Coronavirus Pandemic

[VNVObit]

watching the PM's press conference on Covid-19

Really should not allow Johnson near them - doesn't rule anything out , except for taking decisive action

[KlaxonCow]

Good ol' Kurzgesagt. Beautifully done.

[gilesgoat]

F00k me ... certain pharmacies in certain areas of Rome are pledging the people "please don't come here to rob us and smash the things" ..

Apparently they are scared to work now as people are coming demanding for things they don't have, smashing windows and stealing also cash and stuff

[PFVA]

In our system the President declares the State of Emergency which also had to be approved of the Assembly and then the government decides and implements the rules that wouldn't be allowed under other circunstances. Most had already been recommendations to people.

This is our lock down:

Businesses with no public contact are not required to close but whenever possible stay home and do the work on line. Non-essential public contact businesses have to close. Some like IKEA, Zara, and their other stores, Primmark, etc had already said yesterday they were closing. By law the workers are entitled to 65% of their regular wages.

Pharmacies stay open, so do supermarkets, convenience stores, etc stay open with the limited number of people going in at a time. So do news agents who also sell cigarrettes and the lottery. The reason given was that the right to information cannot be taken consequently people have the right to buy newspapers. I suspect that being the lottery a source of income for the government they wouldn't want to stop that but maybe that's just me thinking

Cafés and restaurants can stay open but only for take aways. It means if the café decides to stay open one can go there grab the sandwich, the pastry, or whatever and take it home. Basically they want to suspend the café life meaning lots of people sitted or standing on top of each other inside the cafés which is reasonable.

The risky group which is people over 70 should stay at home most of the time but even them have the right to go buy food, go to the pharmacy, walk the dog and to go for a small stroll around the area where they live. They called it an hygienic stroll. There was a lot of fuss about that with several people wanting to forbid those over 70 of leaving the houses all together, and that was coming from their own families. The ones over 70 themselves opposed the idea.

For the rest of us we are also allowed to have the strolls, the jogging, the exercise walk, etc but we cannot leave our own municipalities. It means and i cannot go stroll in Lisbon, i wasn't planning to in anyway but it also means that those from Lisbon cannot come to our boardwalks or promenades or invade the Cascais and the south the river ones as they did when the temps hit 30ºC last week.

Certain areas that are a focus can be completly isolated like it's happening with Ovar right now, an area between Aveiro and Porto, coincidentally the one who has the biggest or 2nd biggest Carnival in the country. Somehow this epidemic seems to be quite related to Carnival.

And lots of routes of our national airline were cancelled but regular flights will be kept to a few countries in Europe, including to the UK, to the USA, to Canada, and to South Africa besides the portuguese speaking countries of Africa.


As of today officially 785 cases, and 3 deaths. The 3rd was a 94 year old lady in Coimbra. We know though there is a 4th because the mayor of Ovar informed one there, someone who was living in a nursing home.


Note: I had already started to have my lunch in a take away version 2 days ago. Teifi loves the idea. Before i would get home after lunch and he woult be on his do not disturb siesta time. As of the 2nd day i came in with the take away he is immediately awake, under my feet, and insists in staying very close when i eat, and enjoy some little bites i give him of selected stuff.

[zip accident]

I really don't understand this stay at home thing. I sort of do it anyway I suppose, but I have to go out for shopping, and that means a lot of contact with random people.

Staying at home for weeks at a time isn't doable for me, I use milk and it doesn't keep that long in my refridgerator, I also eat bread, and that doesn't keep either. There was no bread in Sainsbury's yesterday, are people freezing it? If all the power workers leave work, what will be the value of soggy thawed loaves?

All this trying to stop people catching it by keeping people home is sort of silly, the main thing we need to be doing is separating people when they are out and about, separate queues and checkouts for the infected including survivors, separate hospital wards, separate ATMs. Most of the population is uninfected now but that will change, and we need the infected working when they are clear of it if not before, when 90% of the country has had the disease we can't have them kept off work if there is no other reason.

[Cloudane]

Problem with the idea of separating people is those who are infected aren't necessarily aware that they're infected - symptoms may not appear for the first 5 days of infection but you can still be contagious during that time. Also sometimes the symptoms are mild.

[gilesgoat]

I really don't understand this stay at home thing. I sort of do it anyway I suppose, but I have to go out for shopping, and that means a lot of contact with random people.

Staying at home for weeks at a time isn't doable for me, I use milk and it doesn't keep that long in my refridgerator, I also eat bread, and that doesn't keep either. There was no bread in Sainsbury's yesterday, are people freezing it? If all the power workers leave work, what will be the value of soggy thawed loaves?

All this trying to stop people catching it by keeping people home is sort of silly, the main thing we need to be doing is separating people when they are out and about, separate queues and checkouts for the infected including survivors, separate hospital wards, separate ATMs. Most of the population is uninfected now but that will change, and we need the infected working when they are clear of it if not before, when 90% of the country has had the disease we can't have them kept off work if there is no other reason.

That's why there are the lines, the safe distance and all the other measures.

Again all this is to try to slow down so NHS can cope with, it's not a meaning to "completely stop it", it's more a "slow down".

If nothing of that would be done, then the THEORY is "ok MAYBE all could go a bit quicker BUT with a really HIGH percentage of dead people".

And they don't want that .. it's a matter of "you want it to end in 2 months with a fuckload of deaths or in 6 months with a less number of deaths and a bigger number or curable people ?".

So far "the real %" of dead people from all this seems more around 10% .. so far ..

[edit] - and they are NOT stopping "everything" they are just trying to contain the spread in "manageable levels".

[tufty]

And how, exactly, Mr Accident, do you propose to determine who is infectious and who isn't, when there are around 5 to 10 days before the appearance of any symptoms, where the infected person is already highly infectious?

If you don't stop going about your "normal life", you stand more chance of catching the damn thing. OK, no big deal, you'll probably survive. But you'll spread it to other people as well, and one or more of the people in the chain of infection *your* selfish wankerism started off may well die. Yes. Your fault.

Stop believing bullshit on facebook, take this seriously. It's not flu, it's far, far, worse.

[Cloudane]

One week of working from home agreed on a trial basis with lots of communication expected to prove that it's not just spent playing video games / shitposting / sleeping / whatever

Even that is an unprecedented level of trust - best make sure it's repaid. I actually have a feeling my productivity will increase as it'll be in a comfortable environment using my own equipment, without the constant external cold callers, and there's a psychological element where I'd feel less inclined to procrastinate without a boss breathing down my neck all day, as ironic as that sounds.

[zip accident]

Problem with the idea of separating people is those who are infected aren't necessarily aware that they're infected - symptoms may not appear for the first 5 days of infection but you can still be contagious during that time. Also sometimes the symptoms are mild.

Okay, but you can separate those who do know. Testing would ideally be getting faster and more frequent. When the uninfected queues are the shorter ones you might want fines for infected who knowingly take the piss.

And how, exactly, Mr Accident, do you propose to determine who is infectious and who isn't, when there are around 5 to 10 days before the appearance of any symptoms, where the infected person is already highly infectious?

Tests and retests. Lots of tests. Some people know they are positive for this virus, they would presumably not chose to infect others. At this point nothing is being set up to allow them to deal with other infected people without contacting uninfected people.

If you don't stop going about your "normal life", you stand more chance of catching the damn thing. OK, no big deal, you'll probably survive. But you'll spread it to other people as well, and one or more of the people in the chain of infection *your* selfish wankerism started off may well die. Yes. Your fault.

Cutting my own throat would certainly prevent me from infecting others. I don't intend to do that. Supermarkets are staying open, why is that?

Stop believing bullshit on facebook, take this seriously.

I don't do Facebook, I cull most cookies including theirs and Google's and Twitter's (which usually show up even if I don't go there) moderately often.

It's not flu, it's far, far, worse.

It's worse for some. It's a while since I had flu, so far as I know, I don't usually get my colds tested (if there's a way to test them, which I don't know whether there is), a bad flu is horrible for most people infected with it, there may be milder flus, I'm not sure about that, flu kills some people.

[Harlequin]

I really don't understand this stay at home thing. I sort of do it anyway I suppose, but I have to go out for shopping, and that means a lot of contact with random people.

But, you might notice, far fewer random people than usual. And less of you being encountered by them if you do not go out as often yourself.

Staying at home for weeks at a time isn't doable for me, I use milk and it doesn't keep that long in my refridgerator, I also eat bread, and that doesn't keep either. There was no bread in Sainsbury's yesterday, are people freezing it?

I also use bread and milk. I usually have a loaf in the freezer and purchase UHT milk along with the fresh for "emergencies". There is also longer-life fresh milk available these days.

Again, we are not being forced to stay in our homes for weeks at a time. Just going out only when we really need to (including for shopping) instead of attending normal social gatherings drastically reduces the rate of risky contacts between people. This, in turn, along with proper hand washing, should theoretically keep the numbers hospitalised at any one time within the limits that the NHS can cope with.

It's not flu, it's far, far, worse.

It's worse for some. It's a while since I had flu, so far as I know, I don't usually get my colds tested (if there's a way to test them, which I don't know whether there is), a bad flu is horrible for most people infected with it, there may be milder flus, I'm not sure about that, flu kills some people.

It is worse in that it is far more infectious and kills many times more people who become infected.

[Harlequin]

[gravy]

I really don't understand this stay at home thing. I sort of do it anyway I suppose, but I have to go out for shopping, and that means a lot of contact with random people.

Staying at home for weeks at a time isn't doable for me, I use milk and it doesn't keep that long in my refridgerator, I also eat bread, and that doesn't keep either. There was no bread in Sainsbury's yesterday, are people freezing it? If all the power workers leave work, what will be the value of soggy thawed loaves?

All this trying to stop people catching it by keeping people home is sort of silly, the main thing we need to be doing is separating people when they are out and about, separate queues and checkouts for the infected including survivors, separate hospital wards, separate ATMs. Most of the population is uninfected now but that will change, and we need the infected working when they are clear of it if not before, when 90% of the country has had the disease we can't have them kept off work if there is no other reason.

It’s a numbers game. Going out less slows the spread. Key workers, like power station staff, will still work so yeah, freezing bread isn’t a bad idea. And milk will last between 5 and 7 days.

You can’t separate out “the infected” because a majority of them are undiagnosed or possibly asympyomatic.

[tufty]

Supermarkets are staying open, why is that?

Supermarkets are staying open because people need to eat. Once people have realised that there aren't any actual shortages of food, paracetamol, or toilet paper (which realisation has started to sink in here), there will be less people around than usual; more people shopping via internet, more people doing combined shops for themselves and their more at risk neighbours..

We're under lockdown here. It's not that hard. You're allowed to go out to do food shopping, to go to the chemists, to go to the doctors, or to go to work if you absolutely can't work from home. It's not "normal" life, obviously, but very little is going to be normal once this is over.

As for your "testing, testing, testing" approach, that would be a great idea, but we don't have the tests, or the infrastructure to handle them. And given that the tests are not, I gather, instant, you'd have to wait for the result. So you'd have to wait before getting into the supermarket, in a crowd of other people who may or may not be infectious. Your kids would have to wait before being allowed to get into School. In a crowd of other kids who may or may not be infectious. etc. You know those queues to get through the gates at the airport now you have to take your shoes off and remove al liquids? Think that, outside every shop, every school, every chemist, every doctor's surgery - everywhere.

[KlaxonCow]

One week of working from home agreed on a trial basis with lots of communication expected to prove that it's not just spent playing video games / shitposting / sleeping / whatever

Oh, that's good to hear.

Though, hey, now you've got the immense fun of putting yourself into a voluntary "self-isolation" for the foreseeable.

Even that is an unprecedented level of trust - best make sure it's repaid. I actually have a feeling my productivity will increase as it'll be in a comfortable environment using my own equipment, without the constant external cold callers, and there's a psychological element where I'd feel less inclined to procrastinate without a boss breathing down my neck all day, as ironic as that sounds.

Actually, I think you might well find that to be the case.

I've been working from home this week as well and I'm no less productive than usual, with the potential bonus to my employer that, you know, I've been doing the odd thing outside of my usual work hours - dealing with emails, prepping work early in the morning before the work day's technically started because, hey, I don't have to waste time travelling in anymore, etc. - just because, you know, this "staying at home" thing can be boring sometimes.

Mind you, the real problem for us right now is that we do a lot of work for other businesses and almost nothing new is coming in. Perfectly understandable, as all those businesses are also similarly in the shit right now too. They're too busy worrying about how their cashflow is going to cover wages at the end of the month and whether they just have to shut down completely for a few weeks or whatever, rather than launching new projects or planning future events to require our services.

I don't know how it works with you, but the problem my end is that the boss can't give me enough work at the moment, as it's just not there because it's all drying up with every other business out there also going into "stay at home" mode and putting projects and future events on the backburner, because no-one knows when this will end.