Coronavirus Pandemic

[rowan]

Work been in increasing lockdown for past couple of weeks, from international travel being banned, then complete ban between local site visits, then training sessions. These are global measures, across many countries. I won't be surprised if physical-presence meetings full stop will be halted next.
I've been advised to work from home since earlier this week.

Important family engagement next week already impacted & holding it at all starting to look rocky.

Coming down with a cold but so far seems just that, not the correct symptoms to seek test.

[KlaxonCow]

Well, there we go. Boris has U-turned over banning mass gatherings.

Because, shit, he might as well do it now, as everyone's decided to self-ban all their events and put in place the "social distancing" measures anyway.

Care homes are turning away visitors. My mate, who works at a university, has told me that, yup, face-to-face lectures end next week. Everyone's understandably and correctly going to sort their own shit out, if the government can't be bothered to do it officially.

Ultimately, yes, only "herd immunity" will work in the long term. But the point is that this will happen. It's impossible to avoid it. So it needs absolutely no encouragement whatsoever.

(With its spread across the globe - and that nasty horrible trait which has allowed this, that it doesn't show symptoms for so long - then it also seems deeply unlikely that COVID-19 will not become endemic. Another one to add onto the "seasonal flu" list, and another vaccination jab - once we have that vaccine - to give to old folks in Winter.)

Rather, do everything possible to slow and delay the spread - to flatten that curve as far down as we can - so this all happens, we hope, at a much slower pace. And then maybe the NHS, the supermarkets, businesses, etc. will be able to cope (to some degree - it seems unlikely this can totally avoid being a bit ugly and very strained). It'll still be same conclusion - herd immunity - because that's fundamentally unavoidable, whatever anyone does, but at a slower pace, health services and economies and such can potentially handle it (maybe not well, but to some degree that's not a massive catastrophic collapse).

And, well, seeing as our government has chosen this "DIY" approach to Coronavirus, I'll leave this here that rapid self-testing kits are making their way to UK pharmacies soon:



As, hey, it might help reduce strain on the NHS a little.

[(o)(o)]

With its spread across the globe - and that nasty horrible trait which has allowed this, that it doesn't show symptoms for so long - then it also seems deeply unlikely that COVID-19 will not become endemic.

It might be that at-risks group need to be ‘cocooned’ indefinitely.

It'll still be same conclusion - herd immunity - because that's fundamentally unavoidable

We don’t know that. Thats the usual principle, but very little is known about covid19. If herd immunity is achieved, it may be new strains appear regularly, meaning a constant need to work on developing vaccines and that’s hit and miss.

Can see this being a perennial issue for the foreseeable future, with maybe 10% of the world population living in near total isolation and containment behaviours being routine in proximity to them.

All thanks to fucking TCM.. something needs to be done about stupid fucking Chinese medieval lack of hygiene, superstitious TCM bollocks, and wet markets with random body parts slopping around in buckets in hot humid conditions. There’s nothing to stop further diseases springing to life! This shit is endemic in China and complacency about tackling it got us here, somehow Chinese are gonna have to adjust their 1 billion people behaviours, as time goes on IMO angst toward the Chinese will become an issue.

[Little stoned kiwi]

To be fair to China, the whole world needs to change things to avoid situations like this. It may have started there (this time) but the effect on the world isn't their fault.

[tufty]

So, on the one hand, nothing much is known about COVID-19, and on the other hand it's the fault of traditional chinese medicine? You don't think that might be just a wee bit of a xenophobic knee-jerk reaction fed by the press?

The corona virus family is not new, this is merely a new strain, one which is arguably more successful in evolutionary terms than the others.

From https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/novel-cor ... ns-answers

2. Where do coronaviruses come from?
Coronaviruses are viruses that circulate among animals with some of them also known to infect humans.

Bats are considered as natural hosts of these viruses yet several other species of animals are also known to be a source. For instance, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is transmitted to humans from camels, and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-1 (SARS-CoV-1) is transmitted to humans from civet cats. More information on coronaviruses can be found on the ECDC factsheet.

[gilesgoat]

Well .. we started to be "a bit cautious" here as well, at least avoid unless really necessary to be in places where "too many other people are".

From '2' now we are at 38 confirmed cases in Wales, it will probably raise, seems unavoidable.

Some 32,771 people in the UK have been tested for the respiratory infection so far. Ten people who tested positive have died.

I remember not long ago I was reading something similar about Italy and thinking "oh it's bad but it's only 10 people that died" - in terms of pure numbers I mean, of course 1 dead person is a dead person - and now see where they are.

So yeah .. don't really know .. I still think that the "government response" in UK is still "vague" .. on the other side other than trying to isolate yourself what else can you do ? There's no cure yet, there's no vaccine, they don't know much of it ..

But at least I suppose "yeah if you can avoid all unnecessary contacts/closeness to other people" could be "the only advice".

[(o)(o)]

So, on the one hand, nothing much is known about COVID-19, and on the other hand it's the fault of traditional chinese medicine? You don't think that might be just a wee bit of a xenophobic knee-jerk reaction fed by the press?

No I don't think there's much doubt about the origin, and it revolving around a combination of cultural factors we've been warned about by scientists since basically forever and TCM is part of that. Very likely Wuhan wet markets TBC. The fervent belief in superstitutious bullshit maintained these conditions for the virus to come into existence on a national level. The threat has been emphasised repeatedly for decades and lesser realised with SARS and Bird Flu. Swine flu originated in Mexico, but that was a mash up of "Chinese" Bird flu and other shit!

To be fair to China, the whole world needs to change things to avoid situations like this. It may have started there (this time) but the effect on the world isn't their fault.

How is it "fair" to present this as a global issue when China is responsible? Other countries have other issues and have caused diseases - but this came from China, much of which in the dark ages wrt basic hygiene food handling and medicines. As Winston said in the video travel across the borders and you may see other disturbing animal parts used as "food", but basic concepts of hygiene like washing hands are observed. It's not a racial issue, it's cultural and generational - also political because the CCP could have acted to prevent this.

[gilesgoat]

It's not a racial issue, it's cultural and generational - also political

This does NOT apply ONLY to Covid-19 .. this apply to "a moltitude of megashit everyone is doing to nature", from exploitation of resources, to plain pollution, to unnatural selection and exploitation of life for economic purporses, beasts raised pumped by chemicals in weird conditions, engineered plants, drilling, releasing of chemical in the air/water, global warming and so on and so on.

It is "racial" in the sense that "every race bring its own culture of disaster", each one of us as its own "culture of destruction of something for its personal gain".

Maybe things like this Covid will make us think a bit more that "the effects are global" and that "shit we do in one place can affect ALL the places, ultimately shitting ALL of us ?".

Nah ..

We never get properly "the message".

What is weird also I was discussing yetsterday with someone else is that "everyone yet seems to have a kind of 'empire culture' like 'the big nation we do the fuck we want' or such" .. that "culture" seems actually to be "incresed" in those last years, it kinda sound like "real democracy and socialism is totally dead".

Again, we are falling over and over the same thing "capitalism and capitalist culture is bad for you", it makes you think always at "more" and "there's never enough".

Anyway "China may have its own shit with strange practices" but they are absolutely NOT the only ones, some nations have "more hiddend practices" you just don't see immediately such devasting effects.

But the thing is a thing like this Covid show us "how easy it could be to create global disasters" from which could be very very hard to recover.

[(o)(o)]

Withholding comment on that...

I have however come up with a brand new emoji..

Needed it as wearing FFP3 and new Oakley mirrored cop shades...

[Space Cowboy]

So someone I know has Corona Virus symptoms; dry cough, running a temperature and short of breath. They work out of Luton in the ambulance service. Their symptoms are the same as another confirmed case of the virus although they're not confirmed but on the 5th day of self-isolation. (We won't be going for our planned curry on Monday.) Approximately 100 people in the trust are in self-isolation at the moment.

[PFVA]

Closed

The 'pastelaria' closed. It's not mandatory yet, but there is a confusion over the rules to stay open.

If i understand the news the beach is closed to groups of 5 or more people. The fines are 2000€. The cafés and bars on the beach are all going to be closed in some of the beaches, that's a municipal deliberation, the national government is only stipulating closing after 21h.

I don't know if the boardwalks are closed or not. The rules are more and more confusing.

I did my walk today up the road. I saw 24 people and 3 dogs what in a 3Km distance (round trip) is not a lot of people

Official 169 cases. There is so far 0 deaths and 2 people have totally recovered.

[Little stoned kiwi]

The NZ government expects everyone entering the country to self-isolate for two weeks, and is threatening they can force people to if needed.
Meanwhile, the WOMAD festival (World of Music, Arts and Dance) went ahead this weekend for three days with a crowd of 17000. But the Pacifika Festival was cancelled only a day beforehand leaving a lot of people shafted so a business centre has been turned into a popup market for all the vendors. So very poorly managed with the fallout of decisions making things worse.

The media is whipping people up into a frenzy. Headlines are all starting with "Coronavirus:...". Last night everything in my news feed started with that, with one exception buried down the list of two people being shot. Apparently that couldn't be tenuously linked to the virus.
Through out it all there is no clear leadership. No public message asking for people to wash their hands and wipe surfaces regularly. Just widespread panic, ignorance, misinformation, and no toilet paper.

[zip accident]

It seems to me that when this thing actually arrives, it'll be the people who do go in to work despite having it mildly, who will be the heros, because if everyone has it, nobody else will be working.

[Deckard]

I feel like if you just went by the weight of social media about this virus you would have thought millions had died.

[Little stoned kiwi]

I expect the factory to close for two weeks at the first opportunity as production demand is already underwhelming.
Thanks to having done so much overtime and my holiday being calculated from your average income, I'll get well paid on my forced holiday. Looking forward to it.