Coronavirus Pandemic

[F-ZeroOne]

I've personally heard at least one account of someone considering a "coronavirus party", along the lines of "chickenpox" or "measles" "parties". For various reasons, this is a very bad idea (in all cases).

[Cloudane]

Given that doctors have died from being bombarded by the virus from seeing multiple patients with it, that does sound a very dumb idea

[KlaxonCow]

Not that I'd advocate proactively spreading the virus. That's just retarded. The correct way to create herd immunity is vaccination.

Indeed.

It also wouldn't work to proactively spread the virus in a massive rush. See the graphic Obama tweeted above.

If the entire population gets coronavirus simultaneously, then the health services won't cope. Businesses won't be able to operate, when they find they have no employees and have to pay out all that statutory sick pay all in one big lump - so the economic impact of that would be catastrophic.

Whereas, if you "flatten the curve" and slow and delay the spread, then health services can cope. Business may find that, at any one time, 20% of their employees are off at a time - so it's reduced operations, but operations are still potentially possible (even more so down the line for those who've recovered after their "self-isolation", as they've now got immunity to this strain).

Living as we do, in a bizarre time of "alternative facts" and opinions carrying more weight than facts and so forth, perhaps folks have forgotten a simple thing.

The science and mathematics tells us this because it's true. You can believe non-true things, if you like, but - as I was suggesting from my little quotation above there - you won't alter the facts, you'll only smash your face as you crash hard into the rocks of reality itself.

Governments need to be flattening that curve, and doing so at the earlier available opportunity - this is exponential, so the maths of that is undeniably clear - so that we develop "herd immunity" in drips and drabs. Bit by bit. Where the health services can cope, and the economic impact is lessened as you only have 20% of your employees off at any one time, which is annoying and awkward, but potentially workable.

But, of course, if you have 100% of your employees off simultaneously, then your business stops dead (and, in these precarious times, that'll kill off many businesses who don't have the cashflow to pay out statutory sick pay to absolutely everyone at the same time, whilst simultaneously being unable to run their business at all, in order to make any cash to afford it).

The science doesn't say this for fun. The science says this because science is about trying to identify facts, in order to describe reality, in as unbiased a way as possible (bias is, of course, impossible to avoid, but science does have its "checks and balances" and "peer review" and other shit that's there to iron as much as possible out). So that you can then make decisions in closer accordance to actual reality. Which is generally a good idea, because then things are more likely to actually work how you want them to.

[KlaxonCow]

The Masters has been cancelled. American late night chat shows are filming without an audience. Broadway has gone dark.

Stormzy, Madonna, Slipknot, BTS, Green Day, Avril Lavigne, Pearl Jam, Kiss, Miley Cyrus, the Carnegie Hall, SXSW, E3, GDC, the London Book Fair, the NYC half marathon, St. Patrick’s Day Parades the world over, and so on and so forth - the list I'm plucking this from is easily more than ten times longer than the samples I'm giving here - are all cancelling or postponing.

Tons of films are being pushed back on their release dates. They kind of have to anyway, as who's going to go to a packed cinema in the middle of all this?

I've just watched a video confirming that "Fully Charged Live UK" is now being pushed back to October as well.

Everything is being cancelled and postponed everywhere. It's all dropping like flies out there right now.

So, truth is, get comfy at home, with the Internet and some Netflix "box sets", because there's rapidly going to be nothing worth leaving the house for anyhow. We're all effectively going into be going into at least "semi-self-isolation" for a while, like it or not.

[Orava]

Corona is not all bad, air quality in Northern Italy has improved:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... n-11956912

Travel to Northern Italy for the fresh air!

[tufty]

We're all effectively going into be going into at least "semi-self-isolation" for a while, like it or not.

Until the food runs out.

[skab]

Until the food runs out.

Or the toilet paper.

Idiots all over the world are buying toilet paper in bulk, but at least here they only get the cheapest stuff, not the soft, fancy ones. What exactly are they prepping for?

[VNVObit]

We're all effectively going into be going into at least "semi-self-isolation" for a while, like it or not.

Until the food runs out.

not sure why but this came to mind




I know it's serious - I have a number of colleagues cocooning as we speak (over 60 but semi retired)
Daughter's college is breaking early for Easter (at least that's the official line)
we have professional sports suspending leagues, postponing matches in the absence of a government ban on large gatherings.
Perversely, everyone seems to be going towards a lock down voluntarily despite government reassurances to the contrary. Not sure their social experiment is going to plan

[KlaxonCow]

The Wales vs. Scotland Six Nations match has been postponed.

The others were already postponed, as they're against France and Italy - bringing up my point about "who are you going to play against anyway?" when it comes to international sport.

Breaking news just in: Mayoral and local elections in England are being postponed until next year because of coronavirus.

It's all falling like dominoes out there.

Until the food runs out.

Yes. I have no answer to that.

And the worrying thing is that the supermarkets don't have an answer to it either, in that when the government suggested getting groceries delivered, if you're in "self-isolation", Tesco and others pointed out that their home deliveries are only currently about 3% of their trade. They're not scaled up for something like this. Home deliveries might seem like magic, but they are, of course, not actually so, and you need vans and van drivers and depots to fill up those vans and all sorts to make it happen.

Yet again, another reason why we need to "flatten the curve" with immediate effect. It's not just whether hospitals have the capacity to cope, does anything - businesses, home deliveries, world food imports and exports, etc. - have the capacity to cope with a massive influx?

Truth is, no. Nothing is set up for that.

We can't have the entire country off sick simultaneously. But if it's drips and drabs, over many weeks, capacities are less strained - it'll probably still be crap, mind you, but it might just be workable. Perhaps.

[Misfit]

Corona is not all bad, air quality in Northern Italy has improved:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... n-11956912

Travel to Northern Italy for the fresh air!

Yes, as we cancelled our lads trip to Mallorca (and by lads, I mean a group of us hitting the big 5-0) , before it inevitably gets cancelled, I was thinking how it can't hurt the environment to get a break from all those planes for a while.

In a similar vein, I loved this tweet from Victoria Coren the other day too...

Where is all the London traffic?! Has it gone the way of loo rolls and hand gel? I tell you what, climate change really needs Coronavirus's PR team.

[KlaxonCow]

The Queen has postponed her visits to Cheshire and Camden. Radio 1 has cancelled its "Big Weekend". The entertainment industry is "in turmoil" as nearly everything is being cancelled - concerts, films, theatre, tours, film festivals, and pretty much everything else.

I know. I should stop hitting refresh on the news and go do something useful, but it's kind of morbidly hypnotising to watch the world just gradually shutting down like this.

[(o)(o)]

I've personally heard at least one account of someone considering a "coronavirus party", along the lines of "chickenpox" or "measles" "parties". For various reasons, this is a very bad idea (in all cases).

Ah yes the famous "viral pneumonia" parties..

More the merrier! So long as we can lock the door behind them

[Space Cowboy]

The company I work for has today announced that, from next Monday, everyone in the company is to work from home for the next two weeks. (The company I work for is headquartered in the US). Not a big change for me, I work from home if I'm not visiting customers, but we're also seeing a lot of our customers now looking to do meetings over webex.

eta, also slightly surreal isn't it? Feels like we're kinda in the waiting room here in the UK, waiting to step through the door to the epidemic / pandemic. Oh well - shrug - we'll all deal with whatever happens and hope we don't lose any loved ones along the way.

[PFVA]

There was a corona virus party here, in the North of the country last weekend. It was done outdoors with all the people wearing masks, gloves, etc. It's amazing what students not having classes can come up with. They are now having on line classes to keep them busier.

In the meantime all the measures announced yesterday will be in effect till the 9th of April.

Today people were volunteerly queuing outside the stores and just going in one person at a time. I'm talking the small ones which can be really small. As of yesterday pharmacies were operating that way too.

And Catholic Church cancealed all masses too.

Note: 112 cases as of this morning.

[F-ZeroOne]

PFVA, just to be clear (you may already understand but in the interests of clarity), holding a party whilst wearing biochemical protection gear is reasonably sensible. What these people are suggesting is getting deliberately infected by holding a party without such protections. There are people who think this is a sensible thing to with chickenpox or measles.

With children.