Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zanza]

My employer just directed all employees whose job allows it to work from home.

[celedhring]

Madrid region to stop testing people with mild symptoms and automatically consider them infected.

Not sure this is a good idea 

[Tamas]

Thanks Sheilbh.

It is convincing of course, but this:
"'On average one person infects two or three others. You therefore have a very low probability of infecting a large number of people in a stadium."

That seems to be akin to the joke of the mathematician always bringing a bomb to a plane because it is statistically impossible to have two bombs on one plane.

When you go to a match you end up in the near vicinity of dozens if not hundreds during your journey, queuing, watching, queing outward, travelling home, phases. That has to be more than if I watch it on the telly.



I think it is Johnson's person that prevents me from trusting this method. The basic choice seems to be about how much certain economic disruption one accepts for the potential of saving lives. And to the shock of nobody, a country led by Johnson goes for the absolute minimal economic disruption option.

[Tamas]

Sounds like Mexico is following Britain's example of taking it on the chin and not cancelling stuff

[bogh]

Well, everything was officially shut down here yesterday. I am (like most people capable of it) working from home for the next two weeks, the kids are home (school and daycare closed), my GF will only teach a couple of online classes as all physical ones are cancelled. All gatherings have been cancelled, cinemas, bars, fitness centres, libraries and everything under the sun have been closed, so we are basically stuck at home, twiddling thumbs. Official advice is to keep the grandparents at a distance and not expose them to us or the kids. Pretty crazy, all told, but we'll see if it stems the tide.

[katmai]

NCAA March madness basketball tournaments for women and men cancelled. Along with all other spring sports (baseball, softball, lacrosse and others I don't remember)

[Sheilbh]

When you go to a match you end up in the near vicinity of dozens if not hundreds during your journey, queuing, watching, queing outward, travelling home, phases. That has to be more than if I watch it on the telly.

Yes, in your house - but what about the hundreds of thousands of people who watch games in the pubs - the small, enclosed, indoor gatherings. I understand that if the UK government moves to ban sporting events they are also planning to ban pubs from broadcasting them, I feel like the latter is as important in stopping the spread.

Also I think zanza's right - this sort of requires on people listening to how serious this is and taking common sense steps of the sort that can't really be enforced by government. I don't know if that'll happen.

And as I say I have no idea if it's right and my gut is we shoud be doing more. But it's not the politically easy choice and it does seem in line with the advice they're receiving, and ultimately I feel like I've no reason not to trust that advice is the best those people can give. Even if it might be wrong - which is scary

I think it is Johnson's person that prevents me from trusting this method. The basic choice seems to be about how much certain economic disruption one accepts for the potential of saving lives. And to the shock of nobody, a country led by Johnson goes for the absolute minimal economic disruption option.

So I get not trusting Johnson - and he's earned that. But on this I've not seen any reason to distrust him.

On economic disruption I think it's worth bearing in mind that includes the NHS which is the country's largest employer (and I believe the world's third largest after the People's Liberation Army and Indian Railways). So any time - like with schools - there's talk about economic disruption that's disruption that will also be affecting the hundreds of thousands of NHS staff we are relying on. I have a friend who works for the NHS on the tech and data side of things - how can they leverage their vast troves of data to get better results etc. She's not medically trained, but she's received mandatory training on some basic non-clinical stuff because she will be mobilised by the NHS as non-clinical support when this gets critical.

Having said that with the delay strategy trying to push the peak back, I would like more information about how the NHS is ramping up it's ICU capacity etc. I'm sure there's stuff going on, I'd like it if they explained it more publicly - and I think the communication strategy is a little flawed.

I also think it's a bit of a leap that Johnson - the campaign leader for Brexit who is currently planning the hardest of Brexits - would prioritise minimising economic disruption

[The Larch]

A 2nd Spanish cabinet minister has tested positive.

[bogh]

Obviously daycare options are provided for essential staff - so all health workers, police etc. even while the rest of us get shut out.

[Zanza]

This will lead to a global depression considerably worse than the 2008 crash.

[Barrister]

This will lead to a global depression considerably worse than the 2008 crash.

I dunno.  Certainly it's going to cause the economy to contract.  But once this blows over there should be a punch of pent up demand and we should be able to go right back at it.  Apparently a bunch of chinese factories are coming back on line for example.

[Sheilbh]

I dunno.  Certainly it's going to cause the economy to contract.  But once this blows over there should be a punch of pent up demand and we should be able to go right back at it.  Apparently a bunch of chinese factories are coming back on line for example.

It depends how long it takes to blow over - I agree it could be V shaped. But if it's prolonged then good businesses will go down and there'll be a lot of strain across the economy.

As I say I think the governments should be looking at how they bail out businesses that have to close temporarily for this, but are otherwise solid - especially small businesses.

[DGuller]

If this doesn't trigger a liquidity crunch, then I think recovery could be fairly easy.  If a lot of companies die because they cannot survive a temporary freeze of economic activity, then it could have a lasting damage.

[crazy canuck]

NCAA March madness basketball tournaments for women and men cancelled. Along with all other spring sports (baseball, softball, lacrosse and others I don't remember)

Once we learned the second NBA player was positive I thought this news was inevitable.

[Barrister]

Ontario public schools will be closed for 2 weeks after spring break.

It hasn't been announced yet, but I have it from a first hand authority that U of Alberta will be shutting down soon.  They want to avoid putting several thousand students in a large exam room.  All remaining lecture material is to be put up on the web somehow.