Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Agelastus]

Oh, and (3)

Allow Tesco staff to do substitutions for out-of-stock items...

Based on past history I must be mad.

[Syt]

Movie recommendation to take your mind off Corona.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYSyuuLk5g

[Sheilbh]

Amazon Prime Now (which has been helpful to me as a shut-in) is still running and has spaces tomorrow.

[Josquius]

What a nice helpful guard. Not at all your Eastern European cliche of rules are rules unless there is a bribe.

[Sheilbh]

Yaaaaay! Updated FT Tracker - they're now having this at the top of their liveblog each day and supplementing the data from the John Hopkins observatory with local reporting!

[crazy canuck]

Here is the comparison with Canada included.

Our curve is an outlier along with Japan.

https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/could-canada-be-flattening-the-curve-of-coronavirus-cases/

edit: or if we have screwed up our testing as much as the US, then perhaps on our way to Italy.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Czech Republic are locking themselves in. No foreigners are allowed in, no Czechs are allowed out, with a small handful of exceptions, like Czechs working near the border.

Disgraceful 

What would Schweik do? Drink beer and eat pickled herring in a cosy Prague pub of course till the crisis was over, not panic!

Quite. I always associate the Czechs with a phlegmatic approach to things.

At least the Belgians are living up to stereotypes with lots of dark humour. I saw one Belgian pub (which have now been *closed down* in *Belgium* ) that was doing a special offer on buying Corona and Mort Subite

It was a shop of the supermarket chain Delhaize.

[DGuller]

I think I'll play some of This War of Mine, just to refresh my survivalist skills for the next few weeks.

[grumbler]

Whoa. The chamber of doctors gives the go-ahead for telephone prescriptions. So far, if you need a prescription refilled you need to go to your doctor's practice and pick up the paper prescription. Depending on how busy things are you might wait a while.

Starting Monday, most doctors will be able to do a paperless prescription, meaning you call, ask for your refill, and they inform pharmacy. At the pharmacy you give your name and social security number and get your meds.

Why does it take a pandemic to get this introduced?

In the incredibly backward and stupid US of A I have been getting my prescriptions like this for a decade or more.

[The Brain]

Whoa. The chamber of doctors gives the go-ahead for telephone prescriptions. So far, if you need a prescription refilled you need to go to your doctor's practice and pick up the paper prescription. Depending on how busy things are you might wait a while.

Starting Monday, most doctors will be able to do a paperless prescription, meaning you call, ask for your refill, and they inform pharmacy. At the pharmacy you give your name and social security number and get your meds.

Why does it take a pandemic to get this introduced?

In the incredibly backward and stupid US of A I have been getting my prescriptions like this for a decade or more.

Continental Europe is weird. We've been refilling prescriptions online forever.

[Syt]

It's been talked about for blimmin' ages, but the administrative side of the Austrian health service is highly resistant to change. When I came here 15 years ago they had only just introduced chip cards (as opposed to a quarterly paper thingy you'd receive). Germany had made that switch ... like 10 years earlier, I think?

[Syt]

Our weekly internal company email says we should all work from home until further notice. People who want to work at the office and need to take public transport should commute outside the rush hour. Normal office hours have been suspended.

[Tamas]

Two idiotic Iranian university student in Hungary who tested positive left for a while the hospital room they were quarantined in. So as soon as they recovered they are being deported back to Iran. Stupid.

[Sheilbh]

Relevant to your interests, Tamas:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237385-why-is-the-uk-approach-to-coronavirus-so-different-to-other-countries/

Strongly diverging opinions among the experts explaining the approach - very interesting.

[Iormlund]

https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1238425621375651840

Everybody else at this point in time is trying to close down as much as they can. The UK is volunteering to be the control group in this experiment. 

I would say they are the experiment. We are the control group.

Personally, I think the UK's plan is not daring enough. Everyone under 55 and in good health should be drafted and a country-wide orgy set up. Hit every major city at least once. After a month herd immunity would be achieved with minimal losses.