Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

But ... but .... the trickle down effect!

[DGuller]

But we did some up with 1.5 trillion dollars to help the stock market. I guess that shows where Washington thinks the priorities are.

I mean yes millions of people's lives are impacted by the stock market but surely a few dollars can find their way to the common people trying to weather this storm.

We're an oligarchy.

Saw that student debt in 2008 was $1.47 trillion.

Would have been a much better use of that money.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but injecting $1.5 trillion of liquidity into the market is not like spending $1.5 trillion.  The actual cost to the Fed is nowhere near that high, and sometimes they even make money on such things.

[Maladict]

Rotterdam university claims to have found the first Covid antibody. Will need months of testing on humans though 

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6IgMdsZHbM

Fromagia's guy on Joe Rogan again.

I learned that Spanish influenza had mortality of 3%, and that, counterintuitively, the highest risk group was 18-25 year olds.

[Oexmelin]

Just a reminder of that time when Trump disbanded the global health security team, in May 2018.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-house-pandemic-response-john-bolton-global-health-team-disband-nsc-a8346346.html

"Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Obama administration, "What this all adds up to is a potentially really concerning rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness."

"It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned through very hard experience over the last 15 years," said Konyndyk, now a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. "These moves make us materially less safe. It's inexplicable."

The day before news of Ziemer's exit became public, one of the officials on his team, Luciana Borio, director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the NSC, spoke at a symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 influenza pandemic. That event killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide.

"The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern," she told the audience. "Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no."

[jimmy olsen]

Numbers are exploding in Spain. Cases up by 2/3rds in one day!

https://mobile.twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1238639686811353089

Spain reported 2,086 new cases of coronavirus on Friday and 66 new deaths, raising the country's total to 5,232 cases and 133 dead

Not good in the US either. Up 42% to 2,604
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/

[Maladict]

I learned that Spanish influenza had mortality of 3%, and that, counterintuitively, the highest risk group was 18-25 year olds.

Yeah, because of the stronger auto-immune reaction in healthy people that then kills them. That generation really didn't get a break.

[celedhring]

Numbers are exploding in Spain. Cases up by 2/3rds in one day!

https://mobile.twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1238639686811353089

Spain reported 2,086 new cases of coronavirus on Friday and 66 new deaths, raising the country's total to 5,232 cases and 133 dead

Not good in the US either. Up 42% to 2,604
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/

The Madrid region changed the counting method to include all mild cases with matching symptoms *without testing*, but yeah it's not looking good.

[Syt]

You know, 2 months ago I would have been glad about anything that pushes Trump from the front pages for a while after 3 years of his "presidency", but I would have preferred something less intrusive and lethal.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm very interested in this pool of people with minimal or non-existent symptoms from the virus. It makes containment more difficult but if the percentage of people with minimal symptoms is large then the lethality drops.

[Syt]

I'm seeing those viral videos from Italy where people make music and sing together from their balconies and windows, and I'm thinking, "If anyone was trying to do that in Vienna, someone would call the cops within five minutes, tops."

[Sheilbh]

I'm very interested in this pool of people with minimal or non-existent symptoms from the virus. It makes containment more difficult but if the percentage of people with minimal symptoms is large then the lethality drops.

Yeah. I also find it mentally very weird to have this disease that ranges from non-existent symptoms for some people, basically a cold for some people, really bad flu for others and for some demographics it's potentially lethal.

I imagine if you're one of the people working to contain it, it must be a nightmare.

[Agelastus]

So, the latest from my neck of the woods.

The first confirmed location for a case in my county is a careworker in a care home 2 streets from me.

On the bus this morning I was talking to someone I knew from my street who was visiting the local general hospital - he said that there were cases there and they were sweeping the wards. And that the local shoe factory had had cases (three streets from me - although this was supposed to be in the news and I can't find it.)

Fortunately I am so anti-social with regards to my home town it is unlikely I have contracted it...yet.

[Tamas]

So, the latest from my neck of the woods.

The first confirmed location for a case in my county is a careworker in a care home 2 streets from me.

On the bus this morning I was talking to someone I knew from my street who was visiting the local general hospital - he said that there were cases there and they were sweeping the wards. And that the local shoe factory had had cases (three streets from me - although this was supposed to be in the news and I can't find it.)

Fortunately I am so anti-social with regards to my home town it is unlikely I have contracted it...yet.

Time to become even more anti-social, by the sound of it!

[Tamas]

Oh, to update Larch: rumour is my workplace will enact WFH procedures from middle of next week the latest, and if they do, it will be for a LONG time. Basically until the peak will have subsided.

More confusing at my wife's job. On Friday she worked from home because they were asked to do so if they can manage. They were also promised more news and site-wide plans on how to organise WFH, but no news reached her manager so she is going in on Monday.