Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Idris has caught it.

From Trudeau's wife! I am furious at Canada

[Razgovory]

That WWI Victory parade in Philadelphia certainly didn't help

My great-great uncle died in Philly shortly before that parade.  Here's his obituary:

James T. Crossland, for many years an employee of the Eddystone Manufacturing Company and one of the borough's well-known citizens, will be buried tomorrow at 11 o'clock from his late residence, 204 Concord Avenue. Mr. Crossland, who was 28 years of age, passed away yesterday, the cause of death being typhoid pneumonia.
It was just about a week ago that Mr. Crossland first complained of feeling ill and with the development of fever and other symptoms of contagion, he was taken to the State Quarantine Station at Marcus Hook, where the end came following delirium. The deceased leaves a wife and two small children, Esther, three years old and Elva two years old. He was a member of the Eddystone Fire Co, which in respect to him, went into mourning as soon as it learned of his death; Manchester Unity I.O.O.F. and the Independent Order of Red Men.
The services will be held at the house, Rev. R. M. Howells, pastor ot the Eddystone Methodist Episcopal Church, officiating. Interment will be made at Chester Rural Cemetery.

So yeah, you don't need to be an old person to die from shit like this.  Obit is from October 25th, 1918.

The 1918 influenza was notable for it killing healthy young people more than old people.

[Josephus]

who is Idris?

[Camerus]

At my office employees are being told not to "panic", to keep coming to the downtown office, etc even though WFH is technically perfectly possible. Only employees with kids might be permitted to work from home and even then they're supposed to exhaust every alternative childcare option first and discuss options with their supervisor.

No further guidance is being provided at this time or questions are being answered. But we being told not to "panic" - something I don't see anyone in my office doing.

Working for the government sucks sometimes.

[Josquius]

Interesting approach.
Here the guidance for public sector employees is the opposite. Those with kids are NOT allowed to work from home. They're not trusted to actually work.

[Tamas]

God, I'm so sorry - that's a horrible situation.

Fortunately, as I said at the weekend, I'm not very social around town - to the extent that my most likely cause of infection is the Tesco Delivery Driver when I'm at home.

The buses and train I need to take to get to the hospital is more concerning, of course. On the other hand, if people stop travelling that may be less of a concern (not that I noticed any reduction in passengers when coming back from Sheffield on Sunday - if anything the train was fuller.)

Of course, if people stop travelling the buses and trains may stop running as well...either via employee illness or bankruptcy.

This won't be any consolation of course, but a hospital, I am sure, is far from being safe from infection. As long as you have such a low exposure as you describe, you should be fine to continue visiting, and most importantly if she does get infected, do not blame yourself, as almost certainly it would arrive to her from inside the hospital.

[Admiral Yi]

who is Idris?

Idris Elba.  Actor in The Wire.

[Barrister]

Just received an email to all tenants in my government office building asking people to please not fill up their personal hand sanitizer bottles from the ones stationed around the office.

[Sheilbh]

Just received an email to all tenants in my government office building asking people to please not fill up their personal hand sanitizer bottles from the ones stationed around the office.

A hospital in Newcastle has had to lock up face masks and sanitiser after visitors stole them

[Fate]

# of deaths can be massively decreased by spreading the infections over a period of 3 months rather than having everyone get it in 1 month and having your health system overwhelmed. See Philly vs St. Louis as an old school example of US social distancing. They didn't have antivirals or ventilators yet saved many lives.

You missed the point. There is a time limit to how long we can live like this before the ancillary pain exceeds the pain of the disease. How many workers are looking at a loss of livelihood right now? Fromtia is talking about making it on the next three months by eating beans and rice. Children aren't going to school which creates enormous problems both in terms of educating the next generation and for single mothers trying to support a family. Productivity is going to plummet. If you care at all about community fitness--including from a public health perspective--all the gyms are shutting down. Social separation is also going to lead to depression, loneliness, suicide, etc--I'm already going insane and it has been just a few days.

If this is really going to result in widespread infection, then we should seriously address:

a) what can our health system handle, and
b) if we keep the rate of infection low enough to avoid overloading the healthcare system, then can this be managed in a reasonable timeframe?

Because how I see it--people are blaming the Italian government for letting things get out of control and overloading the healthcare system, but the numbers infected are still absurdly low. If the Italian healthcare system is at all indicative of western healthcare systems, the answer to b) is very clear: "no".

South Korea is the example we want to follow. Over-react first and then we can roll back restrictions later.

[Agelastus]

Just received an email to all tenants in my government office building asking people to please not fill up their personal hand sanitizer bottles from the ones stationed around the office.

A hospital in Newcastle has had to lock up face masks and sanitiser after visitors stole them

Yes, Sheffield have had to do that as well; been happening for at least a week now. I don't think it's happened in the specialist centre my mother's in, but even there if something I overheard Sunday is correct they've started locking up their supplies...

...and not telling the staff ("where have they gone - there were eight bottles on the shelf yesterday!")

The little red dispensers hung at the foot of the beds have been particularly vulnerable to theft but even the ones mounted at Ward Entrances and by sinks have been taken.

[Sheilbh]

# of deaths can be massively decreased by spreading the infections over a period of 3 months rather than having everyone get it in 1 month and having your health system overwhelmed. See Philly vs St. Louis as an old school example of US social distancing. They didn't have antivirals or ventilators yet saved many lives.

You missed the point. There is a time limit to how long we can live like this before the ancillary pain exceeds the pain of the disease. How many workers are looking at a loss of livelihood right now? Fromtia is talking about making it on the next three months by eating beans and rice. Children aren't going to school which creates enormous problems both in terms of educating the next generation and for single mothers trying to support a family. Productivity is going to plummet. If you care at all about community fitness--including from a public health perspective--all the gyms are shutting down. Social separation is also going to lead to depression, loneliness, suicide, etc--I'm already going insane and it has been just a few days.

If this is really going to result in widespread infection, then we should seriously address:

a) what can our health system handle, and
b) if we keep the rate of infection low enough to avoid overloading the healthcare system, then can this be managed in a reasonable timeframe?

Because how I see it--people are blaming the Italian government for letting things get out of control and overloading the healthcare system, but the numbers infected are still absurdly low. If the Italian healthcare system is at all indicative of western healthcare systems, the answer to b) is very clear: "no".

South Korea is the example we want to follow. Over-react first and then we can roll back restrictions later.

But they reacted differently. Europe has over 100 million people in some for of lock down. South Korea's never had more than 70,000 I don't think.

It was about testing, contact tracing, mass communication and really quite private information about people who got it being shared locally. Similarly, I believe, Taiwan has been very successful in containing it through testing and contact tracing. But I feel like we're beyond that in Europe and the US so need the bigger measures.

Unrelated but, a though, we've had the UK, US, French and Dutch leaders (and I think Germany) announcing very similar measures at around the same time and all mentioned that there have been G7 and G20 communications. I feel like pre-Trump this would have been announced as a series of measures on a global basis - a la the response to the financial crisis.

[Agelastus]

This won't be any consolation of course, but a hospital, I am sure, is far from being safe from infection. As long as you have such a low exposure as you describe, you should be fine to continue visiting, and most importantly if she does get infected, do not blame yourself, as almost certainly it would arrive to her from inside the hospital.

Thanks Tamas.

[Threviel]

Fixed it, two islands of sanity in a sea of bad decisions.

Really? South Korea made all the bad decisions?

Don't know much about it, can't really answer. Did they stop Corona?

I was exaggerating a bit, lots of countries seem to do sensible stuff (edit: The dutch for example). But populistic panicky closings of schools, daycare and borders is not very sensible and may even be counter-productive.

[Valmy]

Fixed it, two islands of sanity in a sea of bad decisions.

Really? South Korea made all the bad decisions?

Don't know much about it, can't really answer. Did they stop Corona?

I was exaggerating a bit, lots of countries seem to do sensible stuff. But populistic panicky closings of schools, daycare and borders is not very sensible.

Well our schools were already out because of Spring Break. But schools are famously centers of disease spread, is shutting them down temporarily really that big of a deal?