hijack the cell's mitotic abilities to propagate. Should science not pay any attention to that?

Or do you think that I am talking woo? Is that it? Clearly you have not bothered to do any reading on the subject.

Not your pet project.

Read through the thread if you want to know what this thread is about.

Transmission, rate of transmission, death rates, how countries are handling it, how hospitals are coping, are some examples.

Not.. I repeat.. NOT microtubules.

You were given the courtesy of having your own thread about your pet obsession. Keep it there.

We all want to be socially distanced from your obsession with microtubules. Please respect that.

If you want to discuss how microtubules is helping this virus spread and multiply, then please take it to the thread you have all of your very own about the subject of microtubules.

I cannot make this any clearer for you.

Keep doing it though and you'll be moderated.

 

[Bells]

Mod Note

Post about microtubules moved to alternative theories.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Iam just glad I watched all those zombie apocalyptic streaming videos...

 

[exchemist]

Some reflections on the data being bandied around, concerning the UK.

Stress on the health service

- There is now cautious talk of the response to the lockdown being detectable in the stats (which there should be, after 3 weeks of lockdown).

- This comes from the trend in the number of daily new confirmed cases. In the UK, the confirmed cases are those that have been admitted to hospital, as those are the only people being tested. This number will, however, be proportional to the total infections, so it can be used to infer the trend in total infections as well.

- What seems to be happening is that the doubling rate in the daily confirmed cases has decreased, from every ~ 3 days to every ~6 days. Thus the curve is still upward and still accelerating, but is not accelerating as fast as the original exponential would predict. [Whoopee?, er....]

- We have thus yet to reach the stage of a simple linear increase in new daily reported cases, let alone the stage at which the daily new cases level off.

- Even a levelled off daily number that is greater than the daily rate of discharge from hospital (of dead/recovered patients) adds further to the net load on the health service.

- The load on the health service will only stop getting worse when the daily new cases fall to match the level of discharges [Gulp]

Time lags

- The daily deaths continue to increase exponentially. However, people typically incubate the disease for about a week, get admitted to hospital 7-14 days after first showing symptoms and die about 2 weeks after admission to hospital. So the deaths being recorded now, and for the next week or so, will be due to the progress of the epidemic before the lockdown was applied. Essentially, they should track the state of the epidemic about a month previously.

- We must therefore expect the shape of the deaths curve to lag the confirmed daily new cases curve by ~2 weeks, and

- we must expect the confirmed daily cases curve to lag the actual degree of spread of the epidemic by 2-3 weeks.

When you follow this through, you can see why the authorities will want to keep the screws on for at least another 4 weeks, and why they are continuing to open up new hospital capacity as fast as they can.

 

[parmalee]

At long last, U.S.A. Is Number One! again--in COVID-19 deaths, unemployment, and so forth. Another concise accounting of everything Trump and it's administration has done wrong:

On Jan. 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump welcomed us to his presidency, and to his worldview. In a 16-minute inaugural address delivered to a nation still surprised by his election, Trump gave a speech about the “American carnage” that was hollowing out the country. ...

For those of us who didn’t quite recognize the shattered ruins of a once-great country that the president described at the time, it’s now arrived on our doorsteps. Even without the juddering trauma of a coronavirus that has closed streets and schools, and asphyxiated the economy, and killed thousands, the world he painted then ended up becoming our world now, but with his response to this crisis, it’s grown ever worse. “For too long,” he warned in 2017, “a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished—but the people did not share in its wealth.” Today we watch as his son-in-law’s attempts to help himself and others profit off the coronavirus, as the federal government strangles states’ efforts to purchase protective equipment. We watch, horrified, as the president fires the inspector general hired to oversee the $2 trillion stimulus package; we watch as our taxes pay for his golf junkets; we watch as his businesses profit from pay-to-play lobbyists and elected officials; and as his cronies profiteer from an immigration policy that stuffs money into the pockets of private prisons.

In that speech, Trump promised that above all things, at the center of his presidency lay a “crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.” And yet, as the United States has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world, its citizens wait for tests, for hospital beds, and for relief. Jared Kushner insists that stockpiled emergency equipment that should go to front-line workers in fact belongs to the federal government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been hollowed out by Kushner’s disaster hobbyist cronies, and the federal government is backing out of its testing support by week’s end. States unwilling to bow and scrape for supplies don’t get them, while craven politicians use access to Trump to game the distribution channels. This nation is not serving its citizens. It is offering mealy-mouthed promises that private interests will magic up cures, and supplies, and websites, and vaccines while its citizens die and unemployment soars. Federal officials who are supposed to serve citizens have clocked out, even as they gut federal laws that would keep the air clean, and emissions lowered, and environmental degradation at bay. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration is muzzling health officials and distorting public information, such that the American people are left in the dark in the middle of the most devastating public health disaster we’ve seen in a century. The invisible people are no longer merely invisible. Now they are invisible and dying.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-american-carnage.html
(Also see links within text.)

For the most part, I'm on board with the article, until we get to this:

Donald Trump is not responsible for the American carnage we are now facing. But he is wholly responsible for his failure to prepare for it, to respond to it, to rise to it, and to deal honestly and even-handedly and effectively with it.

Huh? Trump didn't create the coronavirus, but he is entirely responsible for the carnage we are now facing. Almost all of this--the tens of thousands of deaths, the tens of millions unemployed, and this forthcoming depression--could have been prevented. Moreover, it's hardly as though it's only his past actions that are the problem--he's actually, somehow, making the carnage worse with every single day that passes.

Can the U.S. weather--well, really I mean survive--9 more months of this? Or, more realistically, 5 more years of this? Given, well... Biden. (Seriously?)

At what point do people start floating the possibility that perhaps the best option, maybe the only option, is simply to take him out*? Actually, that would be the decent thing to do--I mean, Bin Laden only killed a few thousand (well, actually he didn't kill anyone, but...)--given that it would literally be preventative, and not just punitive.

* Apparently, "taking (someone) out" has an entirely innocent meaning, as not a single Republican objected to Trump's exhortation to "take out" an American ambassador. I, however, do not intend it in this "innocent" fashion.


Edit: I did not consult with an attorney prior posting the above, but I think I'm in the clear--I'm not actually advocating anything, I'm simply speculating.

 

[Quantum Quack]

At long last, U.S.A. Is Number One! again--in COVID-19 deaths, unemployment, and so forth. Another concise accounting of everything Trump and it's administration has done wrong:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-american-carnage.html
(Also see links within text.)

For the most part, I'm on board with the article, until we get to this:

Huh? Trump didn't create the coronavirus, but he is entirely responsible for the carnage we are now facing. Almost all of this--the tens of thousands of deaths, the tens of millions unemployed, and this forthcoming depression--could have been prevented. Moreover, it's hardly as though it's only his past actions that are the problem--he's actually, somehow, making the carnage worse with every single day that passes.

Can the U.S. weather--well, really I mean survive--9 more months of this? Or, more realistically, 5 more years of this? Given, well... Biden. (Seriously?)

At what point do people start floating the possibility that perhaps the best option, maybe the only option, is simply to take him out*? Actually, that would be the decent thing to do--I mean, Bin Laden only killed a few thousand (well, actually he didn't kill anyone, but...)--given that it would literally be preventative, and not just punitive.

* Apparently, "taking (someone) out" has an entirely innocent meaning, as not a single Republican objected to Trump's exhortation to "take out" an American ambassador. I, however, do not intend it in this "innocent" fashion.


Edit: I did not consult with an attorney prior posting the above, but I think I'm in the clear--I'm not actually advocating anything, I'm simply speculating.

One thing that is glaringly obvious to me is that in all instances of national impact around the globe, the severity of outcome seems to be determined by a small window of opportunity during which Governments can act and act aggressively to prevent the sort of runaway disaster that places like USA, UK, Italy, Spain and even China etc.

Examples:
Australia and New Zealand governments reacted quickly and aggressively as soon as the epidemic became obviously vectored towards a pandemic. In doing so managed to track and test imported cases with relative effectiveness, thus reducing the degree the virus managed to penetrate into the general population.

However due to, for example, the UK's lack of immediate response, dithering on the notion of heard immunity etc...allowed with in a couple of days, for the community transmission of this virus to spread dramatically and continue to do so until an aggressive lock down was invoked. To late basically, to prevent the disaster that they are facing now. Acting only after the "horse has bolted" and having to deal from behind playing catch up instead of being at the front of this.

Time is of the essence and any delay, even mere hours, can and have made a huge difference to outcome.

The USA is no different, in that a lack of immediate and proper assessment with appropriate and aggressive reaction towards locking down nation wide led to a significant delay in action and during this delay the virus was able to entrench itself solidly right across the nation.

Essentially, as I have been laboring the point, it was the serious underestimation of this contagion and what will be required both economically and health services to manage it.
This issue of underestimating is the main cause for such high numbers of cases and associated deaths... and sever un-managed economic hardship that is currently being experienced.

Trump is no different to so many world leaders that have continued "playing golf" while underestimating the real and immediate threat and being totally unprepared for what has to ensue because of that lack of bio security diligence.

Even today after the global death toll passes 100,000, nations are planning to reopen their economies and relax their lock downs, and still even now, underestimating the ongoing threat and allowing their desperate need to restart economies to persuade their overly optimistic assessment thus potentially rendering the suffering of the population ( and economy) due to lock down, to be in vain.

The Chinese Government failed to recognize and act on this threat early enough and even after they did, complained when other counties like Australia and the USA raised borders, suggesting that it was unnecessary and that the situation was under control. Again underestimating the problem in conjunction with the WHO, who were to slow in calling this threat for the threat that it was and is.

If anything we as a global community have a serious lesson to learn and put in systems to prevent a repeat of this catastrophe.

For example:

• People have to adapt to the need to have their rights to international, national travel suspended (say for 24 hours min) with out notice even if the suspension proves to be a false flag event.
  
• Governments like China need to put in place proper bio security reaction systems and allow for the possibility of false flag events.
• Economies have to be designed to allow for possible interruption (hibernation) and become more resilient even if False flag events occur.

The most important change is to at least acknowledge the global bio security threat as being a top priority.

I am sure sciforums members have a few ideas of their own on how the world can adapt to prevent something like this happening again.

 

[Write4U]

This may of interest
https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

p.s. it is on topic....

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

I am sure sciforums members have a few ideas of their own on how the world can adapt to prevent something like this happening again

All dwellings fitted with lockable doors controlled by central authority, all food delivered to homes, all doctors and professionals to make house calls, citizens allowed out for annual holidays if they wear appropriate suits with self contained air supply and holiday alone...but nothing unreasonable with citizens allowed to move about their own homes freely.

I have always thought travel is too care free...I mean as far as I know you go thru the hoops to bring in an animal and most food is simply banned yet humans travel casually in comparison. Well all will say you can't restrict travel well ok let folk takes their pets and a basket of home grown food...the cost of travel would go up but why not have testing in place for all travellers...this virus is bad but there is no reason we could not see something much much worse...perhaps gear to that possible reality.
Alex

 

[Quantum Quack]

All dwellings fitted with lockable doors controlled by central authority, all food delivered to homes, all doctors and professionals to make house calls, citizens allowed out for annual holidays if they wear appropriate suits with self contained air supply and holiday alone...but nothing unreasonable with citizens allowed to move about their own homes freely.

I have always thought travel is too care free...I mean as far as I know you go thru the hoops to bring in an animal and most food is simply banned yet humans travel casually in comparison. Well all will say you can't restrict travel well ok let folk takes their pets and a basket of home grown food...the cost of travel would go up but why not have testing in place for all travellers...this virus is bad but there is no reason we could not see something much much worse...perhaps gear to that possible reality.
Alex

Well at the very least the WHO needs to set up some specific border protocols so that an international quarantine can be established quickly.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Well at the very least the WHO needs to set up some specific border protocols so that an international quarantine can be established quickly.

I think the first thing is a Royal Commision or something that we can call a think tank to look at measures of prevention, how to monitor world health, put together a procedure to close the gate, get tourists home and the best method to distribute toilet paper.

But to come up with the best plan b in view of our experience.

I would not wait for the rest of the world we should not ignore WHO but we really need to be ahead of the game.
It does not have to be rocket science and we should not be wondering how each political party will respond...
X happens roll out plan b.
One area that can be addressed via plan b is folk know there is a crisis and know they don't have to wait for a PM press conference to know the gate is being shut and welfare etc moves into second gear.
Alex

 

[iceaura]

Which is what I said. You added the embellishment of which curve. I only stated the curve will flatten as did you.

It is not what you said.
What you said was that the curve we are on would flatten, regardless of what we do. That is not the case.
The curve we are on will not change shape - if we are on a curve with a steep peak (as we will continue to be, if we don't start doing something different), we will follow that peak. Following the peak is failing to flatten the curve.

Not true. There is more opportunity to be average in many other countries. There is not more to excel.

There is more opportunity for citizens of the given country to excel in most First World countries than there is in the US. This is hardcore, in the numbers, verified and peer-reviewed fact.
(There is also more opportunity to be prosperous in general, in those countries, when such prosperity is "average" - another advantage the citizens of most First World countries enjoy that is denied to the citizens of the US).
- - -

No one has exactly equal opportunities. But overall there is more opportunity here.

There is not. There is more opportunity for more people in most First World countries than there is in the US.

How so? Tesla, Apple, Qualcomm, SpaceX and Google are far from delusions

They provide relatively few opportunities for the citizens of the US.

I think there is more opportunity to excel (and more risk of failure) than in other countries.

You are in error (except about the risk of failure). Run the numbers.

And why is this relevant here? Because it highlights the continual and repeated failure of the US, as a country, under its current and now generation-old political governance, to handle emergencies and forestall disasters.

The Potemkin competence that has been sold to the American citizenry as a characteristic of the political system we are not allowed to name in routine political discussion (the only political system currently of significant influence that we are not allowed to name in routine mass media political discussion) has once again hit an iceberg. And once again, the wealthy have dibs on the lifeboats.

 

[river]

It is not what you said.
What you said was that the curve we are on would flatten, regardless of what we do. That is not the case.
The curve we are on will not change shape - if we are on a curve with a steep peak (as we will continue to be, if we don't start doing something different), we will follow that peak. Following the peak is failing to flatten the curve.

There is more opportunity for citizens of the given country to excel in most First World countries than there is in the US. This is hardcore, in the numbers, verified and peer-reviewed fact.
(There is also more opportunity to be prosperous in general, in those countries, when such prosperity is "average" - another advantage the citizens of most First World countries enjoy that is denied to the citizens of the US).
- - -

There is not. There is more opportunity for more people in most First World countries than there is in the US.

They provide relatively few opportunities for the citizens of the US.

You are in error (except about the risk of failure). Run the numbers.

And why is this relevant here? Because it highlights the continual and repeated failure of the US, as a country, under its current and now generation-old political governance, to handle emergencies and forestall disasters.

The Potemkin competence that has been sold to the American citizenry as a characteristic of the political system we are not allowed to name in routine political discussion (the only political system currently of significant influence that we are not allowed to name in routine mass media political discussion) has once again hit an iceberg. And once again, the wealthy have dibs on the lifeboats.

I agree with iceaura

And look at what is happening to the monies that were supposed to go to the workers that need the money . It may end up going to corporations and use this money as they see fit .

What alot of people are missing is what is going on , World Wide , and how they treat their citizens ; in some instances it is night and day compared to the US .

The US is in deep trouble with this current Presidential group of cronies . Who totally miss the importance of the Health of the Entire , the Whole of economy , from small too medium sized businesses surviving , intact ; ( when the economy starts to run start )..... With their employees .

They just don't seem to care ...at all .

To an American in The USA , right I now , the future is bleak .

I just hope somehow I end up being wrong . And something good happens .

 

[river]

The World is fully aware of what is going on in the United States of America .

 

[river]

Fascism indeed iceaura .

 

[iceaura]

A journalist follows up on one of the many stories: https://www.newyorker.com/news/lett...l&date=041120&utm_campaign=nl19992769&list=CP

How Did the U.S. End Up with Nurses Wearing Garbage Bags?

What they did not foresee was that the federal government might never come to the rescue. They did not realize this was a government failure by design—not a problem to be fixed but a policy choice by President Trump that either would not or could not be undone. “No one can believe it. That’s the No. 1 problem with the whole situation: the facts are known, but they are inconceivable,” Ries told me. “So we are just in denial.”

 

[billvon]

They provide relatively few opportunities for the citizens of the US.

Let's take a look.

Apple. 50,000 employees and 250,000 jobs at US companies that support Apple (chargers, accessories, parts etc.)
Qualcomm. 30,000 employees in the US. And over a million that depend on CDMA (the technology Qualcomm invented) - app designers, cellphone network construction, backhaul companies, data analytics, cellphone retailers etc.

So that's 1.4 million jobs from those two alone.

 

[river]

Let's take a look.

Apple. 50,000 employees and 250,000 jobs at US companies that support Apple (chargers, accessories, parts etc.)
Qualcomm. 30,000 employees in the US. And over a million that depend on CDMA (the technology Qualcomm invented) - app designers, cellphone network construction, backhaul companies, data analytics, cellphone retailers etc.

So that's 1.4 million jobs from those two alone.

So what , there probably working from home . And networking . They have the time .

 

[billvon]

So what , there probably working from home . And networking . They have the time .

Right. Many of them are. And . . . ?

 

[paddoboy]