Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[mongers]

Yeah - Matt Hancock has now written about some of these measures (non-paywalled in the Telegraph). It sounds like at this stage it'll be legislation which gives the government those emergency powers if needed.

But they all sound like sensible measures in a pandemic. It's extraordinary though.

Edit: I keep thinking about that epidemiologist (one of the modellers) who was asked what it'll be like at the end of the pandemic and he said it will have changed our society. He said in terms of similar experiences he could think of, he's from London, and his mother would talk about the blitz 60 years after it happened even though as he put it the loss of life was actually "only 40,000". And he said he thinks will be the same, we may keep the mortality low (from an epidemiological perspective - so still scary from a human perspective) but it'll be something we talk about when we're in our 80s.

Indeed, sobering thoughts.

[grumbler]

So, our school originally planned to have students stay home starting Monday, with online classes taking place at the usual times each day.  Parents who couldn't keep their kids home b/c no day care could still send them to the school, but they'd be just taking the online classes and maintaining social distance.

Then came the rapid Friday dominoes falling, as one school district after another closed next week.   Governor Blackface decided to get ahead of the crowd and closed all the schools until April First.  Students and staff have two weeks off.  Probably more, as the boffins think that the crisis in Virginia will be starting about then.

My school decided that students could no longer come in, but faculty and staff still would.  We would teach online from the school until Spring Break starts on the 21st, and then again from April 1 until the embargo is lifted.

The trip to Greece has been cancelled, squawking be damned.

I expect that these plans will be hastily revised.  Faculty will refuse to come in, and without access to our files on the school servers it isn't clear how we could teach.  I have already noted to the admins that I really can't teach my intro economics course online because it is entirely exercise-based and uses no textbook.  AP euro and US Government aren't so much a problem, because they have a textbook and the class time is mostly discussion which we can do over Zoom.

Interesting times.

[Oexmelin]

Faculty will refuse to come in,

I am curious as to why. Do you have individual offices, or do you share common spaces? Or is it a matter of tending to their own children?

As I said earlier, my college extended the spring break for an additional week (next week) - students returning from spring break everywhere really were the most important risk, and their absence means the hallways are deserted.

[mongers]

True Brits:

British supermarkets' plea to shoppers - stop panic buying

Britain's food retailers appealed to shoppers on Sunday to stop panic buying during the coronavirus outbreak, saying purchasing more than they need would mean others will be left without.

Apparently it's happening a lot around here, on my way home this evening passed a Lidl with it's carpark unusually full for a saturday evening.

[grumbler]

Faculty will refuse to come in,

I am curious as to why. Do you have individual offices, or do you share common spaces? Or is it a matter of tending to their own children?

As I said earlier, my college extended the spring break for an additional week (next week) - students returning from spring break everywhere really were the most important risk, and their absence means the hallways are deserted.

Half our faculty has kids who attend our school or an equivalent public school.  Half the remainder are going to see themselves as vulnerable due to age and/or pre-existing health conditions.   A significant number of the remainder are going to be GenZ types who are going to think it unfair that they have to work when their public school compatriots are having a free vacation.

Add to that the number of students who will have "technical difficulties" with Zoom and the incentive to hold online classes from school will be low.  Only when students' parent are told that failure to attend online classes will result in summer school to I predict any level of general participation.  And, even then, teachers are likely to hold those classes from home.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I'm really glad my son isn't school age yet. What a mess. Fairfax County schools were going to have classes on Friday and just be out on Monday, but closed at pretty much the last minute on Friday morning.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm really glad my son isn't school age yet. What a mess. Fairfax County schools were going to have classes on Friday and just be out on Monday, but closed at pretty much the last minute on Friday morning.

I don't understand the point of these "we'll close this or that in three days" announcements.  If it's a good idea to close school on Monday, why isn't it a good idea to close it today?

[Oexmelin]

Half our faculty has kids who attend our school or an equivalent public school.  Half the remainder are going to see themselves as vulnerable due to age and/or pre-existing health conditions.   A significant number of the remainder are going to be GenZ types who are going to think it unfair that they have to work when their public school compatriots are having a free vacation.

Add to that the number of students who will have "technical difficulties" with Zoom and the incentive to hold online classes from school will be low.  Only when students' parent are told that failure to attend online classes will result in summer school to I predict any level of general participation.  And, even then, teachers are likely to hold those classes from home.

Gotcha.

There are about a billion seminars held at my institution to investigate alternative setups next week. Final exams have been cancelled, to be replaced by yet-to-be-announced online format. Considering that so many of my students will be in different time zones, having zoom lectures seems doomed from the start. For one class at least, I'll try to record a handful of lectures to cover the rest of the material. They should be able to access them whenever convenient

The rest of the time will be dedicated to them finishing their group project. The other class I teach is a research seminar and we just had begun the "research" portion of the class, so there is actually nothing much to adjust. Our peer-review sessions are simply going to be on a google doc (or rather, the proprietary software equivalent we'll no doubt be asked to use). 

[HisMajestyBOB]

I'm really glad my son isn't school age yet. What a mess. Fairfax County schools were going to have classes on Friday and just be out on Monday, but closed at pretty much the last minute on Friday morning.

I don't understand the point of these "we'll close this or that in three days" announcements.  If it's a good idea to close school on Monday, why isn't it a good idea to close it today?

That's what a lot of parents thought to. The county schools closed under their pressure.

[Sheilbh]

I'm really glad my son isn't school age yet. What a mess. Fairfax County schools were going to have classes on Friday and just be out on Monday, but closed at pretty much the last minute on Friday morning.

I don't understand the point of these "we'll close this or that in three days" announcements.  If it's a good idea to close school on Monday, why isn't it a good idea to close it today?

So people can make plans and put arrangements in place? I mean it's about reducing the rate of transmission, but one or two days isn't going to make a lot of difference but will give people a chance to sort themselves out.

Especially because I imagine emergency childcare is even more likely to rely on older relatives who are the vulnerable group.

[Sheilbh]

American Airlines cutting its long-haul flights to Dallas-London (daily), Dallas-Tokyo (3 a week) and Miami-London (daily) until May.

[katmai]

And now UK to get hit with American travel ban.

We are not far away from restricting Americans from coming north

[Legbiter]

Here's the optimistic take on the Wuhan virus.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3800632,00.html

TLDR: The virus is rapidly disappearing from China and can't, with strong control measures, maintain exponential growth for long. South Korea will be next to see a rapid decrease. Should be able to recede away a bit faster. Still gonna suck though.

[Fate]

Trump's new "screening" protocol in action for US citizens returning from Europe.

Customs lines at DFW:



Custom lines at ORD:




Some percent of those people crammed into those lines coming back from Europe have COVID-19. This is how you create superspreader events like what happend at the Biogen conference in Boston.

[Eddie Teach]

Loverly.