Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Maladict]

In Bergamo, Lombardy, the crematory is overburdened so army trucks are in line to bring the dead to other cities. 

Lombardy is getting a so high number of new contagions and dead that's explainable with difficulty.
Either a mutation of the virus, or an enormous number of asymptomatic persons that diffused the virus (estimates say that the real number of cases, between strong, mild and asymptomatic could be around the 80k-100k vs. 35.000 actually diagnosed), or overburdened ICUs. Or a combination of the three.

L.

How are you holding up?

[Maladict]

58 deceased so far, sharp uptick in the last few days. Of those 58, only 14 made it to the ICU. The rest opted out, being too frail/old. 

[celedhring]

Over here health care is reaching a breaking point, and we are nowhere the peak yet. Madrid is overwhelmed, although they are expanding capacity as fast as they can (today they are opening up several medicalized hotels), and reserves of protective equipment are draining up fast across Spanish hospitals.

It looks like death figures will be bad today. They were at 741 this morning which is +30% vs yesterday, still a few hours away before the final 24h count.

[Syt]

Austria will very likely hit the 2000 case mark today.

It's notable that the case numbers in Vienna, where a quarter of people in Austria live, are lower than in Tyrol (expected), Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and Styria, with cases per 100k at the lower end of the spectrum so far.

[Sheilbh]

On those London boroughs I was having a look at, there's been some significant changes in the I think three days since I posted:

Borough      Cases      Cases perIncrease
      15th   18th   100thous   
Haringey   270624   16   29   10.72   81.25%
Brent   330795   20   45   13.60   125.00%
Lambeth   325917   26   61   18.72   134.62%
Southw.   317256   33   70   22.06   112.12%
Westm.   255324   37   68   26.63   83.78%
Kens.Ch.   156197   43   55   35.21   27.91%
               
Hants.   1376316   55   77   5.59   40.00%

Yeah. We're ahead of the country. I think the country is three weeks behind Italy. London's about three weeks ahead of the country apparently

One of the grimmer preparations is they're building an emergency extension to Westminster mortuary to cope.

I sort of wish Sadiq was more involved (like the devolved administrations) because there's not much communication to London about what's happening or going to happen.

[garbon]

Well Sadiq has now told us not to travel unless we really really need too.

[Duque de Bragança]

Semi-lockout confinement or containment seems to be working. 75-90% less people in the streets. Buses are still running, accordingly with much less people, not just at night.
Still, last night bus driver insisted on driving with air conditioning (?!) and windows opened (?!)  so I nearly got a cold. Bad timing to get a cold. Nearly got one.

OTOH, maybe he had some kind of fever...

[Iormlund]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/us/louisiana-pastor-coronavirus/index.html

One of the infection clusters in Hong Kong is a Buddhist group.  They insisted in doing gatherings, and got like 40 people infected.  At least one died.  Religious gatherings were also responsible for spreading the virus in South Korea.

And Spain.

[celedhring]

Semi-lockout confinement or containment seems to be working. 75-90% less people in the streets. Buses are still running, accordingly with much less people, not just at night.
Still, last night bus driver insisted on driving with air conditioning (?!) and windows opened (?!)  so I nearly got a cold. Bad timing to get a cold. Nearly got one.

OTOH, maybe he had some kind of fever...

Air conditioning and open windows are recommendations I'm seeing often for people gathering in small spaces (like a bus).

[Josquius]

Apparently in Switzerland they've restricted regular church services to 10 people (iirc). Funerals however remain open to all

[Pedrito]

In Bergamo, Lombardy, the crematory is overburdened so army trucks are in line to bring the dead to other cities. 

Lombardy is getting a so high number of new contagions and dead that's explainable with difficulty.
Either a mutation of the virus, or an enormous number of asymptomatic persons that diffused the virus (estimates say that the real number of cases, between strong, mild and asymptomatic could be around the 80k-100k vs. 35.000 actually diagnosed), or overburdened ICUs. Or a combination of the three.

L.

How are you holding up?

Personally, I'm going on rather fine. I live in a big apartment in a complex with two other families, have access to a treadmill and stationary bike, there's a small garden where my older daughter goes to do some yoga, the smaller ones (14 and 11 years old) are burning through the PS4 library - they even reinstalled my old Wii  -, my wife buys groceries every two days, we have plenty of TP and a bidet in every bathroom, we're decluttering the kids' rooms (titanic feat); but the social life is sorely missed (skype cocktail parties are all the rage down here), and the incoming spring, with longer and warmer days, will strain our will to remain inside.

On the negative side, the Conte government is going to extend the school closing well over the actual time limit - the boys will be back to school probably around the first days of May, and someone is hinting the school year won't restart at all - , and the quarantine will be extended for sure: it should've been lifted March 25th, but it will go on at least for another two weeks, I think 

I really don't know how many bars and restaurants, small shops and family businesses (and everything tied to the tourism industry) will reopen after a total lockdown of more than one month. There are tough times in sight for a large part of Italy 

L.

[The Larch]

AFAICT Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon are both doing their talk shows from home quarantine.

Trevor Noah is doing online content from home as well.

[jimmy olsen]

Florida is going to get absolutely hammered!

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241296721.html

The novel coronavirus is suspected or confirmed in 19 long-term care facilities in Florida, potentially exposing hundreds of the state's most vulnerable people to the virus, state officials said Wednesday.

But state officials are refusing to identify the facilities, citing privacy concerns. One person in a Broward County assisted living facility who tested positive for the virus died this week. Two other people died at the same facility around the same time, but they tested negative for the virus, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday.

[Sheilbh]

Went to the shops last night and it was absolute carnage.

After being stuck in my flat and very immobile I'd been to the shops the week before. As I'd been relying on a relatively basic delivery service I only had standard cheddar so splurged on some nice cheese - manchego, comte, stilton etc and sourdough. It turns out the one thing people are not stockpiling is specialty cheeses

Everything else was gone (except for dessert goods, which I find weird - we need joy).

But I'm entirely sure this is just people being fucking lunatics rather than any underlying supply issue because every local corner shop on the way back is fully stocked and I feel like if the cash and carry network is still robust, the supermarket supply chains should be fine

Apparently the supermarkets have pandemic plans in place since SARS and have also found their no deal Brexit planning useful - so I'm glad that came in helpful for something. Key issue at the minute is the delivery services. Other people have discovered Amazon Prime and I just can't find any delivery service near me which is annoying because, still being on crutches, I basically need a delivery service to do a big shop. As it is I'll just have to go down every couple of days in the hopes of finding food.

Also now have three friends and colleagues in self-isolation for covid symptoms of either themselves or their partners.

[The Larch]

Florida is going to get absolutely hammered!

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241296721.html

The novel coronavirus is suspected or confirmed in 19 long-term care facilities in Florida, potentially exposing hundreds of the state's most vulnerable people to the virus, state officials said Wednesday.

But state officials are refusing to identify the facilities, citing privacy concerns. One person in a Broward County assisted living facility who tested positive for the virus died this week. Two other people died at the same facility around the same time, but they tested negative for the virus, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday.

Well that's really bad... whenever the virus hits a retirement home or assisted living facility, you can be sure that it'll run roughshod with its residents. A big amount of fatalities in Spain come from this source, one of them gets sick and in a few days you have 20 or 30 dead there.