Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

I am a bit worried about all the attention given towards the Western and Asian countries here. I get as the big world travelers we would be the first to confront this but as we see in Iran perhaps the capacity for this thing to really kill millions will be in the poor countries.

Yeah - the FT are tracking reports in other countries as they come in - I think the countries on the other trackers are mainly because they were first/most connected to other population centres in the world:


But, in part I wonder if, given the age profile of East Asia and the West, it won't disproprtionately affect those regions. There will be deaths in the younger population, but the risk is far higher among older people so unlike other recent pandemics, the burden may be weighted towards those areas and not Africa or the Mid-East which have a different age pyramid. I sort-of hope that will happen, or that by the time it really takes off elsewhere the medical science is advanced in East Asia and the West so there are solutions that can be rolled out?

[Valmy]

Yes...healthy young people. If you have health issues it can be fatal and I think those types of health problems are more common in poor countries.

Besides it is not like there are not older people in those countries and all thoe young people are going to be walking around spreading it while not displaying symptoms.

[Iormlund]

To be honest there is not much we can do to help them except through research.

[Valmy]

To be honest there is not much we can do to help them except through research.

I know and they are sovereign states so ultimately it is their responsibility. It just concerns me seeing what is going on in Iran and, it appears, Pakistan as well.

[Admiral Yi]

Frankly how The Congo is dealing with covid is pretty far down my list of concerns.

[Josquius]

ut, in part I wonder if, given the age profile of East Asia and the West, it won't disproprtionately affect those regions. There will be deaths in the younger population, but the risk is far higher among older people so unlike other recent pandemics, the burden may be weighted towards those areas and not Africa or the Mid-East which have a different age pyramid. I sort-of hope that will happen, or that by the time it really takes off elsewhere the medical science is advanced in East Asia and the West so there are solutions that can be rolled out?

Good point. Though Eastern Europe even more so than western Europe...shan't be pretty. Or maybe there the isolation of the grandma villages will save them?
In Japan too this could be a bit of protection I think. The big cities have a pretty standard demographic spread, unlike the country as a whole which leans old due to the villages full of OAPs.

In "First World Problems in the Time of Corona" ... Netflix, after request by the EU, reduced its bandwidth usage by 25% through compression etc.

The Austrian regulatory body has given an exception to the net neutrality law, permitting providers to throttle video streaming if resources should run low because everyone is working from home.

Wow, on a national level.
I've heard of a lot of companies being in trouble due to heavy netflix traffic coming through their vpn (why WFH people couldn't run netflix on another device whilst working I dunno)
Then there was the infamous teams outage....

[Tamas]

[Josquius]

Looking at the graph comparing countries total cases I note one big outlier:
Switzerland.
Less than 10 million people and its way up there with mid sized nations.

[Sheilbh]

Yes...healthy young people. If you have health issues it can be fatal and I think those types of health problems are more common in poor countries.

Besides it is not like there are not older people in those countries and all thoe young people are going to be walking around spreading it while not displaying symptoms.

Sure. But if, say, the profile in that Imperial paper is right this will disproportionately affect the elderly and vulnerable. Because of all the other public health issues in the developing world which we don't care enough about to fix when there isn't a pandmic, large parts of the developing world may actually suffer a lower burden of loss - there will be deaths and pain but it may not primarily fall there (which, sadly, is why we're seeing so much effort to cure or vaccinate this - I imagine it would be different if it disproportionately caused suffering in the developing world).

Closing border is a dumb idea from everything I've seen with minimal impact on the disease. I don't know I'm glad we can avoid general European populism on this

Looking at the graph comparing countries total cases I note one big outlier:
Switzerland.
Less than 10 million people and its way up there with mid sized nations.

Skyping a friend in Geneva this evening - apparently the second worst per capita. I had no idea.

[Sheilbh]

Just looked at Now TV Films. The "Trending Now" section:
I am Legend
Shaun of the Dead
2012
Armageddon
Deep Impact

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah, noticed Outbreak on the front page of Netflix recommendations.

[viper37]

There are no masks to speak of, we have gloves.

doesn't mean much if you touch your face with it...

[viper37]

Tampon?

buffer, I think.

[Sheilbh]

Tampon?

buffer, I think.

Swab, I think.

[Admiral Yi]

lock down I think.  tamp down