Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Maladict]

Till Lindemann, Rammstein's lead singer, is in critical condition in a Berlin hospital. He was performing on stage at late as March 15th.

[crazy canuck]

Listen mate, just go and waltz about the world to your heart's desires. Your country is fucked enough that your sorry ass won't make a difference, and you are way too hardcore for the virus to hurt you.

That is not responsive to what I was posting -- which was about whether we are in peak period.

But to your point that I am being an edgelord--it seems that there are a lot of younger people that are personally scared of the virus and I'm not sure if that is because of media frenzy or ignorance of their own mortality.

I'm 41. I suspect the bulk of us are approximately the same age.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

You can see by age and gender the likelihood of death in any given year. For me it is 0.253%. I certainly don't work up in fear of death. That is probably equivalent of my death risk if I get coronavirus. So if I get coronavirus, I have double risk of my 42nd year. Or roughly equivalent to my risk when I turn 50 (I don't plan to go through life scared when I hit 50 either).

Yes I know that we can still be vectors for older people. But the point is that we shouldn't be scared for ourselves - and it seems a lot of people are.

This may not just be about you

[mongers]

Till Lindemann, Rammstein's lead singer, is in critical condition in a Berlin hospital. He was performing on stage at late as March 15th.

Damn. 

Which reminds me, could the originator of the deadpool thread or a mod, lock it for a while as I feel posting in it would be in bad taste at this time?

[Barrister]

Till Lindemann, Rammstein's lead singer, is in critical condition in a Berlin hospital. He was performing on stage at late as March 15th.

Damn. 

Which reminds me, could the originator of the deadpool thread or a mod, lock it for a while as I feel posting in it would be in bad taste at this time?

I thought Languish was all about bad taste?  Wasn't the whole reason we left EUOT was that so we could talk about the Iraq war and Seedy could talk about sacks of dead fetuses?

[Zanza]

My hometown has a company called Dräger that is among the top global producers of ventilators. They got an order for ten thousand new ventilators from our federal government, more than their normal annual output. However they are not overly happy about it. Distribution to actual users is unclear, their normal customers expect delivery as well and might never come back if they don't get treated fairly now and they fear that the market for ventilators will crash after the crisis due to building so many now. The company has been in talks with some automotive companies, but they don't believe that their technology, production and quality processes could be easily transferred to make more ventilators.

[Legbiter]

My hometown has a company called Dräger that is among the top global producers of ventilators. They got an order for ten thousand new ventilators from our federal government, more than their normal annual output. However they are not overly happy about it. Distribution to actual users is unclear, their normal customers expect delivery as well and might never come back if they don't get treated fairly now and they fear that the market for ventilators will crash after the crisis due to building so many now. The company has been in talks with some automotive companies, but they don't believe that their technology, production and quality processes could be easily transferred to make more ventilators.

At some point the government could requisition them so to speak to crank out ventilators like Panzerfausts. What has become an issue is European nations seizing each other's medical supply shipments. Czechs seized some supplies intended for Italy and Poland seized an en route shipment of hand sanitizer bound for Norway.

[mongers]

My hometown has a company called Dräger that is among the top global producers of ventilators. They got an order for ten thousand new ventilators from our federal government, more than their normal annual output. However they are not overly happy about it. Distribution to actual users is unclear, their normal customers expect delivery as well and might never come back if they don't get treated fairly now and they fear that the market for ventilators will crash after the crisis due to building so many now. The company has been in talks with some automotive companies, but they don't believe that their technology, production and quality processes could be easily transferred to make more ventilators.

There's an Oxford university team that have built a ventilator using parts available within hospitals and the health service.

I think the idea is that the simple design can be built in the emergency using already medically certificated components and won't have to reply on parts from across the world.

[Sheilbh]

There's an Oxford university team that have built a ventilator using parts available within hospitals and the health service.

I think the idea is that the simple design can be built in the emergency using already medically certificated components and won't have to reply on parts from across the world.

I have a slight concern - I'm sure clever people have thought about and dealt with this already - while all of these designs and companies re-purposing their factories to produce ventilators is great. I slightly worry if they'll all be interoperable and as straightforward for all staff to use across hospitals or if each one will effectively be like a new piece of kit, with separate spare parts depending on which factory/company produced yours.

That's probably fine in normal times where you've got a few ventilator manufacturers supplying hospital, but in a crisis and you've got potential loads of slightly different ventilators it seems like it could be an issue?

[celedhring]

Spain's 3D-printing ventilators like crazy. HP's 3D centre is in Barcelona and they are churning out nearly 100 ventilators a day. Iormlund's company was doing it too, iirc.

Yeah, the market will probably crash after this is over. But I presume a lot of those makeshift ventilators are intended for short term use only.

[merithyn]

There'll be a significant increase yeah. The week that passed without total ICU blowup was extremely good news, invaluable preparations were put in place. The question will be answered over the weekend. If London hasn't buckled come Monday I'll be extremely encouraged. Probably the same applies to New York.

New York is two weeks behind London, with a potential apex of 21 days from today. Don't get too excited if the hospitals are fine come Monday.

That being said, I'm listening to Andrew Cuomo on CNN right now, and I think I love him. He has numbers, dates, times, plans. He's the leader we need. He even got a good jab in there about the orange turnip, saying that he is making decisions based on facts and numbers not on a "gut feeling".

[Valmy]

Sometimes it takes a crisis to discover who the real leaders are.

[Josquius]

There's an Oxford university team that have built a ventilator using parts available within hospitals and the health service.

I think the idea is that the simple design can be built in the emergency using already medically certificated components and won't have to reply on parts from across the world.

I have a slight concern - I'm sure clever people have thought about and dealt with this already - while all of these designs and companies re-purposing their factories to produce ventilators is great. I slightly worry if they'll all be interoperable and as straightforward for all staff to use across hospitals or if each one will effectively be like a new piece of kit, with separate spare parts depending on which factory/company produced yours.

That's probably fine in normal times where you've got a few ventilator manufacturers supplying hospital, but in a crisis and you've got potential loads of slightly different ventilators it seems like it could be an issue?

I guess they're planned for the short term though. Not for long term maintenance et al.

But true, I saw an article this morning about Dyson inventing a new ventilator...when all we need is established companies churning out tried and tested models.

[Legbiter]

Spain's 3D-printing ventilators like crazy. HP's 3D centre is in Barcelona and they are churning out nearly 100 ventilators a day. Iormlund's company was doing it too, iirc.

Ingenious.

[merithyn]

And those activities ARE reckless and stupid because they are absolutely unnecessary, and help sustain the peak period of the pandemic.

What makes you think that we are anywhere near the peak period of the pandemic? The UK is at 578 deaths and 11,658 cases. Assume all of them were in the last week.

If you think we are going to get to 6 million cases, and this is the peak we will maintain, it will take 10 years.

It is better if we consider the death side of the equation. If we get to 6 million cases and there is a 1% death rate, there will be 60,000 deaths, and at this rate we will only have 2 years of this.

There really are only some version of three alternatives (that could be mixed to a degree). This is overblown, we are no where near the peak and things will get far worse, or we are in this for an extremely long time.

Listen mate, just go and waltz about the world to your heart's desires. Your country is fucked enough that your sorry ass won't make a difference, and you are way too hardcore for the virus to hurt you.

I you, Tamas.

[Sheilbh]

Spain's 3D-printing ventilators like crazy. HP's 3D centre is in Barcelona and they are churning out nearly 100 ventilators a day. Iormlund's company was doing it too, iirc.

Yeah, the market will probably crash after this is over. But I presume a lot of those makeshift ventilators are intended for short term use only.

Weirdly loads of schools have 3D printers here and they're being used to make visors for NHS staff because the the bit you print is really easy and then you just need the screen to slot in, which is also really easy.

I've seen some ingenious printing in Italy too where they're able to print the bits of face masks needed.